Single-Stage Generalized Raking Application in the American Housing Survey

• Activity Number: 40
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 3, 2014 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Brian Shaffer*+ and Yang Cheng and Eric Slud
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: American Housing Survey ; Calibration ; Single Stage Generalized Raking ; Weighting

Abstract

The American Housing Survey (AHS) produces many estimates regarding the U.S. housing market. In this paper, we examine the current AHS weighting procedures and apply a newly developed alternative single stage generalized raking method, which adjusts nonresponse, coverage, and calibration simultaneously. We use housing unit totals and head-of-household distributions as calibration constraints in a minimization of the objective function. After adjusting our weights, we develop replicate weights and calculate variance estimates to examine the discrepancies between the current and alternative weight adjustment methods.