Design Weight and Calibration

• Activity Number: 232 - From Ranch to Rain: Government Statistics on Agriculture and Weather
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 31, 2017 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Government Statistics Section
• Author(s): Kelly Toppin* and Luca Sartore and Clifford Spiegelman
• Companies: National Agricultural Statistics Service and National Institute of Statistical Sciences and Texas A&M University
• Keywords: DSE ; Weights ; Census of Agriculture

Abstract

The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts the U.S. Census of Agriculture in years ending in 2 and 7. Population estimates from the census are adjusted for under-coverage, non-response and misclassification and calibrated to known population totals. These adjustment are reflected in weights that are attached to each responding unit. Calculating these weights has been a two-part procedure. First, one calculates initial (Dual System Estimation or DSE) weights that account for under-coverage, non-response and misclassification. In the second step, calibration is used to adjust the weights by forcing the weighted estimates obtained in the first step to match some known population totals. Recently, we developed a calibration algorithm (INCA) that produces integer calibrated weights as required in NASS publications. This paper considers combining the two steps of calculating weights into one. This new algorithm is based on a regularized constrained dual system estimation methodology, which combines capture-recapture and calibration (CaRC).