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Abstract:
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Official Statistics from establishment surveys are not only the basis for routine monitoring of markets and perhaps systems in general, they are essential for discovering problems for which innovative approaches may be needed. Statistical agencies remain the workhorses for regularly providing this information. For establishment surveys one needs to collect data efficiently, making an effort to reduce burden on small establishments, and reduce costs to the Government, while promoting accuracy of results in terms of total survey error. For over three decades, these demanding standards have been met using quasi-cutoff sampling and prediction, applied extensively to some of the repeated official US energy establishment surveys. This success may be duplicated for other applications where sample surveys occur periodically, and there is an occasional census produced for the same data items. Sometimes stratification is needed, but sometimes the borrowing of strength, as in small area estimation, may be used. References will be given to help avoid pitfalls. The idea is to encourage expanding this elegant approach to other applications. - Dedicated to Ken Brewer, mentor and friend.
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