40 – Innovations at U.S. Census Bureau
Single-Stage Generalized Raking Application in the American Housing Survey
Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
Keywords: American Housing Survey, Calibration, Single Stage Generalized Raking, Weighting
Brian Shaffer
U.S. Census Bureau
Yang Cheng
U.S. Census Bureau
Eric Slud
U.S. Census Bureau
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.