Cost-effective estimation of the population mean using prediction estimators

This paper considers the prediction estimator as an efficient estimator for the population mean. The study may be viewed as an earlier study that proved that the prediction estimator based on the iteratively weighted least squares estimator outperforms the sample mean. The analysis finds that a cert...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: FUJII, Tomoki, VAN DER WEIDE, Roy
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1523
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2522/viewcontent/WPS6509.pdf
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
Description
Summary:This paper considers the prediction estimator as an efficient estimator for the population mean. The study may be viewed as an earlier study that proved that the prediction estimator based on the iteratively weighted least squares estimator outperforms the sample mean. The analysis finds that a certain moment condition must hold in general for the prediction estimator based on a Generalized-Method-of-Moment estimator to be at least as efficient as the sample mean. In an application to cost-effective double sampling, the authors show how prediction estimators may be adopted to maximize statistical precision (minimize financial costs) under a budget constraint (statistical precision constraint). This approach is particularly useful when the outcome variable of interest is expensive to observe relative to observing its covariates.