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16th Australian Statistical Conference
July 7-11, 2002
National Convention Centre
Canberra, ACT, Australia

Organizers
Statistical Society of Australia Incorporated, Michael Adena - Chair Organising Committee, Kerrie Mengersen - Chair Program Committee

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Two-stage sample design with small clusters
by
Robert Clark
Australian Bureau of Statistics

In two-stage surveys, the sample sizes of clusters and units within clusters can be chosen to minimise the variance of an estimator, for fixed cost. If there are only a small number of units in each cluster, as in household surveys, then the optimisation should be over integers. This paper considers sample designs where the number of units to be selected from each cluster is a function of the cluster size.

An integer programming method is developed which gives significantly lower variances than traditional methods. A non-integer within-cluster sample size can be implemented by using a mixture of several integers; this can further reduce the variance.

Date received: April 21, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cajg-54.