Estimation of a finite population total in varying probability sampling for multi-character surveys

The problems of estimating population total in multi-charter surveys are considered in a unified set up. Alternative estimators for Rao-Hartley-Cochran (1962), Midzuno-Sen (1952,53) and other varying probability sampling schemes are proposed when the measure of size is not well related to the study variables. Some of the proposed estimators are found superior to the existing alternatives. A numerical study is carried out to investigate the performances of the proposed alternatives.     

Estimation of finite population variance using random non-response in survey sampling

In this paper, an estimator of finite population variance proposed by Isaki (1983) is studied under the two different situations of random non-response suggested by Tracy and Osahan (1994). A distribution is proposed for the number of sampling units on which information could not be obtained due to random non-response. The estimators for the mean square errors of the proposed strategies are also suggested. This paper was written while both authors were members of the Dept. of Econometrics, Monash University, Clayton 3168, Australia. This paper was presented on SISC—1996, Sydney, Australia. The opinions and results discussed in this paper are of authors and not necessarily of their institutes.     

Assessing nonresponse bias in activist surveys

How confident can we be that the comparatively low response rates associated with mail surveys of groups of political activists, such as participants of a demonstration, does not hide a substantial nonresponse bias? The paper compares the results of a face-to-face survey of 2003 anti-Iraq war demonstrators in Glasgow, achieving a near perfect response rate, with the data derived from a mail survey handed out to demonstrators eliciting valid responses from 37% of marchers. The comparison shows that better educated, older, female demonstrators were more likely to return the mail questionnaire. Also demonstrators having born a higher ‘cost’ of travelling to the demonstration are more likely to respond. There was no evidence that political interest or political orientation played an important role. However, those who had taken part in demonstrations very frequently in recent years were less likely to return the mail questionnaire. While these results provide some reassurance that even with response rates below 40%, no substantive political bias is present, researchers undertaking surveys of activists should be alerted to the need to address possible nonresponse biases in a systematic way.     

Estimation of population ratio in cluster sampling over successive sampling in the presence of non-response

Quality & Quantity - In this paper, we have discussed the problem of estimating the population ratio in cluster sampling over two occasion successive sampling in the presence of non-response....     

Item comparability in cross-national surveys: results from asking probing questions in cross-national web surveys about attitudes towards civil disobedience

This article focuses on assessing item comparability in cross-national surveys by asking probing questions in Web surveys. The “civil disobedience” item from the “rights in a democracy” scale of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) serves as a substantive case study. Identical Web surveys were fielded in Canada (English-speaking), Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and the U.S. A category-selection and a comprehension probe, respectively, were incorporated into the Web surveys after the closed-ended “civil disobedience” item. Responses to the category selection-probe reveal that notably in Germany, Hungary, and Spain the detachment of politicians from the people and their lack of responsiveness is deplored. Responses to the comprehension probe show that mainly in the U.S. and Canada violence and/or destruction are associated with civil disobedience. These results suggest reasons for the peculiar statistical results found for the “civil disobedience” item in the ISSP study. On the whole, Web probing proves to be a valuable tool for identifying interpretation differences and potential bias in cross-national survey research.     

Self-reported cheating in web surveys on political knowledge

Measuring citizens’ political knowledge is important for understanding public opinion formation. In view of the increasing popularity of Web surveys, this paper examines the limitations of this interviewing facility when measuring factual political knowledge. We show that Web surveys contain a source of measurement error as respondents can “Google” the correct answers. This cheating activity is our principal concern. Past efforts are extended by: (1) offering a self-reported estimate of the share of Googling cheaters, (2) showing that the positive effect of education on factual political knowledge is most probably underestimated when cheating occurs, and (3) showing that self-reported cheating activity is inversely related to actual response time. In the concluding section, we discuss the implications of these results and the extent to which cheating can be reduced. The empirical analyses are based on a Danish Web sample from 2012 (N \(=\) 1,509).     

Random polymers

This paper is a mini-review of some recent developments on probabilistic models for polymer chains.     

Some remarks on business tendency surveys

Een onderzoek werd ingesteld naar de kwantitatieve betekenis van de uitkomstenvan de conjunctumtest. Resultaten, verkregen met behulp van de gebruikelijke methode van de conjunctuurtest, werden vergeleken met traditionele indices, in beide gevallen gebaseerd op het zelfde grondmateriaal, zodat storingen tengevolge van onvolkomenheden in berichtgeving en interpretatie a priori waren uitge-schakeld.
Het specifieke gebrek aan informatie, dat aan de begrippen "stijgen" en "dalen" inhaerent is, blijkt een aanwijsbare nadelige invloed te hebben op de kwaliteit van de regressie; men vindt coefficienten die in het algemeen tussen 0,8 en 0,9 liggen. In de praktijk zijn deze belangrijk lager. Indien men bovengenoemde onvolkomenheden in belangrijke mate zou kunnen opheffen, dan zouden de correlatiecoefficienten toch beneden dit niveau blijven. Van de omstandigheden zal dan afhangen of de relatie kwantitatief bruikbaar is.
Introductie van het percentage gelijkblijvers in de regressievergelijking bleek geen verbetering te geven. Tot op zekere hoogte kan met lineaire regressie op het saldo van de percentages „stijgers” en „dalers” warden volstaan; de regressie-coefficient houdt evenwel enig verband met het niveau van de te verklaren variabele.
Indien een seizoenpatroon aanwezig is, geeft dit correlatie-technisch aanleiding tot geflatteerde uitkomsten, zodat seizoencorrectie aanbeveling verdient.     

Toward empirical humanization of mass surveys

Quality & Quantity - Survey techniques are based on general methological principles modelled after natural sciences. This should not, however, overshadow the humanistic peculiarity of surveys...     

Random monitoring in financing relationships

This paper examines a financier’s optimal monitoring intensity in a multi-period financing relationship. We identify conditions under which the financier should sometimes misidentify the quality of an entrepreneur. Such an imperfect evaluation technology affects action choices by bad entrepreneurs. We first characterize the optimal monitoring intensity and show that it is one in which the investor monitors entrepreneurs randomly. Random monitoring in the first stage of a relationship induces bad entrepreneurs to reveal their intrinsic types. Second, because random monitoring reduces the share of bad entrepreneurs in the subsequent periods, we show that the financier can therefore realize substantial gains.     

A strategy for up-dating continuous surveys

Summary The need for regular up-dating of the selection probabilites in continuous surveys is emphasized in this paper. A simple strategy (selection method for the initial sample with the revision procedure) is presented and its application to the Canadian Labour Force Survey is discussed.     

Probing: A dangerous practice in social surveys?

It is widely accepted among survey researchers that the use of probes by their interviewers can lead to more intelligible, more complete, and more easily coded answers from respondents. Yet it is not hard to find examples of the use of probes in the survey research literature that have failed to produce demonstrably better data. Since the poor codability of respondents' answers is the product of a number of factors, merely training interviewers to be more skilful in their use of probes is unlikely to significantly improve the quality of survey data. If probes are to be used, they should be both standardized and used systematically. It would be better, however, to try to eliminate the need for interviewers to have to use probes. Two positive steps the researcher can take in this direction are: to define key terms properly, and to specify the response frameworks that respondents should adopt when formulating replies to particular questions.     

Inflation expectations in India: Learning from household tendency surveys

We use a large household survey that is being conducted by the Reserve Bank of India since 2005 to estimate the dynamics of aggregate inflation expectations over a volatile inflation regime. A simple average of the quantitative responses produces biased estimates of the official inflation data. We therefore estimate expectations by quantifying the reported directional responses. We perform quantification by using the hierarchical ordered probit model, in addition to the balance statistic. We find that the quantified expectations from qualitative forecasts track the actual inflation rate better than the averages of the quantitative forecasts, highlighting the filtering role of qualitative tendency surveys. We also report estimates of the disagreement among households. The proposed approach is particularly suitable in emerging economies, where inflation tends to be high and volatile.     

Fe-O-S样品的Hugoniot线测量

对Fe-O-S混合物的Hugoniot线进行了试验测量，该混合物Hugoniot线的实测结果与用体积可加性原理计算得到的相同组分混合物的Hugoniot线的符合性很好；研究结果亦为今后对外地核各中浓度比Fe-O-S体系候选组分高温高压物态方程及物性的进一步研究奠定了基础。     

Applications of calendar instruments in social surveys: a review

Retrospective reports in survey interviews and questionnaires are subject to many types of recall error, which affect completeness, consistency, and dating accuracy. Concerns about this problem have led to the development of so-called calendar instruments, or timeline techniques. These aided recall procedures have been designed to help respondents gain better access to long-term memory by providing a graphical time frame in which life history information can be represented. In order to obtain more insights into the potential benefits of calendar methodology, this paper presents a review of the application of calendar instruments, their design characteristics and effects on data quality. Calendar techniques are currently used in a variety of fields, including life course research, epidemiology and family planning studies. Despite the growing interest in these new methods, their application often lacks sufficient theoretical foundation and little attention has been paid to their effectiveness. Several recent studies however, have demonstrated that in comparison to more traditional survey methods, calendar techniques can improve some aspects of data quality. While calendar instruments have been shown to be potentially beneficial to retrospective data quality, there is an apparent need for methodological research that generates more systematic knowledge about their application in social surveys.     

Using nonparametric methods in social surveys: an empirical study

The most common form of data for socio-economic studies comes from survey sampling. Often the designs of such surveys are complex and use stratification as a method for selecting sample units. A parametric regression model is widely employed for the analysis of such survey data. However the use of a parametric model to represent the relationship between the variables can be inappropriate. A natural alternative is to adopt a nonparametric approach. In this article we address the problem of estimating the finite population mean under stratified sampling. A new stratified estimator based on nonparametric regression is proposed for stratification with proportional allocation, optimum allocation and post-stratification. We focus on an educational and labor-related context with natural populations to test the proposed nonparametric method. Simulated populations have also been considered to evaluate the practical performance of the proposed method.     

The effect of college curriculum on earnings: An affinity identifier for non-ignorable non-response bias

We link information on graduates from many cohorts to their high-school and college records and demographics to infer the impact of college major on earnings. We develop an estimator to handle potential non-response bias and identify non-response using an affinity measure—the potential respondent’s link to the survey organization. This technique is generally applicable for adjusting for unit non-response. In the earnings model estimated using the identified (for non-response bias) selectivity adjustments, adjusted earnings differentials across college majors are below half as large as unadjusted differentials and ten percent smaller than those that do not account for selective non-response.     

Unit nonresponse errors in income surveys: a case study

A survey on the economic and social conditions of households in the city of Modena was carried out in 2002 and in 2006 (two waves) by the CAPP (Centre for Analyses of Public Policies). In the first wave of 2002, each designated sampling unit (i.e., the family) had three units as reserves. If the first refused to be interviewed, the interviewer contacted the three reserves, one after the other, until obtaining either one respondent or four non-participant units. At the end of the survey four categories of units were distinguished: interviewees, refusals, noncontacts, and unused reserves. All units were matched with their corresponding record in the databases of the Ministry of Finance of 2002 and the Census of 2001. The resulting data set permitted the analysis of unit or total nonresponses. The distribution of fiscal income showed different shapes for the four categories, implying a selective participation of the families. The interviewees yielded a positive bias of about 600?, holding constant other factors. The selection of the significant factors affecting nonresponse was performed via backward elimination in a logit model and with the lasso method. Participation increased as fiscal income and age increased and by education level (secondary school and university degree), while it decreased among entrepreneurs, independent workers, managers, and medium-to-low skilled workers.     

Estimation of poverty measures with auxiliary information in sample surveys

The analysis of poverty measures has been receiving increased attention in recent years. This paper contributes to the literature by developing percentile ratio estimators based on the pseudo empirical likelihood method. In practice, variances of poverty measures could be not expressible by simple formulae and consequently other techniques should be used in the variance estimation stage. Assuming percentile ratios, resampling techniques are investigated in this paper. A numerical example based on data from the Spanish Household Panel Survey is taken up to illustrate how suggested procedures can perform better than existing ones. The effect of a model-misspecification on the proposed estimators is also evaluated by using simulated populations.