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  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202200100018
    Description: The Longitudinal Social Data Development Program (LSDDP) is a social data integration approach aimed at providing longitudinal analytical opportunities without imposing additional burden on respondents. The LSDDP uses a multitude of signals from different data sources for the same individual, which helps to better understand their interactions and track changes over time. This article looks at how the ethnicity status of people in Canada can be estimated at the most detailed disaggregated level possible using the results from a variety of business rules applied to linked data and to the LSDDP denominator. It will then show how improvements were obtained using machine learning methods, such as decision trees and random forest techniques.
    Release date: 2024-03-25

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202300200014
    Description: Many things have been written about Jean-Claude Deville in tributes from the statistical community (see Tillé, 2022a; Tillé, 2022b; Christine, 2022; Ardilly, 2022; and Matei, 2022) and from the École nationale de la statistique et de l’administration économique (ENSAE) and the Société française de statistique. Pascal Ardilly, David Haziza, Pierre Lavallée and Yves Tillé provide an in-depth look at Jean-Claude Deville’s contributions to survey theory. To pay tribute to him, I would like to discuss Jean-Claude Deville’s contribution to the more day-to-day application of methodology for all the statisticians at the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE) and at the public statistics service. To do this, I will use my work experience, and particularly the four years (1992 to 1996) I spent working with him in the Statistical Methods Unit and the discussions we had thereafter, especially in the 2000s on the rolling census.
    Release date: 2024-01-03

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202200200010
    Description:

    Multilevel time series (MTS) models are applied to estimate trends in time series of antenatal care coverage at several administrative levels in Bangladesh, based on repeated editions of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) within the period 1994-2014. MTS models are expressed in an hierarchical Bayesian framework and fitted using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations. The models account for varying time lags of three or four years between the editions of the BDHS and provide predictions for the intervening years as well. It is proposed to apply cross-sectional Fay-Herriot models to the survey years separately at district level, which is the most detailed regional level. Time series of these small domain predictions at the district level and their variance-covariance matrices are used as input series for the MTS models. Spatial correlations among districts, random intercept and slope at the district level, and different trend models at district level and higher regional levels are examined in the MTS models to borrow strength over time and space. Trend estimates at district level are obtained directly from the model outputs, while trend estimates at higher regional and national levels are obtained by aggregation of the district level predictions, resulting in a numerically consistent set of trend estimates.

    Release date: 2022-12-15

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202200200012
    Description:

    In many applications, the population means of geographically adjacent small areas exhibit a spatial variation. If available auxiliary variables do not adequately account for the spatial pattern, the residual variation will be included in the random effects. As a result, the independent and identical distribution assumption on random effects of the Fay-Herriot model will fail. Furthermore, limited resources often prevent numerous sub-populations from being included in the sample, resulting in non-sampled small areas. The problem can be exacerbated for predicting means of non-sampled small areas using the above Fay-Herriot model as the predictions will be made based solely on the auxiliary variables. To address such inadequacy, we consider Bayesian spatial random-effect models that can accommodate multiple non-sampled areas. Under mild conditions, we establish the propriety of the posterior distributions for various spatial models for a useful class of improper prior densities on model parameters. The effectiveness of these spatial models is assessed based on simulated and real data. Specifically, we examine predictions of statewide four-person family median incomes based on the 1990 Current Population Survey and the 1980 Census for the United States of America.

    Release date: 2022-12-15

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201900100005
    Description:

    Small area estimation using area-level models can sometimes benefit from covariates that are observed subject to random errors, such as covariates that are themselves estimates drawn from another survey. Given estimates of the variances of these measurement (sampling) errors for each small area, one can account for the uncertainty in such covariates using measurement error models (e.g., Ybarra and Lohr, 2008). Two types of area-level measurement error models have been examined in the small area estimation literature. The functional measurement error model assumes that the underlying true values of the covariates with measurement error are fixed but unknown quantities. The structural measurement error model assumes that these true values follow a model, leading to a multivariate model for the covariates observed with error and the original dependent variable. We compare and contrast these two models with the alternative of simply ignoring measurement error when it is present (naïve model), exploring the consequences for prediction mean squared errors of use of an incorrect model under different underlying assumptions about the true model. Comparisons done using analytic formulas for the mean squared errors assuming model parameters are known yield some surprising results. We also illustrate results with a model fitted to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program.

    Release date: 2019-05-07

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201800254955
    Description:

    Many studies conducted by various electric utilities around the world are based on the analysis of mean electricity consumption curves for various subpopulations, particularly geographic in nature. Those mean curves are estimated from samples of thousands of curves measured at very short intervals over long periods. Estimation for small subpopulations, also called small domains, is a very timely topic in sampling theory.

    In this article, we will examine this problem based on functional data and we will try to estimate the mean curves for small domains. For this, we propose four methods: functional linear regression; modelling the scores of a principal component analysis by unit-level linear mixed models; and two non-parametric estimators, with one based on regression trees and the other on random forests, adapted to the curves. All these methods have been tested and compared using real electricity consumption data for households in France.

    Release date: 2018-12-20

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201800254956
    Description:

    In Italy, the Labor Force Survey (LFS) is conducted quarterly by the National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) to produce estimates of the labor force status of the population at different geographical levels. In particular, ISTAT provides LFS estimates of employed and unemployed counts for local Labor Market Areas (LMAs). LMAs are 611 sub-regional clusters of municipalities and are unplanned domains for which direct estimates have overly large sampling errors. This implies the need of Small Area Estimation (SAE) methods. In this paper, we develop a new area level SAE method that uses a Latent Markov Model (LMM) as linking model. In LMMs, the characteristic of interest, and its evolution in time, is represented by a latent process that follows a Markov chain, usually of first order. Therefore, areas are allowed to change their latent state across time. The proposed model is applied to quarterly data from the LFS for the period 2004 to 2014 and fitted within a hierarchical Bayesian framework using a data augmentation Gibbs sampler. Estimates are compared with those obtained by the classical Fay-Herriot model, by a time-series area level SAE model, and on the basis of data coming from the 2011 Population Census.

    Release date: 2018-12-20

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201800254961
    Description:

    In business surveys, it is common to collect economic variables with highly skewed distribution. In this context, winsorization is frequently used to address the problem of influential values. In stratified simple random sampling, there are two methods for selecting the thresholds involved in winsorization. This article comprises two parts. The first reviews the notations and the concept of a winsorization estimator. The second part details the two methods and extends them to the case of Poisson sampling, and then compares them on simulated data sets and on the labour cost and structure of earnings survey carried out by INSEE.

    Release date: 2018-12-20

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201500114161
    Description:

    A popular area level model used for the estimation of small area means is the Fay-Herriot model. This model involves unobservable random effects for the areas apart from the (fixed) linear regression based on area level covariates. Empirical best linear unbiased predictors of small area means are obtained by estimating the area random effects, and they can be expressed as a weighted average of area-specific direct estimators and regression-synthetic estimators. In some cases the observed data do not support the inclusion of the area random effects in the model. Excluding these area effects leads to the regression-synthetic estimator, that is, a zero weight is attached to the direct estimator. A preliminary test estimator of a small area mean obtained after testing for the presence of area random effects is studied. On the other hand, empirical best linear unbiased predictors of small area means that always give non-zero weights to the direct estimators in all areas together with alternative estimators based on the preliminary test are also studied. The preliminary testing procedure is also used to define new mean squared error estimators of the point estimators of small area means. Results of a limited simulation study show that, for small number of areas, the preliminary testing procedure leads to mean squared error estimators with considerably smaller average absolute relative bias than the usual mean squared error estimators, especially when the variance of the area effects is small relative to the sampling variances.

    Release date: 2015-06-29

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X201300014265
    Description:

    Exact record linkage is an essential tool for exploiting administrative files, especially when one is studying the relationships among many variables that are not contained in a single administrative file. It is aimed at identifying pairs of records associated with the same individual or entity. The result is a linked file that may be used to estimate population parameters including totals and ratios. Unfortunately, the linkage process is complex and error-prone because it usually relies on linkage variables that are non-unique and recorded with errors. As a result, the linked file contains linkage errors, including bad links between unrelated records, and missing links between related records. These errors may lead to biased estimators when they are ignored in the estimation process. Previous work in this area has accounted for these errors using assumptions about their distribution. In general, the assumed distribution is in fact a very coarse approximation of the true distribution because the linkage process is inherently complex. Consequently, the resulting estimators may be subject to bias. A new methodological framework, grounded in traditional survey sampling, is proposed for obtaining design-based estimators from linked administrative files. It consists of three steps. First, a probabilistic sample of record-pairs is selected. Second, a manual review is carried out for all sampled pairs. Finally, design-based estimators are computed based on the review results. This methodology leads to estimators with a design-based sampling error, even when the process is solely based on two administrative files. It departs from the previous work that is model-based, and provides more robust estimators. This result is achieved by placing manual reviews at the center of the estimation process. Effectively using manual reviews is crucial because they are a de-facto gold-standard regarding the quality of linkage decisions. The proposed framework may also be applied when estimating from linked administrative and survey data.

    Release date: 2014-10-31
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Analysis (47)

Analysis (47) (0 to 10 of 47 results)

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202200100018
    Description: The Longitudinal Social Data Development Program (LSDDP) is a social data integration approach aimed at providing longitudinal analytical opportunities without imposing additional burden on respondents. The LSDDP uses a multitude of signals from different data sources for the same individual, which helps to better understand their interactions and track changes over time. This article looks at how the ethnicity status of people in Canada can be estimated at the most detailed disaggregated level possible using the results from a variety of business rules applied to linked data and to the LSDDP denominator. It will then show how improvements were obtained using machine learning methods, such as decision trees and random forest techniques.
    Release date: 2024-03-25

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202300200014
    Description: Many things have been written about Jean-Claude Deville in tributes from the statistical community (see Tillé, 2022a; Tillé, 2022b; Christine, 2022; Ardilly, 2022; and Matei, 2022) and from the École nationale de la statistique et de l’administration économique (ENSAE) and the Société française de statistique. Pascal Ardilly, David Haziza, Pierre Lavallée and Yves Tillé provide an in-depth look at Jean-Claude Deville’s contributions to survey theory. To pay tribute to him, I would like to discuss Jean-Claude Deville’s contribution to the more day-to-day application of methodology for all the statisticians at the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE) and at the public statistics service. To do this, I will use my work experience, and particularly the four years (1992 to 1996) I spent working with him in the Statistical Methods Unit and the discussions we had thereafter, especially in the 2000s on the rolling census.
    Release date: 2024-01-03

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202200200010
    Description:

    Multilevel time series (MTS) models are applied to estimate trends in time series of antenatal care coverage at several administrative levels in Bangladesh, based on repeated editions of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) within the period 1994-2014. MTS models are expressed in an hierarchical Bayesian framework and fitted using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations. The models account for varying time lags of three or four years between the editions of the BDHS and provide predictions for the intervening years as well. It is proposed to apply cross-sectional Fay-Herriot models to the survey years separately at district level, which is the most detailed regional level. Time series of these small domain predictions at the district level and their variance-covariance matrices are used as input series for the MTS models. Spatial correlations among districts, random intercept and slope at the district level, and different trend models at district level and higher regional levels are examined in the MTS models to borrow strength over time and space. Trend estimates at district level are obtained directly from the model outputs, while trend estimates at higher regional and national levels are obtained by aggregation of the district level predictions, resulting in a numerically consistent set of trend estimates.

    Release date: 2022-12-15

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202200200012
    Description:

    In many applications, the population means of geographically adjacent small areas exhibit a spatial variation. If available auxiliary variables do not adequately account for the spatial pattern, the residual variation will be included in the random effects. As a result, the independent and identical distribution assumption on random effects of the Fay-Herriot model will fail. Furthermore, limited resources often prevent numerous sub-populations from being included in the sample, resulting in non-sampled small areas. The problem can be exacerbated for predicting means of non-sampled small areas using the above Fay-Herriot model as the predictions will be made based solely on the auxiliary variables. To address such inadequacy, we consider Bayesian spatial random-effect models that can accommodate multiple non-sampled areas. Under mild conditions, we establish the propriety of the posterior distributions for various spatial models for a useful class of improper prior densities on model parameters. The effectiveness of these spatial models is assessed based on simulated and real data. Specifically, we examine predictions of statewide four-person family median incomes based on the 1990 Current Population Survey and the 1980 Census for the United States of America.

    Release date: 2022-12-15

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201900100005
    Description:

    Small area estimation using area-level models can sometimes benefit from covariates that are observed subject to random errors, such as covariates that are themselves estimates drawn from another survey. Given estimates of the variances of these measurement (sampling) errors for each small area, one can account for the uncertainty in such covariates using measurement error models (e.g., Ybarra and Lohr, 2008). Two types of area-level measurement error models have been examined in the small area estimation literature. The functional measurement error model assumes that the underlying true values of the covariates with measurement error are fixed but unknown quantities. The structural measurement error model assumes that these true values follow a model, leading to a multivariate model for the covariates observed with error and the original dependent variable. We compare and contrast these two models with the alternative of simply ignoring measurement error when it is present (naïve model), exploring the consequences for prediction mean squared errors of use of an incorrect model under different underlying assumptions about the true model. Comparisons done using analytic formulas for the mean squared errors assuming model parameters are known yield some surprising results. We also illustrate results with a model fitted to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program.

    Release date: 2019-05-07

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201800254955
    Description:

    Many studies conducted by various electric utilities around the world are based on the analysis of mean electricity consumption curves for various subpopulations, particularly geographic in nature. Those mean curves are estimated from samples of thousands of curves measured at very short intervals over long periods. Estimation for small subpopulations, also called small domains, is a very timely topic in sampling theory.

    In this article, we will examine this problem based on functional data and we will try to estimate the mean curves for small domains. For this, we propose four methods: functional linear regression; modelling the scores of a principal component analysis by unit-level linear mixed models; and two non-parametric estimators, with one based on regression trees and the other on random forests, adapted to the curves. All these methods have been tested and compared using real electricity consumption data for households in France.

    Release date: 2018-12-20

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201800254956
    Description:

    In Italy, the Labor Force Survey (LFS) is conducted quarterly by the National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) to produce estimates of the labor force status of the population at different geographical levels. In particular, ISTAT provides LFS estimates of employed and unemployed counts for local Labor Market Areas (LMAs). LMAs are 611 sub-regional clusters of municipalities and are unplanned domains for which direct estimates have overly large sampling errors. This implies the need of Small Area Estimation (SAE) methods. In this paper, we develop a new area level SAE method that uses a Latent Markov Model (LMM) as linking model. In LMMs, the characteristic of interest, and its evolution in time, is represented by a latent process that follows a Markov chain, usually of first order. Therefore, areas are allowed to change their latent state across time. The proposed model is applied to quarterly data from the LFS for the period 2004 to 2014 and fitted within a hierarchical Bayesian framework using a data augmentation Gibbs sampler. Estimates are compared with those obtained by the classical Fay-Herriot model, by a time-series area level SAE model, and on the basis of data coming from the 2011 Population Census.

    Release date: 2018-12-20

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201800254961
    Description:

    In business surveys, it is common to collect economic variables with highly skewed distribution. In this context, winsorization is frequently used to address the problem of influential values. In stratified simple random sampling, there are two methods for selecting the thresholds involved in winsorization. This article comprises two parts. The first reviews the notations and the concept of a winsorization estimator. The second part details the two methods and extends them to the case of Poisson sampling, and then compares them on simulated data sets and on the labour cost and structure of earnings survey carried out by INSEE.

    Release date: 2018-12-20

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X201500114161
    Description:

    A popular area level model used for the estimation of small area means is the Fay-Herriot model. This model involves unobservable random effects for the areas apart from the (fixed) linear regression based on area level covariates. Empirical best linear unbiased predictors of small area means are obtained by estimating the area random effects, and they can be expressed as a weighted average of area-specific direct estimators and regression-synthetic estimators. In some cases the observed data do not support the inclusion of the area random effects in the model. Excluding these area effects leads to the regression-synthetic estimator, that is, a zero weight is attached to the direct estimator. A preliminary test estimator of a small area mean obtained after testing for the presence of area random effects is studied. On the other hand, empirical best linear unbiased predictors of small area means that always give non-zero weights to the direct estimators in all areas together with alternative estimators based on the preliminary test are also studied. The preliminary testing procedure is also used to define new mean squared error estimators of the point estimators of small area means. Results of a limited simulation study show that, for small number of areas, the preliminary testing procedure leads to mean squared error estimators with considerably smaller average absolute relative bias than the usual mean squared error estimators, especially when the variance of the area effects is small relative to the sampling variances.

    Release date: 2015-06-29

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X201300014265
    Description:

    Exact record linkage is an essential tool for exploiting administrative files, especially when one is studying the relationships among many variables that are not contained in a single administrative file. It is aimed at identifying pairs of records associated with the same individual or entity. The result is a linked file that may be used to estimate population parameters including totals and ratios. Unfortunately, the linkage process is complex and error-prone because it usually relies on linkage variables that are non-unique and recorded with errors. As a result, the linked file contains linkage errors, including bad links between unrelated records, and missing links between related records. These errors may lead to biased estimators when they are ignored in the estimation process. Previous work in this area has accounted for these errors using assumptions about their distribution. In general, the assumed distribution is in fact a very coarse approximation of the true distribution because the linkage process is inherently complex. Consequently, the resulting estimators may be subject to bias. A new methodological framework, grounded in traditional survey sampling, is proposed for obtaining design-based estimators from linked administrative files. It consists of three steps. First, a probabilistic sample of record-pairs is selected. Second, a manual review is carried out for all sampled pairs. Finally, design-based estimators are computed based on the review results. This methodology leads to estimators with a design-based sampling error, even when the process is solely based on two administrative files. It departs from the previous work that is model-based, and provides more robust estimators. This result is achieved by placing manual reviews at the center of the estimation process. Effectively using manual reviews is crucial because they are a de-facto gold-standard regarding the quality of linkage decisions. The proposed framework may also be applied when estimating from linked administrative and survey data.

    Release date: 2014-10-31
Reference (2)

Reference (2) ((2 results))

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19990015684
    Description:

    Often, the same information is gathered almost simultaneously for several different surveys. In France, this practice is institutionalized for household surveys that have a common set of demographic variables, i.e., employment, residence and income. These variables are important co-factors for the variables of interest in each survey, and if used carefully, can reinforce the estimates derived from each survey. Techniques for calibrating uncertain data can apply naturally in this context. This involves finding the best unbiased estimator in common variables and calibrating each survey based on that estimator. The estimator thus obtained in each survey is always a linear estimator, the weightings of which can be easily explained and the variance can be obtained with no new problems, as can the variance estimate. To supplement the list of regression estimators, this technique can also be seen as a ridge-regression estimator, or as a Bayesian-regression estimator.

    Release date: 2000-03-02

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19990015690
    Description:

    The artificial sample was generated in two steps. The first step, based on a master panel, was a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) carried out on basic variables. Then, "dummy" individuals were generated randomly using the distribution of each "significant" factor in the analysis. Finally, for each individual, a value was generated for each basic variable most closely linked to one of the previous factors. This method ensured that sets of variables were drawn independently. The second step consisted in grafting some other data bases, based on certain property requirements. A variable was generated to be added on the basis of its estimated distribution, using a generalized linear model for common variables and those already added. The same procedure was then used to graft the other samples. This method was applied to the generation of an artificial sample taken from two surveys. The artificial sample that was generated was validated using sample comparison testing. The results were positive, demonstrating the feasibility of this method.

    Release date: 2000-03-02
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