History and development of the theoretical foundations of survey based estimation and analysis - ARCHIVED

Early developments in sampling theory and methods largely concentrated on efficient sampling designs and associated estimation techniques for population totals or means. More recently, the theoretical foundations of survey based estimation have also been critically examined, and formal frameworks for inference on totals or means have emerged. During the past 10 years or so, rapid progress has also been made in the development of methods for the analysis of survey data that take account of the complexity of the sampling design. The scope of this paper is restricted to an overview and appraisal of some of these developments.