Jackknife variance estimation of imputed survey data - ARCHIVED

Imputation is a common technique employed by survey-taking organizations in order to address the problem of item nonresponse. While in most of the cases the resulting completed data sets provide good estimates of means and totals, the corresponding variances are often grossly underestimated. A number of methods to remedy this problem exists, but most of them depend on the sampling design and the imputation method. Recently, Rao (1992), and Rao and Shao (1992) have proposed a unified jackknife approach to variance estimation of imputed data sets. The present paper explores this technique empirically, using a real population of businesses, under a simple random sampling design and a uniform nonresponse mechanism. Extensions to stratified multistage sample designs are considered, and the performance of the proposed variance estimator under non-uniform response mechanisms is briefly investigated.