An application of restricted regression estimation in a household survey - ARCHIVED

This paper empirically compares three estimation methods - regression, restricted regression, and principal person - used in a household survey of consumer expenditures. The three methods are applied to post-stratification which is important in many household surveys to adjust for under-coverage of the target population. Post-stratum population counts are typically available from an external census for numbers of persons but not for numbers of households. If household estimates are needed, a single weight must be assigned to each household while using the person counts for post-stratification. This is easily accomplished with regression estimators of totals or means by using person counts in each household's auxiliary data. Restricted regression estimation refines the weights by controlling extremes and can produce estimators with lower variance than Horvitz-Thompson estimators while still adhering to the population controls. The regression methods also allow controls to be used for both person-level counts and quantitative auxiliaries. With the principal person method, persons are classified into post-strata and person weights are ratio adjusted to achieve population control totals. This leads to each person in a household potentially having a different weight. The weight associated with the "principal person" is then selected as the household weight. We will compare estimated means from the three methods and their estimated standard errors for a number of expenditures from the Consumer Expenditure survey sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.