Estimation in sample surveys using frames with a many-to-many structure - ARCHIVED

In sample surveys, the units contained in the sampling frame ideally have a one-to-one correspondence with the elements in the target population under study. In many cases, however, the frame has a many-to-many structure. That is, a unit in the frame may be associated with multiple target population elements and a target population element may be associated with multiple frame units. Such was the case in a building characteristics survey in which the frame was a list of street addresses, but the target population was commercial buildings. The frame was messy because a street address corresponded either to a single building, multiple buildings, or part of a building. In this paper, we develop estimators and formulas for their variances in both simple and stratified random sampling designs when the frame has a many-to-many structure.