Estimation of census adjustment factors

A components-of-variance approach and an estimated covariance error structure were used in constructing predictors of adjustment factors for the 1990 Decennial Census. The variability of the estimated covariance matrix is the suspected cause of certain anomalies that appeared in the regression estimation and in the estimated adjustment factors. We investigate alternative prediction methods and propose a procedure that is less influenced by variability in the estimated covariance matrix. The proposed methodology is applied to a data set composed of 336 adjustment factors from the 1990 Post Enumeration Survey.