Linearization variance estimators for survey data - ARCHIVED

In survey sampling, Taylor linearization is often used to obtain variance estimators for calibration estimators of totals and nonlinear finite population (or census) parameters, such as ratios, regression and correlation coefficients, which can be expressed as smooth functions of totals. Taylor linearization is generally applicable to any sampling design, but it can lead to multiple variance estimators that are asymptotically design unbiased under repeated sampling. The choice among the variance estimators requires other considerations such as (i) approximate unbiasedness for the model variance of the estimator under an assumed model, (ii) validity under a conditional repeated sampling framework. In this paper, a new approach to deriving Taylor linearization variance estimators is proposed. It leads directly to a variance estimator which satisfies the above considerations at least in a number of important cases. The method is applied to a variety of problems, covering estimators of a total as well as other estimators defined either explicitly or implicitly as solutions of estimating equations. In particular, estimators of logistic regression parameters with calibration weights are studied. It leads to a new variance estimator for a general class of calibration estimators that includes generalized raking ratio and generalized regression estimators. The proposed method is extended to two-phase sampling to obtain a variance estimator that makes fuller use of the first phase sample data compared to traditional linearization variance estimators.