Semiparametric quantile regression imputation for a complex survey with application to the Conservation Effects Assessment Project - ARCHIVED

Development of imputation procedures appropriate for data with extreme values or nonlinear relationships to covariates is a significant challenge in large scale surveys. We develop an imputation procedure for complex surveys based on semiparametric quantile regression. We apply the method to the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP), a large-scale survey that collects data used in quantifying soil loss from crop fields. In the imputation procedure, we first generate imputed values from a semiparametric model for the quantiles of the conditional distribution of the response given a covariate. Then, we estimate the parameters of interest using the generalized method of moments (GMM). We derive the asymptotic distribution of the GMM estimators for a general class of complex survey designs. In simulations meant to represent the CEAP data, we evaluate variance estimators based on the asymptotic distribution and compare the semiparametric quantile regression imputation (QRI) method to fully parametric and nonparametric alternatives. The QRI procedure is more efficient than nonparametric and fully parametric alternatives, and empirical coverages of confidence intervals are within 1% of the nominal 95% level. An application to estimation of mean erosion indicates that QRI may be a viable option for CEAP.