On some common practices of systematic sampling
Working paper
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/180707Utgivelsesdato
2006Metadata
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- Discussion Papers [1002]
Sammendrag
Abstract:
Systematic sampling is a widely used technique in survey sampling. It is easy to execute, whether
the units are to be selected with equal probability or with probabilities proportional to auxiliary sizes.
It can be very efficient if one manages to achieve favourable stratification effects through the listing
of units. The main disadvantages are that there is no unbiased method for estimating the sampling
variance, and that systematic sampling may be poor when the ordering of the population is based on
inaccurate knowledge. In this paper we examine an aspect of the systematic sampling that
previously has not received much attention. It is shown that in a number of common situations,
where the systematic sampling has on average the same efficiency as the corresponding random
sampling alternatives under an assumed model for the population, the sampling variance fluctuates
much more with the systematic sampling. The use of systematic sampling is associated with a risk
that in general increases with the sampling fraction. This can be highly damaging for large samples
from small populations in the case of single-stage sampling, or large sub-samples from small subpopulations
as in the case of multi-stage sampling.
Keywords: Statistical decision; second order Bayes risk; Robust design; Panel survey