samplingNR

samplingNR is an R package that allows for computing optimal allocations under anticipated nonresponse. The underlying theory is provided in Mendelson & Elliott (in press).

Installation

You can install the latest development version of samplingNR from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("jmendelson256/samplingNR", build_vignettes = TRUE)

Vignette

You can learn about how to use the package in vignette("samplingNR"), which shows how to replicate two of the tables from our paper in an application to a post-election survey of military personnel.

Basic usage

The main allocation function is opt_nh_nonresp(), which provides the exact version of our proposed optimal allocation under anticipated nonresponse. The current version assumes that the goal is to minimize the (expected) variance subject to a constraint on the total (expected) costs or invited sample size.

Fixed total sample size

If the aim is to allocate a fixed total (invited) sample size, the basic usage is:

opt_nh_nonresp(
  N_h,
  phibar_h,
  S_h = NULL,
  n_total,
  ...
)

where vectors N_h and phibar_hdenote the strata population sizes, anticipated response rates, and (optionally) strata variances, respectively, and where scalar n_total denotes the total sample size. If S_h is omitted, strata variances are assumed constant across strata.

Fixed total costs

If the aim is to allocate sample subject to a constraint on total costs, the basic usage is:

opt_nh_nonresp(
  N_h,
  phibar_h,
  S_h = NULL,
  cost_total,
  c_NR_h,
  tau_h,
  ...
)

Here, cost_total denotes the total allowable costs, c_NR_h denotes the unit costs per nonrespondent (by strata), and tau_h denotes the ratio of the unit costs per respondent to those of nonrespondents (by strata). The arguments c_NR_h and tau_h can be specified as vectors of dimension H if these quantities vary by strata; alternatively, if assumed constant across strata, they can be specified as scalars.

References

Mendelson, J., & Elliott, M. R. (in press). Optimal allocation under anticipated nonresponse. Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology.