Empirical Bayes Estimation of Undercount in the Decennial Census

Abstract

Empirical Bayes methods are used to estimate the extent of the undercount at the local level in the 1980 U.S. census. "Grouping of like subareas from areas such as states, counties, and so on into strata is a useful way of reducing the variance of undercount estimators. By modeling the subareas within a stratum to have a common mean and variances inversely proportional to their census counts, and by taking into account sampling of the areas (e.g., by dual-system estimation), empirical Bayes estimators that compromise between the (weighted) stratum average and the sample value can be constructed. The amount of compromise is shown to depend on the relative importance of stratum variance to sampling variance. These estimators are evaluated at the state level (51 states, including Washington, D.C.) and stratified on race/ethnicity (3 strata) using data from the 1980 postenumeration survey (PEP 3-8, for the noninstitutional population)."