On the efficiency of paired ranked set sampling for estimating the population mean in the presence of non-response

Abstract

Non-response is a common problem faced by surveyors while conducting surveys; this introduces a potential bias in the estimates of population parameters. One method of dealing with non-response is subsampling of the non-respondents, which increases precision in estimates by increasing the sample size. This study proposes an unbiased mean estimator in the presence of non-response using the Paired Ranked Set Sampling (PRSS) technique. The proposed estimator is based on a suggested strategy for adapting the subsampled units into the initial sample. Variance of the proposed estimator is derived, and conditions are provided for which the proposed estimator performs better than existing estimators. We conduct a simulation study to evaluate the precision of the proposed estimator in comparison with other existing estimators for estimating the population mean. In simulation, we assume populations based on normal distribution, exponential distribution, and real-life data on abalone. Simulation results show that the proposed mean estimator exhibits a higher probability of precisely estimating the finite population mean.