Stratified Two-Sample Tag-Recovery Census of Closed Populations

Abstract

In this paper, we provide least squares estimators for the stratified two-sample tag-recovery problem. In contrast to the existing methodology, these estimators are easily applicable regardless of the relative sizes of the numbers of tagging and recovery strata. Consistency of the estimators is proven, and formulas for the asymptotic variances of the estimators are presented. A common practice in stratified tag-recovery experiments is to pool the strata before or after the experiment. This can produce inconsistent estimates. Sufficient conditions for the consistency of the estimates in the case of complete pooling are already known. Sufficient conditions for the case of partial pooling are presented here.