SMALL AREA ESTIMATION AND ECONOMIC POLICY

摘要

The definition and assessment of economic policies require reliable information on social and economic indicators at the territorial disaggregation level most relevant for the policy in question. Unfortunately, the information needed often goes beyond what can be adequately estimated by large sample surveys such as those conducted by national institutes of statistics in most developed countries. The reason is simple: very few (if any) sampling units fall into the small geographic areas of the country which are the ultimate target of the policy (e.g. provinces, districts, municipalities) and the application of 'standard' estimators would lead to estimates accompanied by very big variances and large confidence intervals.