Multipurpose small area estimation

Sample surveys are generally multivariate, in the sense that they measure more than oneresponse variable. In theory, each variable can then be assigned an optimal weight forestimation purposes. However, it is often a distinct practical advantage to have a singleweight that is used with all variables collected in the survey. This paper describes howsuch multipurpose sample weights can be constructed when small area estimates of thesurvey variables are required. The approach is based on the model-based direct (MBD)method of small area estimation described in Chambers and Chandra (2006). Empiricalresults reported in this paper show that MBD estimators for small areas based onmultipurpose weights perform well across a range of variables that are often of interest inbusiness surveys. Furthermore, these results show that the proposed approach is robust tomodel misspecification and also efficient for the variables ill-suited to standard methodsof small area estimation (e.g. variables that contain a significant proportion of zeros).