Small-area estimation based on natural exponential family quadratic variance function models and survey weights

We propose pseudo empirical best linear unbiased estimators of small-area means based on natural exponential family quadratic variance function models when the basic data consist of survey-weighted estimators of these means, area-specific covariates and certain summary measures involving the weights. We also provide explicit approximate mean squared errors of these estimators in the spirit of Prasad & Rao (1990), and these estimators can be readily evaluated. A simulation study is undertaken to evaluate the performance of the proposed inferential procedure. We estimate also the proportion of poor children in the 5--17 years age-group for the different counties in one of the states in the United States. Copyright Biometrika Trust 2004, Oxford University Press.