Small area estimation techniques have typically relied on plug-in estimation based on models containing random area effects. More recently, regression M-quantiles have been suggested for this purpose, thus avoiding conventional Gaussian assumptions, as well as problems associated with the...

Unbiased direct estimators for small area quantities are usually considered too variable to be of any practical use. In this paper we propose a class of model-based direct estimators for small area quantities that appears to overcome this objection, in the sense that these estimators are...

In a large scale survey, we are usually concerned with estimation ofsome characteristics of interest for a large area (e.g., a country).But we are frequently interested in estimating similarcharacteristics for a subpopulation using the same survey data. Thedirect survey estimator which utilizes...