ASA Connect

​ WSS Short Course: Introduction to Small Area Estimation
 
Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Time: 9:00 am – 4:30 pm
Place: Mathematica Policy Research
            1100 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002
 
Course Content:
This short course will be based on the book " Small Area Estimation, by J.N.K. Rao, 2003,
Wiley", and a number of research papers written by researchers on the topic. Often lectures will be drawn from research conducted by Dr. Datta and other researchers in the field. Topics include introduction to small area estimation, direct and indirect estimators in domain estimation, model-based approaches to small area estimation, area-level and unit-level models, empirical best linear unbiased prediction for point estimation and mean squared error estimation, small area estimation applications by R, hierarchical Bayes and empirical Bayes methods in small area estimation, and more applications of R.

Some useful references:

• Datta, G.S. (2009). Model-based approach to small area estimation. In: Handbook of Statistics: Sample Surveys: Inference and Analysis, Volume 29B, Edited by D. Pfeffermann and C.R. Rao, pp. 251-288.
• Datta, G.S. and Ghosh, M. (2012). Small area shrinkage estimation. Statistical Science, 27, 95-114.
• Rao, J.N.K. (2003). Small Area Estimation, Wiley.

About the Instructors: Dr. Gauri S. Datta, Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, and U.S. Census Bureau, email: gaurisdatta@gmail.com; and Dr. Adrijo Chakraborty, NORC, email: chakraborty-adrijo@norc.org. Dr. Datta is a professor at the University of Georgia and a Mathematical Statistician at the US Census Bureau. An elected fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Dr. Datta has published extensively his methodological and applied research on small area estimation in leading journals of statistics. Adrijo Chakraborty joined NORC as a Statistician after receiving PhD in Statistics from University of Georgia in 2014. His primary research interests are in small area estimation, survey sampling, Bayesian statistics, and statistical computing. Adrijo's responsibility in NORC includes application of model-based survey sampling methodologies, development and implementation of Bayesian methodologies for small area estimation, analyzing complex survey data. 

Course Schedule:

   8:15 - 9:00    Coffee, Breakfast, Check in
   9:00 - 10:30  Introduction to small area estimation
                          Direct and Indirect estimators in domain estimation
 10:30 - 10:45  Break
 10:45 - 12:15  Model-based approaches to small area estimation
                          Area-level and unit-level models
12:15 - 1:15    Lunch (provided)
  1:15 - 2:45    Empirical best linear unbiased prediction: point estimation and mean   
                         squared error estimation
                         Small Area Estimation applications by R
   2:45 - 3:00   Break
   3:00 - 4:30   Hierarchical Bayes and empirical Bayes methods in small area estimation
                        More applications of R

Advance registration:  In addition to your RSVP here, please go to https://www.123signup.com/register?id=yrgyg to register and pay for the class. Online registration will close on May 1, 2015; earlier if the course fills up.

Registration Fee:
  Full-time students (at most 8): $50 advance, $70 at the door
  WSS members: $160 advance, $180 at the door
  All others: $210 advance, $240 at the door

Contact person: Yang Cheng, 301-763-3287, yang.cheng@census.gov