IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/testjl/v31y2022i3d10.1007_s11749-021-00795-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Weight smoothing for nonprobability surveys

Author

Listed:
  • Ramón Ferri-García

    (University of Granada)

  • Jean-François Beaumont

    (Statistics Canada)

  • Keven Bosa

    (Statistics Canada)

  • Joanne Charlebois

    (Statistics Canada)

  • Kenneth Chu

    (Statistics Canada)

Abstract

Adjustment techniques to mitigate selection bias in nonprobability samples often involve modelling the propensity to participate in the nonprobability sample along with inverse propensity weighting. It is well known that procedures for estimating weights are effective if the covariates selected in the propensity model are related to both the variable of interest and the participation indicator. In most surveys, there are many variables of interest, making weight adjustments difficult to determine as a suitable weight for one variable may be unsuitable for other variables. The standard compromise is to include a large number of covariates in the propensity model but this may increase the variability of the estimates, especially when some covariates are weakly related to the variables of interest. Weight smoothing, developed for probability surveys, could be helpful in these situations. It aims to remove the variability caused by overfit propensity models by replacing the inverse propensity weights with predicted weights obtained using a smoothing model. In this article, we study weight smoothing in the nonprobability survey context, both theoretically and empirically, to understand its effectiveness at improving the efficiency of estimates.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramón Ferri-García & Jean-François Beaumont & Keven Bosa & Joanne Charlebois & Kenneth Chu, 2022. "Weight smoothing for nonprobability surveys," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 31(3), pages 619-643, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:testjl:v:31:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s11749-021-00795-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11749-021-00795-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11749-021-00795-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11749-021-00795-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-François Beaumont, 2008. "A new approach to weighting and inference in sample surveys," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 95(3), pages 539-553.
    2. Yilin Chen & Pengfei Li & Changbao Wu, 2020. "Doubly Robust Inference With Nonprobability Survey Samples," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 115(532), pages 2011-2021, December.
    3. Friedman, Jerome H. & Hastie, Trevor & Tibshirani, Rob, 2010. "Regularization Paths for Generalized Linear Models via Coordinate Descent," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 33(i01).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ray Chambers & Setareh Ranjbar & Nicola Salvati & Barbara Pacini, 2022. "Weighting, informativeness and causal inference, with an application to rainfall enhancement," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(4), pages 1584-1612, October.
    2. Tutz, Gerhard & Pößnecker, Wolfgang & Uhlmann, Lorenz, 2015. "Variable selection in general multinomial logit models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 207-222.
    3. Ernesto Carrella & Richard M. Bailey & Jens Koed Madsen, 2018. "Indirect inference through prediction," Papers 1807.01579, arXiv.org.
    4. Rui Wang & Naihua Xiu & Kim-Chuan Toh, 2021. "Subspace quadratic regularization method for group sparse multinomial logistic regression," Computational Optimization and Applications, Springer, vol. 79(3), pages 531-559, July.
    5. Mkhadri, Abdallah & Ouhourane, Mohamed, 2013. "An extended variable inclusion and shrinkage algorithm for correlated variables," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 631-644.
    6. Masakazu Higuchi & Mitsuteru Nakamura & Shuji Shinohara & Yasuhiro Omiya & Takeshi Takano & Daisuke Mizuguchi & Noriaki Sonota & Hiroyuki Toda & Taku Saito & Mirai So & Eiji Takayama & Hiroo Terashi &, 2022. "Detection of Major Depressive Disorder Based on a Combination of Voice Features: An Exploratory Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-13, September.
    7. Susan Athey & Guido W. Imbens & Stefan Wager, 2018. "Approximate residual balancing: debiased inference of average treatment effects in high dimensions," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 80(4), pages 597-623, September.
    8. Vincent, Martin & Hansen, Niels Richard, 2014. "Sparse group lasso and high dimensional multinomial classification," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 771-786.
    9. Chen, Le-Yu & Lee, Sokbae, 2018. "Best subset binary prediction," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 39-56.
    10. Perrot-Dockès Marie & Lévy-Leduc Céline & Chiquet Julien & Sansonnet Laure & Brégère Margaux & Étienne Marie-Pierre & Robin Stéphane & Genta-Jouve Grégory, 2018. "A variable selection approach in the multivariate linear model: an application to LC-MS metabolomics data," Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, De Gruyter, vol. 17(5), pages 1-14, October.
    11. Fan, Jianqing & Jiang, Bai & Sun, Qiang, 2022. "Bayesian factor-adjusted sparse regression," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 230(1), pages 3-19.
    12. Chuliá, Helena & Garrón, Ignacio & Uribe, Jorge M., 2024. "Daily growth at risk: Financial or real drivers? The answer is not always the same," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 762-776.
    13. Jun Li & Serguei Netessine & Sergei Koulayev, 2018. "Price to Compete … with Many: How to Identify Price Competition in High-Dimensional Space," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4118-4136, September.
    14. Sung Jae Jun & Sokbae Lee, 2024. "Causal Inference Under Outcome-Based Sampling with Monotonicity Assumptions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 998-1009, July.
    15. Rina Friedberg & Julie Tibshirani & Susan Athey & Stefan Wager, 2018. "Local Linear Forests," Papers 1807.11408, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2020.
    16. Xiangwei Li & Thomas Delerue & Ben Schöttker & Bernd Holleczek & Eva Grill & Annette Peters & Melanie Waldenberger & Barbara Thorand & Hermann Brenner, 2022. "Derivation and validation of an epigenetic frailty risk score in population-based cohorts of older adults," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    17. Hewamalage, Hansika & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bandara, Kasun, 2021. "Recurrent Neural Networks for Time Series Forecasting: Current status and future directions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 388-427.
    18. Hui Xiao & Yiguo Sun, 2020. "Forecasting the Returns of Cryptocurrency: A Model Averaging Approach," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-15, November.
    19. Christopher J Greenwood & George J Youssef & Primrose Letcher & Jacqui A Macdonald & Lauryn J Hagg & Ann Sanson & Jenn Mcintosh & Delyse M Hutchinson & John W Toumbourou & Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz &, 2020. "A comparison of penalised regression methods for informing the selection of predictive markers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-14, November.
    20. Brian Quistorff & Gentry Johnson, 2020. "Machine Learning for Experimental Design: Methods for Improved Blocking," Papers 2010.15966, arXiv.org.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:testjl:v:31:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s11749-021-00795-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.