Estimation of a Population Total under a “Bernoulli Sampling” Procedure

Abstract

At least two computer program packages, SPSS and STRATA, use simulated Bernoulli trials to draw (without replacement) a random sample of records from a finite population of records. Therefore, the size of the sample is a random variable. Two estimators of a population total under this sampling procedure are compared with the usual estimator under simple random sampling. Conditions under which the Bernoulli sampling estimators have almost the same mean squared error as the simple random-sample estimator are illustrated.

Key Words:

• Bernoulli trials
• Sampling without replacement
• Simple random sampling
• Systematic sampling