<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Statistical offices frequently use cutoff sampling to determine which businesses in a population should be surveyed. Examples include business surveys about international trade, production, innovation, ICT usage and so on. Cutoff thresholds are typically set in terms of key variables of interest and aim to satisfy a minimum coverage ratio–the share of aggregate values of reporting units. In this article we propose a simple cost-benefit approach to determination of the sampling cutoff by taking into account the response burden. In line with existing practice, we use the coverage ratio as our measure of accuracy and provide either analytical or numerical solutions to cutoff determination. Using a business survey on response burden of reporting trade flows within the EU (Intrastat), we present an application that illustrates our approach to cutoff determination. An important practical implication is the possibility to set industry-contingent cutoffs.</p>
</abstract>

Statistical offices frequently use cutoff sampling to determine which businesses in a population should be surveyed. Examples include business surveys about international trade, production, innovation, ICT usage and so on. Cutoff thresholds are typically set in terms of key variables of interest and aim to satisfy a minimum coverage ratio–the share of aggregate values of reporting units. In this article we propose a simple cost-benefit approach to determination of the sampling cutoff by taking into account the response burden. In line with existing practice, we use the coverage ratio as our measure of accuracy and provide either analytical or numerical solutions to cutoff determination. Using a business survey on response burden of reporting trade flows within the EU (Intrastat), we present an application that illustrates our approach to cutoff determination. An important practical implication is the possibility to set industry-contingent cutoffs.

Determination of the Threshold in Cutoff Sampling Using Response Burden with an Application to Intrastat

Department of Social Statistics and Demography

Journal of Official Statistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Statistical offices frequently use cutoff sampling to determine which businesses in a population should be surveyed. Examples include business surveys about...

Determination of the Threshold in Cutoff Sampling Using Response Burden with an Application to Intrastat

Published Online: Dec 03, 2022

Page range: 1205 - 1234

Received: Jan 01, 2021

Accepted: Sep 01, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2022-0051

Keywords
Accuracy, cost-benefit analysis, reporting costs, social benefits, social welfare function

© 2022 Sašo Polanec et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Determination of the Threshold in Cutoff Sampling Using Response Burden with an Application to Intrastat

Published Online: Dec 03, 2022

Page range: 1205 - 1234

Received: Jan 01, 2021

Accepted: Sep 01, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2022-0051

KeywordsAccuracy, cost-benefit analysis, reporting costs, social benefits, social welfare function

© 2022 Sašo Polanec et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Accuracy, cost-benefit analysis, reporting costs, social benefits, social welfare function