Bootstrap Estimation of the Conditional Bias for Measuring Influence in Complex Surveys

Abstract In sample surveys that collect information on skewed variables, it is often desirable to assess the influence of sample units on the sampling error of survey-weighted estimators of finite population parameters. The conditional bias is an attractive measure of influence that accounts for the sampling design and the estimation method. It is defined as the design expectation of the sampling error conditional on a given unit being selected in the sample. The estimation of the conditional bias is relatively straightforward for simple sampling designs and estimators. However, for complex designs or complex estimators, it may be tedious to derive an explicit expression for the conditional bias. In those complex surveys, variance estimation is often achieved through replication methods such as the bootstrap. Bootstrap methods of variance estimation are typically implemented by producing a set of bootstrap weights that is provided to users along with the survey data. In this article, we show how to use these bootstrap weights to obtain an estimator of the conditional bias. Our bootstrap estimator is evaluated in a simulation study and illustrated using data from the Canadian Survey of Household Spending.