Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

On The Interpretation Of Multi-Year Estimates Of The American Community Survey As Period Estimates, Chaitra Nagaraja, Tucker Mcelroy

Chaitra H Nagaraja

The rolling sample methodology of the American Community Survey introduces temporal distortions, resulting in Multi-Year Estimates that measure aggregate activity over three or five years. This paper introduces a novel, nonparametric method for quantifying the impact of viewing multi-year estimates as functions of single-year estimates belonging to the same time span. The method is based on examining the changes to confidence interval coverage. As an application of primary interest, the interpretation of a multi-year estimate as the simple average of single-year estimates is a viewpoint that underpins the published estimates of sampling variability. Therefore it is vital to ascertain the …