Estimates of Income for Small Places: An Application of James-Stein Procedures to Census Data

1979/06/01 by Robert E. Fay, Roger A. Herriot · 8 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Income, Poverty, and Inequality #Economic theories and models #Housing Market and Economics

paper · doi:10.1080/01621459.1979.10482505

openalex publication_date 1979/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

An adaptation of the James-Stein estimator is applied to sample estimates of income for small places (i.e., population less than 1,000) from the 1970 Census of Population and Housing. The adaptation incorporates linear regression in the context of unequal variances. Evidence is presented that the resulting estimates have smaller average error than either the sample estimates or an alternate procedure of using county averages. The new estimates for these small places now form the basis for the Census Bureau's updated estimates of per capita income for the General Revenue Sharing Program.

Citations

• Stein's Estimation Rule and its Competitors—An Empirical Bayes Approach

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