Minimax unbiased estimation for finite populations with bounded outcomes

Abstract

We study design-unbiased estimation of the finite-population total $\sum_{i=1}^N y_i$ when each outcome satisfies known bounds $y_i\in[a_i,b_i]$. For any sampling design with inclusion probabilities $π_i>0$, we prove a sharp lower bound on the worst-case squared error over the rectangular parameter space. This bound is attained if and only if the unit inclusion indicators are pairwise independent, in which case the minimax estimator is the midpoint-differenced Horvitz-Thompson estimator $\sum_{i=1}^N m_i+\sum_{i\in S}(y_i-m_i)/π_i$, with $m_i=(a_i+b_i)/{2}$. We then solve the joint design-and-estimation problem under the constraint $\sum_i π_i\le n$. We find that a minimax strategy samples units independently with probabilities $π_i^\ast=\min(1,c (b_i-a_i))$ where $c>0$ is chosen so that $\sum_i π_i^\ast=n$, and uses the midpoint-differenced estimator. This extends Gabler (1990)'s linear minimax result to the full class of design-unbiased estimators. We also show that the estimator is admissible among unbiased estimators and affine equivariant.