This work is part of a project studying the performance of model based estimators in a small area context. We have chosen a simple statistical application in which we estimate the growth rate of accupation for several regions of Spain. We compare three estimators: the direct one based on...

This paper investigates the comparative performance of five small area estimators. We use Monte Carlo simulation in the context of both theoretical and empirical populations. In addition to the direct and indirect estimators, we consider the optimal composite estimator with population weights,...

In this article we propose using small area estimators to improve the estimates of both the small and large area parameters. When the objective is to estimate parameters at both levels accurately, optimality is achieved by a mixed sample design of fixed and proportional allocations. In the mixed...