Small-Area Incomes: Their Spatial Variability and the Relative Efficacy of Proxy, Geodemographic, Imputed and Model-Based Estimates

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• 作者：Paul Williamson
• 关键词：Income distribution ; Income segregation ; Imputation ; Synthetic estimate ; Ecological regression
• 刊名：Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：9
• 期：4
• 页码：463-489
• 全文大小：902 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Geography
  Landscape, Regional and Urban Planning
  Demography
  Human Geography
  Geography
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1874-4621
• 卷排序：9

文摘

This paper uses data from a UK Census Rehearsal to explore the problem of small-area income estimation. First, the nature of the problem is revisited through an examination of the way in which incomes vary spatially. Residential rather than labour market sorting is found to be the dominant driver; and the rich are found to exhibit greater spatial segregation than the poor. Even so, location is shown to capture only a small fraction of the overall variation in incomes. Second, the performance of competing small-area estimation strategies is assessed, uniquely comparing proxy, geodemographic, imputation and model-based estimates; and validating all of these against directly observed values. An area-level model, ecological regression, performs best. Unit-record imputation approaches capture similar levels of spatial variation in mean income, but have higher variances and greater systematic biases. The same can be said of a simple univariate proxy (% professionals), which even so proves surprisingly effective.