A Study of Small Area Estimation for Italian Structural Business Statistics

The Frame SBS is a statistical register which has been developed at the Italian National Statistical Institute to support the annual estimation of structural business statistics (SBS). Actually, a number of core SBS are estimated by combining microdata directly supplied by different administrative sources. In this context, more accurate estimates for those SBS that are not covered by administrative sources can be obtained through small area estimation (SAE). In this article, we illustrate an application of SAE methods in the framework of the Frame SBS register in order to assess the potential advantages that can be achieved in terms of increased quality and reliability of the target variables. Different types of auxiliary information and approaches are compared in order to identify the optimal estimation strategy in terms of precision of the estimates.