Analytic Tools for Evaluating Variability of Standard Errors in Large-Scale Establishment Surveys

Large-scale establishment surveys often exhibit substantial temporal or cross-sectional variability in their published standard errors. This article uses a framework defined by survey generalized variance functions to develop three sets of analytic tools for the evaluation of these patterns of variability. These tools are for (1) identification of predictor variables that explain some of the observed temporal and cross-sectional variability in published standard errors; (2) evaluation of the proportion of variability attributable to the abovementioned predictors, equation error and estimation error, respectively; and (3) comparison of equation error variances across groups defined by observable predictor variables. The primary ideas are motivated and illustrated by an application to the U.S. Current Employment Statistics program.