Using Partially Balanced Designs for the Half Sample Replication Method of Variance Estimation

This article considers the use of G-order partially balanced designs for half sample replication method of variance estimation. A new procedure for the arrangement of strata (AAA) is proposed which is shown for a certain class of statistics and for even G to be more efficient than an earlier arrangement (SAOA) when the sequence {a h = W 2 h σ 2 hu ) is monotonic increasing with either strict downward or strict upward convexity, where W h , is the stratum weight and σ 2 hu the within-stratum variance.