Another Solution of Some Optimum Allocation Problem

We derive optimality conditions for the optimum sample allocation problem, formulated as the determination of the fixed strata sample sizes that minimize the total cost of the survey, under assumed level of the variance of the stratified estimator and one-sided upper bounds imposed on sample sizes in strata. In this context, we take that the variance function is of some generic form that involves the stratified $\pi$ estimator of the population total with stratified simple random sampling without replacement design as a special case. The optimality conditions mentioned above will be derived with the use of convex optimization theory and the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. Based on the established optimality conditions we give a formal proof of the existing procedure, termed here as LRNA, that solves the allocation problem considered. We formulate the LRNA in such a way that it also provides the solution to classical optimum allocation problem (i.e. minimization of the estimator's variance under fixed total cost) under one-sided lower bounds imposed on sample sizes in strata. From this standpoint, the LRNA can be considered as a counterparty to the popular recursive Neyman allocation procedure that is used to solve the classical problem of optimum sample allocation but with one-sided upper bounds. Ready-to-use R-implementation of the LRNA is available through our package stratallo, which is published on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) package repository.