Model-based estimation of discontinuities for small domains in the Dutch Crime Victimization Survey

During redesigns of repeated surveys, the old and the new approach are often conducted in parallel to quantify discontinuities which are initiated by the modifications in the survey process. Due to budget limitations, the sample size allocated to the alternative approach is often considerably smaller, compared to the regular survey that is also used for official publication purposes. In this paper, small area estimation techniques are considered to improve the accuracy of domain estimates obtained under the alternative approach. Besides auxiliary information available from registrations, direct domain estimates available from the regular survey are useful auxiliary variables to construct model-based small area estimators. These methods are applied to a redesign of the Dutch Crime Victimization Survey.