Fast Balanced Sampling for Highly Stratified Population

Balanced sampling is a very efficient sampling design when the variable of interest is correlated to the auxiliary variables on which the sample is balanced. Chauvet (2009) proposed a procedure to select balanced samples in a stratified population. Unfortunately, Chauvet's procedure can be slow when the number of strata is very large. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm to select balanced samples in a stratified population. This new procedure is at the same time faster and more accurate than Chauvet's. Balanced sampling can then be applied on a highly stratified population when only a few units are selected in each stratum. This algorithm turns out to be valuable for many applications. For instance, it can improve the quality of the estimates produced by multistage surveys for which only one or two primary sampling units are selected in each stratum. Moreover, this algorithm may be used to treat nonresponse.