Tomáš Hobza (Czech Technical University in Prague) and Domingo Morales (Operations Research Center, University Miguel Hernández of Elche)
Abstract: This paper introduces an area-level gamma mixed model with log link for small area estimation. A Laplace approximation algorithm is implemented to estimate the model parameters. Empirical best predictors of domain means are derived and their mean squared errors are estimated by parametric bootstrap. An application to data from the Spanish living condition survey of 2008 is given, where the target is the estimation of average annual net incomes by province and sex.