Estimation of multi-way tables subject to coherence constraints

Nowadays, traditional population censuses based on total enumeration of the population are being accompanied by sample surveys. Sampling within censuses allows to reduce costs and workload of authorities involved in censuses operations, along with the statistical burden for the people involved in the enumeration. In this paper, we deal with estimation of multi-way contingency tables involving variables measured both via census and sampling. In this framework, two main issues need to be addressed: first of all, sample size for estimating some of the entries of the contingency tables may be too small, delivering estimates prone to huge sampling variability. On the other hand, since estimates of the joint distribution need to be coherent with the marginal distribution of the variable collected via a census, estimation methods need to be coherent with the constraint imposed by marginal distribution of variables measured via census. The problem is tackled via a model-based approach that allows to comply with all coherence constraints following a fairly simple procedure. The merit of the proposed methodology is illustrated by means of a simulation study.