Fixed-width confidence intervals for contrasts in the means

1572-9052

Confidence intervals ; contrasts in the means ; fixed-width ; multi-stage estimation

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Mathematics

Abstract The sequential procedure developed by Bhargava and Srivastava (1973, J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B, 35, 147–152) to construct fixed-width confidence intervals for contrasts in the means is further analyzed. Second-order approximations for the first two moments of the stopping time and the coverage probability associated with the sequential procedure, are obtained. A lower bound for the number of “additional” observations after stopping is derived, which ensures the “mxact” probability of coverage. Moreover, two-stage, three-stage and “modified” sequential procedures are proposed for the same estimation problem. Relative advantages and disadvantages of these sampling schemes are discussed and their properties are studied.

Electronic Resource