Sampling Methods

Whenweagreedtoshareallofourpreparationofexercisesinsamplingtheory to create a book, we were not aware of the scope of the work. It was indeed necessary to compose the information, type out the compilations, standardise the notations and correct the drafts. It is fortunate that we have not yet measured the importance of this project, for this work probably would never have been attempted! In making available this collection of exercises, we hope to promote the teaching of sampling theory for which we wanted to emphasise its diversity. The exercises are at times purely theoretical while others are originally from real problems, enabling us to approach the sensitive matter of passing from theory to practice that so enriches survey statistics. The exercises that we present were used as educational material at the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information (ENSAI), where we had successively taught sampling theory. We are not the authors of all the exercises. In fact, some of them are due to Jean-Claude Deville and Laurent Wilms. We thank them for allowing us to reproduce their exercises. It is also possible that certain exercises had been initially conceived by an author that we have not identi?ed. Beyondthe contribution of our colleagues, and in all cases, we do not consider ourselves to be the lone authors of these exercises:they actually form part of a common heritagefrom ENSAI that has been enriched and improved due to questions from students and the work of all the demonstrators of the sampling course at ENSAI.

Pascal Ardilly is the Head of the Department of Sampling and Treatment of Statistical Data at the Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, (INSEE, France).

Yves Tillé is a professor at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).