Multiply robust imputation procedures for zero-inflated distributions in surveys.

Abstract

Item nonresponse in surveys is usually treated by some form of single imputation. In practice, the survey variable subject to missing values may exhibit a large number of zero-valued observations. In this paper, we propose multiply robust imputation procedures for treating this type of variable. Our procedures may be based on multiple imputation models and/or multiple nonresponse models. An imputation procedure is said to be multiply robust if the resulting estimator is consistent when all models but one are misspecified. The variance of the imputed estimators is estimated through a generalized jackknife variance estimation procedure. Results from a simulation study suggest that the proposed procedures perform well in terms of bias, efficiency and coverage rate.