Small Area Estimation under Spatial Multivariate Fay–Herriot Model

Spatial version of multivariate Fay–Herriot model is introduced and small area predictor under this model is proposed. The mean squared error (MSE) estimation of the proposed small area predictor is also developed. The empirical performance of the proposed small area predictor and the MSE estimator are evaluated through simulation studies. The empirical results clearly show that the proposed small area predictor outperforms the existing predictors. The proposed MSE estimator tracks the actual value of MSE reasonably well with acceptable coverage rate. An application to estimate the disparities in food and nutrition intake from the 2011–12 Household Consumer Expenditure Survey data collected by the national sample survey office of India is also presented.