English

Why stratification may hurt, & how much

Methodology 2008-02-15 v1

Abstract

There are circumstances under which stratified sampling is worse than simple random sampling, even if the allocation of the sample sizes is optimal. This phenomenon was discovered more than sixty years ago, but is not as widely known as one might expect. We provide it with lower and upper bounds for its badness as well as with an explanation.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0802.2087,
  title  = {Why stratification may hurt, & how much},
  author = {Chris A. J. Klaassen and Andries J. Lenstra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0802.2087},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:12:43.275Z