Optimal resource allocation in survey designs

Melania Calinescu, Sandjai Bhulai and Barry Schouten

European Journal of Operational Research, 2013, vol. 226, issue 1, 115-121

Abstract: Resource allocation is a relatively new research area in survey designs and has not been fully addressed in the literature. Recently, the declining participation rates and increasing survey costs have steered research interests towards resource planning. Survey organizations across the world are considering the development of new mathematical models in order to improve the quality of survey results while taking into account optimal resource planning. In this paper, we address the problem of resource allocation in survey designs and we discuss its impact on the quality of the survey results. We propose a novel method in which the optimal allocation of survey resources is determined such that the quality of survey results, i.e., the survey response rate, is maximized. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by extensive numerical experiments.

Keywords: Resource allocation; Nonlinear optimization; Dynamic programming; Markov decision theory; Survey design; Scheduling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:226:y:2013:i:1:p:115-121

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2012.10.046

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