A note on extendibility and predictivistic inference in finite populations

Abstract

The usual finite population model—where information provided by a subset of units is used to reduce uncertainty about functions of the complete population list of values—is explored from a predictivistic point of view. Under this approach, only operationally meaningful quantities (operational parameters) are considered and therefore no superpopulation parameters are involved. This paper addresses the estimation of both population total and maximum based on uniformity and/or exchangeability judgments on finite sequences of random variables. A central point of this paper is that there are contexts in which the superpopulation approach cannot be employed in inferential problems in finite populations. There are circumstances in which the prior distributions for the operational parameters cannot be obtained from any superpopulation model. Conditions for the extendibility to infinite populations are also established for some models, as this approach may ease the inferential problem.