Assessing between-block heterogeneity within the post-strata of the 1990 Post-Enumeration Survey

"The 1990 [U.S.] Post-Enumeration Survey (PES) stratified the population into 1,392 subpopulations called post-strata based on location, race, tenure, sex and age, in the hope that these subpopulations were homogeneous in relation to factors affecting the Census coverage....With block-level data from the PES for sites around Detroit and Texas, we are able to examine empirically the extent to which this hope was realized. Using various measures, we find that between-block variation in erroneous enumeration and gross omission rates is about the same magnitude as, and largely in addition to, the corresponding between-post-stratum variation." Comments by Joseph L. Schafer and Donald Ylvisaker and a rejoinder by the authors are included (pp. 1,125-9).