Appendix on software and codes used in the book

Empirical applications of small area estimation (SAE) methods need access to statistical software in both data management and estimation phases of the specified models. This appendix briefly presents two software that are suitable for this specific task, that is, R and SAS. Both R and SAS software allow several statistical analyses and offer tools from basic statistics to more advanced methods. To use R packages or SAS procedures for SAE one should be familiar with features common to all estimation commands and able to prepare the data for analysis. The chapter provides key information on the use of custom-made scripts written in R or SAS that implement the advanced methods covered in the book chapters. These script files contain custom-made functions necessary for performing the analytic steps in R or SAS. The chapter describes EU-SILC data and provides guidance on the data managing generally requested for organizing datasets. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.