Statistical Journal of the IAOS 37 (2021) 1391–1410 1391

DOI 10.3233/SJI-210835
IOS Press

Review Article

Data integration using statistical matching

techniques: A review
Israa Lewaaa,∗ , Mai Sherif Hafezb and Mohamed Ali Ismailb
a
Faculty of Business Administration, Economics and Political Science, Department of Business Administration, The

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British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt
b
Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Department of Statistics, Cairo University, Egypt

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Abstract. In the era of data revolution, availability and presence of data is a huge wealth that has to be utilized. Instead of making
new surveys, benefit can be made from data that already exists. As enormous amounts of data become available, it is becoming
essential to undertake research that involves integrating data from multiple sources in order to make the best use out of it. Statistical
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Data Integration (SDI) is the statistical tool for considering this issue. SDI can be used to integrate data files that have common
units, and it also allows to merge unrelated files that do not share any common units, depending on the input data. The convenient
method of data integration is determined according to the nature of the input data. SDI has two main methods, Record Linkage
(RL) and Statistical Matching (SM). SM techniques typically aim to achieve a complete data file from different sources which do
OR

not contain the same units. This paper aims at giving a complete overview of existing SM methods, both classical and recent, in
order to provide a unified summary of various SM techniques along with their drawbacks. Points for future research are suggested
at the end of this paper.

Keywords: Statistical matching, record linkage, parametric statistical matching, nonparametric statistical matching, mixed methods,
Bayesian statistical matching
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1. Introduction data. SDI has two main methods, Record Linkage (RL)
and Statistical Matching (SM). [1] provide a review of
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Attention has been growing towards data integra-
tion in response to the increasing flood of available
data. Data integration aims at integrating two or more
data sources (usually data from sample surveys) shar-
ing the same target population. Statistical Data Integra-
tion (SDI) can be used to integrate data files that have
common units, and it also allows to merge unrelated
files that do not share any common units, depending on
the input data. The convenient method of data integra-
tion is determined according to the nature of the input
∗ Corresponding author: Israa Lewaa, Faculty of Business Admin-
istration, Economics and Political Science, Department of Business
Administration, The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt. Tel.:
+20 102 949 9446; E-mail: israalewaa@feps.edu.eg; israa.lewaa@
bue.edu.eg.
data integration techniques for combining probability
samples, probability and non-probability samples, and
probability and big data samples. [2] presents a review
for combining data from different sources focusing on
record linkage. RL is the method of gathering informa-
tion from multiple sources that relates to the same en-
tity. If there is a unique identifier in the data sources that
will be integrated, then there is no difficulty in matching
data sources. In this case, deterministic linkage will be
used. Deterministic linkage is a direct way of linking
which usually requires exact agreement on a unique
identifier (such as a national identity number). If there
is no unique identifier, the probabilistic record linkage
is employed (see [3–6] for details). The advantage of
SM that it can be used as a supplement to RL to re-
duce the potential bias when obtaining the estimates

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1392 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review

Table 1
Pattern of missing data originated by the statistical matching
File A
Unit Gender Age Education ... Purchasing information about View information about
Cereals Wines ... Daily soaps News ...
1 Female 40–45 Low 1 Kg 1
2 Male 30–35 High None 2 Missing data
... ... ... ...
File B
Unit Gender Age Education ... Purchasing information about View information about
Cereals Wines ... Daily soaps News ...
1 Female 40–45 Low Regular No
2 Male 30–35 High Missing Data No Regular
... ... ... ...
Source: [13].

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using RL [7]. On the other hand, SM techniques typi- variables. Variables which were not found jointly on

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cally aim to achieve a complete data file from different
sources which do not contain the same units. In SM,
data sources just share a set of common variables and
inference is required on the other variables. Besides the
main goal of SM which is data integration, SM also
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has the objective of jointly analysing pairs of variables
observed in two distinct sample surveys [8–11]. Incon-
sistent SM can only produce meaningless data that are
impossible to compare and use. Accordingly, suitable
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both datasets are imputed individually to create a com-
prehensive and large database through SM. On match-
ing the two datasets and imputing the missing parts of
the data, it becomes plausible to study the relationship
between TV viewing behavior and purchasing behavior.
This paper aims to provide a unified piece of work
that gives a complete view of SM techniques that are
available in the literature. The organization of this paper
is as follows: Section 2 introduces SM as a missing

approaches should be used for SM to keep pace with
rapid development in the data science.
SM can be viewed as a missing data problem where
methods such as imputation can be used to solve it [12].
In the basic SM Structure, there exist two files A and B
as sources of data. File A contains variables X and Y,
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data problem. Section 3 presents classical approaches in
SM showing drawbacks of these procedures. Methods
of SM are presented within three frameworks; under
conditional independence assumption, in presence of
auxiliary information, and subject to uncertainty analy-
sis. A number of alternative SM techniques are given

while file B contains variables X and Z. In this case,
variables Y and Z are not found jointly in one dataset.
SM provides a complete file containing variables X, Y
and Z. SM can be very useful in so many applications.
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in Section 4. Moreover, Section 5 discusses issues re-
lated to SM including a review of existing methods for
assessing the quality of the data resulting from various
SM techniques. Finally, Section 6 gives conclusion of

A motivating example is proposed in this section to this paper.

demonstrate the importance of SM. The objective is
to integrate two or more surveys that have no units in
common.
The following example from [13] represents two dif-
ferent surveys, each of them having a different goal
with some variables in common. The first dataset in-
cludes data about gender, age, education and purchasing
information about some products like cereals, wines,
. . . , etc. The second dataset includes data about gender,
age, education and information about TV viewing be-
havior for daily soaps, news, . . . , etc. (see Table 1). An
appealing option for market researchers is to combine
viewing information available from the second dataset
with purchasing data available from the first. This can
save a lot of time and money while providing a richer
data source for analysing relationships among those
2. Statistical matching as a missing data problem
There are several methods for dealing with data with
missing values including procedures based on com-
pletely recorded units, where incomplete units are dis-
carded and only units with complete data are anal-
ysed. Another approach for dealing with missing data
depends on weighting procedures, where weights are
given for observed units. Imputation techniques con-
stitute yet another common approach for treatment of
missing data, where imputation can be conducted via
single or Multiple Imputation (MI). Single imputation
is defined as replacing each missing value by a sin-
gle value. Single imputation techniques have different
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
types including mean imputation, regression imputa-
tion, and hot-deck imputation, and advanced imputation
techniques such as using an Expectation Maximization
(EM) algorithm to obtain Maximum Likelihood (ML)
estimates [14–16]. Rubin was the first to propose MI as
a technique to address the problem of missing data (see,
e.g., [17–19]). MI has a main notion, which is the re-
placement of each missing value by a set of M plausible
values where each value is drawn from the conditional
distribution for the missing values given the observed
values. The M completed datasets are produced by an
appropriate imputation model, and the method which
is considered suitable for analysis had the data been
complete is then used to analyse each set. The result-
ing M analyses are then combined to give one final
result. MI is most straightforward to use under ignor-
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able missingness mechanisms (MAR and MCAR). If
the missingness is ignorable, the estimates of the sta-
tistical model of interest resulting from MI often have
the desirable properties of being unbiased, consistent,
and asymptotically normal [20,21]. Nevertheless, MI
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is quite possible to be applied when data is Missing
Not At Random (MNAR), however the resulting esti-
mates are not proved to have the same properties. For
more details about types of missingness: MCAR, MAR,
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and MNAR; see [13,22,23]. Since SM can be viewed
as a problem of missing data [12], many authors have
been using MI in the context of SM. For example, [24]
performed cross survey-MI to combine the regression
estimation where more covariates were found in one
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survey but less in the other. Another MI method used
in SM and proposed by [13] was Multiple Imputation
Chained Equations (MICE).
The most important question raised when consider-
ing SM is how to match the sets of data in a right way.
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One of the first SM attempts is by [25]. He presented
the use of Equivalence Class of the common variables
in two data sources by making a random matching of
(X, Y ) with (X, Z) among “Equivalent” (X, Z)’s that
achieve the closest score. [26,27] opposed Okner’s ap-
proach when assuming that Y and Z, given X, are in-
dependent and stressed that there is a need for a the-
ory of matching. [28] supported and defended the inde-
pendence assumption, whereas [29] discussed that this
conditional independence assumption is valid in many
cases. Through a second round of discussion, [30–32]
showed some improvements in the method of equiv-
alence classes. Again, [33] stressed his belief that the
methods proposed will not perform well under condi-
tional independence assumption.
Various developments to SM techniques have been
discussed in the literature and many applications have
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used SM, depending on the Conditional Independence
Assumption (CIA) proposed by [25]. For instance, [34]
assumed CIA when developing a theoretical framework
for SM. [35] applied sample likelihood approach in
case of CIA to statistically match two independent sam-
ples. Whereas, [36] proposed a mixed procedure based
on multinomial logistic regression models depending
on CIA. [37] used CIA to combine the information of
two different datasets: Statistics on Income and Living
Condition, and Household Budget Survey.
Recently, [38] used a mixed procedure of SM based
on CIA to integrate two different surveys: Statistics
on Income and Living Condition, and Household Bud-
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get Survey. In Section 3, we will present classical ap-
proaches in SM showing drawbacks of these proce-
dures.
3. Traditional statistical matching methods
In their comprehensive book about SM, [11] classify
SM techniques into procedures developed under CIA,
and SM procedures in light of auxiliary information.
For general review about CIA, see [11,39]. In this sec-
tion, we present classical SM techniques under CIA
and with auxiliary information using the same structure
proposed by [11]. In addition, we consider uncertainly
analysis for SM methods. With this framework of the
three settings, different estimation approaches are con-
sidered such as parametric, nonparametric, mixed and
Bayesian.
3.1. Statistical matching methods under conditional
independence assumption
Traditionally, the framework of SM occurs when only
file A and file B are available. File A contains variables
X and Y , while file B contains variables X and Z. The
match is done based on the set of common variables X
in file A and file B. All SM techniques throughout this
section assume conditional independence of Y and Z
given X. In other words, variable X is the only source
of association between data in files A and B. In partic-
ular, the CIA implies that the joint probability density
function for X, Y and Z can be factorized as follows:
f (x, y, z) = f (y, z|x)f (x) = f (y|x)f (z|x)f (x), (1)
where; fY |X is the conditional distribution of Y given
X, fZ|X is the conditional distribution of Z given X,
and fX is the marginal distribution of X.
To estimate Eq. (1), we need information about the
marginal distribution of X and the partial relationship
1394 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
between X and Y on one hand and that of X and Z on
the other hand. In fact, such information can be found
in different samples A and B.
3.1.1. Parametric approaches
The SM parametric methods are mainly based on
two steps. First, it necessarily requires the specifica-
tion of a model; then parameters have to be estimated.
The method of estimation depends on the specific SM
framework. There are two main approaches for para-
metric SM; namely micro and macro approaches.
In the macro case, the goal is to estimate the param-
eter of interest, e.g. the correlation coefficient between
Y and Z or the contingency table Y × Z in case of
categorical data. The only parameter that cannot be es-
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timated is the covariance between Y and Z, as they are
not jointly found in one data source. One possibility
to derive an estimate of such a covariance is provided
by assuming the conditional independence of Y and Z
given the X variable. However, the estimates from dif-
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ferent independent samples may lead to a variance co-
variance matrix (σ̂) that is not positive semi-definite. To
avoid such a problem, Maximum Likelihood Estimation
(MLE) can be used for partially observed data [11]. In
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case of categorical variables, the parameters of interest
are the joint probabilities of X, Y , and Z, which can be
obtained using maximum likelihood too (see [40–42]).
The goal of micro approaches for SM is to create a
complete set of data for (X, Y, Z), by completing the
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missing values in files A and B. More precisely, miss-
ing Z in file A and missing Y in file B are filled in.
Accordingly, there are essentially two main parametric
micro methods; conditional mean matching and draws
based on a predictive distribution. The conditional mean
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matching is the most popular method in the case of con-
tinuous variables. This method is based on regression
imputation. The values are imputed using the estimated
regression functions of Z on X, and Y on X, respec-
tively. Since X is a random variable, we consider the
conditional mean of Z given X = x,
(A)
E(Z|X = xa ) = ẑprimary = α̂Z + β̂ZX xa ,
a = 1, 2, . . . , nA , (2)
where the estimated parameters values β̂ZX and α̂Z are
the parametric macro ML estimates. Thus, a complete
(A)
file A is obtained after adding ẑprimary . Similarly, file B
is filled with the following predicted values:
(B)
E(Y |X = xb ) = ŷprimary = α̂Y + β̂Y X xb ,
b = 1, 2, . . . , nB . (3)
Notice that when dealing with categorical variables,
the variables are replaced by the indicator variable of
each category. [43] showed that the conditional mean
matching has the problem of leading to lack of variabil-
ity in the imputations with respect to the same condi-
tioning variables and hence leads to underestimation of
the covariance between Y and Z. To preserve variability
and to avoid this underestimation, [22] suggest to add a
random residual to each predicted value. They referred
to this approach as stochastic regression imputation.
Like conditional mean matching method, random draws
can be obtained by replacing the parameter values with
their ML estimates. Therefore, file A is filled in with
Y
the values
(A)
ẑprimary = α̂Z + β̂ZX xa + εa ,
a = 1, 2, . . . , nA , (4)
where εa is a normally distributed residual N (0, σ̂Z|X )
2
with σ̂Z|X = SZZ,A − β̂ZX2
SXX,A . Similarly, file B is
filled in with the values
(B)
ŷPrimary = α̂Y + β̂Y X xb + εb ,
b = 1, 2, . . . , nB , (5)
where εb is a normally distributed residual N (0, σ̂Y |X )
with σ̂Y2 |X = SY Y,A − β̂Y2 X SXX,A .
3.1.2. Nonparametric approaches
Nonparametric approaches to SM do not explicitly
refer to a model. As for the parametric case, there are
two cases in nonparametric approaches; namely macro
and micro.
In nonparametric macro approaches, as mentioned
before, the goal is to estimate the joint distribution
of X, Y and Z. There are a number of nonparametric
approaches that can be used in this sense. Three ap-
proaches that are mentioned in the literature are em-
pirical cumulative distribution function, kernel density
estimator and k Nearest Neighbour (kNN). For more
details, see [44,45]. The previous three methods focus
on the distribution of (X, Y, Z) either jointly using the
cumulative distribution function, or as a product of con-
ditional and marginal distributions. However, one may
be interested in certain characteristics of this distribu-
tion. The conditional expectations of Z given X, and
Y given X are considered among the most important
characteristics of interest. These can be derived using
a nonparametric regression function. Nonparametric
regression is a nonparametric method for describing
the relation between a response variable and one or
more predictors. Nonparametric regression techniques
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review 1395

Table 2
include kernel smoothing, local polynomial regression, Data of file A and file B
spline based regression models, and regression trees.
File A
All these nonparametric techniques result in finding the
Unit Weight wA Gender X1A Age X2A Profit Y
conditional expectation of Z given X or Y given X, A1 3 1 42 9.156
which is the most important characteristic of interest A2 3 1 35 9.149
(for details see [46]). A3 3 0 63 9.287
In nonparametric micro approaches, a complete A4 3 1 55 9.512
A5 3 0 28 8.484
dataset for files A and B can be obtained without consid- A6 3 0 53 8.891
ering any specific parametric distribution for the vari- A7 3 0 22 8.425
ables X, Y and Z. In a nonparametric micro setting, A8 3 1 25 8.867
this can be done by applying nonparametric imputation File B
procedures, known as hot deck imputation methods. Unit Weight wB Gender X1B Age X2B Income Z
Such procedures are defined by replacing missing val- B1 4 0 33 6.932

Y
B2 4 1 52 5.524
ues in file A by values that are found in file B based on B3 4 1 28 4.224
some matching criteria, and vice versa. The advantage B4 4 0 59 6.147

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of using hot deck imputation procedures is that they B5 4 1 41 7.243
do not need any specification of a family of distribu- B6 4 0 45 3.230
tions. Also, there is no need to estimate the distribu- Source: [13,49], Gender: 1 = male; 0 = Female; Population size is
24; wA = 24 = 3;wB = 24 = 4.
tion function or any of its characteristics. Most of these 8 6

procedures are based on filling in the dataset chosen as

the “recipient”, with the values of the variable which
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is available only in the other dataset, the “donor” file.
In the following, we suppose that file A is the recipient
whereas file B is the donor such that the sample size
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ple case of a a single continuous variable X, distance
hot deck method is based on measuring the absolute
difference between a record in file A and another in file
B as

of the recipient file nA , is less than the sample size of dab∗ = |xA B A B
a − xb∗ | = min |xa − xb |, (6)
16b6nB
the donor file nB ; i.e nA < nB . [42] stated three hot
deck methods that are used in SM: Distance Hot Deck, where; b∗ is the b∗th unit in file B, achieving the mini-
Random Hot Deck and Rank Hot Deck. Such methods mum distance between xA B
a and xb . In case of more than
may be regarded as the nonparametric counterparts of one variable X, this distance is for example measured
micro parametric approaches that are presented above. by the Mahalanobis distance.
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Random hot deck is performed by selecting a donor
record in file B randomly and the value of Zobserved
in file B is assigned to the Zmissing in recipient file A
and this is done for each record in file A [42,47,48].
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Distance hot deck can be performed using a con-
strained or an unconstrained approach both introduced
by [49]. The unconstrained approach has an objective
of finding the case on the target file that is most similar

A necessary step when making the random selection
is that the units in files A and B are grouped into do-
nation classes. Donation classes are defined according
to the values of one or more categorical variables cho-
sen within the common set of variables in the datasets
A and B (for instance gender, region etc.). Once files
are grouped into homogenous subsets, those subsets
are referred to as donation classes. Then, for a given
record in file A belonging to a given group (say males),
a donor record in file B is randomly chosen from within
the same group (males in B).
Distance hot deck method, which is widely used in
imputation of missing data, is performed by choosing
the value of Zobserved in file B to be assigned to a recip-
ient record in file A based on the closest distance, ac-
cording to a set of common variables X, after splitting
units in files A and B into donation classes. For the sim-
to each case on the other file. Suppose we have file A
that contains a set of variables: gender X1 , age X2 and
profit Y . Whereas, file B contains gender X1 , age X2
and Income Z (see Table 2). The files A and B have
no units in common, but they have the variables gender
and age in common. The process of creating a matched
file A with variables X1 , X2 , Y and Z using an uncon-
strained method is done by finding for each A unit the
same gender B unit that is closest in age (e.g., A1 is
male and 42, and the best matching B unit is B5, who
is male and 41; B5 is also the closest match to A2). The
result of matched file A is given in Table 3. To create
a matched B file, one can use the same procedure to
obtain matches for B units from file A. On the other
hand, constrained distance hot deck approach starts by
making an exploded file for both files A and B. The
exploded file depends on sampling weights wA and wB ,
1396 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review

Table 3 Table 4
Statistical matching using unconstrained approach Reordered exploded file A and file B for constrained approach
Unit Gender X1A Age X2A Age X2B Profit Y Income Z Unit i Gender X1A Age X2A Unit i Gender X1B Age X2B
A1 1 42 41 9.156 7.243 A7 0 22 B1 0 33
A2 1 35 41 9.149 7.243 A7 0 22 B1 0 33
A3 0 63 59 9.287 6.147 A7 0 22 B1 0 33
A4 1 55 52 9.512 5.524 A5 0 28 B1 0 33
A5 0 28 33 8.484 6.932 A5 0 28 B6 0 45
A6 0 53 59 8.891 6.147 A5 0 28 B6 0 45
A7 0 22 33 8.425 6.932 A6 0 53 B6 0 45
A8 1 25 28 8.867 4.224 A6 0 53 B6 0 45
Source: [13,49]. A6 0 53 B4 0 59
A3 0 63 B4 0 59
A3 0 63 B4 0 59
that – assuming that datasets A and B have both been A3 0 63 B4 0 59
obtained by simple random sampling from the popula- A8 1 25 B3 1 28

Y
tion – are calculated by dividing the population size by A8 1 25 B3 1 28
A8 1 25 B3 1 28
the number of units in each file. Then, every unit in files A2 1 35 B3 1 28

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A and B is duplicated wA and wB times respectively to A2 1 35 B5 1 41
get the same number of population size N in each file A2 1 35 B5 1 41
A1 1 42 B5 1 41
A and file B. The units in exploded file A and exploded
A1 1 42 B5 1 41
file B are then reordered according to the common vari- A1 1 42 B2 1 52
ables X1 and X2 . This procedure is shown in detail in A4 1 55 B2 1 52
A4 1 55 B2 1 52
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Table 4. Each unit in the reoredered exploded file A is
A4 1 55 B2 1 52
matched to the corresponding reordered exploded file B
Source: [13,49].
to minimize the distance measure in X space between
the exploded file A and exploded file B. For instance, Table 5
OR

unit A7 is matched three times with unit B1, unit A5 is Statistical Matching using Constrained Approach
matched once with unit B1 and twice with unit B6, and Units Gender X1A Age X2A Age X2B Profit Y Income Z
so on. The results of SM using a constrained method A1, B2 1 42 52 9.156 5.524
are summarised as shown in Table 5. A1, B5 1 42 41 9.156 7.243
Rank hot deck, which was first introduced by [50], is A2, B3 1 35 28 9.149 4.223
A2, B5 1 35 41 9.149 7.243
performed by separately ranking the units with respect
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A3, B4 0 63 59 9.287 6.147

to X values in both files. Files A and B are matched in A4, B2 1 55 52 9.512 5.524
this method by associating the records with the same A5, B1 0 28 33 8.494 6.932
rank. If files A and B contain a different number of A6, B4 0 53 59 8.891 6.147
A6, B6 0 53 45 8.891 3.230
records, matching is done using the empirical cumula- A7, B1 0 22 33 8.425 6.932
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tive distribution function of X. This cumulative distri- A7, B6 0 22 45 8.425 3.230

bution is calculated for the two files Pas follows: A8, B3 1 25 28 8.867 4.223
nA
A
In the recipient file; F̂X (x) = n1A a=1 I(xa 6 x), Source: [13,49].
x ∈ X, where I is the indicator function taking the
value 1 when xa 6 x, and 0 otherwise. 3.1.3. Mixed approaches
In the donor file; F̂X B
PnB
(x) = n1B b=1 I(xb 6 x), Mixed approaches in SM depend on predictive mean
x ∈ X, where I is the indicator function taking the matching imputation [11]. These are two-step proce-
value 1 when xb 6 x, and 0 otherwise. dures which depend on a mixture of parametric and
After that, every a = 1, . . . , nA is linked with that nonparametric methods. A SM mixed method consists
record b∗ in file B according to the following condition: of the following two steps:
A B
1. A model is fitted and all its parameters are esti-
|F̂X (xa ) − F̂X (xb∗ )| mated.
A
= min |F̂X B
(xa ) − F̂X (xb )|. (7) 2. A nonparametric method is used to create the
16b6nB complete dataset.
Then again as in Distance Hot Deck, the value of Z There exist various methods for mixed SM depending
observed for the donor unit in file B, is assigned to the on the type of variables, whether they are continuous or
missing Z on the recipient unit in file A. categorical.
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
In case of mixed approaches under CIA for continu-
ous variables X, Y and Z, steps for SM procedure are
as follows:
1. Estimate the regression parameters of Z on X
from file B.
2. For each unit a = 1, . . . , nA , a primary value
(A)
ẑprimary is imputed in file A using the estimated
regression function from the first step.
(B)
3. For each unit a = 1, . . . , nA , a live value zlive
th
from file B is assigned to the a record in file A
using a convenient distance hot deck, considering
(A)
the primary value ẑprimary .
In the same manner, Y is estimated (using data from
file A) and imputed in file B.
Using the above steps, similar procedures were pro-
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posed by [11,34,43,51,52]. The main difference be-
tween their procedures lies within the parameter esti-
mates they use. Also, they differ in the matching step;
unconstrained or constrained approach. Another differ-
ence is that Rubin’s procedure suggests concatenating
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the resulting statistically matched files and assigning
−1 −1 −1
the weight (wA + wB ) to each unit, where wA
and wB are the weights corresponding to files A and B,
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respectively.
Analogous to SM for continuous variables, two steps
are applied within the mixed approach when categor-
ical variables are considered. These are the loglinear
regression model step, and the matching step. For more
details about this method, see [42].
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3.1.4. Bayesian approaches
[13] presented three procedures for SM using
Bayesian approaches. First, the author followed [52] by
presenting a frequentist regression imputation method
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with random residual, known as RIEPS. This procedure
is based on drawing the missing values from their con-
ditional predictive distribution which is equivalent to
the imputed values in Eqs (2) and (3), but after consid-
ering the residual in the imputation process. Then, [13]
presented the Bayesian version of RIEPS. She presented
a Non Iterative Bayesian based Imputation Procedure
(NIBAS) for univariate and multivariate cases. The for-
mat of the procedure is the same for both the univari-
ate and multivariate cases. The only difference is in
the mathematical formulation of matrices that are used,
and in the posterior distributions of variables. In this
approach, instead of estimating the parameters like the
above approaches, she performed random draws for
them using a Bayesian version. [13] first assumed a
general linear model for both datasets as suggested by
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Rubin’s procedure. Then, derived different posterior
distributions for the parameters. Accordingly, she pro-
posed the following MI algorithm based on a Bayesian
approach by the following steps:
1. Perform a regression for each dataset and compute
the OLS estimates β̂Y X and β̂ZX .
2. Calculate each sum of squared residual er-
rors; (z − XA β̂ZX )0 (z − XA β̂ZX ) and (y −
XB β̂Y X )0 (y−XB β̂Y X ), where y = (y1 , y2 , . . . ,
ynA )0 , z = (z1 , z2 , . . . , znB )0 .
3. Choose a value for ρZY |X from its prior or set of
arbitrary levels.
4. Conduct random draws for the parameters from
Y
their observed data posterior distribution.
In a nutshell, this procedure depends on random
draws for the parameters, instead of estimating them
from the data. This algorithm is repeated m times which
yields m imputed datasets. Then, the results are com-
bined. For more details, see [13].
The second method presented by [13] was the Nor-
mal Approach (NORM). This method is mainly based
on data augmentation algorithm, in case of a normal
model. The normal data model is used because it is
the most flexible in terms of the number of variables
included in any realistic matching task. NORM uses a
data model much like NIBAS. The difference between
NIBAS and NORM is that NORM uses the paramet-
ric data model in case of complete data, whereas NI-
BAS uses the observed data posterior distribution. Since
NORM method needs complete data, an algorithm that
handles the missing data is needed, namely data aug-
mentation. The data augmentation algorithm can be
viewed as a Bayesian version of the EM algorithm for
dealing with missing data [53].
The third method proposed by [13] was MICE, an ab-
breviation for Multiple Imputation Chained Equations.
MICE, a common modification in MI, is an iterative
method that considers the imputation problem as a set
of estimations where each variable takes its turn in be-
ing regressed on the other variables. MICE, first intro-
duced by [54], is a flexible method that handles various
types of variables, since each variable is imputed using
its own imputation model [55]. This procedure is called
regression switching, chained equations, or variable-
by-variable Gibbs sampling [54]. [13] employed MICE
within a Bayesian estimation framework as a tool for
SM. For more details about MICE, see [13,54]. [56]
compared, through a simulation study, the different
Bayesian approaches described above. Using another
simulation study, [57] found out that the MI approaches
are superior to the traditional SM procedures.
1398 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
3.2. Statistical matching methods with auxiliary
information
The problem with the conditional independence as-
sumption of the variables Y and Z given X, is that
it may or may not hold. Moreover, it is not a testable
assumption. Thus, the use of existing auxiliary infor-
mation can be very helpful. Auxiliary information can
take one of the following two forms:
– The existence of a third data source C that contains
variables (X, Y, Z) or just (Y, Z).
– Parameter estimates of the joint distribution of
(Y, Z) or the conditional distribution (Y, Z)|X;
like for example covariance σY Z ; correlation co-
efficient ρY Z or partial correlation coefficient
ρY Z|X ; a contingency table of Y × Z; etc.
We will follow the same structure as that given for
CIA, to present different approaches for SM with aux-
iliary information, which was proposed by [11].
C
3.2.1. Parametric approaches
In case of a parametric macro approach, the auxiliary
information may be an additional data source or using
an external estimate. In case of having an additional
OR
data source C, containing nC i.i.d. observations, pa-
rameters can be estimated by concatenating all the data
sources (A∪B ∪C) and then by exploiting all the avail-
able information. In case of using external estimates,
it seems to be quite difficult as it requires validation
TH
of some compatibility assumptions that is not always
straightforward to check, or that is not easy to verify.
In case of parametric micro approach and having
external information, a model is assumed for the joint
distribution of X, Y and Z. After that, the parameters
AU
are estimated by exploiting all the available informa-
tion (data sources and auxiliary information). When pa-
rameters can be estimated uniquely as in Section 3.1.1,
then the estimates are used to generate a complete data
source using conditional mean matching or draws from
the predicted distribution [42,52]. The additional infor-
mation only affects the estimation stage, but no change
happens in the next step when generating the synthetic
dataset. Another difference occurs in the equation for
conditional mean matching and draws from the pre-
dicted distribution. Under CIA, the Eqs (2) and (3) in
Section 3.1.1 were reduced and β̂ZY ya , β̂Y Z zb were
omitted, respectively from the following more general
case with auxiliary information:
(A)
ẑPrimary = α̂Z + β̂ZX xa + β̂ZY ya ,
a = 1, . . . , nA ,
(B)
ŷPrimary = α̂Y + β̂Y X xb + β̂Y Z zb ,
b = 1, . . . , nB . (9)
Analogous to Section 3.1.1 under CIA, we get the
equations for the method of draws from the predicted
distribution by adding an error term as follows:
(A)
ẑPrimary = α̂Z + β̂ZX xa + β̂ZY ya + εa ,
a = 1, . . . , nA , (10)
(B)
ŷPrimary = α̂Y + β̂Y X xb + β̂Y Z zb + +εb ,
b = 1, . . . , nB , (11)
where; εa is a random residual drawn from N (0,
Y
2
σ̂Z|XY ), and εb is a random residual drawn from
N (0, σ̂Y2 |XZ ). The regression coefficients β̂Y X and
OP
β̂ZX are obtained from files A and B respectively.
Whereas, β̂ZY and β̂Y Z are obtained from file C.
3.2.2. Nonparametric approaches
In case of a nonparametric macro setting, the only
type of auxiliary information available is that from an
additional data source C. There are two cases for aux-
iliary information available from an additional data
source C. First, when all variables are available in C.
The marginal X distribution can be estimated either
using kernels or k Nearest Neighbour methods depend-
ing on the whole sample A ∪ B ∪ C. For more on ker-
nel estimators, see [58–60]. The second case is when
only Y and Z are available in C with missing X. Al-
though nonparametric methods should be used when
we have a complete data source i.e file C containing
(X, Y, Z), [61] confirm the possibility of using ker-
nel estimators of distribution functions when the data
source is not complete i.e file C containing only Y and
Z. In this case, [40] proposes using k Nearest Neigh-
bour in the EM algorithm for continuous variables, or
the counterpart of EM; which is Iterative Proportional
Fitting algorithm (IPF), in case of categorical variables.
In case of a nonparametric micro setting, auxiliary
information is solely represented by an additional data
source C. This procedure is presented by [40] in two
steps as follows:
(C)
Step 1: Impute a live z value zlive using file C as a
donor. This live value, that is observed in file
C, is then assigned to the ath record in file A
according to the nearest distance:
(A) (A) (C)
– dac ((xobserved , yobserved ), (xobserved ,
(C)
yobserved )), if C contains X, Y and Z;
(A) (C)
– dac (yobserved , yobserved ), if C contains Y
(8) and Z only.
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
(B)
Step 2: The final live z value zlive is imputed us-
ing file B as a donor, then it is assigned
to the ath record in file A with distance
(A) (C) (B) (B)
dab ((xobserved , zlive ), (xobserved , zobserved )).
In particular, if C is a sample that is large enough and
the information it provides can be considered ”reliable”,
then the SM procedure can be limited to Step 1 outlined
above; that is imputing Z in A using C as donor.
An alternative procedure based on loglinear mod-
els called categorical restriction approaches that was
introduced by [42].
3.2.3. Mixed approaches
Analogous to CIA in Section 3.1.3, mixed ap-
proaches contain the same two steps in case of auxiliary
OP
information. First step is to estimate model parameters,
followed by the second step where a nonparametric
method is used.
The same procedure outlined in Section 3.1.3 for SM
under CIA can be used here with continuous variables.
C
The only difference here is in the way of estimation
as information about parameter estimates is available,
either from additional data source C or from an external
estimate (i.e. information about ρY Z|X ). In this context,
OR
SM takes place using two steps:
Step 1: The mixed procedure remains unchanged,
focusing on imputing primary values us-
ing the same regression models as in equa-
tions 10 and 11.
TH
Step 2: Final nonparametric imputation: a live z
(B)
value; zlive , that is observed in file B is
then assigned for each ath record in file A,
corresponding to the closest Mahalanobis
distance computed using observed and pri-
AU
mary imputed values for Y and Z; namely d
(A) (A) (B) (B)
[(yObserved , ẑPrimary ), (ŷPrimary , zObserved )].
[34,51] proposed a similar procedure that permits
the incorporation of additional information represented
by the correlation coefficient ρ∗Y Z , where parameters of
the normal distribution are estimated by their sample
counterparts.
In case of categorical variables, a number of mixed
methods are introduced in [42]. For more details,
see [11].
3.2.4. Bayesian approaches
The Bayesian approach is especially useful when
dealing with auxiliary information. [13] considered a
Bayesian approach for SM when an additional data
source C is available. This additional dataset C can be
1399
used for estimating the conditional association of Y and
Z. That is; to use the value ρ∗Y Z|X estimated from file
C, as the prior conditional correlation instead of setting
a prior value for ρY Z|X as in Section 3.1.4. After that,
the algorithm will perform as outlined in Section 3.1.4,
exploiting all the available information. Therefore, the
posterior distribution of all the parameters is changed
according to ρ∗Y Z|X .
3.3. Uncertainty analysis
In practice, CIA rarely holds true, and results relying
on CIA may be misleading. If CIA is not valid, bias will
Y
exist among variables of interest after applying the SM
process. This issue is solvable with the help of auxiliary
information when available [42,62]. When CIA is not
valid and auxiliary information is not available, which is
often the case, uncertainty analysis may be performed.
Statistical matching is essentially related to an iden-
tification problem concerning the association of vari-
ables not found together in the same dataset. As known,
CIA cannot be validated from the observed data. By
depending on the explanatory power of the common
variables X, a smaller or wider range of admissible
values of the unconditional association of Y and Z can
then be estimated. In official statistics this kind of ap-
proach is named uncertainty analysis [63]. In other ap-
plication domains, it takes other names, for instance it
is known as partial identification in econometrics and
social sciences [64–67].
Uncertainty in SM can be viewed as a special case
of estimation problem as there is a kind of uncertainty
about the joint model of (X, Y, Z). In case of continu-
ous data, uncertainty is quantified by taking the range
of an association parameter (e.g. the correlation coef-
ficient) between the variables that are not jointly ob-
served. Whereas, in case of categorical data (e.g. k-way
contingency tables), upper and lower bounds are set on
cell counts. Basically, uncertainty analysis is concerned
with identifying which values of the target parameters
are compatible with the available data. To know more
about uncertainty and different methods released for
uncertainty, see [57,68–76].
Uncertainty analysis can be performed in two set-
tings either parametric or nonparametric. According
to parametric setting, the result of the identification
problem is handled by considering ranges of plausible
values of the missing records, extracted from models
fitted to the available sample information. Then, in-
tervals are defined by these ranges and are known as
uncertainty intervals [13,34,43,52]. According to non-
1400 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
parametric setting, uncertainty for SM is considered
in [69,76,77]. Uncertainty in a nonparametric setting is
still described by a class of models, or specifically, by a
class of distributions, for (X, Y, Z). If compared to the
parametric case (either multinormal or multinomial),
there are two main sources of trouble. First, since the
class of distributions for (X, Y, Z) are not identified
by a finite number of parameters, we need a technical
tool to describe them. Second, in order to measure, to
quantify uncertainty, we need to “summarise”the class
of all possible distributions for (X, Y, Z) with a single
number. An even more important problem is the quan-
tification of the uncertainty in the presence of auxiliary
information on the model [78,79].
Recently, [80] performed a unique analysis to choose
the matching variables by searching for the common
OP
variables X that are the most effective in reducing the
uncertainty between Y and Z. Also, it is taken into
consideration not to select too many common vari-
ables to avoid a large number of parameters to esti-
mate. Other measures of uncertainty are considered
C
in [81,82]. [35] discussed the uncertainty in SM un-
der informative sampling designs considering the three-
variate normal case. [83] proposed the use of graphical
models to deal with the SM uncertainty for multivariate
OR
categorical variables.
4. Developments in statistical matching methods
In addition to the traditional SM techniques outlined
TH
in Section 3, there are a number of alternative methods
that have been introduced in the literature. This section
will present an overview of some of these methods.
4.1. Propensity scores method
AU
[84,85] were among the first who proposed the use
of propensity score matching. Propensity scores are
predicted values from logistic regression, where the ef-
fect of a certain group or treatment is estimated, ac-
counting for covariates. The matching process is done
based on these scores. The main advantage of using
this method in SM, is to reduce the matching to one
constructed propensity score, which is a very great ad-
vantage, especially when there are a large number of
common variables X. The methodology of constrained
statistical matching, using estimated propensity scores
was developed by [86] to produce the required synthetic
data sets. [87,88] outlined three steps for propensity
score matching:
1. Data preparation and harmonization step: Harmo-
nization step involves identification of all com-
mon variables X shared by both datasets A and
B, before data integration takes place. In the har-
monization step, common variables in the two
datasets should have the same categories. If the
two similar variables cannot be harmonized, they
have to be discarded. Also, common variables X
should not include missing values. If A and B are
representative samples of the same population,
the common variables in the two datasets should
have the same marginal/joint distribution.
2. Weight adjustments step: In this step, the sum of
the attached weights for records (weighted popu-
lation totals) in the donor file is adjusted to make
Y
them comparable with those in the recipient file.
3. Estimation of the propensity scores step: In this
step, estimation of the propensity scores for
matching process is done by creating an outcome
variable R, where R = 1 for all records in the re-
cipient file and R = 0 for all records in the donor
file. The two files are joined by stacking their
records. A logistic regression model is then per-
formed, in which R is the dependent variable and
the independent variables are the selected com-
mon variables X. The common variables X are
selected carefully in the logistic regression model
for measuring propensity scores to maximize ex-
planatory power. This is because the validity of
propensity score statistical matching relies on the
power of the common variables to act as good
predictors that can be transformed into effective
propensity scores. The propensity score is defined
as:
e(zi ) = P (R = 1|X = xi ) = f (x0i β), (12)
the conditional probability of unit i to belong to a
certain group (R = 1) given the covariates (X =
x). The estimated propensity score is defined as,
1
ê(zi ) = f (x0i β̂) = 0
. (13)
1 + e−xi β̂
The individual propensity scores ê(zi ) are the pre-
dicted values from the logistic regression output for β.
Having calculated propensity scores, all units in each
file are sorted in ascending order according to their
respective propensity scores ê(zi ). For the two sorted
data sets with respect to propensity scores, a cumula-
tive weight variable is created. This cumulative weight
is then sorted in descending order. Under this sorting
scheme, units with larger weights in the donor file are
assigned to multiple units in the recipient file until all
of their weight is used up. If all of the units in both
files did not match, additional estimation of propensity
scores is performed.
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
On the contrary, [89] opposed using propensity
scores for SM justifying their opinion by stating that
the procedure ignores the measurements of matching
variables X, and this may lead to increased bias. They
claimed that measurements of matching variables is less
transparent with propensity score matching than with
other methods of matching. Therefore, they suggested
a set of precautions for using propensity score match-
ing to avoid as much as possible of the imbalance of
matching resulting from this method.
4.2. Statistical matching using fractional imputation
method
[90,91] proposed fractional imputation, a compara-
tively recent form of imputation for handling missing
OP
data. Fractional imputation can be handled in two set-
tings either parametric or nonparametric. According to
the parametric approach for generating imputed values,
it is performed using EM algorithm which is a popular
tool for finding the MLE for parameters of the model. In
C
fractional imputation, the E-step can be approximated
by the weighted mean of the imputed data likelihood
where the fractional weights are computed from the
current value of the parameter estimates. Using frac-
OR
tional imputation, numerous imputed values with frac-
tional weights are generated for each unit containing
missing data. Each fractional weight indicates the con-
ditional probability of imputed value given observed
data. For instance, the following two steps should be
TH
considered if we would like to generate the missing z
in file A from the conditional distribution of z given
observed data, i.e. f (z|x, y) ∝ f (y|x, z)f (z|x). First,
generate z ∗ using the estimated fˆa (z|x) from file A un-
der the conditional independence assumption. Next, ac-
AU
cept z ∗ if f (y|x, z ∗ ) is sufficiently large. Imputed val-
ues in f (z|x, y) ∝ f (y|x, z)f (z|x) can be generated
by parametric fractional imputation via EM algorithm
as follows:
1. For each i ∈ A, generate m imputed values
z1∗ , . . . , zm
∗
from fˆb (z|xi ) where fˆb (z|x) is the es-
timated conditional distribution of z given x from
file B.
2. Fractional weight is assigned for the j th imputed
value zij ∗
using
∗ ∗
wij(t) ∝ f (yi |xi , zij ; Ψ̂t ),
Pm ∗
where j=1 wij = 1, Ψt is the parameter(s)
defining the conditional distribution of yt given
y1 , . . . , yt−1 ; and Ψ̂t is its current estimated value.
3. Solve the fractionally imputed score equation for
Ψ to obtain Ψ̂t+1
1401
m m
X X
∗ ∗
wia wij(t) S(Ψ ; xi , zij , yi ) = 0
i∈A j=1
where S(Ψ ; x, z, y) = log f (y|x, z; Ψ )/∂Ψ and
wia is the sampling weight of unit i in file A.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 till convergence.
For nonparametric setting, fractional hot deck impu-
tation is considered; that is a mixed idea of fractional
imputation and hot deck procedure. Instead of generat-
∗
ing zij from fˆa (z|x) which is a parametric setting, hot
deck fractional imputation which is a nonparametric
approach can be used. In this approach, all observed
values of zi in file B are considered as imputed values
Y
and the fractional weights in Step 2 are obtained by
∗ ∗ ∗
wij (Ψ̂t ) ∝ wij0 f (yi |xi , zij ; Ψ̂t ), (14)
∗ fˆb (zj |xi )
where wij0 = Pm ˆ .
k∈A wka fb (zj |xk )
4.3. Statistical matching based on statistical learning
Statistical Learning (SL) refers to a wide set of clas-
sification/regression techniques that “ learn from data”.
These are typically algorithm-based techniques that do
not assume a statistical model. Statistical learning tech-
niques include methods such as classification and re-
gression trees (CART), random forest, . . . , etc. rather
than methods based on fitting stochastic models. Sta-
tistical Learning techniques can be used in statistical
matching to replace methods that use model predic-
tions. Some techniques like Nearest Neighbour distance
hot deck are special cases of a well-known statistical
learning technique called kNN. For more details about
SL techniques, see [92–95]. [11] were first to use SL
techniques in SM. They showed how SL can be used to
pick a subset of matching variables prior to the match-
ing step. Even, when measuring the distance between
the observations in A and those in B, SL techniques
can be useful when employing the nearest neighbour
distance hot deck [96]. The use of SL in SM takes it a
bit further by incorporating other current classification
or regression approaches into SM. [97] showed how
popular SL techniques can be beneficial for matching
purposes. Two different ideas are looked at: (i) integrat-
ing datasets; (ii) assessing the uncertainty. The charac-
teristics of these approaches are investigated by simu-
lation study and application on a real survey data. The
obtained results in his paper are promising, showing
that certain SL approaches can be very successful in
using the given information by already available survey
data, allowing for a reduction in the uncertainty when
using traditional SM techniques. Moreover, [80] com-
1402 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
pared the SL techniques to traditional hot deck methods
to avoid consuming time in selecting the matching vari-
ables that are typically needed in hot deck and to get the
distances between units in file A and potential donors
in file B. [80] showed the superiority of SL techniques
to traditional hot deck methods in two aspects; first the
reduction of time consumed in selecting matching vari-
ables typically needed in hot deck, and second in cal-
culating distances between units in file A and potential
donors in file B.
4.4. Statistical matching using multinomial logistic
regression models
[36] proposed several mixed procedures based on
OP
multinomial logistic regression models depending on
CIA and auxiliary information. First, they proposed two
mixed methods for SM, without auxiliary information
assuming conditional independence. The first approach
utilizing multinomial logistic regression, is a mixed
method that uses distance hot deck imputation. It is
C
based on the following three steps:
1. The probability of the unit being in j th category,
(B)
Π̂j , is estimated from all units in file B, is esti-
OR
mated by fitting a multinomial logistic regression
model in which the common variables X are the
independent variables and the observed variable
Z in file B is the dependent variable.
2. For each unit in file A, the probability of being in
(A)
TH
j th category, Πj , is estimated using the follow-
ing equation;
exp(β̂j0 x)
(A)
Π̂j = PJ−1 ; mial logistic regression model in which X and Z are
1 + i=1 exp(β̂i0 x)
AU
j = 1, . . . , J − 1,
where β̂j0 is obtained from the first step.
3. Distance hot deck approach is applied in which a
value of Z in file B is imputed for file A based on
(A) (B)
the nearest Euclidean distance dab (Π̂j , Π̂j )
and is denoted by Ẑ.
The second mixed method, based on multinomial lo-
gistic regression models under CIA, uses a randomiza-
tion mechanism, and involves the same first and second
steps as the previous method. The only difference is in
the third step as Ẑ for file A is obtained by generating
(A)
a multinomial random variable with probability Πj .
They also extended their method to be used in pres-
ence of auxiliary information. Four versions of this
method were introduced, in presence of auxiliary infor-
mation. The first version has three steps as follows:
1. For file C, fit a multinomial logistic regression
model in which Y is the independent variable and
the observed variable Z in file B is the dependent
variable.
2. For file A, the estimates in the first step are used
(A)
to get Π̂j .
3. For file A, Ẑ is obtained by generating a multino-
(A)
mial random variable with probability Π̂j .
A variation of the above method is to replace the first
step by fitting a multinomial logistic regression model,
in which X and Y are the independent variables and Z
is the dependent variable using file C.
The third variation of this method involves the fol-
Y
lowing six steps:
1. For file C, fit a multinomial logistic regression
model in which Z is the independent variable and
the observed variable Y in file A is the dependent
variable.
2. For file B, the estimates in the first step is used to
(B)
get the probability Π̂j .
3. For file B, Ŷ is obtained by generating a multino-
(B)
mial random variable with probability Π̂j .
4. For file B, fit a multinomial logistic regression
model in which X and Ŷ are independent vari-
ables and the observed variable Z in file B is the
dependent variable.
5. For file A, the estimates in the fourth step are used
(A)
to get probability Π̂j .
6. For file A, Ẑ is obtained by generating a multino-
(A)
mial random variable with probability Π̂j .
The first step can be replaced by fitting a multino-
independent variables and Y is the dependent variable,
using file C, thus giving a fourth version of the proposed
method.
The proposed methods were compared to a random
hot deck procedure via a simulation study. The results
were very similar in the case of CIA. However, the
proposed methods exhibit better performance in case
of auxiliary information, especially with high levels of
association between Y and Z. Also, simulation results
showed that there is no need to have a large size of file
C, therefore the expense of overcoming the CIA would
not be a major worry in practice.
4.5. Mixed integer linear programming procedure
A set of approaches have been raised recently to
tackle the problem of incoherence arising when SM is
considered. A number of authors including [98–101]
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
and [102] applied a mixed integer linear programming
procedure, based on efficient L1 distance minimization,
in the context of SM. [102] dealt with the managing of
inconsistencies inside the SM framework when logical
relations among the variables are present. Incoherence
can arise in the probability evaluations. They used sev-
eral advanced adjustment procedures to remove such
incoherence. They applied these procedures to real data,
and their study found some differences between these
adjustment procedures.
Recently, [98,99] recommended applying a merging
approach for jointly inconsistent probabilistic assess-
ments to the SM problem. The merging technique is
based on an efficient L1 distance minimization through
mixed-integer linear programming, which results in
OP
elicitation of imprecise (lower-upper) probability as-
sessments that are not only feasible but also meaning-
ful. They emphasized how their method is meaning-
ful whenever there are structural zeros among the vari-
ables. Structural zeros is an important feature of survey
data that refers to the existence of impossible combina-
C
tions of variables. For example, in the combinations of
variables of pregnancy status and gender, there should
not exist a pregnant male. For household survey, in the
OR
combinations of variables of relationship and age, there
should not exist a household where a son is older than
his biological father. The presence of these structural
zeros prevents the sure coherence of the merging of
estimates coming from different sources of informa-
tion. Importance of their approach seems to be apparent
TH
whenever there are logical (structural) constraints with
varied sources of information.
4.6. Statistical matching using Bayesian networks
AU
[103] described and discussed first attempts for SM
of discrete data using Bayesian networks. In Bayesian
networks, so-called (directed acyclic) graphs are used
to model the data. Their micro matching approach has
three steps: estimating and combining the (directed
acyclic) graphs for datasets A and B, estimating the cor-
responding local parameters and combining them to the
joint probability distribution, and imputing the missing
values in A and B to obtain the integrated dataset.
Their first attempt of using Bayesian networks en-
couraged a further study into how probabilistic graph-
ical models may be used for SM [104]. In their study,
they considered not only discrete but also continuous
and mixed variables for SM. Further research is also
needed to see if using undirected probabilistic graph-
ical models is more promising. Some of these new
1403
points of research for Bayesian network is considered
in [104]. [104] performed log-linear Markov networks
under the assumption of conditional independence.
Their approach visualizes dependencies among vari-
ables using undirected graphical models, and obtained
a powerful factorization of their joint distribution. It
is utilized to estimate the probability components of
the joint distribution. They embedded the identification
problem of SM into the theory of log-linear Markov
networks and showed an exemplary implementation of
their approach depending on the German General Social
Survey. The findings showed that their suggested SM
Y
approach can reconstruct the joint distribution reason-
ably well. These preliminary findings showed that their
method yields good results. Small differences between
the sample distribution and the distribution estimated
using their SM procedure are particularly encouraging
because they avoided overconfidence by deliberately
not selecting the specific and common variables based
on previous association analysis.
Recently, [83] proposed the use of Bayesian networks
to deal with the SM uncertainty for multivariate categor-
ical variables. The motivation for using Bayesian net-
works in their work is because extra sample information
of qualitative dependencies between the components
of Y and Z can be utilized in SM. Such information
can be used to factorize the joint probability mass func-
tion based on the conditional independencies implied
by the graph. Extra sample information significantly
increases the quality of SM. Because a smaller number
of lower dimension parameters must be estimated, the
representation of the joint probability distribution using
local relationships simplifies both parameter estimation
and SM evaluation in a multivariate context. Further-
more, the graphical model’s modularity enables to cope
with the subgraphs produced by variables related to the
same sample and the subgraphs produced by variables
existing in different samples. Accordingly, parameters
that are influenced by uncertainty are separated from
those that may be directly estimated by sample data.
Computational complexity is thus limited to a subset of
variables. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate
the performance of their suggested approach with and
without auxiliary information and to compare it with
the saturated multinomial model, in terms of uncer-
tainty reduction. Based on real application, the find-
ings demonstrated the practicality of their suggested
approach in real case situations.
1404 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
5. Issues related to statistical matching
5.1. Methods for complex surveys
Complex surveys refer to surveys that involve sam-
pling designs that are not based on simple random se-
lection. These may include many sampling designs such
as probability proportional to size sampling, multistage
sampling, cluster sampling, stratified sampling, etc. . . It
is also very common to combine some of these designs
according to the population under study or the survey
objectives.
In general samples selected using a complex survey
design have many differences if compared with simple
random sampling. The secondary sampling units, in a
OP
multistage sampling design, may show unequal inclu-
sion probabilities; units belonging to the same primary
sampling unit are not independent and usually show an
intraclass correlation. For more details about complex
surveys, see [105].
In the literature, there are some methods raised in
C
SM to deal with complex surveys. These include tradi-
tional micro approaches and SM methods that adjust for
sampling design, proposed by [52,106,107] and [108].
OR
Traditional micro approaches for SM of data from com-
plex sample surveys are usually performed using non-
parametric micro methods such as; nearest neighbour
donor, rank or random hot deck. These methods ne-
glect the sampling design and the weights of the units
in the matching step. After the matching step and filling
TH
the missing values in the recipient file by using one of
these traditional micro approaches, the sampling design
for the recipient data is ready to use it and perform
statistical analysis. [109] compared several traditional
AU
approaches for SM in the context of complex surveys.
Rank and random hot deck approaches appeared to be
efficient in terms of preserving the joint distribution
X × Z in the integrated file A dataset and the marginal
distribution of variable Z after integrating. Whereas,
nearest neighbour donor works admirably only when
constrained matching is used and a design variable is
considered in forming donation classes.
For SM methods that explicitly consider the sam-
pling design and the weights associated with it, there
are Renssen’s method [106]; Rubin’s file concatena-
tion [52] and a method depending on empirical like-
lihood suggested by [107]. A comparison between
Renssen’s and Wu’s approaches with Rubin’s file con-
catenation procedure is found in [110]. In general,
Renssen’s approach relies on a series of calibration’s
weights, that are applied in the two datasets, to achieve
consistency between estimators derived from files A
and B separately. Calibration is a common approach
in sample surveys to derive new weights (for more
details about calibration; see [111]). Rubin’s proce-
dure is the only method that takes the sampling de-
sign into consideration through the concatenation step.
It gives weights for all units in the matched file. The
general steps of Rubin’s procedure are mentioned in
Section 3.1.3. Whereas, [107] proposed his approach
based on empirical likelihood. Unlike other methods,
Wu’s approach, which is used in the context of SM,
guarantees to obtain positive adjusted weights as it is
based on maximum likelihood. Also, his approach is
Y
consistent and efficient compared with other methods
introduced for adjusted weights like methods proposed
in [112,113]. Table 6 summarises advantages and dis-
advantages of SM methods for complex surveys pro-
posed by [52,106,107], in addition to traditional micro
approaches.
Recently, [108] dealt with the problem of SM in case
of complex sample surveys using a nonparametric set-
ting. They proposed to use an iterative proportional fit-
ting algorithm for estimating the distribution function of
variables that are not found together, and demonstrated
how to assess its reliability.
5.2. Practical situations within SM context
One of the situations when SM may need to be ap-
plied is Split Questionnaires Design (SQD). The aim of
SQD is to reduce burden on the respondent by short-
ening questionnaires. Since long questionnaires lead
to deter prospective respondents and cause high non-
response rates, split questionnaires are used as an op-
tion to reduce the pressure on respondents [114–116].
Also, long questionnaires decrease the quality of survey
responses and, hence, lead to low accuracy [117]. To
increase the quality of survey responses, SQD can be
used [118]. [12] discussed a SQD, in which, a sam-
ple m is selected randomly from the target population.
The sample is then split into two independent random
samples ma and mb such that ma ∪ mb = m and
ma ∩ mb = ∅. Accordingly, there are common vari-
ables that appear in the two samples and there exist
distinct variables that appear exclusively in either one
of the two independent samples. This is a clear situation
that requires SM. The SQD yields effects that are close
to those of a complete questionnaire, with one excep-
tion that is the power is reduced since the number of
observations for each variable is reduced [114]. [119]
proposed a matching method to be applied for a SQD,
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review 1405

Table 6
Comparison between different methods of SM in complex surveys
Methods Advantages Disadvantages
– Selection of the matching variables is essential.
Traditional – Very simple and flexible to be performed – Theoretical and practical implications have not been investi-
Approaches gated.
– For estimating characteristics relating to Y , Z, and their
relationship, methods to cope with missing values must be
– It is extremely simple in practice; only the concatenated file considered.
Rubin’s file is used. – The theory is developed to concatenate the theoretic samples
concatenation – More accurate for estimates of X variables. but in practice the available data refer to the respondents
to a survey (final weights incorporate corrections for unit
nonresponse, coverage, . . . ).
– After harmonization, the parameters linked to (X, Y ) on A,
as well as (X, Z) on B, can be directly estimated. – Calibration may fail.

Y
– Facilitates the incorporation of future auxiliary data sources – Managing continuous and categorical variables is complex.
Renssen’s
(file C) into the estimation process. – Imputed micro values for categorical variables are estimated
approach
– Offers micro imputations with a distribution that is usually probabilities, which may be negative or greater than one.

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coherent with respect to the one in the donor file.
– When compared to Renssen’s approach, it is more adaptable – Theory is more complex. A major complexity is required to
(no negative weights; handles mixed type variables). deal with nonproportional stratified sampling.
Wu’s
– It provides a complete framework for inferring from complex – Methods allow combining theoretic samples, but it is difficult
approach
sample survey data. to handle unit nonresponse.
C
based on ordinary least squares. They consider using duce a district-specific synthetic population of individ-
the macro approach of SM under CIA to estimate the uals and households. The wealth index for each house-
joint distribution of all variables of interest, thus obtain- hold within the synthetic population is then estimated
OR

ing an identifiable model given the available data. In
their method, they fit three models to get the production
model with all covariates in common. To validate their
proposed method, they compared its performance with
other methods of imputation such as MICE, CART and
random forest. They found that their proposed method
TH
to impute the closest available records from the 2011
Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. The find-
ings show that the method proposed by [120] achieved
more representative estimates (when compared to di-
rect survey estimates), particularly in areas with small
sample sizes and a small number of population units

for SM has the best performance among other methods with different socio-demographic characteristics.
demonstrated for MI in terms of prediction error and
it does not necessitate the use of a specific imputation 5.3. Essential steps for applying SM in practice
model for missing data.
Another very useful application of SM is combining Some considerations and preprocessing steps are re-
AU

data from sample surveys with census data. Sample sur-
veys can include detailed data about specific issues, that
may not be available via census data. [120] used SM
to combine census data with Demographic and Health
Survey due to the increasing demand for integrating sur-
veys with census data in order to provide richer, more
detailed sources of data. SM methods can be used to
connect records from survey and census data where RL
is impractical due to confidentiality constraints. [120]
created a technique that uses an iterative proportional
updating approach to construct a synthetic population
of individuals and households that is similar to real-
ity. Then, SM is used for imputing survey data to in-
dividuals and households in the synthetic population
using the nearest neighbour approach. To assess this
process, 2011 Bangladesh census data is used to pro-
quired before utilizing SM approaches to integrate two
or more data sources. Assuming that we have two data
files A and B, the following steps are essential for SM:
1. Selection of the target variables Y and Z, i.e.
variables that are not found jointly in two datasets.
2. Data preparation and harmonization step.
3. Selection of matching variables that will be used
in the matching process for the two separate sam-
ple surveys. For the SM process, many common
variables may exist in both files A and B. In prac-
tice, only the most relevant ones from these set of
common variables are employed in the matching
process, which are known as matching variables.
These variables should be chosen using appro-
priate statistical procedures and with the help of
subject matter experts. The appropriate statistical
1406 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
procedures may be descriptive or inferential. For
instance, the easiest approach for identifying the
optimal set of matching variables is to calculate
the measures of pairwise correlation/association
between Y and each of the available predictors
X and between Z and each of the available pre-
dictors X, for files A and B respectively. If the
response variable is continuous, correlation with
predictors can be examined. Also, Spearman’s
rank correlation coefficient can be considered to
find any potential nonlinear relationships.
4. The matching framework should be determined
with respect to the objective of SM; either micro
or macro and also with respect to the appropriate
setting; either parametric, nonparametric, mixed
OP
approach or Bayesian.
5. After deciding the SM framework using the previ-
ous steps, the suitable SM approach is performed
to integrate the two separate datasets.
6. An appropriate quality assessment technique
should be performed to evaluate the dataset after
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matching.
5.4. Statistical matching quality assessment
OR
Having reviewed all the above traditional and recent
developments for SM, maybe the most important ques-
tion to be asked is: How good is the resulting integrated
data? [48] stated two questions about the quality of in-
tegrated data. First, how can we measure the quality of
TH
estimates based on statistical matched data in practice,
i.e. when one does not know the complete data? And
second, can we develop a theoretical model for data
including relations between target variables that enables
us to measure the quality of integrated data?
AU
Quality assessment of joint distribution of vari-
ables that have never been jointly observed is a non-
trivial task [121], and [49] suggested relatively simple
measures of quality assessment of integrated datasets
through a comparison of basic statistics (mean, standard
deviation, . . . etc.) in donor and integrated datasets. [13]
proposed a more complex way of integrated data quality
evaluation, called ‘integration validity’. It is a multilevel
framework for the evaluation of quality in a SM pro-
cedure, based on four levels of validity for a matching
procedure:
1. A reproduction of true but unknown values of Z
of the recipient units.
2. A joint distribution preservation where a true un-
known joint distribution of (X, Y, Z) is preserved
in an integrated dataset.
3. A covariance structure cov(X, Y, Z) is reflected
in the integrated dataset, also the marginal distri-
butions of fXY and fXZ are preserved.
4. The marginal as well as joint distributions of vari-
ables in the donor file are preserved in the inte-
grated file.
The first and third levels of quality are not achievable.
The only way to validate these two levels is using sim-
ulation experiments. The second level may be validated
by auxiliary information. In reality, marginal and joint
distributions in the integrated datasets are derived when
using traditional approaches. This is a minimum crite-
rion to assess the validity of SM technique. This, how-
Y
ever, does not imply the validation of the estimates for
the joint distributions of the variables found separately
in the two datasets.
In practice, the most commonly used quality assess-
ment technique for data resulting from SM is the one
suggested by the German Association of Media Analy-
sis [13], which involves:
1. Comparing the empirical distribution of target
variables included in the integrated file with the
one in the recipient and the donor files,
2. Comparing the joint distributions fX,Z and fX,Y
observed in the recipient and donor files with their
corresponding joint distribution in the integrated
file.
More work still needs to focus on the assessment of
the quality of integrated data, and developing reliable
indicators that can be used in this context.
6. Conclusion and future work
Through this paper, we introduced available methods
in existing literature about SM either under CIA, aux-
iliary information or uncertainty analysis, along with
their drawbacks whenever applicable. Recent contri-
butions and alternative techniques for SM have also
been reviewed. It is noted that available SM procedures
focus more on the case of continuous variables, rather
than categorical data. For future work, it is advised that
studies focus more on categorical data as it can be con-
sidered the most common type of data in most social
surveys. An important result by [57] was, that MI ap-
proaches are superior to the traditional SM procedures.
Consequently, recent MI approaches that are used for
categorical data can be employed in the context of SM.
Latent class models have recently been used for MI,
where they are employed as a tool for estimating the
 I. Lewaa et al. / Statistical matching techniques: A review
density of categorical variables [122,123]. The advan-
tage of using latent class models is that they can be used
for datasets drawn from large-scale studies, where there
is a large number of variables and complex relationship
structures. On the other hand, it is known that when as-
suming CIA in cases where it does not really hold, this
can lead to misleading results. To solve such a problem,
it is suggested by [9,57] to choose the common vari-
ables carefully in a way that already establishes condi-
tional independence, thus inference about the actually
unobserved association becomes valid. In this context,
another advantage of using latent class models is the
conditional independence, that is, the scores of different
items are independent of each other given latent classes.
A new approach for SM of categorical data is currently
OP
being developed by the authors, based on latent class
models within a Bayesian framework. Simulation stud-
ies will be performed to evaluate the performance of
the proposed latent class model in SM, through making
an empirical comparison of several different matching
procedures depending on simulated data.
C
Acknowledgments
OR
The authors are grateful to reviewers for their
valuable comments, which permitted to improve the
manuscript.
TH
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