Distributionally balanced sampling designs via minimum tactical configurations

Abstract

Distributionally balanced sampling designs are low-discrepancy probability designs obtained by minimizing the expected discrepancy between the auxiliary-variable distribution of a random sample and the target population distribution. Existing constructions rely on circular population sequences, which restrict the design space by forcing samples to be contiguous blocks of a sequence. We propose a new construction based on minimum tactical configurations that removes this topological constraint. The resulting designs are fixed-size, have equal inclusion probabilities, and belong to the class with minimum feasible configuration size. We develop both a simple initialization valid for arbitrary population and sample sizes and a spatial initialization that yields a lower initial expected discrepancy, together with a simulated annealing algorithm for optimization within this class. In simulations and empirical examples, the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art alternatives in terms of distributional fit, balance, and spatial spread.