On the comparison of Warner's and unrelated question randomized response plans for estimating sensitive finite population proportions

We consider the problem of estimation of a finite population proportion (P) related to a sensitive attribute under Warner's (1965 Warner, S.L. (1965). Randomized response: A survey technique for eliminating evasive answer bias. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 60:63–69.Taylor &; Francis Online], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]) randomized response plan and the unrelated question plan due to Horvitz et al. (1967 Warner, S.L. (1965). Randomized response: A survey technique for eliminating evasive answer bias. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 60:63–69.Taylor &; Francis Online], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]) and prove that for a given probability sampling design, given any linear unbiased estimator (LUE) of P based on Warner's (1965 Warner, S.L. (1965). Randomized response: A survey technique for eliminating evasive answer bias. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 60:63–69.Taylor &; Francis Online], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]) plan with any given value of the plan parameter, there exists an LUE of P based on the unrelated question plan with a uniformly smaller variance for suitable choices of the plan parameters. Assuming that only the attribute is sensitive but its complement is innocuous, the same is also shown to be true when the plan parameters for the two plans are so chosen so that both offer the same specified level of privacy.