Abstract
The nested-error regression model is one of the best-known models in small area estimation. A small area mean is often expressed as a linear combination of fixed effects and realized values of random effects. In such analyses, prediction is made by borrowing strength from other related areas or sources and mean-squared prediction error (MSPE) is often used as a measure of uncertainty. In this article, we propose a bias-corrected analytical estimation of MSPE as well as a moment-match jackknife method to estimate the MSPE without specific assumptions about the distributions of the data. Theoretical and empirical studies are carried out to investigate performance of the proposed methods with comparison to existing procedures.