Estimation of Optimum Cluster Size

Several non-linear models have been proposed by different authors for describing the relationship between the variance among clusters and size of clusters. Smith (1938), Jessen (1942) and Hansen et.al. (1953) have proposed non-linear models for different purposes, like obtaining estimates of between clusters variance over a wide range of cluster sizes, rather than for few ones selected for experimentation, for obtaining best size of cluster which provides a minimum variance of sample mean for a given cost also for obtaining optimum cluster size for a fixed variance of the sample mean having minimum cost.