On approximate Monetary Unit Sampling

Monetary Unit Sampling (MUS), also known as Dollar-Unit Sampling, is a popular sampling strategy in Auditing, in which all units are to be randomly selected with probabilities proportional to the book value. However, if units sizes have very large variability, no vector of probabilities exists fulfilling the requirement that all probabilities are proportional to the associated book values. In this note we propose a Mathematical Optimization approach to address this issue. An optimization program is posed, structural properties of the optimal solution are analyzed, and an algorithm yielding the optimal solution in time and space linear to the number of population units is given. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.