Another Look at Combined Intrablock and Interblock Estimation in Block Designs

The relationships between combined estimators and generalized least squares estimators in block designs are reviewed. Here combined estimators mean the best linear combination of intrablock and interblock estimaters. It is well known that only for balanced incomplete block designs the combined estimators of Yates and of the generalized least squares estimators give the same result. In this paper, a general form of the combined estimators for treatment effects is derived and it can be seen that such estimators are equivalent to the generalized least squares estimators.