Estimating population size for a continuous time frailty model with covariates in a capture-recapture study.

A continuous time frailty capture-recapture model is proposed for estimating population size of a closed population with the use of observed covariates to explain individuals' heterogeneity in presence of a random effect. A conditional likelihood approach is used to derive the estimate of parameters, and the Horvitz-Thompson estimator is adopted to estimate the unknown population size. Asymptotic normality of the estimates is obtained. Simulation results and a real example show that the proposed method works satisfactorily.