Conference on Quality in International Statistics

1. Conference on Quality inInternational Statistics Maurine A Haver Haver Analytics 29 May 2012

2. Haver Analytics High Quality & Timely Data for Global Strategy & Research • Financial Institutions & Money Managers • Central Banks & Other Government Entities • Corporates • Consulting & Nonprofit Research

3. What does “quality” mean? • View of a producer may be very different from that of a user • Users are making decisions or helping others do so • A perfect number in isolation is useless for this purpose

4. Number of Households Total Number of Households Millions • Total Number of Households • Millions • Number of Households.EMF (USECON) POPHM 9204-11203 115 115 110 110 105 105 100 100 Census improvement in methodology 95 95 95 00 05 10 Source: Census Bureau

5. Number of Households with adjustment Total Number of Households Millions • Total Number of Households • - • Millions • - • Number of Households with adjustment.EMF (USECON) POPHM / POPHMJ 7804-11203 120 120 105 105 90 90 Haver Break-Adjusted Series 75 75 80 85 90 95 00 05 10 Source: Census Bureau, Haver Analytics

6. Recommendation Producers should consider restatement of data even when it cannot be done perfectly • Access to underlying micro data should lead to the best estimates • Values can be flagged as not meeting statistical standards

7. What do users want? • Comparability • Timeliness • History • Transparency

8. What do users want? Data Comparability • Often do not investigate differences • Ignore differences even when informed • Greatly appreciate comparability of statistics for Euro Area & EU

9. Recommendation Efforts toward comparability of data should have high priority • Differences in methodology across countries would not lead to flawed analysis • True differences would become more readily apparent

10. Not necessary to give up tables presented in familiar formats • US National Accounts now presented in an “ international style” as well • Bank of Italy presents balance sheets according to their original format and the format adopted by the Eurosystem

11. What do users want? Timeliness • Decisions are made using the figures available at the time. • While users do not want large revisions, most welcome a number that may be revised if it means having it sooner

12. What do users want? History • Models need history. • Users will create it when it isn’t provided using whatever tools and information are at their disposal. • Producers with the micro data are better suited to making these estimates.

13. What do users want? Transparency • Complete meta data and details on methodology • Revisions should include full information on changes in methodology • Method and options selected for seasonal adjustment

14. What do vendors want? • Stability in web sites and database access • Documentation when changes are coming and at least a month of parallel systems • New table layout in advance of release • Data values, not just growth rates • Should be able to calculate reported growth rates from underlying source data

15. Final thoughts • If producers don’t release data, users are going to make it up. • Users and producers need to work together to define the core set of statistics needed to understand the world economy • Collaboration among producers to build a set of comparable statistics is critical