Developing and implementing a survey on Intermediate Consumption for the service sector in Sweden

1. Developing and implementing a survey on Intermediate Consumption for the service sector in Sweden by Annika Lindblom Fredrik Nilsson Statistics Sweden

2. Survey on Intermediate Consumption • Important input to the National Accounts • No regular data collection in this area • A new survey is to be developed and implemented

3. From the Structural Business Statistics (SBS) we have estimates of total cost specified into: Expenses of Raw Materials and Consumables Expenses for resale Other External Expenses • Other External Expenses in the SBS is further specified intoexpenses for(specific for each sector): - Freight and transports - Temporary manpower - Computer program - Rent for premises - Purchased services and cost of administration - Advertising and PR - Other

4. The new survey • Further specification of the three variables: - Expenses for raw material - Purchased services and cost of administration - Other • Focus on producing estimates of cost distributions instead of producing level estimates • Keep the sample size small (due to response burden) • Coherence between the new survey and the SBS

5. The pilot survey Main objectives of the pilot survey: • the possibility to collect the required information • get feed-back on the questionnaire design • estimate relative distributions of Other External Expenses and Raw Materials from the pilot survey and compare them with the estimated distributions from the SBS

6. The pilot survey covered the following sectors: 51: Wholesale trade and commission trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles 55.1+55.2: Hotels + Camping sites etc. 55.3+55.5: Restaurants + Canteens and catering establishments 64.2: Telecommunications 70: Real estate activities 74.1: Legal, accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities 74.4: Advertising

7. The pilot survey • All active enterprises in the Business Register classified into NACE 51, 55, 642, 741 and 744 (the smallest not included) • Stratification by sector and size • A simple random sample was drawn in each stratum (total sample size 1 020 enterprises) • Voluntary to participate for the enterprises • Remainders by postal mail and telephone

8. The pilot survey • Relative distributions (proportions) in each sector were estimated by a ratio, where numerator and denominator were estimated separately by a Horvitz-Thompson estimator. • Non-response is compensated by re-weighting within each stratum (responding enterprises are seen as a simple random sample within each stratum from the surveyed population)

9. Questionnaire design • Raw materials and consumables • Different approaches to different sectors • Combined Nomenclature • Foreign trade statistics

10. Questionnaire design • Other external expenses • The National Accounts groups of products • General chart of account (BAS) • Requests from the National Accounts

11. Number of responses

12. Distribution of Expenses for raw materials and consumables

13. Proportion of Other external expensesin the SBS and in the TFF

14. Distribution of purchased services and cost of administration

15. Estimated relative distribution of the Other external expenses

16. Conclusions • Collecting data on intermediate consumption for the service sector is feasible • The use of income and cost statements have proven to be successful for the variable Other external expenses • The relative estimated distributions differs between the SBS and the new survey, probably because of measurement problems

17. Future plans • The TFF survey is fully integrated in the SBS from reference year 2006 • One third of the service sectors is to be surveyed each year • Sectors with a large amount of raw materials will get a separate questionnaire