GUIDELINES ON INTEGRATED ECONOMIC STATISTICS Final draft circulated for comments Prepared by Friends of the Chair on Integrated Economic Statistics 2 December 2010 1 2 December 2010 Final Draft circulated for comments. GUIDELINES ON INTEGRATED ECONOMIC STATISTICS Contents Chapter 1. Executive summary (8-15) Chapter 2. Benefits and principles of integrated economic statistics (16-27) Introduction Benefits of integrated economic statistics Policy and other user requirements for integrated economic statistics Conceptual framework of principles of integration of economic statistics The integrated statistical production, including its institutional arrangements and management culture Benefits of achieving integration in the economic statistics production process Case study 1. A core set of consistent and timely economic statistics: integrated economic accounts for the euro area Case study 2. Negative effects of lack of integration: U.S. Great Depression Chapter 3. General guiding principles and building blocks of integrated economic statistics (28-49) The integrated statistical production process Scope of integration and selected domains as primary targets for integration Main building blocks of integration Institutional arrangements Institutional arrangements Countries with centralised systems Countries with decentralised systems Centralisation versus decentralisation Management culture Common concepts, definitions and classifications Business registers and frames Surveys and questionnaire design 2 Use of administrative sources Data editing, linkage and integration Dissemination and communication Case study 1. Integrating agriculture into the national statistical system Case study 2. Integration of monetary and financial statistics in the euro area financial accounts The role and usefulness of standards in integrating economic statistics Standards as agreed concepts, definitions, and classifications Harmonisation among macroeconomic statistics frameworks an with international classifications Harmonisation of business and sectoral statistics standards with macroeconomic standards Accessibility of normative recommendations for the various statistics domains Case study 3. Good practices in the development of international statistical standards Chapter 4. Institutional arrangements and management culture to achieve integration of economic statistics (50-83) Arrangements at national level Institutional arrangements for integration of economic statistics Legislative framework Codes of practice Principles and protocols Protocols for integration of statistics Quality assurance frameworks Management culture Strategic planning Organisational structure Process management Human resource issues Coordination of statistical activities Coordination across agencies 3 Advisory committees Relationship management Memorandum of Understanding Service level agreements Cross-agency teams Financial resources Costs and benefits Case study 1. UK Code of Practice Case study 2. Statistics Netherlands - Chain management Case study 3. Statistics New Zealand – Using business process modeling to enhance integration International arrangements for the integration of economic statistics Case study 1. The Inter-Secretariat Working Group on National Accounts Case study 2. The Task Force on Finance Statistics Case study 3.The International Comparison Programme Case study 4. The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices Case study 5. Euro Area Accounts Chapter 5. The statistical production process of integrated economic statistics (84-112) National statistical programmes for the integration of economic statistics Case study 1. Statistics New Zealand. Integration in a centralised economic system Case study 2. Statistics Netherlands. Centralised integration system for national accounts Designing the integrated statistical production process Case study 3. Statistics for the harmonised revenue allocation formula in Canada Case Study 4: New Zealand: Economy-wide economic survey Common concepts, definitions and classifications Defining and classifying statistical units Types of statistical units Types of organisation of statistical units 4 Statistical units’ attributes Defining and classifying transactions Business accounting standards XBRL reporting Business registers and frames Surveys and questionnaire design Key principles Questionnaire database Metadata Questionnaire grouping Use of administrative sources Dealing with administrative authorities Advantages and limitations of administrative records Use of administrative records Harmonisation of concepts and definitions of administrative sources with their use in the statistical system Other types of administrative data Tools of data processing including central metadata warehousing Chapter 6. Dissemination and communication (113-121) Dissemination Communication Examples of international dissemination and communication practices Chapter 7, Principles into practice: examples of integrated economic statistics (122-158) Concepts, definitions, methods Source data Table 1. Shares of source data for the U.S. quarterly GDP estimates Nominal data Case study 1.Using the input-output accounts to benchmark U.S. GDP statistics 5 Case study 2. The development of quarterly national accounts in the Netherlands Case study 3. U.S. measures of compensation Sectoral data Case study 4. The sector accounts in the Netherlands Price data Case study 5. Price indexes in the U.S. national accounts Industry data Case study 6. Adjustments to industry source data to improve consistency: the U.S. enterprise-establishment adjustment process Case study 7. The input-output framework as a data-harmonisation and integration tool: the U.S. integration of the annual industry accounts Case study 8. Integration of industry statistics: KLEMS statistics for the United States Regional data International data Case study 9. The US-Canadian current account reconciliation and data exchange Financial data Labour accounts Case study 10. The development of labour accounts in the Netherlands Satellite accounts Travel and tourism accounts Case study 11. Netherlands satellite accounts Case study 12. U.S. travel and tourism satellite accounts Environmental accounting Case study 13: Environmental accounting in the Netherlands 6 Annex 1. Glossary (159-161) Annex. 2. List of domains considered as primary targets for integrated economic statistics (162-164) Annex 3. The production of statistics in New Zealand (165-167) Annex 4. The organisation of the National Accounts Department in the Netherlands (168-171) Annex 5. Statistics for the harmonised revenue allocation formula in Canada (172-173) Annex 6. Structure and application of the SDMX (174-178) Annex 7. How do the SDDS and GDDS support good statistical practices? (179-180) Annex 8. References (181-184) 7 GUIDELINES ON INTEGRATED ECONOMIC STATISTICS Chapter 1. Executive summary Integrated economic statistics are comprehensive sets of statistics that use common concepts, definitions, estimation methods, and data sources to produce a consistent and harmonized picture of economic activity for policy, business, investor, household and other users of economic data. 1. In the last two decades, the international statistical system has made great progress in harmonising economic statistics through internationally accepted guidelines including the System of National Accounts 2008, the Balance of Payments Manual, Sixth Edition (BPM6), and more specialised guidelines ranging from the measurement of prices to the measurement foreign direct investment. The motivating source of this work has been the need for and the huge benefits of integrated economic statistics for internationally-coordinated economic policy requirements in the interconnected global economy. 2. This volume builds on these guidelines and their emphasis on policy-relevant data by describing principles and detailed practices for integrated economic statistics. These principles relate to the consistency and coherence of economic data within countries, over time, and across countries and include the design of strategic plans for integration and the reliance on international guidelines and economic theory as the organising principles for integration of micro and macro data. 3. The recommended practices vary across countries. Countries with centralised systems may be better positioned to achieve consistency through “bottom-up” practices such as the development of common business, common definitions, and common surveys to assure consistency in the micro data used as inputs into national accounts and other macro data. Countries with more decentralised system also need to work with data suppliers to improve consistency, but are likely to better positioned to achieve consistency through “top-down” adjustment procedures to adjust input data to national accounts definitions and concepts, the use of common source data and methods, and through the use of consistent balancing techniques. 4. Chapter 2 discusses the benefits and principles of integrated economic statistics and the strategic planning processing for achieving integration. The chapter concludes with case studies on the benefits from integration from the United States and the Euro Area Accounts. 5. Macroeconomic accounts, as exemplified by national and balance of payments accounts, along with associated macro price and employment data, are the cornerstones of economic policy, business strategy, and of investor and household expectations. These data are used by governments around the world to guide monetary and fiscal policy,