OECD SHORT-TERM ECONOMIC STATISTICS WORKING PARTY (STESWP) Future evolution of short-term economic statistics collected and disseminated by the OECD and national agencies Paper prepared by Denis Ward Statistics Directorate, OECD Submitted to the Working Party under item 10 of the draft agenda Meeting: 26 – 28 June 2006 Franqueville Room OECD Headquarters, Paris Starting at 9:30 a.m. on the first day OECD SHORT-TERM ECONOMIC STATISTICS WORKING PARTY MEETING, PARIS, 26-28 JUNE 2006 FUTURE EVOLUTION OF SHORT-TERM ECONOMIC STATISTICS COLLECTED AND DISSEMINATED BY THE OECD AND NATIONAL AGENCIES 0. Executive summary As a prelude to the development of the STESWP work programme for the next 12 months this paper outlines processes for the future evolution of short-term economic statistics collected and disseminated by the OECD, primarily in the context of indicators published in the Organisation’s Main Economic Indicators (MEI) database. Many of the issues faced by the OECD in deciding on future short-term economic statistics to be collected and disseminated by the Organisation are identical to those faced by national statistical institutes (NSIs). This reflects common goals to meet the requirements of both government and non-government users, for timely statistics, within the limitations of available resources, and with minimal reporting burden on data providers. The current paper focuses on the range of short-term economic statistics collected and published by the OECD and touches on both the demand and supply sides of the dissemination equation. It describes the target list of short-term economic indicators that has been developed over the last two years as a tool for systematically reviewing the content of the MEI database. It would therefore be of considerable interest for national agencies attending the STESWP meeting in June to briefly discuss their current thinking on the future evolution of short-term economic indicators in their countries in the medium to long terms and the need for the development of new indicators rather than exploring alternative ways of presenting existing indicators. For European Union member states this is heavily influenced by the requirements of European Commission Regulations, though there could be additional changes / innovations specifically intended to meet the requirements of national users. Issues for consideration by STESWP participants Flowing from the discussion presented in the remainder of this paper, national agencies are asked to provide written comment on the following issues: a) Is there a formal planning process outlining the intentions or priorities of your agency with respect to the future development of short-term economic statistics in terms of: • the introduction of new indicators (such as for services, etc.). If so, what are the main elements of these current plans; • elaboration / refinement of existing indicators (e.g. new forms of presentation, introduction of new classifications, expansions in scope, etc); • negotiations with key users for the setting of priorities for new indicators and possible removal (or reduction in quality) of existing indictors? b) The existence of (on-line) catalogues that outline short-term economic indicator series available to external users. c) Proposals / plans for the development in the short to medium terms of new output databases from where external users would have on-line access to the broad range of short-term economic statistics disseminated by your organisations and their related metadata. d) Finally, do EU Member states plan any changes that would be in addition to those designed to meet the requirements of European Commission Regulations, i.e. that are designed to meet the specific requirements / needs of national users (particularly those in government)? 1. Introduction 1. The aim of the this paper is to outline processes for the future evolution of short-term economic statistics collected and disseminated by the OECD, primarily in the context of indicators published in the Organisation’s Main Economic Indicators (MEI) database. The reason for the inclusion of such a paper for discussion at the June 2006 meeting of the OECD Short-term Economic Statistics Working Party (STESWP) is because many of the issues faced by the OECD in deciding on future short-term economic statistics to be collected and disseminated by the Organisation are identical to those faced by national statistical institutes (NSIs). This reflects common goals to meet the requirements of both government and non-government users, for timely statistics, within the limitations of available resources, and with minimal reporting burden on data providers. 2. It would therefore be of considerable interest for national agencies attending the STESWP meeting in June to briefly discuss their current thinking on the future evolution of short-term economic indicators in their countries in the medium to long terms. For European Union member states this is heavily influenced by the requirements of European Commission Regulations, though there could be additional changes / innovations specifically intended to meet the requirements of national users. 3. The current paper focuses on the range of short-term economic statistics collected and published by the OECD and touches on both the demand and supply sides of the dissemination equation. It describes the target list of short-term economic indicators that has been developed over the last two years as a tool for systematically reviewing the content of the MEI database1. In addition to the development of new indicators (such as an output indicator for services), other issues related to the evolution of short-term economic statistics have either been covered at past meetings of STESWP or are included in the agenda for the June 2006 meeting. These include: • benefits of the use of administrative data for short-term economic statistics as a tool for minimising the reporting burden of data providers; • presentation of seasonally adjusted data or growth rates; • development of the timeliness framework; 1 This paper draws heavily from an unpublished document prepared by Eun-Pyo Hong, Target indicators for MEI publications, OECD, March 2006 3 • management of the introduction of revised classifications including backcasting and different methodologies for linking in order to maximise the length of time series available to users; • evolution of short-term economic statistics in large emerging non-member economies. 4. Discussion by STESWP participants of some of the issues listed above could highlight areas of possible future work by the Working Party both with respect to the development of new indicators or on issues pertaining to the presentation, etc., of existing short-term statistics. 5. This paper commences (in Section 2) with brief background on the content of MEI database (including metadata), the main determinants of this content, the MEI target indicators list and its relationship to EU priorities for short-term economic statistics. Section 3 then outlines possibilities for the future evolution of short-term economic statistics in terms of the range of indicators collected by international organisations and national agencies. 2. MEI background2 6. MEI started as a monthly printed publication in 1965, as the successor to the bi-monthly General Statistics bulletin. It developed rapidly into a product line through diversification of statistical content as well as dissemination media. The Sources and Methods series commenced in 1967 to disseminate methodological information on MEI data, initially only by country, but from 1975 also by subject. Apart from the publications in the MEI family, the OECD has over the years disseminated several other short- term statistics products. Successive budget cuts in the last six years and efforts to rationalise OECD activities in this field, taking into account user needs, have resulted either in their suppression or incorporation into the MEI database. In addition to MEI, the Statistics Directorate publishes two other infra-annual publications, namely, Quarterly National Accounts and Monthly Statistics of International Trade. Selected series presented in these publications are also included in MEI. 7. The MEI currently provides a wide range of indicators on recent economic developments in the 30 OECD Member countries and a more limited subset for large non-member economies within the OECD’s global relations programme co-ordinated by the Centre for Co-operation with Non-members (CCNM) – Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russian Federation and South Africa. Series for Member countries cover a wide range of domains including: GDP and other key national accounts variables (consumption, investment, etc.), business and consumer opinion surveys, composite leading indicators, retail sales, industrial production, construction, prices (CPI, PPI and construction), employment, unemployment, interest rates (long and short-term), money and domestic finance, foreign finance, foreign trade and balance of payments3. Such headline indicators are also published by almost all OECD Member countries in either domain specific publications or compendium publications similar in breadth to the MEI. For Member countries some of the MEI series extend as far back as 1955. 8. The primary focus of MEI is the presentation of nationally published indicators which in the main are sourced directly from national agencies4, though some series (e.g. business and consumer opinion 2 For those who are interested, a more detailed description