the use of administrative sources for economic statistics an overview steven vale office for...

The Use of Administrative Sources for Economic Statistics

An Overview

Steven ValeOffice for National Statistics

UK

Contents

• Definitions

• Advantages of using administrative data

• Common problems

• Quality of administrative data

• Using administrative data in practice

• Conclusions

P rim a ry(S ta tis t ica l)

P u b licS e c to r

P riva teS e c to r

S e con d a ry(N o n -s ta tis t ica l)

D a ta S o urces

Narrow Definition

Wider Definition

P rim a ry(S ta tis t ica l)

P u b licS e c to r

P riva teS e c to r

S e con d a ry(N o n -s ta tis t ica l)

D a ta S o urces

Administrative sources are sources containing information which is not primarily collected for statistical purposes.

Reasons for this Definition

• Privatisation of some government functions

• Growth of private sector “value-added re-sellers”

• User interest in new types of data

Benefits of Administrative Data

• Cost– Surveys / censuses are expensive,

administrative data are often “free”

• Response burden– Reduced burden on data suppliers

– Statistics can be compiled more frequently with no extra burden

Benefits of Administrative Data

• Coverage– Full coverage of target population– No survey errors and lower non-response– Better small-area data

• Timeliness (sometimes!)• Public image

– Making use of existing data can enhance the prestige of a statistical organisation by making it seem more efficient

Population Census Costs2000-2001

• UK, €367m, €6.2 per person• Austria, €56m, €6.9 per person• Finland, €0.8m, €0.2 per person

Source: Eurostat – Documentation of the 2000 round of population and Housing censuses in the EU, EFTA and Candidate Countries; Table 22

Common Problems

• Administrative units do not always coincide with statistical units

• Conversion via automatic rules for simple cases

• Profiling for more complex cases– Gives a better understanding of

complex business structures– Expensive and needs trained staff

Common Problems

• Different definitions and classifications– Administrative and statistical priorities are

often different– Conversion matrices needed for different

classifications

• Timeliness– Data arrive too late– Data relate to a different time period

VAT Birth Lags

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

2000 50 100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950

1000

Lag in days

Fre

quen

cy (

thou

sand

s)

VAT Birth Lags

• 2/3 of businesses are on the register within 2 months of start-up

• Mean lag = 4 months due to “outliers”

• Median = Approx. 40 days

• Some pre-register - negative lags

Common Problems

• Change management– Risk of changes in government policy,

thresholds, definitions, coverage etc.

– Need contingency plans

• Data from multiple sources– Matching / linking issues

– Data conflicts – priority rules

• There are many aspects to quality

• Administrative data will be better than survey data in some aspects but not in others

• It is important to look at overall quality

• Do the data meet the needs of users?

Quality of Administrative Data

Three Aspects of Quality

• Quality of incoming data

• Quality of processing(matching, merging, ...)

• Quality of outputs - likely to be different to survey based outputs, but are they better?

Quality Measurement

• How to measure the quality of data from administrative sources?– Comparing sources

– Quality check surveys

– Knowledge of source (metadata)

– Quality reports / templates

Quality Templates

Companies House Data

• Framework: Contract

• Frequency: Quarterly updates, continuous

on-line access

• Timeliness: Good

• Quality: Good

• Delivery: CD-ROM / Internet

• Key content: Legal name, company number

Using Administrative Data

• Conversion to statistical concepts and definitions

• Linking / Matching– Exact Matching - linking records from

two or more sources, often using common identifiers

– Probabilistic Matching - determining the probability that records from different sources should match, using a combination of variables

Business Register

VAT PAYE

Survey inputs

Geographic information

systems

Company registrations

Dun and Bradstreet

Satellite

registers

UK Business Register

Satellite Registers

Examples of Satellite Registers

• Tourism - hotel register (category, number of beds)

• Transport - vehicle or ship register (type, capacity)

• Distributive trades - buildings register (building size, sales area)

Conclusions

• Administrative sources should be defined in the widest sense

• There are many benefits in using administrative data, particularly reduced costs

• There are problems when using administrative data, but usually someone has found a solution

Conclusions

• Most problems can be reduced by effective planning and detailed knowledge of the source

• The benefits are often greater than the costs

Thank-you for listening.

Any Questions?

steve.vale@ons.gov.uk