1

Implementing a Coordinated Approach to Improving Services

Source Data Inputs to Gross Domestic Product Statistics

ICES – III ICES – III Improving Measurement of Service Sector Statistics: Improving Measurement of Service Sector Statistics:

Challenges and AchievementsChallenges and AchievementsJune 19, 2007June 19, 2007

Mark E. WallaceMark E. WallaceChief, Service Sector Statistics DivisionChief, Service Sector Statistics Division

U.S. Census BureauU.S. Census Bureau

2

2002 Economic Census

Tested NAPCS products for 86 services industries– Sector 51, Sector 52, Sector 54, and

Sector 56– Over 1000 new or revised inquiries

added to survey forms– Substantial change for many industries

3

Example of Impact on Forms

Industry Questions in Questions in

1997 2002

Commercial Banks 35 168

Engineering Services 20 78

Telecommunications 25 50

ISPs 5 33

Waste Management 12 100

4

Opportunities for Improvement

• Organizational Structure Changes

• Internal Cooperation Improvements

• External Cooperation Improvements

• Questionnaire Content Improvements  

5

Created two branches in classification: One branch responsible for development,

maintenance and implementation of classifications

One branch responsible for ongoing classifications operations such as administrative records coding, refile surveys, and birth survey activities

Organizational Structure Improvements

6

New classification development branch coordinated census and annual survey collection of products internally

Product collections were jointly reviewed and proposed to coordinate collections in the census and annual survey

Potential annual and census product lines were included for external review

Internal Cooperation Improvements

7

Formal schedule of questionnaires and response

Formal review and written response from BEA and BLS

• Several rounds of proposal and counter proposal resulted in acceptable results for major external users

• Unexpected tangential improvements

External Cooperation Improvements

8

• More conceptually consistent presentation of product and other sources of revenue questions

• Separation of class of customer questions

• Greater collection of important products across industries

• Retained or added inquiries for national accounts, some product, some other inquiries

• Cooperation to ensure that adequate weighting information would be available to PPI

– Census changes– PPI changes

Questionnaire Improvements

9

Product Type 2002 2007 Banking products 27 24Leasing products 1 3Financial advice products 2 3Securities products

and Other products 34 11Total 64 41

Case Study: Commercial Banking

Product Inquiries 

10

Inquiries 2002 2007 % Reduction 

Products 64 41 35%

Other 104 32 70%

Total 168 73 57%

Comparison of 2002 and 2007 Inquiriesfor Commercial Banking

11

Coordinated approach to collecting product turnover data, that directly and cooperatively involves major data users such as producer prices and national accounts, improves the usefulness of data collections.

Respondent burden can be reduced while still addressing critical statistical needs.

Source data improvements require internal and external process reviews and a broad willingness to change.

Summary

12

Questions?

Mark Wallace

Mark.E.Wallace@census.gov

Phone: (301) 763-2683

John Murphy

John.Burns.Murphy@census.gov

Phone: (301) 763-5172