A Wiki Approach for Discussing Methodological Guidelines in the Field of Price Statistics

A Wiki Approach for Discussing

Methodological Guidelines

in the Field of Price Statistics

Dr. Berthold Feldmann – Eurostat unit C.5

Price statistics; purchasing power parities; housing statistics

IAOS Conference 2012, Kiev (Ukraine)2

Structure of the talk

The importance of comparability

The role of meta information

The Wiki approach

Conclusion

Chapter 1

The importance of comparability


Comparability across countries and across time

Statistics are used by politicians, business managers and researchers as a base for important decisions

Non-comparable statistical data may lead to wrong political and business decisions

Hence it is of utmost importance that sensitive statistics are fully comparable across countries and across time

This also applies to consumer price data which are vital for central banks and government agencies for their monetary and economic policies


Assessment of comparability

In order to know if a given statistical dataset is comparable, or more generally in order to know if a given dataset fulfils various criteria of high

quality, the concept of 'meta data' is very useful

Meta data is defined as data providing information about several aspects of the statistical data, such as: Purpose of the data

Date of creation and source of data

Location and coding of the data

Quality standards achieved

Relevance Accuracy &

Reliability Timeliness &

Punctuality Coherence &

Comparability Accessibility &

Clarity

Chapter 2

The role of meta data


Harmonisation of statistics

Traditionally, there has been a rich divergence of methodological approaches in the different Statistical Offices in Europe for most statistical domains, based on their different histories and different administrative and technical set-up

Hence there was and still is a strong need to make these statistics comparable, so that they can be used as a sound base for political, monetary and business decisions

Depending on the importance of the statistical data, this harmonisation can be Ex post (which is easier, but less systematic) or Ex ante (which is more costly, but more rigorous)


Steps in harmonisation Focusing on ex-post harmonisation, several tools

help to ensure that EU statistics are comparable: A framework Regulation Implementing Acts Methodological meta data

The framework Regulation sets the obligations to collect, compute and transmit the required statistical data

The Implementing Acts give detailed rules for compiling the data in a harmonised way (examples for HICP: weights, seasonal products..)

The methodological meta data, often in the form of a manual, contain guidelines for data collection, sampling, compilation etc.


Tools for harmonising statistics

Framework Regulation

Implementing Act



Meta data in the harmonisation process

In the process of rendering Eurostat's statistics comparable, meta data play a double role:

Detailed information on the Member State practice in the form of an inventory(= base for compliance monitoring)

Guidelines on the methods to be used – below the binding rules of a legal text

Inventory of methods applied in National

Statistical Offices for HICP

Wiki application for Consumer Price

Guidelines(Methods Handbook)


Types of meta data

Description of current situation

Description of target situation

Inventory ofnationalpractices

nationalquality reports

Methodologicalhandbook,

containing guidelines


Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP)

So far, we talked about statistics in general

Now we will present innovative solutions for HICP

The Maastricht Treaty (1992) set the convergence criteria for Monetary Union, among them inflation Need for a tool to compare inflation across countries in an unbiased way

Framework Regulation on HICP in 1995, followed by 17 Implementing Acts

HICP = monthly price collection and dissemination for over 100 COICOP product groups


The inventory A new project in the domain of HICP, starting in

2012 The inventory will contain all methods applied in the

National Statistical Institutes for the collection, compilation and dissemination of consumer price indices

It will be updated every year Based on a legal obligation

The content will be public as far as the NSI agrees to this In order to foster transparency, Eurostat will try to

maximise the publicly available part of the inventory

For the time being, the inventory will be an MS ACCESS application

Based on SDMX content oriented guidelines

14

The Inventory (in MS Access)

15


16


17


Chapter 3

The Wiki approach



Guidelines are not legally binding, but contain recommendations that should be followed by all National Statistical Offices in order to assure a high level of comparability

For consumer prices, we classified the recommendations into five categories Recommendations under discussion Final recommendations Recommendations prior to 2010 Questions and Answers Recommendations related to housing prices


Why a Wiki application

A Wiki platform allows fast updates of the content

A Wiki platform is accessible to everyone The Wiki on guidelines for consumer prices will be

addressed mainly to experts in price statistics, both producers and consumers

It will also assure transparency for the public at large concerning methods used in HICP

A Wiki platform has several advantages over a traditional, printed manual: The audience of a website is much larger The reaction time if improvements of the text are

needed is much faster Real discussions via the internet are possible


A transparent forum for discussions

Eurostat intends to give to a selected group of price experts in the National Statistical Offices and the ECB write permits in order to improve the

recommendations restricted access to a discussion forum

The Wiki leaves a clear trace of all changes made to the texts, so that everyone knows who introduced certain changes and when

A Wiki platform can be organised in a user-friendly way that allows to find any recommendation quickly

22

Consumer Price Guidelines (Wiki)

23


24


25



Next steps

The Wiki website will be further filled with recommendations

Meta data related to HICP, e.g. inventory data, quality reports and analytical articles will be added to the site

Meta data related to Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) will be added

The site will be presented to the Price Statistics Working Group in October 2012

The price experts in the Member States that will have write access to the Wiki site will be selected

The Wiki website is scheduled to go public within the coming six months

Chapter 4

Conclusion


Some tentative conclusions

Meta data on applied or recommended methodology are important not only for understanding the content of statistics, but also for monitoring the quality of statistics

These days, meta data need to be based on internet applications in order to allow fast updates, easy access and transparency for all users

A Wiki platform seems to be the appropriate tool for presenting and discussing methodological guidelines

Thank you for

your attention!

Any Questions ?

A Wiki Approach for Discussing Methodological Guidelines in the Field of Price Statistics

Documents

Transcript of A Wiki Approach for Discussing Methodological Guidelines in the Field of Price Statistics