Launching of an EAP campaign (EAP =Enquête annuelle de production => annual survey on industry) EUROSTAT – 15/16 october 2013

Launching of EAP campaign SUMMARY: A big database A database partially updated every year with EAP survey 2 years handled at every new campaign Detailed steps Schedule of a campaign

A big database - Core of the Prodcom statistic system is a database with numerous tables - One of the most important one is the product table (400 000 new product lines every year) - The database contains information on industrial products of about 160 000 French firms - Some of the firms are industrial firms, other are non-industrial firms that manufacture industrial products

A database partially updated every year with EAP survey - Every year all product data for all firms are estimated before launching the survey - Among the 160 000 firms inside the database, around 40 000 of them will be surveyed with EAP (all the biggest ones) - The answers of firms among the 40 000 firms surveyed, that have filled in their questionnaire, will replace the estimated data in the database - In the end, Prodcom aggregates are calculated from the database

2 years handled at every new campaign - Prodcom nomenclature changes every year - Data of the last campaign are then in another nomenclature than the current campaign, which is problematic - At every new campaign we convert data from the last year in the new nomenclature - Database always contains two following years in the same nomenclature

First step: create the new year of the database - An intermediate table in the database is created with new product lines - These lines are the product data from the year before - There are 2 columns to inform the years in this table: lines in the intermediate table have the working year of the current campaign (2013), but they have the observation year of the year before (2012) - At the end of the first step, data validated in the previous year are available but still in the former Prodcom nomenclature

2nd step: conversion in new nomenclature - Data copied from the previous year are converted in the new nomenclature - A dedicated team works on this issue - A rather complicated work - At the end of the 2nd step, we have data of the previous year but in the Prodcom nomenclature of the current campaign

Usefulness of a two year system - Data of the current campaign will be estimated from the previous year, so they need to be both in current nomenclature - This allows us to make a precise personalization of questionnaire (but without giving figures) - When checking answers on the questionnaires, it is possible to make comparisons between the two years, this is helpful for controlling data - It is possible to disseminate data in the same nomenclature for 2 following years, which is much more interesting for users. That is what we do at Prodfra level (10 digits) on the INSEE website

3rd step: knowing the target population - Till this step we didn’t know the target population: some of the firms we have worked on may have ceased for instance - But we have been working since the first step on an intermediate table, not on the real reference table - Next steps will be done now on the real table used in production, and next step will be done knowing firms which belong to the target population of the current campaign

4th step: estimation (1/2) - We copy in the production table for the current working year (2013) but for the past observation year (2012) the data in 2013 nomenclature for all firms - Then, only for the firms that are in 2013 target population, we estimate from these data, the product figures for the current observation year (2013) - They are both in the same nomenclature, all we have to do is to find an evolution indicator that allow us to estimate the changes that took place in 2013 for each firm

4th step: estimation (2/2) - We use the 2013 monthly VAT data for each firm to produce an estimation for 2013 data from 2012 data - The quality of the VAT indicator is evaluated before : in some cases, we can’t use it and for some firms we produce estimated 2013 data identical to 2012 data - Estimations are produced a second time several months later with definitive VAT data

Some missing data anyway - At the end of the 4th step we have, both in 2013 nomenclature: - data of 2012 which can originate from estimation or direct answers from firms (from EAP 2012) - data of 2013 which are all estimation till the beginning of the survey (EAP 2013) - We have only information from firms that have already answered to the survey at least once in the past years - For unknown firms, we have no product information (but these are only very small firms)

Schedule of a N campaign (1/2) Décember N-1: Prodcom nomenclature N is known Summer N: beginning of work on nomenclature conversion October N: first step: creation of the new year of the database November N: 2nd step: conversion in new nomenclature December N: 3rd step: target population is known January/february N+1: 4th step: estimations

Schedule of a N campaign (2/2) February N+1: begining of the survey, with first checks on microdata and replacement of estimated data April N+1: new estimations Mai N+1: second check on microdata June N+1: validation of Prodcom aggregates 25th june N+1: beginning of the creation of file for Eurostat (transmitted 28 june N+1) October N+1: second transmission of file to Eurostat

Thank you for your attention