1. UN ESCAP Statistics Division
Effective study proposals for economic statistics development: “SBRs in focus”
Zeynep Orhun Girard
Statistician
UN ESCAP Statistics Division
2 December 2016

2. This presentation discusses…
Why analytical studies are important for the implementation of the Regional Programme
How RPES supports analytical capacity building in national statistical systems
The criteria for effective national studies
Dissemination and use of national studies

3. RPES is a framework for economic statistics capacity building
4 outputs or “strategic interventions…”
...to deliver our common vision...
NSSs in Asia-Pacific have capacity to produce & disseminate the Core Set in line with international standards, including in support of SDG monitoring
Advocacy
Coordination
Skills
Infrastructure
...and reach our key goal of RPES
Improved soundness of economic analysis & decision making through increased availability and effective use of timely, reliable and comparable economic statistics
We want to improve the availability of economic statistics but also the soundness of economic analysis and decision making  link to quality
. The requirements of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of national statistical systems and the global statistical community, however, go well beyond the production and dissemination of a list of indicators for monitoring the SDGs. Indeed, the emphasis of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development on statistics development, both in terms of quality of statistics and improvements to measurements points at a stronger national and analytical capacity requirement embedded in the monitoring of SDGs, in comparison, for instance, with the Millennium Development Goals. This requirement is most clearly outlined in means of implementation targets and

4. RPES progress is monitored based on:
Activities that are delivered under each strategic intervention and their results for capacity to produce and disseminate economic statistics
Milestones of the Core Set of Economic Statistics implementation (periodicity)

5. Country A Core Indicator Reported Freq. RPES recommendations
Core Indicator
Reported Freq.
RPES recommendations
Price and Costs
Consumer price index (CPI)
Quarterly 
Producer price index (PPI)
Commodity price index
Weekly
Monthly
External merchandise trade price indices
Unavailable ×
Wages / Earnings data
Annually ●
Labour costs index / Wage index
Demand and Output
GDP (production) nominal and real
GDP (expenditure) nominal and real
External trade – merchandise
External trade – services
Short-term indicator (STI) - industry output
STI – services output
STI – consumer demand
STI – fixed investment
STI – inventories
Economy structure statistics
Every 10 years
Every 5 years
Productivity
Income and Wealth
Integrated national accounts
Institutional sector accounts
Balance of payments (BOP)
International investment position (IIP)
External debt
Income distribution
Example of a national monitoring sheet in comparison to RPES recommendations
 Meeting or exceeding recommendations
× Not available/no response
● Below recommendations

6. Periodicity alone is not sufficient to assess quality of a statistical output
1. Integrity
- institutional integrity
- transparency
- ethical standards
2. Methodological Soundness
- concepts ,definitions and scope
- classification/sectorization
- basis for recording
3. Accuracy and Reliability
- source data
- assessment of source data
- validation of data and statistical outputs
4. Servicability
- periodicity and timeliness
- consistency
- revision policy and practice
5. Accessibility
- data accessibility
- metadata accessibility
- assistance to users
Quality dimensions based on IMF’s DQAF
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, TL, VN-EGDDS
Sri Lanka-SDDS
Lao PDR is the only project country that is not subscribed to either

7. More analysis needed to understand quality issues on economic statistics
Problem: NSSs do not systematically use the statistics they produce hampering identification and remedy of quality gaps
Reasons: Inadequate analytical skills in NSOs and other agencies, lack of resources (staff time/financial) and of institutional guidance, e.g. quality assurance policies
Available support: ESCAP Resource Facility & other development partners
Analytical skills in NSOs increasingly needed for integrated statistics and quality assurance.

8. ESCAP Resource Facility (RF) is a pool of funds
…that supports national statistical systems to undertake analysis and research in the form of national studies for developing economic statistics.
ESCAP assistance to national studies also covers:
Expert missions in support of the national study
Facilitation of peer-to-peer exchanges
Research-based training, especially for countries with special needs

9. Countries select study topics based on RPES areas & national priorities
Economic statistics topic areas (Core Set) and linkages between economic statistics and other domains of statistics
Statistical infrastructure for economic statistics
Institutional setting for economic statistics production and dissemination
Discuss in relation to quality dimensions
Core Set—methodological soundness, servicability and accessibility of data
Stat inf—sources of data
Institutional setting—integrity (prerequisite to quality)
Statistical inf--(e.g. data sources, collection and dissemination tools, quality assurance frameworks, policies for economic statistics production and dissemination)
Inst setting--(e.g. national experiences of coordination among agencies, institutional framework for statistical business registers, statistical law and economic statistics, communication of economic statistics to users, etc.)

10. Effective proposals meet the selection criteria
Required
Alignment with RPES and priorities in NSDS/similar plan
Clear linkage between results, activities and the resources required
Desirable
National studies conducted in cooperation by multiple national agencies
National studies with gender equality focus
National studies on economic statistics underlying sustainable development monitoring
Multiple agencies, e.g. by the NSO, Central Bank, Ministry of Finance or academic/research institutes are encouraged.
Gender focus, e.g. informal sector/informal employment, female business ownership.

11. National studies are used to develop economic statistics
Pilot survey of individual entrepreneurs
Improve availability and quality of business statistics
GVA estimation methods for livestock sector
Improve the methodology for Gross Value Added (GVA) estimation of total production in the livestock sector in line with the 2008 SNA
Trade-related pilot survey
Improve information base for national accounts by calculating trade margins
Lao PDR: Possible topics to be determined; proposals include disparities between GDP growth rates, preparations for the compilation of GDP(E), non-observed economy; trade margins to improve quality of growth estimation; or input-output on Lao manufacturing.

12. RF opportunities for SBR development
Some ideas for SBR study areas:
Institutional/stakeholder analysis for SBRs
Develop/improve economic units model
Review/assess quality of available data sources
Improve quality of SBR (production of business statistics) process (GSBPM/GSIM)
Develop/improve maintenance of SBRs
Improve use of SBRs—business demography, economic statistics, etc.
Explore/assess possible linkages to other databases in the national statistical system
Demand and output
national accounts aggregates (production), productivity measures, trade, informal economy, economy structure, short-term indicators (industry/services output, consumer demand and investment)
Advocacy
Coordination
Statistical Business Register
In reference to use of GSBPM, an SBR has inputs “collected” from different sources, a sequence of processing and analysis and outputs – statistics and sampling frames so it is a statistical business process.
The value added of applying GSBPM to SBRs is:
Standardisation of terminology
Standard framework for benchmarking
Facilitates use of common tools / methods
Efficiency savings
Tool for managing process quality
For GSIM: definition of information objects and flows in a statistical business process
Talk about sex-disaggregated employer business demography indicators (Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography)
In terms of assessing the quality of administrative data, the Netherlands has developed a checklist of issues to look at against various quality dimensions.
How about the development of quality indicators for monitoring inputs and outputs of an SBR? Similar studies were done in Italy and Colombia.
Infrastructure
Skills

13. National studies are regional knowledge
National studies are disseminated through:
ESCAP knowledge sharing platform on economic statistics
Regional seminars, e.g. as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Statistics Week and the ESCAP Committee on Statistics
Implications for the resulting report: in order to ensure the usefulness of national case studies to others, the studies need to go beyond description and give information on the context in which the quality assurance frameworks were motivated, designed and implemented.

14. Any questions?