1. 3rd Euro-SICS
Working Group meeting

2. Item II-2 Euro-SICS detailed analysis How really good the database is
Item II-2 Euro-SICS detailed analysis How really good the database is ? by Dominique Ladiray, Francesca Nugnes, Marco Picciolo (Doc 026/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

3. A statistical description of the database in few points
Coverage
Availability of long time series
Missing or anomalous values
How to define a “good” quality indicator ?
Timeliness and Punctuality
The near future of the Euro-SICS database
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

4. Number of indicators in the ESICS database by domains
An alive database !
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

5. Distribution of active series in the ESICS database by domains and length
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

6. Some important figures (7 July 2000)
7600 active series in 14 domains
51% monthly series, 49% quarterly series
48% of series of 15 years and more but only 10% for the European aggregates
97% of series are reliable
12 domains have all the expected metadata for the EU and Eurozone aggregates
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

7. Some difficulties to define a quality indicator The example of Timeliness
For a figure, 5 different dates
The reference period (d1 = Nov 99)
The date it has been published by the Member State (d2 = 23 Dec 99) - Calendar ?
The date it appears in Euro-SICS (d3 = 7 Jan 00) - NA
The date of the last update of the domain the series belongs to (d4 = 9 Jan 00)
The date of the database quality control (d5 = 15 Jan 00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

8. Some quality indicators can be defined
Timeliness : d2 - d1 = 23 days
Euro-SICS delay : d3 - d2 = 15 days
Freshness : d5 - d1 = 46 days
At the moment, we can easily measure
Freshness, and
Delay = d4 - d1 = 40 days
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

9. Distribution of series within the ESICS database by frequency and delays in number of days
Average delay, in number of days, according to the frequency of the series available in the ESICS database
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

10. The near future of the Euro-SICS database
An Editorial Committee
Improvement of coverage and quality
Length of series
Labour Force Surveys
A DG ECFIN Domain with Qualitative Business Surveys ?
Best quality Indicators
Study of series revisions
Member States Metadata
Monitoring Reports
Calendars (release, holidays and working days)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

11. Item II-3 Comparison between Euro-SICS and MEI of the OECD by Gian Luigi Mazzi, Marco Picciolo (Doc 027/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

12. Why MEI (Main Economic Indicators)?
Similar aim
Different coverage
Series length
Sufficient comparability of the indicators
Timeliness
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

13. MEI considers 15 domains to cover short-term indicators, the comparison is based on 8 domains
1. National Accounts
2. Industrial production
3.Producer prices
4. Construction
5. Labour market (5A other labour market)
6. Employment
7. Unemployment
8. Balance of payments
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

14. Which are the differences?
1. Level of disaggregation
Higher in Euro-SICS
2. Approaches of the two «organisations»
MEI: 29 countries with different economies
Euro-SICS: 15 countries with similar economies
3. Coverage
MEI consider indicators as supplied by MS
Euro-SICS mostly harmonised figures
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

15. Some series could be included in Euro-SICS
Other Labour market
Job vacancies / Strikes / working days lost
Constructions
Work in progress
Work in put in place
Work in started
Work in completed
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

16. Long time Series Timeliness MEI has longer time series than Euro-SICS
National concept
Legal acts
Timeliness
Euro-SICS updated twice a day
MEI update once a week
even if... some exceptions exist
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

17. Considerations Euro-SICS on CD-ROM PAPER VERSION
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

18. Item II-5 Euro-SICS quality report by Dominique Ladiray, Francesca Nugnes (Doc 030/00, 031/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

19. A measurement of data quality
An analysis guided by user’s needs satisfaction
Propositions for monitoring reports depending on the need for information of
Users
Member States
Domain managers (Eurostat)
Committee of Directors (Eurostat)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

20. Data Quality measured according to the 7 components of Quality adopted by Eurostat
Relevance
Accuracy
Timeliness and Punctuality
Accessibility and Clarity
Comparability
Coherence
Completeness
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

21. Five main quality indicators
An indicator of completeness (active series)
An indicator of relevance (active series, 15 years or more
An indicator of accuracy (reliable series)
An indicator of timeliness (max 60-day delay)
An indicator of clarity (metadata)
To complete the measurement/description of data quality
A Global Quality Index will be computed on the base of the average of these five indicators
The evolution of monthly extractions from the Euro-SICS database will be provided
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

22. A Monitoring Report for the Member States Representative
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

23. Main quality indicators by country - Euro-SICS
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

24. Main quality indicators by country - Euro-SICS (continue)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

25. Item II-6 METADATA for Euro-SICS by Anders Lindqvist, Marco Pellegrino (Doc 032/00, 032A/00, 035/00, 036/00,037/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

26. Metadata posted on the IMF’s DSBB - by EU country (Basic Info and Summary Methodology)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

27. Metadata for national series
IMF Series
download available information
first draft of SDDS
checking and validation by MS
loading into Euro-SICS
non-IMF Series
first draft of SDDS within Eurostat
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

28. Item II-7 Statistical development for Euro-SICS and Euro-Trend project by Gian Luigi Mazzi and Dominique Ladiray (Doc 033/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

29. Short-term statistics
Introduction (1)
BEFORE
Harmonisation
Precision
Structural data €
AFTER
Timeliness
Estimation
Short-term statistics
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

30. Introduction (2)
Double challenge for Eurostat in the field of short-term analysis
reliable short-term indicators for Member States as well as for the Euro-zone and the European Union
quasi-real time data for economic and monetary policy
Two main projects
Euro-SICS
Euro-TREND
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

31. Statistical problems for the construction of Euro-zone totals (1)
Traditional strategy
collect harmonised data from Member States
aggregate them
Non-optimal strategy for short-term analysis
harmonisation instead timeliness
harmonisation as source of breaks
Our strategy
reliable, accurate and long time series
estimation techniques
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

32. Statistical problems for the construction of Euro-zone totals (2)
Backcasting
too short harmonised data
at least two cycles needed by users
inability of Member States to provide soon back-recalculated figures
back-recalculation via econometric or statistical methods is needed
Different scenarios for backcasting
Unavailability of any high frequency information
Availability of some related information
Backcasting with benchmark
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

33. Statistical problems for the construction of Euro-zone totals (3)
Construction of unavailable indicators
a) unavailability of indicators due to lack of information from the Member States
b) unavailability of indicators at a desired frequency
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

34. Open problems for the Euro-zone short-term statistical system (1)
Considerations
Euro-zone is a new economic subject
to play an active role on international economic scenario timely information is needed
timeliness can be viewed as an indicator of credibility
Situation
reduction of the delays for Euro-zone statistics
progress made not yet sufficient
Main areas of improvement
timeliness of Euro-zone figures
availability of synthetic coincident and leading indicators
analysis of business cycle characteristics of the Euro-zone
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

35. Open problems for the Euro-zone short-term statistical system (2)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

36. Some problems related to the short-term analysis of the Euro-zone (1)
Nowcasting
Analysis of revisions
Seasonal adjustment
Business cycle extraction
Leading indicators and turning points
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

37. Some problems related to the short-term analysis of the Euro-zone (2)
Nowcasting - reasons
need of improving timeliness
utilisation of all available information from different areas
increasing request from ECB and other users
statisticians must do their best to achieve this objective
Nowcasting statistical tools
temporal disaggregation techniques
transfer function or dynamic regression models
VAR models
state space models
non linear model (artificial neural networks, long memory process, etc)
structural time series models
Eurostat activities
comparative analysis of different tools
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

38. Some problems related to the short-term analysis of the Euro-zone (3)
Analysis of revisions
a) statistical analysis
b) econometric analysis
Seasonal adjustment
ECB and Eurostat recommendations
Eurostat recommendations concerning seasonal adjustment policy
ECB Task Force on Seasonal Adjustment, Final Report
agreement on the utilisation of X-12 and TRAMO/SEATS
Euro-zone seasonal adjustment
direct approach, indirect approach
aggregation of national seasonal adjusted data
multivariate seasonal adjustment
empirical comparison of different approaches
more smoothed figures from direct approach
higher instability of seasonal factors
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

39. Some problems related to the short-term analysis of the Euro-zone (4)
Business cycle extraction
crucial questions
is there an Euro-zone business cycle emerging from the EMU construction?
can we explain it from national cycles?
a Common European Business Cycle
synchronisation of European business cycles
Leading indicators and turning points
aim
give a synthetic view of the economy or of a specific macroeconomic variables
satisfy a lack of information
increase timeliness of information
different types of leading indicators
traditional ones, statistical ones
Euro-SICS Detailed Analysis
How really good the database is ?
by Dominique Ladiray, Francesca Nugnes, Marco Picciolo
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

40. Item II-8 Euro-SICS in CIRCA by Sylvie Da Silva (Doc 032/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

41. Euro-SICS in CIRCA (1)
An extranet tool which enables an Interest Group to
Navigate trough the library and view the sections it contains
Share information/document in quasi real time (user can be automatically notified by of any change)
Download the content of a selected file, e.g.
Euro-SICS meetings documents
Data by country or by domain
Metadata
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

42. Euro-SICS in CIRCA (2) In the future creation of new sections
Series with problems by country
Euro-SICS monitoring report
Euro-SICS news letter
A forum discussion among Users of the IG
For any information…Please contact me
Password / user-id
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

43. Item III-1 Opening Euro-SICS to the public by Valérie Guillemet (Doc 040/00)
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000

44. ‘Dissemination policy for Euro-sics’-Working Party of the 3-07-00
Participants
Description of the project
Positioning
Branding
User needs
Tools of dissemination
Pricing
Others subjects...
3rd Euro-SICS Working Group meeting, 10th July 2000