1. ICW – progress report Item 4.6 of the agenda
DSS Meeting 2 and 3 March 2017 – erm

2. Outline
1. Background 2. Debriefing of the workshops 3. Micro-micro: results of the matching between EU-SILC, HBS and HFCS 4. Micro-macro: action plan for the linkage on ICW surveys and Household Account 5. Discussion
Eurostat

3. Two different streams of work
Better joint distributions at micro level: ideally a joint micro-data set, from which meso-indicators could be calculated
Better consistency between micro-data and aggregates, when concepts and data are compatible (DMES)
Parallel, but strong links

4. Debriefing of the workshop 1 - Micro
Held on 21 October 2016 in Eurostat
Aim: sharing national experiences on survey integration, modular approach, multi-source (e.g. registers), statistical matching
Various presentations were given:
Survey integration (HU, UK, CH, CZ)
Multi-source (FI)
Statistical matching (IT, AT, Eurostat, ECB)

5. Debriefing of the workshop 1
Take-away from the workshop:
Survey integration is possible; experiments involving integration of SILC/HBS and SILC/HFCS
Multi-source/modular approaches should be used whenever possible
Need for sharing experience of statistical matching and modular approach

6. Debriefing of the workshop 2 – Micro - Macro
Held on 9 November 2016 in Eurostat
Aim: sharing work done in the area by the NSIs, Eurostat, ECB and OECD
Various presentations:
National experiences (UK, SI, IT, DK, FR)
International organizations (ECB, OECD)

7. Debriefing of the workshop 2
Take-away of the workshop:
Coherence for micro-sources needs to be improved
Enhancement of the cooperation at NSI level is needed, as well as among institutions
Quality aspects of the current statistics and distributional data have to be developed
The communication strategy of the distributional data needs transparency

8. Micro-micro
On-going reflections on the different options/guidelines for a better measurement of ICW joint distributions
Experiments on data
Following the first implementations in , a global experiment involving (almost) all EU countries has been developed on EU-SILC, HBS and HFCS data

9. Strategy Relying on cumulated experience by Eurostat on the topic
Test various methods
One purely based on hot-deck: take observations in HBS with the same Xs and allocate to EU-SILC
Multi-dimensional, non-parametric, stochastic
A mixed approach: estimate the conditional mean of consumption with respect to X, then allocate observations in HBS to EU-SILC using the cumulative distribution function
Unidimensional, semi-parametric, randomness goes through the estimation of the equation

10. Choice of the covariates X
Following D'Orazio et al. (2006), comparability between EU-SILC and HBS is key
Ex-post harmonization process
Selection of candidate variables based on Hellinger distance
Automatic selection procedure implemented for method 1; comprehensive set of covariates for method 2.

11. About the W in ICW…
Wealth is covered by the Household Finance and Consumption Survey implemented in the euro area countries (+ a few more)
For the available countries, matching between the fused SILC-HBS dataset and HFCS
Relies on the cumulative distribution function of gross income (measured in SILC and HFCS) + stratification on household type + food consumption

12. Median saving rates in EU

13. Saving rates and life-cycle theory

14. Assessment of the uncertainty
Monte-Carlo approach: replicate hot-deck 1,000 times
Facing multiply-imputed data → impact on the estimation method
Computationally demanding; does not relax CIA
"Frechet bounds" approach
Relaxing CIA
Relying on "granular" data

15. The distribution of consumption is well reproduced…

16. … the distribution of savings may be a bit distorted

17. Extending indicators of poverty
Consumption-based indicators
CPS-like absolute measure of poverty
AROPE-like measure (60% of median eq. expenditure) as in Tonkin et al. (2017)
Saving-based indicators
Proportion of dissaving households
Asset-based indicators
As in Brandolini et al. (2009) or Törmalehto et al. (2012)
𝑾 𝒕 𝒆 𝒕 = 𝒎 𝟏𝟐 .𝝀.𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒏( 𝒀 𝒕 𝒆 𝒕 )

18. Other ongoing experiments/leads
OCW module in EU-SILC 2017, to be analyzed after the data transmission
Results on country-specific wealth modules (FR, CH)

19. Action plan
End of Q1-2017: dissemination of experimental results based on statistical matching.
Definition of a quality framework and guidelines for the end of 2017.
Guidelines should include considerations not only about statistical matching, but also about multi-source approach, survey integration and harmonization issues.
Centralized exercise, based on harmonized data, discussed, complemented or substituted with MS data

20. Linkage micro-macro – why do we care?

21. Linkage micro-macro

22. Closing the data gaps?
Some work implicitly assumes a uniform under-reporting phenomenon depending on the item
What about under-representation of the upper tail of the distribution?
Closing the gaps entails making assumptions on the reasons for discrepancies
Eurostat's position: develop a quality framework performing sensitivity analyses on assumptions made

23. Action plan
To be discussed and coordinated between Directors of Macroeconomic Statistics and Directors of Social Statistics
Actions should primarily target Income and Consumption. Wealth is to be covered in cooperation with the ECB.
Cooperation aspects at inter-institutional level will be tackled once the content is agreed
Centralized exercise, based on harmonized data, discussed, complemented or substituted with MS data

24. Action plan 2017-2020 – Micro-Macro
Strand 1: systematic identification of methodological similarities and data coverage
Strand 2: Investigation of the data sources and the estimation methods
Strand 3: Identification and quantification of the data gaps, development of the quality framework
Strand 4: Refinement of the statistical methods in order to close the gaps
Strand 5: Development of the data dissemination strategy

25. Need for better ICW
Many initiatives
Interest for ESS action – DGINS – Coordinated
Two streams proposed
Starts with an harmonised approach
Quality assessment framework
Discussed/complemented/supplemented by better data
Experimental statistics

26. DSS is invited to …
Comment the proposed content of the two action plans for further improvements;
Comment on the respective roles of Eurostat, NSIs and others;
Comment the different results and the dissemination strategy;
Bring new ideas…
Eurostat