Transcript Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics (IAG) and the G-20 Data Gaps Initiative

Inter-Agency Group on Economic and
Financial Statistics (IAG)
and the G-20 Data Gaps Initiative
Laurs Nørlund
Director - National Accounts, Prices and Key Indicators
Eurostat - European Commission
Side Event at the
43rd Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission
New York – 29 February 2012
29 February 2012
Outline
 The crisis and the identification of data gaps
 The reaction of the Statistical System
 Setting up an international framework
 Selected examples:
– Real estate prices
– Sector accounts
– Distributional information
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Statistics and the crisis
 The crisis generated a number of challenges for official
statisticians
 Financial, economic and political actors turned to
statistics to describe the situation and to detect, assess
and forecast these phenomena
 Increased number of requests for relevant statistical
data in a timely and reliable fashion
 Statistical authorities has been under scrutiny, as well as
their capacity to face these challenges
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
The crisis and the identification of the gaps
 The crisis profoundly impacted on official statistics and the way they
are organised
– Data gaps – ad hoc initiatives
– International comparability
– Timeliness and relevance
– New challenges (e.g. globalisation)
– Communication
– Organisational aspects
– More efficient use of available (scarse) resources
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
What did we learn from the crisis?
 Sufficient advanced warning: lessons to be learnt
 Monitoring of the impacts on economy, society and
environment
 Monitoring of political responses and their impacts
Foresee and mitigate a possible crisis and support
the treatment of damages by means of high quality
statistical information and excellent communication
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
The domino effect of the crisis:
what about statistics?
 Forecasts
 Financial indicators
 Economic indicators
 Social Indicators
 Environmental
Indicators
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Indicators: the way forward
 Identify the ideal « statitical toolkit » for policy makers and economic
and financial actors and structure it in levels suited for different
purposes (Principal Global Indicators)
 Boost availability and timeliness of a set of internationally
comparable key indicators (work of the IAG)
 Enhance the availability in weak areas (financial indicators, housing
market, integrated indicators, …)
 Extend to other involved areas (social statistics, environmental
statistics) – e.g. follow-up of Stiglitz report
 Re-think the paradigms: globalisation, world accounts,
harmonisation, comparability, link between national and private
accounting
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
The reaction of the statistical systems
 Going beyond the existing approaches and systems
 Go towards
– systematic collaboration between the different partners
– integration of data sets
– combination of data from different sources (public and private)
 Statistics as integrated parts of comprehensive production
systems for cluster of statistics
– data warehouse approach
 Change in the professional paradigm of statistical offices from
"data-collectors" to "re-users of data".
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Setting up an international framework
 G20 recommendations and PGIs
 Methodological frameworks
– International agreed manuals (SNA, BPM6, RPPI, …)
– Guidelines for the practical implementation
 Infrastructural framework
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–
Data warehouse
Standards for exchange of data: SDMX
Industrialisation/standardisation of production systems
Statistical hubs
 Committments
– Legal framework (where appropriate)
– Peer pressure
– User pressure
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Example 1: Real estate prices – R19
 Residential Property Prices Indices
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Starting conference to define the context
Handbook prepared by methodological experts
Initial experimental collection of data
Definition of practical rules and data templates (well
advanced in Europe)
– Setting up a legal framework (in Europe)
– Associated information
 Commercial Property Price Indicators
– Same approach starting now (context conference in May)
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Example 2: Quarterly sectoral accounts - R15
 Users’ needs
 Definition of the context (already 10 years ago)
 Setting up the system
– Strict cooperation between NSIs and Central Banks, Eurostat, ECB and
BIS
– Integrated approach
– Communication
– Methodology and practicalities
– Legal framework (in Europe)
 Leading product
 Further developments in the future (e.g. timeliness, quality aspects)
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Example 3: Distributional information – R16
 Challenge: going beyond GDP
 Major political and mediatic interest
 Top down approach (from politicians) on an existing bottom-up
basis (statisticians)
 Define the framework:
– Translating leading ideas in concrete ‘numbers’
– Re-define the paradigm (beyond GDP)
– Use available statistics to produce new outcomes
 Consolidating the framework
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
Impact on the G20 process and outcome
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IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC
PGIs
Communication
Key
Indicators
Web services
Cross-country
concepts
Timeliness
Concepts by country
Harmonised data
Thank you for your attention!
29 February 2012
IAG – Side event 43rd Session UNSC