1. CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu ESSnet Workshop 27-28 October, Cologne BLUE-ETS BLUE-Enterprise and Trade Statistics New types of indicators and dialogue with stakeholders (WP9 and 10) Jorgen Mortensen Centre for European Policy Studies The BLUE-ETS project is financed by the EU 7th Framework Programme, No. 244767

2. Broad objectives and premises CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Politicians, business, researchers and stakeholders have a need for relevant pertinent data on the socio-economic situation and development. Conventional accounting and statistical information ignore a very high and increasing part of the “reality” So, while we constantly need to explore ways of reducing the burden of reporting and enhance its efficiency, we also need to constantly improve the quality and quantity of the flow of information from business, administration and households.

3. BLUE-Enterprise and Trade Statistics CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu BLUE-ETS principal objective is to identify and study ways to: Respond to the changing and growing demand for new and better data; Develop new or different ways of collecting, disseminating, using and accessing data for both research and policy purposes; Reduce the burden of regulation on business Improve the relations between the NSIs and business.

4. Topics for the work programme of BLUE-ETS CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Study and assess NSIs’ practices concerning burden and motivation of business reporting (reports available) Study and assess business perceptions and attitudes concerning reporting (reports available) Assess scope for improving the use of administrative data and modernising data collection (ongoing) Find ways of enhancing the quality of business statistics (ongoing) Find ways of improving business data integration, systematization and access (ongoing) Undertaking further case studies on methods to measure and reduce the burden of, and improve the motivation for reporting (ongoing) Studying the scope for developing new types of indicators (intangibles, competitiveness, rural areas) and applying results (ongoing)

5. Dissemination and contacts with « stakeholders » CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu To bring new elements to our understanding of the scope for and the obstacles to a more satisfactory handling of intangibles in a future revised system of national accounts, including also the feasibility of introducing extensions of the existing accounts so as to allow the calculation of alternative measures of intangible investment and assets in a consistent framework; Joint conference with a session on NSI practices concerning business burden and motivation as well as business perspectives related to NSIs’ statistics (Heerlen conference in March 2011) Final Conference for the presentation, discussion and dissemination of project results and findings (probably in early 2013).

6. Objectives of the presentation CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Present and discuss the achievements of BLUE-ETS during the first 18 months with a view to preparing further contacts with stakeholders and the final conference (early 2013) Obtain feedbacks to a BLUE-ETS report presenting the background, including a review of the EU’s endeavours to render reporting by business less costly and more efficient; Obtain feedbacks to JM’s working paper on measurement of intangibles Consider in common the ways in which the work within BLUE-ETS during the remaining 18 months can best contribute to the MEETS programme and the activities concerning Structural Business Statistics in general; Consider in common the issues to deal with at the final conference of the BLUE-ETS project and the ways in which to prepare this as a common endeavour.

7. Intangibles CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu First of all, it is essential to recognize that Gross Domestic Product in itself is not as “objective” an indicator of economic activity as generally assumed in the public debate. Truly GDP is supposed to be an indicator of easily- measurable output of goods and services. However, as shown in the present Review, the measurement and comparability across economies and through time of a very large number of the production and consumption those goods and services is not easier than the measurement of many activities which, at present, are not taken into account in GDP. In addition, economic development implies a significant shift into the market economy of a number of non-market activities which in earlier stages of development are undertaken by the households or individual persons for individual or community consumption. The compilation of a global indicator, including those non-market activities might therefore provide a better tool for cross-country comparison or for measuring the evolution of output over longer time spans.

8. The Heerlen conference CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu On March 22 and 23 2011, Statistics Netherlands, jointly with University of Ljubljana and the Centre for European Policy Studies organised the BLUE-ETS Conference on Business’ burden and Motivation in Official Business Surveys as part of the project’s Work package 10 and including, among others, presentations of research conducted within Work packages 2 and 3. The Conference, held on Statistics Netherlands’ premises in Heerlen, the Netherlands, focused on methodological issues related to response burden and motivation in business surveys conducted by National Statistical Institutes. It gathered BLUE-ETS Consortium partners and representatives of Eurostat, NSIs and other Organisations from Europe and North America. Synthesis of the proceedings: soon available on the web site as D10.2

9. Reducing the response burden CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Most NSIs do not seem to have a central place where knowledge about various response burden reduction actions and response burden measurement methods is coordinated. In the period 2006-2010 most NSIs (34 of 41) have measured actual response burden (defined as the time or money spent by businesses to respond to survey requests). But only 12 out of 41 institutes have measured perceived response burden (defined as the respondents’ assessment of how burdensome they find it to comply with data request). 17 of the 41 institutes have conducted studies on how businesses perceive their organisation (either in their capacity of data providers, data users or both).

10. Measuring the response burden CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu The methods used for response burden measurement vary largely between NSIs and also within NSIs. This makes it impossible to compare levels and trends in burden. Many NSIs are actively working on response burden reduction. They usually combine various types of actions. There is a large variation in the extent to which NSIs have implemented actions that can reduce response burden to their business surveys.

11. Measuring and reducing the response burden CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu There is hardly any quantitative research on the effects of burden reduction actions on response burden, data quality and the costs of producing statistics. There is hardly any quantitative research on how actions aimed at response burden reduction may have different effects for different businesses, depending on characteristics such as size class, industry or previous experiences with responding. The literature provides only some theoretical and hardly any empirical foundations for understanding how crucial concepts in the discussion on response burden are related. Especially, the relationships between actual response burden, perceived response burden, response behaviour, data quality and the costs of producing statistics are not very clear.

12. Use of administrative and accounts data (BLUE-ETS WP4) Constructive cooperation has been established with Workpackage 2 and 6 of the ESSnet ‘On the better Use of Administrative and Accounting Data for Business Statistics’. These WP's study the pre-evaluation of administrative data sources and the development of quality indicators for administrative data sources from the output point of view, respectively. The cooperation has resulted in the exchange of information by the WP-leaders of all three WP’s involved during formal and informal meetings and at conferences. During project meetings the ESSnet WP6-leader John-Mark Frost has attended the BLUE-ETS WP4-meeting in Rome (Feb. 3-4, 2011), and the BLUE-ETS WP4-leader (Piet Daas) has attended an ESSnet WP6-meeting in Lisbon (Nov. 25- 26, 2010) and an ESSnet WP2-meeting in Brussels (April 4, 2011). During these meeting information on the work performed in each of the workpackages involved has been mutually exchanged. The cooperation was done at no additional costs for the BLUE-ETS project.

13. Some conclusions from the Heerlen conference (1) CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu There is a need to understand burden elements from the perspective of business. It seems important that the data requests are simple and the purpose clear. It is important to distinguish between the motivation of business and respondents when undertaking a certain response task and the burden that they experience when doing the task. Official statistics were initially produced for government, not for businesses directly. It is a public good and should be assessed from a use/usefulness perspective. Approaches to burden should switch attention from burdens to gratifications, from reactivity to pro-activity, and from traditional internal, administrative attitude to communication and learning from businesses. There is still room for reducing the response burden if we decide on a single operational definition of a concept used in several statistical domains (e.g. there are three somewhat different turnover definitions in the European official statistics).

14. Some conclusions from the Heerlen conference(2) CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu There are many underlying assumptions to challenge and a research agenda to be determined. For instance, it is commonly accepted that there is an inverse relationship between burden and response. Another noticeable idea is that burden contributes to quality issues rather than to non-response. Such underlying assumptions have to be empirically assessed. To do this, it is necessary to specify operational definitions for the concepts of burden and quality. It is especially difficult to come up with a good quality indicator in mandatory surveys (while in voluntary surveys, response rates may be used as an approximation of such an indicator). In web surveys with consistency checks, this is even more hidden. Last but not least, it has to be born in mind that sufficient quality may vary by data collection or data item.

15. Some conclusions from the Heerlen conference (3) CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Many activities are assessed in a national context but they may naturally occur and be considered in an international context. The Standard Cost Model is too costly for continuous implementation and not representative as it is based only on a small number of in-depth interviews. Future research should study together processes in business and burden, search for balance between time burden and cognitive burden in survey planning, and start cognitive testing of products offering tailored statistics.

16. Recommendations on burden reduction and measurement and data quality CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu The response burden can be significantly reduced by more use of administrative data and integration of data sources. Eurostat should initiate the development and implementation of a standardized methodology for response burden measurement. Research concerning business data collection methodology must move on from qualitative, explorative research to quantitative and preferably experimental research designs; we intend to make a first step in this direction in the course of WP8. Effects of actions intended to reduce response burden should be monitored, reviewed, documented and made public. Burden reduction measurement and burden reduction actions should be coordinated within NSIs. Expansion of the use of administrative data is also a means of enhancing the availability and quality of business statistics

17. Recommendations on business perspectives CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Knowledge on business uses of NSI statistics should be improved, codified, become more structured and placed in the broader context of business use of data in general. NSIs should consider moving beyond the publicity principle that currently characterises dissemination practices of NSIs towards the principle of dialogue with users of NSI statistics, especially businesses as their important partners. NSIs should make more efforts to raise motivation for better reporting in NSI surveys, also based on knowledge on business uses of NSI statistics. NSIs should upgrade their work on delivering accurate data. NSIs should actively work on improving statistical literacy among their users in general and their business users in particular.

18. Where can BLUE-ETS be useful for ESSnet and MEETS? CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu Use of administrative data and account data for business statistics (Eurostat G1 – BLUE-ETS WP 4) Methodology for modern business statistics (Eurostat B2 – BLUE-ETS WP2, 3 and 8) Consistency of concepts and methods of business- related statistics (Eurostat G1 – BLUE-ETS WP6 and 9) Micro-data linking and data warehouseing in statistical production (Eurostat G1 and BLUE-ETS WP4 and 5) Methodology for modern business statistics (Eurostat B2, G1 and BLUE-ETS WP7 and 9) Small area estimation (Eurostat B2 and BLUE-ETS WP9) Dissemination and external evaluation (MEETS, Dir. B and G and BLUE-ETS WP10)

19. Thank you for your attention CEPS, 1 Place du Congrès 1000, Bruxelles +32 2 229 3911, http://www.ceps.eu