The converging pattern between Business statistics and Administrative data. Towards an “industrialized” statistical production process The Italian LCS2012 experience Ciro Baldi, Marilena Angela Ciarallo, Stefano De Santis, Silvia Pacini Istat European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Schönbrunn Palace Conference Centre, Vienna, Austria, 2-5 June 2014

Contents 1.Some remarks on Labour cost survey 2.New Registers based on new admin sources  administrative data assisted survey 3.Re-design of the LCS 2012: a)An administrative data aware questionnaire b)The contact strategy and the role of the new certified mailing system (PEC) c)Re-thinking of sampling, E&I procedures and estimation European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014

Some information on the LCS 1.The Labour cost survey is a 4 yearly survey enterprise survey designed to collect information on number of employees, hours worked and paid, wages and labur costs 2.Defintions of the LCS regulation are very detailed 3.A quite large number of items and subitems are requested 4.The Enterprise should retrieve the information requested from variuos systems (the presence system for the hours, the payroll system for wages and contributions, accounts data for other labour costs) 5.The Enterprise should perform a number of calculations 6.The survey is one of the most challenging for the enterprises 7.Very low response rates 8.Risks of lot of measurment errors European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014

employees; type of contract; employer;.. Employment Wage Register (EWR) ) Employment Register (ER) ……;wages; other labour costs; paid time;….. Businees Register (BR) Businees Wage Register (BWR) New Register based on new administrative sources Today : Based on Social Security data  Employment Wage Register (EWR) with details on employees, type of contract, wages, a proxy of paid time, other labour costs… Yesterday: Business Register (BR) with information on total number of employees

New administrative sources - Registers Business Wage Register (employees, wages, paid time, other labour costs,…) Business Wage Register (employees, wages, paid time, other labour costs,…) PEC Register Re-design of the LCS 2012 European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Collection and contact strategy Sampling Questionnaire design Estimation E&I An administrative data assisted survey

A bridge European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Although rich the BWR is not sufficient to satisfy the LCS regulation Lacks of detailed subitems of wages and labour costs Core variables do not fit perfectly the regulation definitions Build a questionnaire that is a bridge administrative definitions statistical defiinitions

Design a questionnaire keeping the administrative data in mind  starting from the administrative data definitions Explicit reference to the Social security wage Advantage: separate definitional error from measurement error Add subvoices to adjust for definitions (inclusions/exclusions) Refer to concepts, structures to which the enterprises are accustomed Overall the questionnaire was simplified In future: prefill the questionnaire with main variables from BWR An administrative data aware questionnaire European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014

Sampling European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Use of the data on wages from the BWR (previous year) as parameters in the sample allocation The register data shows higher variability with respect to previous survey, maybe because of self selection of respondents toward higher wages enteprises The allocation among strata is sensibly different from one performed using parameters from sample surveys

Contact strategy: the use of the PEC system European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Since July 2013 the exchange of information and documents between public administrations and enterprises must occur only through Certified (PEC). All enterprises must have a PEC address registered at the Chamber of Commerce Business Register (CCBR). Safe protocols for secure transmission Receipt with date and hour of delivery Same legal value of a post letter sent by recorded delivery and receipt return.

Pec sending system European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 First sending and reminders: more than pec for sampled units Advantages: Costs reduction Preparation time reduced Flexibility: adaptability to survey necessisities Controllability of delivery results The first sending

Pec vs post contact: response rates European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Response rates by mode of first sending

European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Editing & Imputation 1 - Recall of influent enteprises During data collection a recall of influent enterprises was carried out. Identification of recallig units performed with Selemix Identify influent enterprises among outliers detected with mixture models One of the models check number of employees, wages and hours paid against BWR counterparts Allowed to detect categories of errors: Reporting for part of the enterprises Reporting for part of the workforce Gross measurement errors Yearly Employment average mismeasured in case of large turnover Allowed to detect errors in admin data as well Feedback to the people in charge of the register

European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Editing & Imputation 2 Editing of enterprises with significant discrepancies with admin data (in progress) Substitute admin data (benchmark values) Editing plan becomes more complex since: How to choose thresholds for errors Another dimension besides the normal intra survey edits E&I based on admin data comparison should control much better the measurement errors

European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Editing & Imputation 3 and calibration Integration of main variables and pass through variables for total non responses using admin data. Base for subsequent donor imputation for secondary variables Calibration Using employment and wages from BWR as auxiliary variables Highly correlated with target variables  reduce response bias and precision of estimates

European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014 Final remarks E&I and estimation are on going by now. Only provisional remarks: Simplification of the questionnaire, PEC sending and reminders, together with other elements of contact and collection strategy (web questionnaire, telephone contacts etc)  increase of response rate compared to previous editions Editing based on comparison with admin data allow to better control the measurement errors. Sampling and Calibration using admin data on wages should reduce sampling errors In the future: Conducting studies in order to use available variables to minimize the sample size Prefilling the questionnaire with main variables

Thank you for your attention Ciro Baldi European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Vienna, 2-5 June 2014