United Nations Statistics Division Dissemination of IIP data

 Dissemination principles  Recommended content for publication of IIP  Data revisions  International reporting

Dissemination principles  General dissemination principles apply to releases of IIP data Statistical confidentiality Equality of access Objectivity Also described in IRIS 2008

Statistical confidentiality  Included in the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics “Individual data collected by statistical agencies for statistical compilation, whether or not they refer to natural or legal persons, are to be strictly confidential and used exclusively for statistical purposes.” (UNSC 1994)

Statistical confidentiality  Sometimes it is possible to deduce information about an individual economic unit from aggregated information especially when the contribution of one (or two) economic unit dominates the total

Statistical confidentiality  Accepted rules in business statistics: A tabulation cell should comprise at least three units For cells with largest numbers, the three units with the largest values should together not dominate, i.e. not account for more than 70 per cent of the cell value

Statistical confidentiality  Practices to protect disclosure of confidential data Aggregation Suppression  May require secondary suppression Other:  Controlled rounding  Perturbation

Equality of access  Statistics compiled by national statistical offices are collective goods no users are privileged and everyone can take note of statistical data under equal terms no new data are supplied to anyone before these are officially released  internal release e.g. to key ministries may be necessary

Equality of access  In most cases press release is the first publication  Serves dual purpose: making the data officially public signal to the data users that additional data on the subject can be obtained from the NSO  Advance release calendar should be publicly available

Timeliness  Timeliness of release of annual and infra-annual statistics varies  Trade-off between timeliness and quality (accuracy)  Recommendation for IIP: Monthly IIP released within 45 days after the end of the reference month

Objectivity  Released data should not be accompanied by judgments or recommendations The independent and objective position of the national statistical office does not permit subjective interpretations  Note: Methodological explanations and advice should be included

Recommended content for publication  Both ‘original’ data series and seasonally adjusted data series should be published  A reference period needs to be determined and convention is that this period is set to a value of one hundred (100.0)  Present changes between month-to-month and change over same month of previous year  Present the main contributors to change, i.e. those product groups or industries that are primarily responsible for the monthly movement in the IIP

Additional content for publication  Descriptions of the methodologies used in the compilation of the index (choice of index formula, strategy for constructing the index series etc.)  Definitions of the underlying economic concepts the indices intend to measure  Weighting system used, weight update practices and frequency of weight update  Treatment of changes in the composition of commodities in the market as well as changes in quality  Limitations in the use or application of the indices

Data revisions  Data revisions are inherent in the way estimates are compiled and released, reflected in Preliminary data  Based mainly on trends and statistical techniques Provisional data  Based on limited amount of data Final data  Based on comprehensive data

Data revisions  Result of the trade-off between need for timeliness of published data and their reliability, accuracy and comprehensiveness  May be perceived as negative  Unavoidable for data like IIP, where high frequency and fast availability is important

Data revisions  Reasons: “normal” statistical procedures (new information available, change in data source, change in base year) Correction of errors Also: changes in underlying definitions, classifications etc.  Less frequent, not strictly “revisions”, but often occurring at the same time Explanation should be provided to avoid misinterpretation of reasons for data changes

Data revisions  Revision policy for normal statistical data revisions should be developed, featuring: predetermine schedule reasonable stability from year to year openness advance notice of reasons and effects easy access of users to sufficiently long time series of revised data as well as adequate documentation of revisions

International reporting  IIP has been collected by UNSD since the 1950’s  Current level of collection Monthly data at section level (1-digit) of ISIC Quarterly data at division level (2-digit) of ISIC Change from ISIC Rev.3 to ISIC Rev.4