1. 9 th Euroindicators Working Group Luxembourg, 4 th & 5 th December 2006 Eurostat - Unit D1 Key Indicators for European Policies

2. Main achievements of 2006 and future activities for 2007 By Gian Luigi Mazzi and Rosa Ruggeri Cannata Doc 175 / 06 Eurostat - Unit D1 Key Indicators for European Policies Item II - 1 of the Agenda

3. Main fields of activities  Management and improvement of the Euro-indicators special topic of the Eurostat website  Improvement and monitoring of the European and national short term indicators database (commonly referred as the Euro-IND database)  Improvement and analysis of short-term statistics  Improving and development of IT tools for data production and analysis  Publication of proceedings of past conferences and organisation of a new conference on seasonal adjustment

4. Resources allocation strategy  Lack of human resources  Recruitment problems  Lack of high qualified staff with statistical and econometric background for recruitment  Call for tenders  Grant  Administrative arrangement with JRC

5. Call for tenders  Call for tenders 2005 s 118-116051  Euro-indicators dedicated section  Monitoring and improving the Euro-IND database  Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs) statistical production and analysis  Call for tenders 2005 s 152-151279  Advanced statistical techniques for quality assessment and improvement of PEEIs  Advanced statistical and econometric techniques for the analysis of PEEIs

6. Other financial commitment  Grants on flash estimates of some PEEIs  Two phases for a total duration 18 months  Administrative Arrangement

7. Management and improvement of Euro-indicators (1)  Production and improvement of Eurostatistics  Pilot IT project to reduce publication delays  Test phase for the colour printing of sections one and two  Two new selected readings  Benchmarking techniques  Nobel price E. S. Phelps  New web pages for the conference on "Seasonality, Seasonal Adjustment and Their Implications for Short- term Analysis and Forecasting"

8. Management and improvement of Euro-indicators (2)  Definition of structure and contents of PEEIs methodological pages  Draft version of a quality report for Euro-indicators predefined tables  Regular production of Euro-indicators Newsletter  Draft of a new Webtrends publication based on available information on site monitoring

9. Euro-IND improvement and monitoring  Reviewing Euro-IND statistical content in cooperation with production units  Regular production of State of Affairs and Monitoring Report publications  Analysis of alternative quality measures to be introduced in the quality monitoring  Design of a prototype for an historical database of revisions  Statistical comparison between Euro-IND and MEI  Implementation of a new Fame database for Business and Consumer Surveys data

10. Improvement and analysis of PEEIs (1)  Definition of a methodology for flash estimates and application to some variables not covered by the grant  Producer Price Index  New Orders  Definition of a methodology for back-recalculation and its application to some PEEIs back to 1970  Industrial Production index  Unemployment  …  Definition of a temporal disaggregation methodology for the estimation of monthly data  monthly indicator of economic activity

11. Improvement and analysis of PEEIs (2)  Comparative analysis of existing leading indicators for the euro area  Comparative analysis of existing turning point chronologies for the euro area  Construction of coincident indicators  GDP  Industrial Production Index  Statistical dating and detection of turning points for the euro area  Classical cycle  Growth cycle  Alternative trend-cycle decompositions of GDP, IPI, unemployment

12. Ongoing projects  Advanced quality measures for time series data and their application to Euro-IND  Guidelines for seasonal adjustment of PEEIs  Guidelines on PEEIs revision policy and release harmonisation  Guidelines for PEEIs estimation methods  Use and interpretation of Business and Consumer Surveys  New advances in seasonal adjustment  Alternatives methods for the construction of synthetic leading, coincident and lagging indicators

13. IT tools for data production and analysis  Administrative arrangement with the JRC  New Ecotrim tool  Cooperation with unit B5  Demetra version 2.1  Upgrade of the Tramo-Seats Unix version  Test phase of X-13 A-S

14. Other activities  Seasonal adjustment in cooperation with unit B5  Internal task force on SA -Eurostat SA guidelines -SA Action Plan  ECB – Eurostat steering group on SA  ESTP training on SA  PEEIs  Contributions to FROCH meetings  Contribution to Status Report  PEEIs internal task force

15. Non achievements and delays  Further improvement of Euro-indicators services  site map  FAQ  …  Finalisation of methodological pages  Revisions and improvements of metadata  Content revision of the predefined tables of Euro-indicators

16. Work plan 2007 (1)  PEEIs visibility  Business Cycle Clock in collaboration with Eurostat units B3 and B6  Online control panel for euro area, European Union and possible Member States  Web pages on PEEIs  Carry on of regular statistical production  Presentation of results on new indicators and estimates  production units  Eurostat hierarchy  Follow up of grants on flash estimates  evaluation of first results

17. Work plan 2007 (2) Follow up of yearly projects for 2007:  Construction of synthetic quality indicators  Multivariate temporal disaggregation techniques  Common guidelines for back-recalculation of PEEIs  Structural VARs and alternative specifications of long term constraints  Real time estimation of  potential output  output gap  NAIRU  Phillips' curve

18. Work plan 2007 (3)  IT tools improvement:  Final version of new Ecotrim  Beta version of a tool for back-recalculation  Further improvements to Demetra 2.1