Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook

[Pages:162]Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook

2007

Data and Metadata Reporting

and Presentation Handbook

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 30 democracies work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies.

The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD.

OECD Publishing disseminates widely the results of the Organisation's statistics gathering and research on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as the conventions, guidelines and standards agreed by its members.

This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries.

Also available in French under the title: Manuel sur la pr?sentation et sur le rapport de donn?es et de m?tadonn?es

? OECD 2007

No reproduction, copy, transmission or translation of this publication may be made without written permission. Applications should be sent to OECD Publishing rights@ or by fax 33 1 45 24 99 30. Permission to photocopy a portion of this work should be addressed to the Centre fran?ais d'exploitation du droit de copie (CFC), 20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris, France, fax 33 1 46 34 67 19, contact@ or (for US only) to Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive Danvers, MA 01923, USA, fax 1 978 646 8600, info@.

FOREWORD

The Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook provides a single comprehensive reference set of international guidelines and recommendations for the reporting and presentation of statistical data and metadata. Although, the Handbook was prepared primarily for short-term economic statistics, many, if not most of the recommendations presented are also relevant for annual (structural) statistics and for social and population statistics. The Handbook draws heavily on existing international statistical guidelines and recommendations that have been developed over the last twenty years by international organisations and national statistical agencies. These international standards have been developed for implementation by international organisations themselves and by national agencies in both developed and developing economies.

The need for the articulation of a comprehensive set of recommendations on the reporting and presentation of statistical data and metadata is one aspect of the overall demand for improved international comparability and consistency of statistics compiled and published by national agencies and international organisations. This requirement has itself been driven by closer economic and social linkages between both the 30 OECD Member countries and between those countries and large emerging non-member economies. As discussed in the Handbook, the major causes of differences in statistics compiled in different countries flow from the use of different definitions and concepts and differences arising from varying collection and statistical data transformation practices. Even where differences in these areas are minimal the statistics disseminated by different countries may actually look different because of the use of different data reporting and presentation practices. These differences can have considerable impact in an environment where users have ready access to a bewildering amount of statistical information facilitated through the availability of on-line databases and statistics on the Internet at both the national and international levels.

Data and metadata reporting and presentation standards cover a very large number of issues and some subjectivity has been applied in the selection of issues covered in the present Handbook. Following the release of this publication the intention is to locate a more interactive version on the OECD statistics website where existing guidelines can be modified or new issues emerging over time can be incorporated. Such new issues could for example be driven by the continuing impact of new technologies used for the dissemination of statistics to both generalist and specialist users.

It is unreasonable to expect that differences in statistics compiled by national agencies in the context of national social and economic environments to address specific national requirements will disappear overnight, if at all. For this reason, one of the underlying themes throughout the Handbook is the need for both national agencies and international organisations to improve the transparency of methodologies, concepts, etc., they apply in the collection and compilation of statistics. Internet based technologies provide an ideal platform that gives users ready access to such information as well as the statistics they describe.

It is recognised that the implementation of some (though not all) of the recommendations included in this Handbook (which are summarised in Section 1.2.3) will require expenditure of resources. Options to minimise this therefore entail:

DATA AND METADATA REPORTING AND PRESENTATION HANDBOOK - ISBN 92-64-03032-8 - ? OECD 2007

3

? selective / co-ordinated implementation through phasing in on the basis of dialogue between national agencies and international organisations; or

? progressive implementation at the time of the revision of the various statistics, etc., according to the specific rates / rhythms of each country.

This Handbook draws heavily on the work of many national statistical institutes, central banks, etc., working in the OECD's Short-term Economic Statistics Working Party (STESWP) over the last two years and from detailed comments and suggestions from other international organisations, in particular, the European Commission's Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other participants of the Co-ordinating Committee for Statistical Activities (CCSA). The work was coordinated and prepared by Denis Ward, Statistics Directorate, OECD.

Enrico Giovannini Chief Statistician and Director of the Statistics Directorate OECD Paris

4

DATA AND METADATA REPORTING AND PRESENTATION HANDBOOK - ISBN 92-64-03032-8 - ? OECD 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword............................................................................................................................................. 3

1. Introduction and overview...................................................................................................... 9

1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3

Need for data and metadata reporting and presentation standards ......................................... 9 Improved data quality - interpretability and coherence ........................................................ 10 Minimisation of reporting burden......................................................................................... 11 Scope of reporting standards referred to in this Handbook .................................................. 13 Recommendations relevant for different dissemination media ............................................ 15 Future editions of this Handbook ......................................................................................... 16 Summary of recommendations presented in this Handbook ................................................ 17

2. Standards for the reporting and presentation of statistics ................................................... 31

2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2

2.2 2.2.1 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3

Overview of relevant existing statistical standards............................................................... 31 Need for consistency between different international statistical standards .......................... 33 Recommended practices to ensure consistency in presentation and reporting practices included in future international statistical guidelines and recommendations ........ 33 National and international publishing manuals and guidelines ............................................ 33 Recommended practices for publication manuals ................................................................ 34 Data and metadata exchange standards ................................................................................ 34 Overview of data and metadata exchange processes and mechanisms................................. 34 Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) initiative ................................................ 36 SDMX implementation projects ........................................................................................... 37

3. Importance of use of common terminology .......................................................................... 39

3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 39 3.2 Glossary systems .................................................................................................................. 39 3.3 Terminology management .................................................................................................... 42 3.4 Data reporting and presentation terminology ....................................................................... 43 3.5 Recommended practices to ensure the use of consistent terminology and definitions......... 44

4. Guidelines for the reporting of different types of data ......................................................... 45

4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.4 4.4.1 4.4.2 4.4.3 4.5 4.5.1 4.5.2

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 45 Original data ......................................................................................................................... 45 Recommended practices for original data ............................................................................ 46 Indices................................................................................................................................... 47 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 47 Recommended practices for indices ..................................................................................... 47 Growth rates ......................................................................................................................... 48 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 48 Recommended terminology for growth rates ....................................................................... 49 Recommended practices for the reporting and presentation of growth rates........................ 53 Ratios, proportions, percentages and rates............................................................................ 54 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 54 Recommended practices for the presentation of ratios, proportions, percentages and rates ............................................................................................................ 57

DATA AND METADATA REPORTING AND PRESENTATION HANDBOOK - ISBN 92-64-03032-8 - ? OECD 2007

5

5. Guidelines for the reporting of different forms of time series data ...................................... 59

5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 59 5.2 Terminology ......................................................................................................................... 60 5.3 Working day adjusted data ................................................................................................... 64 5.4 Seasonally adjusted data....................................................................................................... 64 5.5 Trend-cycle data ................................................................................................................... 65 5.6 Recommended practices for the reporting and presentation of different forms of time

series data ............................................................................................................................. 66 5.6.1 Forms of time series data to be presented............................................................................. 67 5.6.2 Analytical transformations.................................................................................................... 68 5.6.3. Information about seasonal adjustment to be provided to users ........................................... 70

6. Guidelines for the reporting and dissemination of metadata ............................................... 73

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.3.4 6.3.5 6.4

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 73 Brief overview of relevant existing metadata standards....................................................... 76 Recommended practices for the reporting and dissemination of metadata .......................... 78 The need for metadata .......................................................................................................... 79 Access to metadata ............................................................................................................... 79 Adoption of a set of common metadata items ...................................................................... 80 Adoption of a common set of terminology for metadata preparation................................... 82 Unambiguous presentation of similar but not identical statistical data ................................ 83 Data Documentation Initiative for Micro-data ..................................................................... 84

7. Guidelines on key reporting practices.................................................................................. 87

7.1 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.1.3 7.2 7.2.1 7.2.2 7.2.3

7.3 7.3.1 7.3.2 7.4 7.4.1 7.4.2 7.4.3 7.4.4 7.5 7.5.1 7.5.2 7.5.3 7.5.4 7.6 7.6.1 7.6.2

Data revision......................................................................................................................... 88 Typology and terminology ................................................................................................... 88 Context of revisions.............................................................................................................. 91 Recommended practices for data revision............................................................................ 95 Presentation of series breaks............................................................................................... 104 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 104 Approaches to minimising the impact of time series breaks .............................................. 105 Recommended practices for the presentation and reporting of information about series breaks........................................................................................................................ 105 Sampling and non-sampling errors..................................................................................... 108 Sampling errors................................................................................................................... 108 Non-sampling errors ........................................................................................................... 111 Rebasing indices ................................................................................................................. 115 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 115 Existing international standards.......................................................................................... 115 Compiling rebased (fixed) index numbers ......................................................................... 116 Presentation and dissemination of rebased indices............................................................. 117 Citation ............................................................................................................................... 120 Reasons for citation ............................................................................................................ 120 Existing citation standards.................................................................................................. 121 Data management issues..................................................................................................... 122 Recommended practices for citation .................................................................................. 123 Administrative data............................................................................................................. 125 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 125 Recommended practices for the presentation and reporting of administrative data........... 126

6

DATA AND METADATA REPORTING AND PRESENTATION HANDBOOK - ISBN 92-64-03032-8 - ? OECD 2007

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download