Long time series issues in the EU national accounts

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Long time series issues in the EU national
accounts

• Ingo Kuhnert (Eurostat)

Eurostat - Unit C2National Accounts - production
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Some general issues in long time series

• WHO needs long series?
• HOW LONG need the series be?
• WHICH series are required in long form?
• What is the ORIGIN of the lack of length?
• HOW TO extend the length of series?

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Long series in the EU Principle

• Statistics are collected on the basis of EU
  legislation. By default, legislation specifies
  the minimum length of series.
• The negotiation process for new legislation
  usually results in a reasonable compromise.
• Member States are, of course, free to produce
  longer series. Shorter series need a specific
  derogation in the legislation.

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Long series in the EU Examples

• Introduction of ESA95 (required 1970 ?)
• Revised data transmission programme (1970/1995 ?)
• Allocation of FISIM (1995 ?)
• Chain-linking (1995 ?)
• Revision of NACE/CPA (still work-in-progress,
  depending on field of statistics)

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Long series in the EU geographic aggregates

• Changes in geographic composition are an
  extraordinary feature in national statistics, but
  relatively common in statistics for the European
  Union (EU6, EU9, EU10, EU12, EU15, EU25, ) and
  the Euro-zone (EUR11, EUR12, ).
• Depending on purpose, long series are needed for
  aggregates
• in pre-change (old) composition,
• in post-change (new) composition and
• in time-varying (real) composition.

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Compilation of EU accounts principle

• Baseline
• take sum (or average) of all Member States
• sum levels, derive everything else
• in doubt, prefer indirect approach
• ? Without additional measures, the length of EU
  series is the minimum length of Member States
  series. In particular, EU series will be missing
  as long as data for any one Member State is not
  available.

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Compilation of EU accounts extension

• In annual accounts, internally impute single
  missing Member States by a variety of rather
  basic techniques.
• In quarterly accounts, estimate EU once annual
  accounts and 65 of quarterly coverage are
  available. Estimation by breaking down the annual
  values into quarters according to the pattern of
  the quarterly data that is available.
• Accept short series if the amount of estimations
  necessary becomes too heavy (Loss of 4 years
  length in Nov. 2005).

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• Contact Ingo.Kuhnert_at_cec.eu.int

Thank you !