Meeting of the OECD Short-term Economic Statistics Expert Group (STESEG) - Paris, 27- 28 June 2005

Monday, 27 June (Room 3)

Item 1 Introduction

09.30 – 09.40 Welcome address (Enrico Giovannini – OECD Statistician)

09.40 – 10.00 Summary of issues emerging since the 2004 STESEG meeting such as:

- work of the STESEG task forces;

- recent OECD work on business tendency and consumer opinion surveys with the European Commission and the compilation of composite leading indicators for large non-member countries;

- co-ordination of OECD/European Commission’s Eurostat collection of short-term indicators from EU countries;

- further issues arising from the creation of the  OECD Committee on Statistics (CSTAT) in 2004. (Denis Ward – OECD)

Item 2 Task force on short-term indicators for services

Papers:

Summary information on STESEG task force work on services since the beginning of 2003
(pdf)

A compilation manual for an index of service production (pdf)

A compilation manual for an index of service production (annexes) (pdf)

Task force on short-term indicators for services: summary of national feedback (pdf)

10.00 – 10.30 Presentation of overall context of draft Index of Service Production (ISP) Manual and main comments received from national agencies and international organizations on the draft ISP manual (Eun-Pyo Hong – OECD)

12.30 – 14.00 Lunch break

Task force on short-term indicators for services (continued)

14.05 – 14.35 Discussion of main issues and conclusions on variables and deflators

14.35 – 14.50 Presentation of recommendations on index compilation (Benoit Arnaud – OECD)

14.50 – 15.20 Discussion on index compilation

15.20 – 16.00 Future work on ISP (Eun-Pyo Hong – OECD)

16.00 – 16.20 Break

Item 3 Task force on timeliness and benchmarking

Paper: Advances in benchmarking and temporal disaggregation techniques (pdf)

16.20 – 17.15 Revision and usage of  Short-term Economic Statistics Timeliness Framework created in 2004 – presentation and discussion (Richard McKenzie – OECD)

17:15 – 17:30 Update on developments in benchmarking methodologies and practical applications

18.00  Cocktail at OECD – New Building

Tuesday, 28 June (Room 3)

Item 4 Task force on the use of  administrative data for short-term economic statistics

Paper: Task Force on Administrative Data: progress report (pdf)

Paper: Task force on the use of administrative data for short-term economic statistics: summary of national feedback (pdf)

09.30 – 09.50 Administrative data task force: overview of work to date and summary of STESEG representative’s feedback (David Brackfield – OECD)

ppt presentation

09.50 – 10.20 Discussion of work to date and preliminary task force recommendations

10.20 – 10.40 Presentation – Use of administrative data for short-term statistics on employment, wages and labour cost (Fabio Rapiti, ISTAT)

ppt presentation

10.40 – 11.00 Discussion on presentation

11.00 – 11.20 Break

Item 5 Creation of a revisions analytical database for key short-term economic statistics

Paper: The OECD project on revisions analysis: first elements for discussion (pdf)

11.20 – 11-50 OECD proposals for the creation of a revisions analytical database  (Tommaso DiFonzo – OECD / University of Padova)

ppt presentation

11.50 – 12.30 Discussion of OECD proposals and future work

12.30 – 14.00 Lunch break

Item 6 Development of comparable quarterly unit labour cost indexes for OECD countries

Paper: Development of comparable quarterly unit labour cost indexes for OECD countries (pdf)

Paper: Development of comparable quarterly unit labour cost indexes for OECD countries: summary of national feedback (pdf)

14.05 – 14.35 Presentation of an OECD proposal to develop comparable quarterly unit labour costs indexes for OECD countries and a summary of STESEG representative’s feedback on this proposal (Richard McKenzie – OECD)

ppt presentation

14.35 – 15.00 Discussion of future work planned on this topic.

Item 7 Data and Metadata Presentation and Reporting Handbook

Papers:

Overview of development of the Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook and outstanding issues (pdf)

Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook: draft version (pdf)

Data and Metadat Reporting and Presentation Handbook: summary of national feedback (pdf)

15.00 – 15.15 Presentation of pre-publication version of Handbook forwarded on 29 April 2004 – Summary of national responses (Denis Ward – OECD)

15.15 – 15.45  Discussion of any outstanding key issues on recommendations in Handbook

15.45 – 16.05 Break

Item 8 Future work

16.05 – 16.20 Identification of future work and task force topics over the next twelve months (Denis Ward – OECD)

16.20 – 17.00 Discussion of future work