Back to OECD / Eurostat guidelines on revisions policy and analysis

 

A goal of the task-force was to explore the relationship between timeliness of publication and size of revisions, in particular to provide some empirical evidence to the long standing debate of whether improvements in timeliness can only be achieved through sacrifices in accuracy or reliability (implying larger revisions to first estimates). Case studies on this topic as performed by the task-force are presented for Swedish Retail Trade and Euro area GDP and Retail Trade.

These case studies both found that improvements in timeliness were possible without an increase in the size of revision for first estimates, which is consistent with the themes presented in the OECD Short-Term Economic Statistics Timeliness Framework. This framework advocates that improvements in timeliness can be made without loss in accuracy if made in conjunction with improvements to the statistical production process.