Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook.

162 Pages·2007·2.03 MB·English

by  OECD

AVAILABLE ON LINE

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Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook
The OECD Data and Metadata Reporting and Presentation Handbook contains guidelines and
recommended best practice for the presentation of statistical data and metadata disseminated by
national agencies and international organisations in various dissemination media. The Handbook
brings together in one publication relevant presentation guidelines embodied in existing international
statistical standards where they exist. The Handbook also presents for the first time a standard set
of terminologies and guidelines for the presentation of growth rates, indices and seasonally adjusted
data developed by the OECD Short-Term Economic Statistics Working Party.
The need for a comprehensive data and metadata presentation Handbook comes from the
imperatives to improve the quality of statistics presented to users at both the national and
international levels, in particular, with respect to interpretability and coherence (within datasets,
across datasets, over time and between countries) and the need to minimise the reporting burden of
national agencies in their provision of data and metadata to international organisations. Data and Metadata
The Handbook also contains recommendations on a small number of key data presentation
areas that can also have a significant impact on data interpretability and where different approaches Reporting and
currently used by national and international agencies complicate the co-ordination of data collection
by different organisations and comparisons of national data, etc.
Presentation Handbook
Such presentation practices involve:
• data revision; D
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• series breaks; a
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• presentation of sampling and non-sampling errors; d
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• practices for re-basing indices; e
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• citation practices; d
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• availability and presentation of metadata; R
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• presentation of administrative data. p
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The full text of this book is available on line via this link: H
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Those with access to all OECD books on line should use this link: b
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Data and Metadata
Reporting
and Presentation
Handbook
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Faux-titre.fm Page 2 Monday, April 2, 2007 2:26 PM
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 présentation et sur le rapport de données et de métadonnées
© OECD 2007
No reproduction, copy, transmission or translation of this publication may be made without written permission. Applications should be sent to
OECD Publishing [email protected] or by fax [phone]. Permission to photocopy a portion of this work should be addressed to the Centre français
d’exploitation du droit de copie (CFC), 20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris, France, fax [phone], [email protected] or (for US only) to
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive Danvers, MA 01923, USA, fax [phone], [email protected].
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 Need for data and metadata reporting and presentation standards.........................................9
1.1.1 Improved data quality - interpretability and coherence........................................................10
1.1.2 Minimisation of reporting burden.........................................................................................11
1.2 Scope of reporting standards referred to in this Handbook..................................................13
1.2.1 Recommendations relevant for different dissemination media............................................15
1.2.2 Future editions of this Handbook.........................................................................................16
1.2.3 Summary of recommendations presented in this Handbook................................................17
2. Standards for the reporting and presentation of statistics...................................................31
2.1 Overview of relevant existing statistical standards...............................................................31
2.1.1 Need for consistency between different international statistical standards..........................33
2.1.2 Recommended practices to ensure consistency in presentation and reporting
practices included in future international statistical guidelines and recommendations........33
2.2 National and international publishing manuals and guidelines............................................33
2.2.1 Recommended practices for publication manuals................................................................34
2.3 Data and metadata exchange standards................................................................................34
2.3.1 Overview of data and metadata exchange processes and mechanisms.................................34
2.3.2 Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) initiative................................................36
2.3.3 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 Introduction..........................................................................................................................45
4.2 Original data.........................................................................................................................45
4.2.1 Recommended practices for original data............................................................................46
4.3 Indices...................................................................................................................................47
4.3.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................47
4.3.2 Recommended practices for indices.....................................................................................47
4.4 Growth rates.........................................................................................................................48
4.4.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................48
4.4.2 Recommended terminology for growth rates.......................................................................49
4.4.3 Recommended practices for the reporting and presentation of growth rates........................53
4.5 Ratios, proportions, percentages and rates............................................................................54
4.5.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................54
4.5.2 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 Introduction..........................................................................................................................73
6.2 Brief overview of relevant existing metadata standards.......................................................76
6.3 Recommended practices for the reporting and dissemination of metadata..........................78
6.3.1 The need for metadata..........................................................................................................79
6.3.2 Access to metadata...............................................................................................................79
6.3.3 Adoption of a set of common metadata items......................................................................80
6.3.4 Adoption of a common set of terminology for metadata preparation...................................82
6.3.5 Unambiguous presentation of similar but not identical statistical data................................83
6.4 Data Documentation Initiative for Micro-data.....................................................................84
7. Guidelines on key reporting practices..................................................................................87
7.1 Data revision.........................................................................................................................88
7.1.1 Typology and terminology...................................................................................................88
7.1.2 Context of revisions..............................................................................................................91
7.1.3 Recommended practices for data revision............................................................................95
7.2 Presentation of series breaks...............................................................................................104
7.2.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................104
7.2.2 Approaches to minimising the impact of time series breaks..............................................105
7.2.3 Recommended practices for the presentation and reporting of information about
series breaks........................................................................................................................105
7.3 Sampling and non-sampling errors.....................................................................................108
7.3.1 Sampling errors...................................................................................................................108
7.3.2 Non-sampling errors...........................................................................................................111
7.4 Rebasing indices.................................................................................................................115
7.4.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................115
7.4.2 Existing international standards..........................................................................................115
7.4.3 Compiling rebased (fixed) index numbers.........................................................................116
7.4.4 Presentation and dissemination of rebased indices.............................................................117
7.5 Citation...............................................................................................................................120
7.5.1 Reasons for citation............................................................................................................120
7.5.2 Existing citation standards..................................................................................................121
7.5.3 Data management issues.....................................................................................................122
7.5.4 Recommended practices for citation..................................................................................123
7.6 Administrative data.............................................................................................................125
7.6.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................125
7.6.2 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
8. References...........................................................................................................................129
Annex ............................................................................................................................................139
Glossary of data and metadata reporting and presentation terms.................................................140
DATA AND METADATA REPORTING AND PRESENTATION HANDBOOK - ISBN 92-64-03032-8 - © OECD 2007 7