Short-term business statistics - quality and scope

This article presents various quality aspects of European Union (EU) short-term statistics (STS): their timeliness, scope, accuracy, reliability and various other quality indicators.

It is part of a set of background articles treating various methodological aspects of short-term business statistics.

Timeliness and punctuality

Table 1: Timeliness of short-term business statistics (days between end of reference period and data dissemination of European results)

For short-term statistics the early availability of data is of central importance. Five STS indicators (production in industry, construction and services, industrial producer prices and retail trade volume) are published in a monthly news release between 5 and 10 weeks after the end of the reference period.

The European Business Statistics Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 2019/2152 of 27 November 2019) stipulates the periodicity of the various short-term indicators. The General Implementing Regulation (Regulation No 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020) includes precise deadlines for the delivery of national data to Eurostat. (See also the article on the legal base and the concise overview tables on the Eurostat website dedicated to STS.)

Only few days are needed for the calculation and dissemination of European results, e.g. aggregates for EU-27 or the euro area (see Table 1, last column). Users are informed well in advance about the publication dates of the news releases by the release calendar on the Eurostat website.

Scope and compliance

STS covers a large number of indicators, including production, turnover, prices and employment, business demography for four different areas of the economy (industry, construction, retail trade, services). In addition short-term statistics publish a comprehensive indicator that combines production data for industry, construction and services with the total trade volume, i.e. the Total Market Production Indicator (TMPI) which covers around three quarters of the economy.

Member States' compliance with the short-term statistics Regulation in terms of reliability, timeliness, coherence and comparability is monitored by Eurostat every six months and shows a high level of compliance and constant improvement.

Coherence and comparability

The European Business Statistics Regulation and the General Implementing Regulation contain a set of common STS definitions which are applied by all Member States.

The methodological framework established by the Regulation is continuously improved by mutual consultations and special thematically focused task forces. Methodologies do not have to be identical in Member States. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity Member States are free to decide on the most efficient and effective ways of collecting and processing data in order to take into account national differences, e.g. in size, economic structure and availability of administrative data.

Eurostat also works together with other international organisations, especially the OECD, in order to increase the comparability of data and methods beyond the European Union.

Revisions

Table 2: Average size of revisions of STS indicators (difference between growth rates at first and second publication)

First results of short-term indicators are partly based on estimated and incomplete data. For this reason, results change between first, second and (to a lesser extent) even subsequent publications.

Over time survey results become more complete because missing or late respondents have been added. Other reasons why data are revised are seasonal adjustment, benchmarking, new and/or improved data sources, and corrections of errors or methodological changes.

Nevertheless, the size of revisions of short term indicators is generally rather limited, especially at the aggregate EU level and for the euro area. Table 2 presents for the five short-term indicators published monthly in special news releases the changes between the first and the second publication of monthly growth rates.

Accessibility and availability of metadata

All short-term statistics results are freely accessible on the Eurostat website in the special section dedicated to short-term statistics. Comprehensive, targeted and detailed explanations of methodological issues (metadata) are also made available there. The publications provide detailed discussions of statistical processes, legal questions, confidentiality rules, data quality and description of national data collection methods. For a number of key indicators additional detailed methodological explanations are also available.

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Thematic section

Short-term business statistics

Methodology

Short-term business statistics - Metadata in SDMX format (ESMS metadata file — sts_esms)
More information on Metadata in Eurostat