Adding Value to Statistics in the Data Revolution Age

As many statistical offices in accordance with the European Statistical System commitment to Vision 2020, since the second half of 2014 Istat has implemented its internal standardisation and industrialisation process within the framework of a common Business Architecture. Istat modernisation programme aims at building services and infrastructures within a plug-and-play framework to foster innovation, promote reuse and move towards full integration and interoperability of statistical process, consistent with a service-oriented architecture. This is expected to lead to higher effectiveness and productivity by improving the quality of statistical information and reducing the response burden. This paper addresses the strategy adopted by Istat which is focused on exploiting administrative data and new data sources in order to achieve its key goals enhancing value to users. The strategy is based on some priorities that consider services centred on users and stakeholders as well as Linked Open Data, to allow Machine-to-Machine data and metadata integration through definition of common statistical ontologies and semantics

ROMANIA’S TRADE IN SERVICES: REAPING THE BENEFITS OF GLOBALIZATION

Ample anecdotal evidence over the last couple of years points to Romania’s growing attractiveness as location for offshoring decisions by Western companies, and the subsequent rise in offshoring-related services activities. This paper aims to explore if and to what extent these relatively new developments are backed up by official trade and FDI statistics. Drawing on recent literature on the topic of services offshoring, it analyzes Romania’s trade and FDI flows in services over the 1995-2008 period in terms of dynamics, composition and performance. The findings of the empirical investigation suggest that the remarkable export growth in some individual services categories in the last years, as well as the positive changes under way in the patterns of services trade are largely driven by globalization, i.e. by enhanced offshoring activities hosted by the Romanian economy.trade in services, FDI, offshoring, Romania

Early evaluation of Unistats: user experiences

This paper sets out the findings of the user evaluation of Unistats.UK Higher Education Funding Bodie

GLOBAL SOURCING OF SERVICES: HOW WELL ARE THE NEW EU MEMBER STATES COPING WITH THE CHALLENGES? (PART I)

increasingly drawn the attention of economists and politicians, as well as the public. Particularly in the light of the recent waves of EU enlargement these countries have been considered as highly attractive locations for offshored services both from a European and global perspective. While a fairly large amount of anecdotal evidence documents the NMS high potentialities in terms of service offshoring, academic research on this topic is limited. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion. Drawing on recent literature on the complex issue of service globalisation, the paper investigates NMS trade and FDI flows in services over the period 1995-2007 to find evidence of enhanced offshoring-related activities in these countries. The focus is on NMS-10, i.e. NMS-12 excluding Cyprus and Malta. Given the shortcomings of available statistical data and instruments for gauging the scale and impact of services offshoring, the paper adopts a three-tier approach based on BoP trade and FDI statistics, complemented by alternative sources of information. Notwithstanding the caveats associated with this kind of empirical exercise, the paper documents an accelerated pace of offshoring-related activities in the selected NMS, under both forms: international outsourcing and captive offshoring. Its findings show that the fast growing exports in some individual service categories in recent years, coupled with the favourable ongoing changes in the structure and performance of NMS services trade are largely driven by enhanced offshoring activities hosted by their economies. Further, the paper highlights the NMS capabilities to cope with the challenges raised by the increasingly competitive global offshoring landscape, as measured by competitiveness indicators. Finally, the findings of the paper confirm that current anecdotal information and consulting companies-based projections on NMS growing attractiveness as targets of offshoring decisions by TNC originating both inside and outside EU-15 are widely backed up by available statistical data. The paper is organised in two parts under the same title.globalisation, services, international trade, FDI, New EU Member States

Classification of data collection methods (= Deliverable 3.1 of the OrganicDataNetwork project - Report on collection methods)

In this report, a number of evaluation and quality criteria for data collection and compilation methods were defined. The results of an online survey on all existing organic market data collection methods in Europe were compiled and assessed. Subsequently the quality of existing data collection and processing approaches was evaluated using the following data quality dimensions: relevance, accuracy, comparability, coherence, accessibility and clarity, and timeliness and punctuality. The quality assessment was carried out exemplary to determine some good examples of data collection and processing. These cases were chosen because they delivered a very holistic and comprehensive presentation of their approaches regarding data collection methods, analyses, quality checks, and publication

Migration and Statistics

The field of empirical migration and integration research is characterised by a wide range of research questions, theoretical approaches and data sets. Research based on official statistics has to deal with different data sets on migration and foreign population resulting in different numbers. Developments in official statistics concentrate on the improvement of data quality. The census 2010/2011 or the projected central population register are important issues, e.g. in respect of sampling and weighting of migrants in surveys. The concept of migration background in the microcensus is a mayor enhancement in population statistics and has become widely accepted. It is recommended to implement questions on migration background in the census 2010/2011 too. The most important accessible data sets in the field of empirical integration research are the microcensus and the German Socio-Economic Panel; there is still untapped potential for analysis in this area. The supplementation of large surveys with a migrant sample is an appreciated trend. Most important challenges for empirical migration and integration research are the development of sampling methods for migrant population (including onomastics and topomastics), studies on new and small migrant groups, research projects in the country of origin, longitudinal migrant surveys and the development of measurement instruments.Population, Migration, Integration, Migration Background