Growth Rates Preservation (GRP) temporal benchmarking: Drawbacks and alternative solutions

Benchmarking monthly or quarterly series to annual data is a common practice in many National Statistical Institutes. The benchmarking problem arises when time series data for the same target variable are measured at different frequencies and there is a need to remove discrepancies between the sums of the sub-annual values and their annual benchmarks. Several benchmarking methods are available in the literature. The Growth Rates Preservation (GRP) benchmarking procedure is often considered the best method. It is often claimed that this procedure is grounded on an ideal movement preservation principle. However, we show that there are important drawbacks to GRP, relevant for practical applications, that are unknown in the literature. Alternative benchmarking models will be considered that do not suffer from some of GRP\u2019s side effects

ON COURSE, BUT NOT THERE YET: ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE CONFORMANCE AND BENEFITS IN SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

Various claims have been made regarding the benefits that Enterprise Architecture (EA) delivers for both individual systems development projects and the organization as a whole. This paper presents the statistical findings of a survey study (n=293) carried out to empirically test these claims. First, we investigated which techniques are used in practice to stimulate conformance to EA. Secondly, we studied which benefits are actually gained. Thirdly, we verified whether EA creators (e.g. enterprise architects) and EA users (e.g. project members) differ in their perceptions regarding EA. Finally, we investigated which of the applied techniques most effectively increase project conformance to and effectiveness of EA. A multivariate regression analysis demonstrates that three techniques have a major impact on conformance: carrying out compliance assessments, management propagation of EA and providing assistance to projects. Although project conformance plays a central role in reaping various benefits at both the organizational and the project level, it is shown that a number of important benefits have not yet been fully achieved

Smallest nonparametric tolerance regions

We present a new, natural way to construct nonparametric multivariate tolerance regions. Unlike the classical nonparametric tolerance intervals, where the endpoints are determined by beforehand chosen order statistics, we take the shortest interval, that contains a certain number of observations. We extend this idea to higher dimensions by replacing the class of intervals by a general class of indexing sets, which specializes to the classes of ellipsoids, hyperrectangles or convex sets. The asymptotic behavior of our tolerance regions is derived using empirical process theory, in particular the concept of generalized quantiles. Finite sample properties of our tolerance regions are investigated through a simulation study. Real data examples are also presented

Development of Electronic Payments in Georgia

Electronic payments are considered to be a fast and secure alternative for traditional payment methods. Today, it is impossible to imagine modern bank operations, commercial transactions and other payments without electronic payments. This article shows that electronic payments are not the only means for reducing costs with respect to other payment methods, such as cash, but can also generate significant benefits for increasing economic development and reducing shadow economy. The paper focuses on the development of electronic payments in Georgia and its impact on the economy of the country. Over the decades, the payment systems in Georgia have evolved significantly in line with the technological advancement. Significant progress has been achieved in improving the e-payment systems infrastructure. The evolution of e-payments in Georgia can be characterized by the following: debit (including prepaid) and credit cards, credit and debit transfers compose a core set of noncash payment types commonly used today by consumers and businesses. These core noncash payment types are used both in traditional ways, such as in-person purchases, payroll deposits, and bill payments, and in innovative ways, such as contactless and mobile payments, e-commerce and online bill payments. Using the economic-mathematical analyses of the information taken from the web-page of the National Bank of Georgia and commercial banks’ publications, a mathematical model was built, based on which the positive relationship between e-payments and economic growth in terms of real GDP was shown

Statistical application of generalized quantiles : Nonparametric tolerance regions and P-P plots

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Macro-Integration for Solving Large Data Reconciliation Problems

Macro-integration technique is a well established method for reconciliation of large, high-dimensional tables, especially applied to macroeconomic data at national statistical oces (NSO). This technique is mainly used when data obtained from dierent sources should be reconciled on a macro level. New areas of applications for this technique arise as new data sources become available to NSO's. Often these new data sources cannot be combined on a micro level, while macro integration could provide a solution for such problems. Yet, more research should be carried out to investigate if in such situations macro integration could indeed be applied. In this paper we propose two applications of macro-integration techniques in other domains than the traditional macro-economic applications. In particular: reconciliation of tables of a virtual census and reconciliation of monthly series of short term statistics gures with the quarterly gures of structural business statistics

Uncertainty measures for economic accounts

The problem of adjusting economic or social accounts can be quite complex when large accounting equation systems are considered. This is especially true if they must fulfill predefined, known functional relationships. For such complex systems, evaluating the accuracy of the estimates after the adjustment is difficult since they are defined by unadjusted initial estimates, the accounting equations and the adjustment method. In this paper, we consider such systems as a single entity and develop scalar uncertainty measures that capture the adjustment effect as well as the relative contribution of the various input estimates to the final estimated account. The scalar measures are based on the first two moments of the joint distribution of the underlying true accounting system without requiring specification of the distribution in full. Scalar measures can help to effectively communicate to the users the relevant uncertainty of disseminated macro-economic accounts, and can assist the producer in choosing and improving adjustment method and input estimators. The proposed approach will be illustrated both analytically and by simulation. Applications to supply and use tables and to time series data will be presented

Benchmarking, Temporal Disaggregation and Statistical Reconciliation of Time Series

Through the call for a special issue on Benchmarking, Temporal Disaggregation, and Reconciliation of Systems of Time Series, we invited researchers to submit scientific papers of their research. To ensure the highest scientific quality, all submitted papers underwent a strict peer review process, and only the finally accepted papers have been published. This special issue consists of 10 articles: the papers can be grouped into three topics: (a) temporal benchmarking of time series, (b) indirect estimation through temporal disaggregation, and (c) reconciliation of (national accounts) systems of time series