Transcript P5.2

Economic and Financial Statistics and Indicators
for Multilateral Surveillance
PEEIs, PGIs and International Data Templates
Werner Bier
Deputy Director General Statistics
European Central Bank
Third International Seminar on
Early Warning and Business Cyclical Indicators
Moscow, 17 – 19 November 2010
Overview
• Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination
• Status quo of official statistics – achievements and
challenges
• Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs)
• Principal Global Indicators (PGIs) and their
optimisation
• International data templates
• Conclusions
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Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination
• The recent financial and economic crisis illustrated the
degree of interdependence among major economic
areas in an economically globalised world
• Policy responses are still bound to be national and only in
exceptional cases supranational (e.g. ECB)
• Uncoordinated national policy responses are insufficient
and can be counterproductive for the world economy
• Group of 20 (G-20) Leaders' statement from Seoul
summit on 11-12 November 2010. Enhancement of the
Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) to promote external
sustainability: “We will strengthen multilateral
cooperation to promote external sustainability and
pursue the full range of policies conducive to reducing
excessive imbalances and maintaining current account
imbalances at sustainable levels.”
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Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination
• Specific economic and financial statistics/indicators
suitable for national policies are not sufficient
• Main requirements to official statistics:
– Comparable statistics/indicators for countries/
economic areas (e.g. current account)
– Global/G-20 statistical aggregates (e.g. G-20 GDP)
– Easy accessibility of official statistics/indicators
• G-20 Leaders in Seoul: Persistently large imbalances,
assessed against indicative guidelines to be agreed by our
finance ministers and central bank governors, warrant an
assessment of their nature and the root causes of
impediments to adjustment as part of the MAP, ...These
indicative guidelines composed of a range of indicators
would serve as a mechanism to facilitate timely
identification of large imbalances that require preventive
and corrective actions to be taken
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Status quo of official statistics - achievements
• Agreed and up-to-date international statistical
standards/methodology (e.g. SNA 2008; BPM6)
• Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and agreed
Quality frameworks (e.g. IMF DQAF, European
Statistical System Code of Practice, European System of
Central Banks public commitment on European
statistics)
• Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX)
sponsored by seven international and supranational
organisations and supported by the UNSC
• Decades of experience in compiling national statistics
• International network and governance (e.g. UNSC, IMF
BOPCOM, OECD CSTAT, IFC, CCSA) and partly
supranational governance (e.g. legislation by Eurostat &
European System of Central Banks)
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Status quo of official statistics - challenges
• Statistical requirements are only partly agreed among
international and supranational organisations (ISOs)
• Flow of data from the various national authorities to the
respective various ISOs is hardly discussed
• Compliance of national authorities with international
statistical standards is uneven
• Compliance monitoring by ISOs of the quality of
national statistics/indicators is uneven
• Almost no (timely) global/G-20 aggregates (exceptions
e.g. UN population, UN external trade, OECD GDP,
OECD CPI, OECD unemployment)
• Competition between commercial data providers and
ISOs’ Economic/Research Departments (e.g. IMF World
Economic Outlook)
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Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs)
• Allocation of responsibilities on European statistics
between Eurostat and the European Central Bank, partly
integrated compilation (e.g. BOP, SDMX)
• Statistical requirements (e.g. methodology and
transmission programme (e.g. coverage, frequency,
timeliness, seasonal adjustment, SDMX coding)) mostly
legislated)
• European aggregates are published by pre-announced
(Eurostat or ECB) statistical press releases; detailed
European and national statistics are published on
websites and Statistical Data Warehouses
• Continuous compliance monitoring of the national
contributions to European statistics
• “European statistics first”: not necessarily complete
country coverage or published national contributions
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Principal Global Indicators (PGIs)
The PGIs http:www.principalglobalindicators.org/default.aspx
• Are developed by seven ISOs (BIS, ECB, Eurostat, IMF,
OECD, World Bank and partly the UN)
• Focus on the G-20 economies (and 5 Financial Stability
Board (FSB) countries) and on key economic and
financial statistics/indicators
• Website is updated with statistics/indicators available in
existing databases of the supporting ISOs
• Will become gradually SDMX compliant
• Are supported by visualisation tools (e.g.
http:kosis.kr/http://kosis.kr/nsportal/bulletin/html/index_eng.html#)
• Will be complemented by selected global/G-20
aggregates (e.g. GDP growth rates)
• Are a supporting tool of the G-20 Mutual Assessment
Process (MAP)
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Principal Global Indicators (PGIs) – Optimisation
The Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial
Statistics (IAG), comprising the seven ISOs, gradually
enhances the PGIs by
• Harmonising the (detailed) statistical requirements
among the seven ISOs and across different statistics (a
pilot project focuses on government finance statistics
and its integration with e.g. securities issues statistics)
• Agreeing on the PGI data sources/flow among the seven
ISOs and thereby the responsibilities for compliance
monitoring (e.g. euro area country > Eurostat/ECB >
OECD, BIS > IMF, UN, World Bank)
• Developing SDMX data structure definitions for file
transfers (push mode) or downloading of files from ISO
or country websites (pull mode)
• Involving the G-20 economies where needed (e.g.
explaining main divergences from the requirements)
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International data templates
• The international statistical standards/methodologies
need complementary implementation programmes i.e.
data templates specifying the covered statistics/
indicators, their timeliness, frequency, seasonal and
working day adjustment, etc.
• The data templates may be designed modular with a
“Tier 1 module” for main aggregates and a “Tier 2
module” for detailed breakdowns while a further Tier
module may refer to specificities of the economy
• The data templates need to be complemented by SDMX
compliant data structure definitions for comfortable
access to and exchange of at least Tier 1 (and Tier 2)
statistics/indicators
• Development and maintenance of international data
templates require both technical expertise and
governance
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Conclusions
• Official statistics is called upon to support multilateral
surveillance in a world of increasing economic
interdependencies among main economies
• The international and national statistical authorities
have the technical and organisational means to master
this challenge by close cooperation
• In addition to an agreed medium- to longer-term vision
for official statistics, limited pilot exercises are needed in
the short-term in order to exercise and prove effective
international cooperation
• The coordinated implementation of the PGIs and the
data template for a core set of high frequency indicators
is such a short-term pilot exercise
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