Comparing the Causey-Trager Method to the Multiplicative Cholette-Dagum Regression-Based Method of Benchmarking Sub-annual Data to Annual Benchmarks

• Activity Number: 334
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Natalya Titova*+ and David Findley and Brian Carl Monsell
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: Revisions ; Percent-change preservation

Abstract

We present the main results of a study comparing two methods of benchmarking monthly or quarterly economic time series to annual survey values: the Causey-Trager method (used at the U.S. Census Bureau) and the multiplicative variant of the Cholette-Dagum regression method (used at Statistics Canada). To analyze the benefits and drawbacks of these two benchmarking methods, we checked several properties, including the extent to which these methods preserved the period-to-period changes in the original series. We also compared the magnitudes of the revisions to the recent benchmarked period-to-period changes that occur when a benchmark for the recent data is first used, which usually happens with a delay of a year or more.