Developing an Imputation Method for a Census That Is Distasteful to None and Accepted by All (303277)

Keywords: Imputation, Economic Census

The Economic Census is the U.S. government's official five-year measure of American business and the economy. The Economic Census (EC) collects a core set of data items from each establishment called general statistics items and collects information on the revenue obtained from product sales. Beginning with the 2017 EC, these data will be collected under a new classification system, and all sectors will need to use common methodology to treat missing product data. A team of methodologists was established to find a single method using theoretically sound methods on historic data. However, the subject matter experts (the program stakeholders) needed to understand the proposed methods, provide usable comments, and ultimately endorse them. Collaboration with the subject matter experts was especially important to understand the data nuances, which differed by industry. Ongoing dialog was vital if we were to develop viable methods. We describe how we presented the consolidated statistical results to these industry experts using non-standard language and--- in some cases---graphical displays.