Online Program

First assessment of the combined use of administrative and survey data in the new system of French structural business statistics

Keywords: data editing, consistency monitoring, difference estimator, combined use of administrative and survey data

The new production system for the French structural business statistics relies on a major founding principle: use administrative data in an intensive way, in conjunction with survey data. This combined use of administrative and survey data opens up new horizons for both data editing process and quality improvement of statistics. With regard to data editing, we check the coherence of individual data between administrative source and survey data for a small group of common characteristics. As a result of this consistency monitoring, new variables, called “reconciled” variables, are created, containing final reference value for controlled characteristics. Obviously, “reconciled” variables are available only for units belonging to the sample of the survey. The use of statistical estimates combining survey and administrative data, mainly using the difference estimator, allows us to take into account at best information available only on the survey while using all information of administrative sources. This presentation will detail the consistency monitoring mechanism and the chosen estimates, and present a first evaluation of the impact of these methodological improvements.