Sources of Revision in Statistics Canada's Service Indices

• Activity Number: 504
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Keven Bosa*+
• Companies: Statistics Canada
• Keywords: multi-mode ; administrative data ; imputation ; revision

Abstract

Statistics Canada's Quarterly Industry Revenue Indices (QIRI) provides sub-annual indicators of economic activity for selected business and consumer services. This program consists of a census where administrative and survey data are combined to measure changes in quarterly operating revenues. For simple structured enterprises, data are extracted from an administrative file. A questionnaire is used to collect information for enterprises with complex operational structures. A preliminary index is produced three months after the end of the reference quarter. A revision of this index is done three months later using the most up to date information. Investigations have shown that revised indices are usually, although not systematically, lower than preliminary numbers. It is known that some enterprises for which administrative data are used in preliminary indices are later identified as inactive (dead) by the time the indices are revised. Since this represents an important source of revisions, a study was done to quantify the various sources of revision and verify the overall impact of the inactivation issue on revision rates. Details and results of the study will be presented.