Assessing Accuracy and Reliability: A Note Basedon Approaches Used in National Accounts and Balance of Payments Statistics
IMF Working Papers, February 1, 2002
Source details
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- Assessing Accuracy and Reliability: A Note Basedon Approaches Used in National Accounts and Balance of Payments Statistics
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: Carol S Carson, Lucie Laliberté
- Published: February 1, 2002
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451844153.001
Summary and purpose
- Both national accounts and balance of payments are based on multiple, complex source data and typically undergo several routine revisions as more and better source data are incorporated into the final estimates.
- Because of their construction and revision processes, neither dataset can be subjected directly to the usual statistical measures of sampling biases, variances, and other measurement error properties.
- This note is addressed to those interested in these datasets and others and explores four approaches that shed light on the accuracy and reliability of these datasets:
- examination of statistical discrepancies,
- comparison with other data,
- analysis of revisions,
- judgmental evaluation.
Main approaches examined
- Examination of statistical discrepancies
- Uses internal inconsistencies and discrepancies within accounting frameworks to assess potential sources of inaccuracy and reliability issues.
- Comparison with other data
- Confronts national accounts and balance of payments estimates with alternative or partner-country data to identify differences and corroborate estimates.
- Analysis of revisions
- Studies routine revisions over time to understand their magnitude, direction, and implications for reliability.
- Judgmental evaluation
- Relies on expert assessment and contextual information where statistical measures are not directly applicable.
Key publication facts and identifiers
- Authors: Carol S Carson, Lucie Laliberté
- Date: February 1, 2002
- Pages: 21
- Volume: 2002
- Issue: 024
- Series: Working Paper No. 2002/024
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451844153.001
- Stock No: WPIEA0242002
- ISBN: 9781451844153
- ISSN: 1018-5941
Subject coverage and keywords
- Subjects:
- Balance of payments statistics
- Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF)
- Economic and financial statistics
- Fiscal accounting and reporting
- Income
- National accounts
- Personal income
- Public financial management (PFM)
- Keywords:
- Accuracy
- Asia and Pacific
- Australia and New Zealand
- Balance of payments statistics
- data confrontation
- data quality assessment framework
- Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF)
- Fiscal accounting and reporting
- GDP estimate
- Global
- judgmental evaluation
- output data
- partner country data
- partner-country data comparison
- Personal income
- reliability
- revision studies
- revisions
- WP
Disclaimer noted in the source
- This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.
Source: IMF Working Paper — Assessing Accuracy and Reliability: A Note Basedon Approaches Used in National Accounts and Balance of Payments Statistics (Carol S Carson and Lucie Laliberté), February 1, 2002; Working Paper No. 2002/024, DOI https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451844153.001