Page 61 - Revista del Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo del INEI - Economía, Sociedad y Estadística N° 9

In addition to administrative data, non-traditional In many cases, these new projects and/or statistical
sources of information are also available. Non-traditional data are innovative in the sense that they employ non-
data sources have become more relevant in the last traditional methodologies, especially concerning raw
few years, with the digitalization of economies and data extraction. Three case studies from Peru, Spain
accelerated data growth of all kind. It is estimated that by and Denmark are presented below.
the year 2022, there will be more web traffic generated
in that year alone than in the entire internet’s history, • Peru
from its creation until the year 2016 (Cisco, 2018). This
enormous web traffic generates enormous amounts of In Peru, the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas e
data that can be used by NSO’s for developing official Informática (INEI), has recently made available to the
statistics. Within the current crisis context, the use of public the “Income Block level Stratified maps in Main
non-traditional data sources has become even more cities”, with the aim of presenting stratified census
relevant, due to constrained traditional means of data blocks in each district according to estimated per capita
gathering. income. Although this tool is not explicitly oriented
towards monitoring COVID-19’s progress, it does allow
There exists a wide variety of non-traditional data sources to identify differences in socioeconomic conditions
available that can ensure statistical continuity and that in households, and to infer, to a certain extent, the
can monitor the pandemic’s effect. Some examples COVID-19 vulnerability that households face. Moreover,
include: news media data, internet data (including social this document responds to the current needs of having
media data and webscraping), transaction payments focalized data.
data, consumer or business surveys, household and
business energy consumption data, etc. In a similar
way to administrative records use, some NSO’s have As was presented in ECLAC’s XIX Americas’ Statistical
already delved into this type of information, while Conference’s Executive Committee Meeting, regarding
others have not. For instance, the Dutch statistical surveys, INEI has transitioned from on-site surveys
agency, the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) to telephone surveys. (ECLAC, 2020). Before the
has used scanner data for some years to construct its COVID-19 crisis, 100% of surveys were carried out in-
CPI. Scanner data is essentially the information that person. With the start of the state of emergency in
is obtained from supermarket or retail shops’ point- Peru, the Permanent Survey on Employment (EPE),
of-sales terminals, which is generally information the National Household Survey (ENAHO) and the
about prices and the quantity of products being sold. Budgetary Programs Survey (ENAPRES) are conducted
Unlike traditional methods of price-collecting, where by telephone. This unforeseen transition entails changes
employees from an NSO head to a previously selected in surveys’ methodologies and processes, with the aim
establishment, scanner data use can be obtained directly of adjusting them for remote surveys. In line with this,
from relevant businesses’ data bases. This turns out to INEI anticipates, in the medium term, the harmonization
be very attractive within the current context, where of in-person surveys and remote surveys through the
social distancing is promoted. use of ICT.

Lastly, to understand the economic and financial
COUNTERMEASURES TO CONFRONT THE CRISIS impact on businesses due to COVID-19, INEI conducted
AND INNOVATIONS the “Opinion Survey on the impact of COVID-19 on
businesses in Lima’s Metropolitan area” between the
Monitoring the COVID-19 impact months of July and August of 2020. The aforementioned
survey allowed the measurement of the crisis’ effects on
Many NSO’s have aimed to create new projects production, employment and the general performance
and statistical programs to monitor and analyze the of businesses in Lima’s Metropolitan area. According
pandemic’s rate of progress within their national to this survey, 75,5% of businesses are operating while
territory, in different facets of the economy and society. 24,5% are not (INEI, 2020). Of those businesses which

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