Page 85 - Revista del Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo del INEI - Economía, Sociedad y Estadística N° 9

xi. Strengthen the role of the sector specialists statistics would coincide precisely with more urgent
responsible for calculating the production accounts. demands for official economic figures than usual.
The sector specialist should be the person who
knows the most about the particular situation 1. Recommendations
of an industry in the country. Experts’ opinions
are increasingly important at the present time. - Exhaust all possible options to impute data and
A detailed record must be kept of the treatment carry out alternative analysis before deciding to
of sources, the compilation methods and the postpone the dissemination of a statistical product.
assumptions made.
- Inform users, through detailed explanatory notes,
xii. Adopt flexible criteria in terms of the methods used, about the restrictions on the availability of basic
modifying the estimation method if it is deemed statistics and the imputation methods used, by
necessary. industry and type of economic transaction.

xiii. Examine in-depth the price indices that are used - Consider the possibility of grouping together and
as an inflator or deflator, as they may also include disseminating in less detail those items that are
higher-than-usual levels of imputation. usually published, if they do not meet the minimum
quality level.
xiv. Analyse in greater detail than usual the
macroeconomic summary data of the national - Inform users about the main adjustments made to
accounts and the balance of payments, and compare the working methods of the offices working in this
them with public finance statistics, monetary and area.
financial statistics, and data on employment,
unemployment and underemployment. The most - Warn users in advance if, in a worst-case scenario,
relevant impacts of the economic situation must be it is decided to postpone the release date of a
clearly reflected in the national accounts’ figures. statistical product.
This requires exhaustive analysis at both the detailed
and more aggregate levels, considering the three
approaches to estimating GDP and using alternative
information sources, such as opinion polls, Internet CONCLUSIONS
data, expert opinions and data on the consumption
of typical production inputs. This document addresses issues and some questions
about the impact of the emergency situation on
the compilation statistics of national accounts, the
balance of payments and foreign trade, particularly in
C. DISSEMINATION the dimensions of the impact on information sources,
methods of compilation and dissemination of press
Dissemination schedules are announced in advance releases. In this sense, a series of recommendations are
and countries have made formal commitments to all shown for the continuity of the collection of statistical
users by adopting the International Monetary Fund’s information.
data dissemination standards. To date (May 2020), the
publication schedules have been respected, although it The recommendations are based on international
is possible that in the next few months the dissemination manuals and guidelines that the countries themselves
of a statistical product may be postponed if a minimum consider to be the most appropriate. Likewise, it should
level of coverage is not attained or necessary information be considered that over time new situations will arise
is missing. However, postponing the dissemination of that warrant updating.

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