Statistics Denmark June 2002

Bente Dyrberg BDY/

E-mail:

2

Short-Term Economic Indicators in Denmark

1. Introduction

Statistics Denmark has a long tradition of using administrative registers when ever possible. For example, two quarterly fundamental indicators based on administrative registers (for almost all sectors) are:

Turnover (based on VAT)

Employment (based on Labour Market Supplementary Pension Scheme)

From June 2002 there will also be a monthly preliminary indicator for turnover available two months after the reference period.

In the present situation there is a strong political pressure to reduce response burden and Statistics Denmark has to continue this line of exploiting administrative sources. Another important reason for this is that Statistics Denmark is at present facing severe budget problems.

It is however well known that there is a pressure from Eurostat and the European Central Bank, asking for quicker and more comprehensive short-term indicators. In the case of Denmark this will not be completely possible with the existing sources, and the challenge is how we can deliver such data without launching new costly surveys.

2. The Danish short-term indicators

The compilation of Short-Term Indicators has two main purposes, namely

-  to show the development of economic phenomena which predict economic conditions in the future

-  to form a basis for the calculation of the quarterly national accounts, both flash estimates and other calculations

The indicators can be divided in two groups.

Indicators based on tendency surveys in which respondents are asked about their expectations for the future (typically the future three months compared with the previous three months).

Surveys/administrative registers based on real data referring to a passed reference period (or a sub-sample of a reference period).

For all business statistics the sample frame is the business register.

Statistics Denmark currently produces 12 economic indicators. Annex 1 provides broad summary information on each indicator.

You can find detailed information on the content of each indicator from Statistics Denmark's homepage (www.dst.dk). The corresponding URL for each indicator is given below. You can find information on the figures in the electronic Statbank Denmark (www.statistikbanken.dk). There is free public access to both sites.

Indicator
/
URL-address
Manufacturing Turnover
/ www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Industrial sales and orders statistics
Manufacturing PRODCOM / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Industrial commodity statistics
Manufacturing New orders / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Industrial sales and orders sta-tistics
Manufacturing
Tendency Survey / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Tendency survey for manu-facturing industries
Investment
Tendency Survey / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Investment survey in manu-facturing industries
Retail Sales / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/
Service sector/Retail sales (index)
Stocks
Manufacturing/Wholesale / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Stock value statistics
Building permits
started/unfinished/finished
buildings / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/
Construction and housing/Construction
Construction
Tendency Survey / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/
Construction and housing/Construction industry: Tendency survey
Manufacturing production / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ Manufacturing Industry/Industrial sales and orders sta-tistics
Construction production / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/ National accounts and balance of payment/Quarterly national accounts
Services turnover / www.dst.dk/Guide to Statistics/Decletations of content/
General economic statistics/Quarterly VAT statistics

In relation to fulfilling the Short-Term Regulation from the EU, Denmark has still not calculated an indicator for New Orders in Construction. This indicator will be developed this autumn on the basis of building permits and the business survey.

3. Response burden

For surveys based on questionnaires the samples are stratified to diminish the response burden on small enterprises.

The response burden is an important issue and annual calculations of the response burden measured in man-years are published every year. The total burden for all business surveys was 231 man-years in 2001.

Our goal is clear: the response burden has to continue to decline in the coming years. That is a challenge to cope with in the light of new external demands.

By 2003 all business survey samples will be scrutinized with respect to reducing the size of the sample. Also, the questionnaires will be assessed to exclude any unnecessary questions.

At the present time very high priority is given to enable respondents to send data electronically in all surveys. The first questionnaires should be accessible from the website this year.

4. Budgets restraints and EU-regulations

Another constraint for the future is the budget. From 2002 to 2005 Statistics Denmark has to reduce the staff from around 650 to 450. All unnecessary tasks are cut away.

In the business field many EU-regulations are adopted. For the year 2000 Statistics Denmark calculated that 93 % of all questionnaire-based surveys were encompassed by EU-law.

For Statistics Denmark in general 74 % of all production is related to EU-law.

If new demands are adopted in the EU, extra resources will not automatically be allocated to Statistics Denmark.

5. Future work

Statistics Denmark are faced by major challenges in the future. The question is how to reduce the response burden and still produce quicker and more statistics under severe budget restraints. Many different methods have to be considered.

Related to this are the central issues of how to implement new modern ways of collecting data and more generally how to improve cooperation with the respondents.


Annex 1

Short-Term Economic Indicators in Denmark
Demand indicators
Indicator / Freqency / Data collection
Method/numer/unit / Response-burden
Man-years / Relea-se time
Days
Manufacturing Turnover / Monthly / Sample
1300 units
Kind of Activity
(KAU) / 3,9 / t+37
Manufacturing
Prodcom / Quarterly / Cut off /Prodcom
5000 units
Kind of Activity
(KAU) / 11,0 / t+65
Manufacturing
New orders / Monthly / Collected together
with monthly
Manufac. Turnover / - / t+37
Manufacturing
Tendency Survey / Monthly / Sample
500 units
Enterprises (KAU) / voluntary / t+30
Investment
Tendency Survey / Twice a
year / Sample
800 units / voluntary / t+30
Retail Sales
/ Monthly / Sample
3200 units
Enterprises / 2,6 / t+ 36/66
Stocks
Manufacturing/
Wholesale / Quarterly / Sample
300 man./300 wholes.
Kind of Activity
(KAU) / 0,1 / t + 50
Building permits/
building started/unfinished/ffinished buildings / Quarterly / Administrative register / - / t+50
Construction
Tendency Survey / Monthly / Sample
800 units
Enterprises / voluntary / t+30
Output Indicators
Indicator / Freqency / Data collection
Method/numer/unit / Response-burden
Manyear / Relea-se time
Days
Manufacturing
production / Monthly / Collected together with monthly
Manufact. Turnover (from 2003 a real production index is compiled) / - / t+37
Construction
production / Quarterly / Adminstrative register
Integrated with
calculations in QNA / - / t+60
Services
turnover / Quarterly / Administrative register / - / t+90

5