Reengineering the Census Bureau's Annual Economic Surveys (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Observations from Users of the Annual Economic Surveys
Appendix A: Observations from Users of the Annual Economic Surveys
Pages 179-190
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From page 179... ...
What annual Census Bureau economic surveys do you use, if any? Approxi mately, what share of your work involves economic census data?
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From page 180... ...
The following users provided input to the panel: Kim Bayard, principal economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Reserve Board Aaron Catlin, deputy director, National Health Statistics Group, Office of the Actuary, Centers & Medicare and Medicaid Services Jim Diffley, senior director, Industry Services and Consulting Group, IHS Economics Dennis Fixler, chief economist, Bureau of Economic Analysis Vanessa Goeschl, senior vice president, Economic Development, Charlotte (NC) Regional Partnership Maurine Haver, president, Haver Analytics, Inc.
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From page 181... ...
APPENDIX A 181 Table A-1 lists specific user observations and suggestions, which the U.S. Census Bureau may wish to consider in reengineering the surveys.
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From page 182... ...
182 REENGINEERING THE CENSUS BUREAU'S ANNUAL ECONOMIC SURVEYS TABLE A-1 User Suggestions for the Census Bureau's Annual Economic Surveys Organization Dimension or Sector of User Relevance Accuracy Bureau of • Continue to improve and expand data • Provide more information Economic products in response to changes in the about data quality, Analysis economy including greater industry reliability, coefficients of detail variation, response rates, • Provide improved coverage of expense respondent burden, and data, e.g., for energy purchases other quality assessments • Expand enterprise survey collection • Consider integrating enterprise and establishment collections Bureau • Provide more compensation data • Continue to provide highof Labor • For specific surveys: quality data, which is the Statistics Capital Expenditures: provide annual most important dimension detailed industry and asset investment of all data Retail Trade: provide more revenue detail Manufactures: provide data for more service categories (such as communications services) ; provide annual data on primary and secondary shipments Wholesale Trade: provide annual resales data Services: provide more detail, such as revenue by product line; provide greater product detail using the new NAPCS; provide made-in industry and wherever-made product revenue by broad NAPCS codes (which requires similar annual revenue data for construction, agriculture, and utilities)
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From page 183... ...
APPENDIX A 183 Timeliness Consistency Accessibility • Continue to make • Update data based on • Improve the AFF dissemination efforts to improve revised international interface to reduce data user the timeliness and standards and burden accuracy of the guidelines • Present data in machine estimates • Maintain revision readable format, such as the histories for monthly FTP site and APIs, to allow indicators data to be accessed much more • Continue to investigate efficiently revisions in monthly, • Continue to expand API tools quarterly, and annual along with training on how data series best to use and leverage them • Make information on the magnitude and sources of revision, reliability, and response rates public and easy to find • Provide additional • Provide direct • Improve communications detail on a timelier comparability between about changes in products and basis the economic censuses programs • etail Trade: provide R and the annual • Identify all data that have been more timely data surveys to facilitate superseded by more current data benchmarking the • Improve communications for surveys to the censuses data revision and data updates, • Provide data from all including email/RSS type surveys in a common notifications, including the format over time, from timing of data releases and the a common site timing and reasons for data revisions • Make it easier to manipulate the data, e.g., allow users to change geography and industry information within a table and provide option to sort results by publication date • Provide access to the full dataset on each survey's home page • Provide machine-readable formats, APIs, and other ways to get data fast; • Provide SAS/Stata code with record locator details for FTP files continued
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From page 184... ...
184 REENGINEERING THE CENSUS BUREAU'S ANNUAL ECONOMIC SURVEYS TABLE A-1 Continued Organization Dimension or Sector of User Relevance Accuracy Federal • Restore the data collection for Reserve the Current Industrial Reports Board of (discontinued after mid-2011, which Governors, was great loss) Division of • Reinstate the ICTS, which is now on Research and hold Statistics • Improve coverage of all services spending categories in the QSS; distinguish between domestic and international sources of revenue in the QSS and international trade data • Provide as much detail as is provided to BEA for construction of NIPAs • Improve industry aggregates; consolidation of categories provides less detail • Speed up the evolution of NAICS, and provide a more relevant classification system; eliminate the "Miscellaneous" category as it is not helpful Centers for • Provide data on the government Medicare & sector across industries: for example, Medicaid ambulance private payments to a Services, public provider; hospital data are used National but double counting is a risk Health • Expand the Service Annual Survey Statistics with key analytical data, such as Group, utilization measures across health Office of the sectors, such as physician utilization Actuary and more detail on product lines; examples include optometrists' fees and sales of glasses, and revenue physicians receive from hospitals (without double counting)
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From page 185... ...
making it years easier to consult with subject• Improve the speed of matter experts publishing annual data on industry capital expenditures and any bridge tables (e.g., NAICS 2007–2012) • Provide data that • Provide a release schedule reflect consistent time for the annual surveys at the periods; currently they beginning of the calendar year reflect a mix of fiscal so users can plan accordingly and calendar year • Provide an interactive tool reporting for building tables by NAICS • Integrate similar category and survey items for information from selected time periods with an various surveys to option to chart results similar make it easier to to BEA's interactive tool compare trends across data products • Present data as a continuous time series in all products continued
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From page 186... ...
Consulting codes as is planned for the 2017 Firms Economic Censuses • Provide localized housing sector data (standard errors are too large) • Provide regional and local retail data (reviving an historic Census Bureau program)
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From page 187... ...
APPENDIX A 187 Timeliness Consistency Accessibility • Release preliminary • Establish common • Create a comprehensive estimates followed by data definitions across calendar of economic data the final data sectors, where possible releases • Integrate • Significantly improve web administrative data navigation and access to to increase timeliness Census Bureau economic data and reduce respondent • Provide training programs for burden business and industry on how to use the data • Make Census Bureau analysts available to data users to demystify the data • Make Census Bureau websites easier to navigate and to find important information about the data/metadata • Make the data easier to access and download into a useful time-series format • Create a single FTP server for all Census Bureau datasets to facilitate access by data users, with a well-designed folder structure and sensible file structure • Provide training programs continued
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188 REENGINEERING THE CENSUS BUREAU'S ANNUAL ECONOMIC SURVEYS TABLE A-1 Continued Organization Dimension or Sector of User Relevance Accuracy State and • Provide better options for generating • Census Bureau economic Local data for customized small-area data are the "gold Government geography (private data vendors standard" but are not Data Users provide easy data aggregation at the often available for local ZIP code level and industry level for a geographies wide variety of data) • Consider aggregating data not only for political geographies, but also in terms of economic patterns, such as "drive time" or radius geography, similar to spatial data aggregations of demographic data • Work with businesses and trade organizations to understand industry trends and how data are measured and recorded NOTES: AFF, American FactFinder; API, application programming interface; ASM, Annual Survey of Manufactures; BEA, Bureau of Economic Analysis; FSRDC, Federal Statistical System Research Data Center; FTP, file transfer protocol; ICTS, Information and Communication Survey; NAICS, North American Industry Classification System; NAPCS, North American Product Classification System; NIPA, National Income and Product Accounts; QSS, Quarterly Services Survey; RSS, rich site summary or really simple syndication; SAS, service annual survey.
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From page 189... ...
• Avoid sequestration- • Create a more user-friendly related data release AFF with direct access to delays files, better navigation and meta data, in a user-friendly structure with real-time chat • responsive to all types Be of users from simple to sophisticated
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