Is globalisation a threat to
official statistics?
Enrico Giovannini
Chief Statistician - OECD
What is globalisation?
OECD Handbook on Economic Globalisation Indicators:
“A dynamic and multidimensional process of economic integration
whereby national resources become more and more
internationally mobile while national economies become
increasingly interdependent …
… In a globalising economy, distances and national boundaries
have substantially diminished as most of the obstacles to market
access have been removed. …
…Despite the fact that economic integration is a dominant feature
of globalisation, other dimensions are also of significance,
including the social, cultural, political and institutional realms”.
2
The value added of statistics
A formula :
VAS = N * [(QSA * MF) * RS * TS * NL]
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VAS = value added of official statistics
N = size of the audience
QSA = statistical information produced
MF = role of media
RS = relevance of the statistical information
TS = trust in official statistics
NL = users’ “numeracy”
3
The value added of statistics: were
does it come from?

If we look at the statistical standards developed to measure
economic activities, we find that:
– according to the International Standard Industry Classification (ISIC
Rev.1), the production of official statistics is a non-market service;
– according to the 1993 System of National Accounts, services are
the result of a production activity that changes the conditions of the
consuming units;
– according to Atkinson (2005), “the output of the government sector
should in principle be measured in a way that is adjusted for quality,
taking into account of the attributable incremental contribution of the
service to the outcome”.

What should the final outcome of official statistics be,
considering what the SNA says? Knowledge
4
The value added of official statistics
A formula :
VAS = N * [(QSA * MF) * RS * TS * NL]







VAS = value added of official statistics
N = size of the audience
QSA = statistical information produced
MF = role of media
RS = relevance of the statistical information
TS = trust in official statistics
NL = users’ “numeracy”
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What is the impact of globalisation?
N = size of the audience (1)
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For several years the main mandate of NSOs was to
serve a small, but very influential, audience (the
government, academic experts, etc.) and then, only as
by-product, the rest of the society.
Fortunately, this vision has been gradually replaced by a
wider view of the core business of the statistical function,
i.e. to foster, across the whole society, a better
knowledge of economic, social and environmental
phenomena.
This means that NSOs should try to maximise the
audience as “core function”.
6
What is the impact of globalisation?
N = size of the audience (2)
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Globalisation means that the potential audience for
statistics is enlarged well beyond national boundaries.
More and more people/companies are interested in
comparing economic and social performances between
countries when making their decisions.
International benchmarking has become a must.
Opportunities:
–
–
–
–
Serve a “global” audience
Make products accessible to and accessed by a global audience
Multi-language web sites/databases
More use of international data
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What is the impact of globalisation?
MF = role of media (1)
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sources of information on statistics: TV (78%),
newspapers (58%), Internet (37%), radio (34%),
family/working networks (34%) and magazines (14%);
the five main TV networks report data on the
unemployment rate in 83%, GDP growth in 46% and
inflation rate in 35% of cases.
the 27 most popular newspapers covered 39% of the
reports on GDP, 53% of those concerning CPI and 52%
of those announcing the official unemployment rate;
Associated Press and United Press International typically
do not mention specific source agencies.
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What is the impact of globalisation?
MF = role of media (2)
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23% of Americans have never heard of official
unemployment data or the source agency; the
comparable figures are 34% for CPI and 40% for GDP.
“There was a tendency for newspapers to more
frequently report the latest official figures when it
represented an unfavourable development, which may
reflect the greater importance people place on the
information content of ‘bad’ news” (Curtin, 2007)
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What is the impact of globalisation?
T = trust in official statistics (1)
Trust in national government (X axis) and
trust in official statistics (Y axis)
100%
100
80
90%
60
80%
40
y = 0.3664x + 37.763
R2 = 0.2731
20
70%
0
60%
0
20
40
60
80
50%
50%
40%
40%
30%
20%
30%
10%
-20%
-30%
Tend to trust Tend not to trust DK
UK
FR
HU
IT
BG
DE
LV
ES
EU
27
TR
PL
AT
SK
SI
RO
EL
MT
LT
IE
CZ
PT
BE
EE
CY
SE
FI
LU
NL
DK
0%
BE
CZ
DK
D
EE
EL
ES
FR
IE
IT
CY
LV
LT
LU
HU
MT
NL
AT
PL
PT
SI
SK
FI
SE
UK
B
HR
R
TR
10%
0%
-10%
20%
10
What is the impact of globalisation?
T = trust in official statistics (2)
Trust in official statistics (diff tend to trust - tend not to trust)
100
80
60
NL
DK
FI
LU
40
EE
20
TR
EL
SK
0
IT
BG
CY
RO
MT
LT
AT
ES
EU27
LV
IE
BE
CZ
PL
SI
PT
SE
DE
HU
-20
UK
FR
-40
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Political decisions are made on the basis of
statistical information (diff yes-no)
70
80
90
100
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A revolution: web 2.0 the
“participative” web

User-Created Content (UCC) is a phenomenon with major social
implications. Changes the way in which users produces, distribute,
access and re-use information.
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As an open platform, UCC increases the free flow of information
and freedom of expression, as well as enriching political and
societal debates and broadening diversity of opinion.
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According to Time, in 2006 the www became a tool for bringing
together the small contributions of millions of people and making
them matter. This phenomenon has also been broadly referred to
as web 2.0 and the participative web.
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How is information disseminated?
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As Einstein said, “information is not knowledge”: knowledge is
a complex and dynamic process involving cognitive
mechanisms and the person’s interest plays a key role in
activating the cognitive mechanism.
The “epidemiologic” approach states that information is
spread like a virus in a society.
Therefore, data providers need to reach as many people as
possible at the beginning of the chain, to “vaccinate” them
against the “ignorance disease”.
To do that, they have to:
– disseminate information relevant to people;
– present it in a way that people can relate it to their own interests;
– use language/tools coherent with those used by people in other
contexts.
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The web 2.0 revolution
and official statistics
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Some evidence:
– 95% of those who use Google do not go beyond the first page of
occurrences;
– once they reach a particular site, 95% of users do not click more than
three times to find what they want;
– the way in which “discovery metadata” are structured is fundamental to
be placed in the first page of Google’s results, but these metadata
have nothing to do with the intrinsic quality of the information provided;
– new approaches to discovery are based on people’s opinions.

Web 2.0 tends to transform the “consumer” of a particular
information/service provided via Internet into a “prosumer”
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Opportunities and risks
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Reliable statistics cannot be generated using “collective
intelligence”, but this approach can have a huge impact on
the way in which statistics are perceived or used.
New keywords: Legitimacy, Trust, Authority, Credibility
Great challenge, but also a key opportunity, for data providers
to develop a new communication strategy to reach/convince
“communities” about the quality of existing sources (UN
principle 4: “The statistical agencies are entitled to comment
on erroneous interpretation and misuse of statistics”).
If web 2.0 is marketplace for discussion, should statistical
institutions create discussion sites about the quality of data
used in the public domain, including that of their own data?
Is there a risk to open a “Pandora’s box”?
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Recent experiences
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“Web 2.0” sites have been launched (Swivel.com,
ManyEyes.com), where people can upload, share, visualise,
and comment on data;
Newsweek published an article entitled “Power in numbers”,
explaining how “Wiki software is reforming bloated
bureaucracies and changing the face of communication”;
Dynamic animations to present statistics in a more
understandable way;
The Columbian NSO is producing short video clips;
LSE recently held a public lecture on “Why thinking-bynumbers is the new way to be smart”;
An art gallery in New York hosted an exhibition “Running the
numbers”, a series of pictures looking at “contemporary
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American culture through the austere lens of statistics”.
A ‘storm’ or a ‘paradigm shift’?
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Some people may argue that all these “signals” are part of a
“storm” and not as indicators of a paradigm shift: therefore
there is no need for a radical (and quick) change in the way
statistics are disseminated and communicated.
According to several people, we are facing a real paradigm
shift and radical changes are necessary to stay on the market
The OECD believes that statistical data providers need to
evolve from “information providers” to “knowledge builders”
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OECD experiences and projects

New Dissemination Policy: from products to services
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Factbook data on web 2.0 platforms (Swivel.com and
ManyEyes.com)
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2008 Factbook with dynamic charts
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Dynamic Country Profiles
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Use of Trandalyzer (Gapminder) to produce video clips
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Wikigender
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A must for the future of statistics
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This revolution comes from the advances in technology,
rather than from a new statistical technique: because of ICT
changes, data are becoming a “commodity” and statistical
analyses are no longer a kind of methodology whose results
are accessible to a small audience, but a key process to
produce knowledge for all people.
In this context, communication is not an just appendix of the
core business focused on data production, but a key function
that can determine the success or the failure of an official
data provider.
Be open to the dialogue with users using the web 2.0
approach is not a choice anymore: it is a must, especially to
ensure that new generations will look at official statistics as
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an authoritative source.