Preface

Abstract

Welcome to this special issue of the Journal of Official Statistics containing articles emanating from the fourth International Conference on Establishment Surveys (ICES IV). We hope that it will present some interesting insights into the world of establishment surveys. If it's somewhere you don't normally tread, do come in and have a look around.

Business Data Collection: Toward Electronic Data Interchange. Experiences in Portugal, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands with EDI

“…In addition to primary data collection, in the 1970s, secondary data collection emerged; registers and administrative data were being used in the production of statistics to replace surveys, supplement survey data, or for data validation or imputation (UNECE 2007(UNECE , 2011Wallgren and Wallgren 2007). As a result of the computerisation of registers, the exchange of large data files became feasible, and NSIs developed multi-source approaches to combine primary and secondary data, a process that is ongoing (Bakker and Daas 2012;Smith and Phipps 2014). All four countries have a long history of using alternative data sources in the production of national statistics (Erikson and Nordberg 2000;Snijkers et al 2011;Born 2016;Saraiva 2016b).…”

“…Today, many NSIs are working towards both the extended use of secondary sources (including big data) and the implementation of web surveys, which can be concluded from the large number of papers presented at conferences addressing these issues, see e.g., the programs of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th ICES conferences: www.amstat.org.ASA/Meetings/ ICES.aspx (Smith and Phipps 2014), as well as e.g., the European Conferences on New Techniques and Technologies (NTTS: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cros/content/ntts-conferences_en), and the European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics (http://ec. europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/ess-practices/quality-conferences).…”