On new data sources for the production of official statistics
In the past years we have witnessed the rise of new data sources for the potential production of official statistics, which, by and large, can be classified as survey, administrative, and digital data. Apart from the differences in their generation and collection, we claim that their lack of statistical metadata, their economic value, and their lack of ownership by data holders pose several entangled challenges lurking the incorporation of new data into the routinely production of official statistics. We argue that every challenge must be duly overcome in the international community to bring new statistical products based on these sources. These challenges can be naturally classified into different entangled issues regarding access to data, statistical methodology, quality, information technologies, and management. We identify the most relevant to be necessarily tackled before new data sources can be definitively considered fully incorporated into the production of official statistics.
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