Summary

Official statistics produced by national statistical institutes (NSIs) can be based on primary or secondary data. Primary data are collected by the organisation also responsible for the statistical estimates, i.e., in this case the NSI. Secondary data are collected by another organization or individual other than those responsible for the collection and aggregation of data from their initial source. An important secondary data source are administrative data. Administrative data are defined as data collected by another organization for implementing an administrative regulation (or group of regulations). This module describes estimation techniques in case administrative data are used as replacement for a survey when estimating statistical variables. To keep the paper concise and illustrate the challenges with concrete examples, it is focussed on the use of Value Added Tax (VAT) data for estimating turnover.

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