Accuracy and reliability

Overall accuracy

The accuracy of the regional accounts is generally linked to the accuracy of the national accounts. Some parts of the national accounts can be calculated more accurately than others. Eg. For the industrial area, quite accurate data are available. Other parts of the national accounts are based on calculations and estimates due to limited source data, including, for example, consumption of owner-occupied housing and undeclared work. Therefore, the accuracy is be expected to be lower. The first versions for a given period are made before all the data for the period are available. Therefore, alternative sources are used to project the sources, e.g. indicators from the business cycle statistics. The preliminary versions of the national accounts will thus be less accurate than later versions.

In addition to the uncertainty associated with the national accounts in general, there are also uncertainties associated with the regional dimension. In some cases, regional information is not available, which is why it is necessary to use indicators to allocate the national totals.

Sampling error

Not relevant for these statistics.

Non-sampling error

Besides the uncertainty which is connected to the national accounts the following uncertainties regarding the regional dimension should be mentioned.

• Concerning the regionalisation of each industry, a certain margin of uncertainty, both with respect to concepts and data, is associated with the areas of: Transport, financial intermediation and insurance and pension funding. Conceptually, it is e.g. difficult to determine the location for the production of railway services, and as far as the figures are concerned, the use of quantitative indicators for the regionalisation of economic variables is necessary.
• Regarding price indices the regional accounts are deflated on the basis of the national price indices, which may affect the figures at chained prices to the extent that there are regional differences in prices.
• Furthermore, the convention generally applied by Eurostat in compiling GDP is that taxes less subsidies on products are regionally allocated in proportion with gross value added. It goes without saying that as far as concepts are concerned, it is not possible to establish an objective criterion for this allocation. To a certain extent, this may have an effect on the accuracy of the calculation of growth in each region. -There is an uncertainty in connection with the distribution between local unit of companies with local units in more the on region, as production etc. distributed on the basis of employment figures. In this way, production in highly productive local units (e.g. high-intensity local units) can be underestimated and, conversely, it can be overestimated in local units, where there is a relatively high labour input.

In addition, there is a general uncertainty associated with the first preliminary publication of a given year, because not all sources are available.

Quality management

Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on the organisation and management of quality set out in the Code of Practice for European Statistics and the accompanying implementation model, the Quality Assurance Framework. Read more about these on the page Quality in official statistics.

Quality management is supported by common principles, guidelines and managerial responsibility for quality in statistical products and processes. The aim is to ensure a systematic and consistent approach to quality across the entire statistical production.

Quality assurance

Quality assurance at Statistics Denmark is integrated into the statistical production processes and is carried out in accordance with the principles of the Code of Practice for European Statistics. Read more on the page Quality in official statistics.

Quality assurance includes the continuous use of standardised procedures, documentation in line with international standards and internal controls related to data collection, data processing and dissemination. Experience gained from production is continuously used to identify needs for adjustments and improvements.

Quality assessment

The ESA 2010 regulation requires that Eurostat assess the quality of data reported under the ESA transmission program. This is done on the basis of the countries' quality reports which are not published independently by Eurostat. The report is prepared annually. Read the quality assessment of Denmark's national accounts in: Quality Report, Denmark 2017 - National Accounts

Data revision - policy

Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.

Data revision practice

Regional accounts are declared final in line with the national accounts. The preliminary regional accounts are thus based on the preliminary national accounts. In addition the sources used to allocate activity to regions can be provisional for the preliminary years. The two latest years in regional accounts are preliminary. Every five years benchmark revisions take place, where long time series of the final national accounts years are updated. In that way the quality and reliability is improved, because all changes and corrections in the sources statistics are incorporated. In addition manual revisions of all the national accounts series take place when new international guidelines are adopted. The latest manual revision in the Danish national accounts took place in 2014. The next one takes place in 2029