Pilar Rey del Castillo
Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, Spain
Title: Big Data for Official Statistics
Biography
Biography: Pilar Rey del Castillo
Abstract
The availability of copious data about many human, social and economic phenomena is being nowadays considered as an opportunity for the production of official statistics. National statistical organizations and other institutions are more and more involved in new projects for developing what sometimes is seen as a possible change of paradigm in the way statistical figures are produced. Nevertheless, there are hardly any systems in production using Big Data sources. Arguments of confidentiality, data ownership, representativeness and others make it a difficult task to get results in the short-term. Using Call Detail Records from Ivory Coast as illustration, this paper shows some of the issues that must be dealt with when producing statistical indicators from Big Data sources. A proposal of a specific method to evaluate the quality when using the data to compute figures of daily commutes between home and work is also presented.