ESRA 2027 sessions by theme

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Session Details

Official statistical systems face a common set of pressures: declining survey response rates, rising demand for timely and granular statistics, increasing costs, and growing opportunities to use administrative and other non-survey data. These pressures create an opportunity to reconsider not only how surveys are conducted, but how statistical production systems are designed.
This session explores the Statistical Products First (SPF) framework for rethinking official statistics (Keller, et al., 2026). Rather than assuming that surveys should be the vehicle to provide the data for official statistics, SPF begins by identifying the underlying purpose and use for the statistical products needed for decision-making, policy, and legal or regulatory requirements. From there, the approach seeks to determine what relevant information is already available, where important data gaps remain, and what combination of surveys, administrative records, and other data sources can most effectively address those gaps.
The framework emphasizes six interconnected activities: prioritizing statistical outputs; leveraging integrated data infrastructure; diagnosing information gaps; designing targeted data collection strategies; developing dissemination pathways; and testing innovations through pilots.
The session will examine the methodological implications of this shift, including how to define outputs and information requirements before collection, determine when survey data are necessary, integrate probability-based survey data with administrative and other sources, and evaluate tradeoffs among coverage, representativeness, measurement, timeliness, respondent burden, cost, and data quality.
Papers will present conceptual, methodological, and applied perspectives on implementing a Statistical Products First approach in official statistics. Examples will illustrate how integrated infrastructure and targeted collection strategies can support multiple statistical needs while maintaining sound survey methodology and reliable inference. The session will also consider how these principles can be adapted across different statistical and institutional environments.
Reference
Keller, S., Becker-Medina, E., Dorius, C., Hawes, M., & Jarmin, R. (2026). Enabling Innovation by Putting Statistical Products