The document summarizes the proceedings of the 105th DGINS Conference on measuring economic globalization in European statistics. It discusses the statistical challenges posed by economic globalization, such as measuring cross-border production and transactions. It outlines activities undertaken since the 2014 Riga conference to improve statistics, including pilot studies, an early warning system for corporate restructurings, and the EuroGroups Register of multinational enterprises. It concludes that further work is needed to ensure consistent measurement of major multinationals across statistical domains and countries.

1. 105th DGINS Conference
Bratislava, 9-10 October 2019
“The statistical implication of economic globalisation”
Measuring economic globalisation in the ESS:
taking stock of progress
Sophie Limpach, Business and Trade Statistics Director, Eurostat
John Verrinder, Macro-economic Statistics Director (acting), Eurostat

2. Outline
2
• Economic globalisation in a nutshell
• Statistical challenges of economic globalisation
• DGINS Conference Riga 2014 and subsequent activities
• Statistical goals and our response so far
• DGINS Conference Bratislava 2019 to discuss and shed light on the
way forward

3. Economic globalisation in a nutshell…
3
Production processes are
fragmented and located
in multiple locations,
by different global actors
(MNEs)
generating cross-border
flows and transactions
Source: BBC

4. Statistical challenges of economic globalisation
4
• What? Where? How? To record in national economic
statistics:
• National Accounts
• Balance of Payments
• Business Statistics
• Trade Statistics
• Putting to test well-established statistical concepts, methods, data
sources and production processes used in the ESS
• Measuring the domestic economies is increasingly challenging
• Communicating and interpreting European statistics becomes also
more challenging

5. Economic globalisation, not a really new topic
5
• DGINS Conference in Riga in 2014
• Launching of a number of important activities and projects to better
capture globalisation
• They now reached a certain level of maturity: need to take stock
• New challenges always around the corner: how to go forward?
Consistency work
Large Case Units and
Early Warning System
Quality management
handling asymmetries
in flow statistics
European Statistical
Infrastructure
EuroGroups Register,
European Profiling
Serving user needs
and developing new
statistical products
Impact on National
Accounts
GNI pilot exercise

6. GNI MNE Pilot objective and enablers
6
• GNI pilots on MNEs launched in February 2018
• to achieve a reasonable understanding of globalization issues in GNI
data
• The pilots concerned 25 MNEs cases
• Work supervised by the Joint BSDG/DMES Task Force
• Close cooperation with all relevant statistical domains, including
NCBs
• Voluntary confidential data sharing on the basis of a need to know
and according to the “Code of Conduct on Micro-Data Sharing”
• Confidential data were stored in a secure Commission environment

7. GNI MNE Pilot conclusions
7
• Further work is required in view of providing enhanced
assurance on the recording of major MNE for GNI own
resources purposes and for European statistics as a whole
• Enhanced and better-integrated European statistical
infrastructure, where necessary information flows fluidly
across borders and on legally sound basis among
statisticians and between statisticians and MNEs
• Follow-up in an action plan under the Joint BSDG/DMES TF
leadership, taking into account the next national accounts
benchmark revision by 2024

8. Early Warning System (EWS)
8
• Light non-legislative procedure based on voluntary
cooperation of Member States
• To timely detect restructuring events of MNEs and to agree
on their methodological treatment to ensure consistency of
the statistical output
• Established cooperation ESS –ESCB
• Secure channels to share EWS confidential information
• So far, 20 restructuring cases were treated
 How to integrate this information in the other MNE
related activities?

9. EuroGroups Register (EGR)
• The EGR is the ESS register on MNEs active in the
EU/EFTA countries
• It is sourced mainly by Member States’ statistical
Business Registers
• It serves as:
• a centralised storage of information about MNEs
• a survey frame for producing cross-border statistics
• a data source for producing statistics
 Frequent restructurings of MNEs create challenges for a
tool managed by annual cycles updating one reference
year at a time
9
EGR

10. 10
• Method to analyse legal, economic and organisational
structure of top MNEs to derive high quality statistical
information on them
• Collaborative process to agree on the global MNE structure
European Profiling
Top
MNEs
EGR
• Special attention for the most significant MNEs
• In case of restructuring, important to describe
the new structure and monitor the impact on
statistics
systematic integration of results in national
registers and into the EGR
European programme designed to serve
identified needs

11. Large Case Units (LCUs)
11
• Increasing number of Member States established LCUs or similar
arrangements to be the single entry point for MNEs
• Typical LCUs activities and composition
• Ensuring consistent micro-data on MNEs across domains
• Direct contacts with MNEs with statistical relevance
• Carry out consistency checks across surveys and sources
• Include a balance of statistical, accountancy, business and communications skills
• Eurostat : ESTP training courses, workshops, grants
 LCU network – going beyond in order to also improve cross-
country consistency

12. Handling asymmetries
12
• Eurostat action to handle asymmetries for trade flows:
• Trade in goods for extra-EU trade (top transactions) and for intra-EU
trade (making use of exchanged micro data on intra-EU exports)
• Trade in services - little willingness to reconcile at country level,
especially in case of disagreement what is the correct figure
• FDI - microdata driven approach, FDI network, ECB/Eurostat
asymmetry resolution meeting (ARM)
 Objective: improved quality of statistical output

13. Serving users with new statistics
13
• Global Value Chains (GVC)
• GVC methodology available and tested in pilots
• New voluntary GVC pilot before the introduction in FRIBS
• FRIBS-based GVC survey in 2024 for the reference period 2021-2023
• Trade by Enterprise Characteristics (goods: TEC – services: STEC)
• Trading enterprises are analyzed by their characteristics, including
belonging or not to an MNE
• TEC are official statistics since 2010
• STEC are experimental statistics for now …
• Other micro-data linking activities

14. We are aiming to…
• Serve users with relevant statistics
• Serve users with high quality statistics
• Consistency across domains / countries
• Features of our response:
• Cost-effective and user-oriented
• Improved consistency, timeliness and relevance
• Re-use of developed capabilities, know-how and
infrastructures
• Improved cross-domain synergies
• Strengthened cooperation across countries and
institutions
• Legal framework to share information between
Member States
14

15. 15
Building upon those
achievements
the DGINS Conference
can discuss and shed light
on how to structure the
way forward
The Conference Program
is designed to provide the
opportunity to discuss
some outstanding topics,
such as:
Some work ahead…

16. 16
Thank you for your attention

17. GNI MNE Pilot action lines
17
• AL1: Countries are invited to further scrutinize major MNEs
from a National Accounts point of view in general and GNI in
particular, through a risk-based approach
• The list of MNE identified through the two 2016 and 2017 questionnaires
of the GNI Committee and the experiences in the pilot studies will be a
suitable starting point to select the major MNE for further studies
• AL2: Enhance the ESS statistical and legal infrastructure and
ensure cross-country and cross-domain cooperation based on
a European network of LCUs (or corresponding functions)
under Eurostat stewardship to ensure consistent measurement
of MNE activities in European statistics

18. GNI MNE Pilot action lines (cont’d)
18
• AL3: Considering that not all information needed from MNEs
to properly record their activities in European economic
statistics is available to National Statistical authorities, further
information will have to be requested from them based on a
win / win approach and a clear legal framework
• AL4: Further enhance consistent methodological treatment of
globalization related issues and practical implementation in
Business and Trade Statistics, National Accounts and Balance
of Payments
• AL5: Access to administrative data, in particular to BEPS
information as promising input to better understand MNE
economic behavior crucial for their proper recording in
European statistics, should be granted to statisticians