Analysis

Description: This report outlines the methodology behind the Quarterly Rent Statistics (QRS) program. It covers data sources, the target population, key concepts, data processing procedures and techniques used to produce experimental asking rent estimates for Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). It also outlines the rationale behind the selection criteria and the limitations of asking rent data, as well as the approaches used to mitigate selection bias through advanced weighting strategies.

Description: The capture-recapture method can be applied to measure the coverage of administrative and big data sources, in official statistics. In its basic form, it involves the linkage of two sources while assuming a perfect linkage and other standard assumptions. In practice, linkage errors arise and are a potential source of bias, where the linkage is based on quasi-identifiers. These errors include false positives and false negatives, where the former arise when linking a pair of records from different units, and the latter arise when not linking a pair of records from the same unit. So far, the existing solutions have resorted to costly clerical reviews, or they have made the restrictive conditional independence assumption. In this work, these requirements are relaxed by modeling the number of links from a record instead. The same approach may be taken to estimate the linkage accuracy without clerical reviews, when linking two sources that each have some undercoverage.

Description: This paper proposes a method of producing preliminary Market Basket Measure (MBM) poverty estimates up to seven months before the official release by using preliminary tax slips, while ensuring the estimates maintain reasonable revision and accuracy levels. Following the release of this paper, Statistics Canada will continue to provide preliminary poverty estimates each fall following the reference year using the methodology described in this paper. The official poverty estimates will continue to be released in the spring of the second year after the reference year.

Description:

In the context of its "admin-first" paradigm, Statistics Canada is prioritizing the use of non-survey sources to produce official statistics. This paradigm critically relies on non-survey sources that may have a nearly perfect coverage of some target populations, including administrative files or big data sources. Yet, this coverage must be measured, e.g., by applying the capture-recapture method, where they are compared to other sources with good coverage of the same populations, including a census. However, this is a challenging exercise in the presence of linkage errors, which arise inevitably when the linkage is based on quasi-identifiers, as is typically the case. To address the issue, a new methodology is described where the capture-recapture method is enhanced with a new error model that is based on the number of links adjacent to a given record. It is applied in an experiment with public census data.

Key Words: dual system estimation, data matching, record linkage, quality, data integration, big data.

Description:

The regression estimator is extensively used in practice because it can improve the reliability of the estimated parameters of interest such as means or totals. It uses control totals of variables known at the population level that are included in the regression set up. In this paper, we investigate the properties of the regression estimator that uses control totals estimated from the sample, as well as those known at the population level. This estimator is compared to the regression estimators that strictly use the known totals both theoretically and via a simulation study.

Description: This report outlines the methodology behind the Quarterly Rent Statistics (QRS) program. It covers data sources, the target population, key concepts, data processing procedures and techniques used to produce experimental asking rent estimates for Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). It also outlines the rationale behind the selection criteria and the limitations of asking rent data, as well as the approaches used to mitigate selection bias through advanced weighting strategies.

Description: The capture-recapture method can be applied to measure the coverage of administrative and big data sources, in official statistics. In its basic form, it involves the linkage of two sources while assuming a perfect linkage and other standard assumptions. In practice, linkage errors arise and are a potential source of bias, where the linkage is based on quasi-identifiers. These errors include false positives and false negatives, where the former arise when linking a pair of records from different units, and the latter arise when not linking a pair of records from the same unit. So far, the existing solutions have resorted to costly clerical reviews, or they have made the restrictive conditional independence assumption. In this work, these requirements are relaxed by modeling the number of links from a record instead. The same approach may be taken to estimate the linkage accuracy without clerical reviews, when linking two sources that each have some undercoverage.

Description: This paper proposes a method of producing preliminary Market Basket Measure (MBM) poverty estimates up to seven months before the official release by using preliminary tax slips, while ensuring the estimates maintain reasonable revision and accuracy levels. Following the release of this paper, Statistics Canada will continue to provide preliminary poverty estimates each fall following the reference year using the methodology described in this paper. The official poverty estimates will continue to be released in the spring of the second year after the reference year.

Description:

In the context of its "admin-first" paradigm, Statistics Canada is prioritizing the use of non-survey sources to produce official statistics. This paradigm critically relies on non-survey sources that may have a nearly perfect coverage of some target populations, including administrative files or big data sources. Yet, this coverage must be measured, e.g., by applying the capture-recapture method, where they are compared to other sources with good coverage of the same populations, including a census. However, this is a challenging exercise in the presence of linkage errors, which arise inevitably when the linkage is based on quasi-identifiers, as is typically the case. To address the issue, a new methodology is described where the capture-recapture method is enhanced with a new error model that is based on the number of links adjacent to a given record. It is applied in an experiment with public census data.

Key Words: dual system estimation, data matching, record linkage, quality, data integration, big data.

Description:

The regression estimator is extensively used in practice because it can improve the reliability of the estimated parameters of interest such as means or totals. It uses control totals of variables known at the population level that are included in the regression set up. In this paper, we investigate the properties of the regression estimator that uses control totals estimated from the sample, as well as those known at the population level. This estimator is compared to the regression estimators that strictly use the known totals both theoretically and via a simulation study.