Statistical agencies face a dual mandate to publish accurate statistics while protecting respondent privacy. Increasing privacy protection requires decreased accuracy. Recognizing this as a resource allocation problem, we propose an economic solution: operate where the marginal cost of...

All empirical researchers know that having more sources of variation in a dataset is valuable. What is not known is how valuable, and if the marginal value of adding another source of variation diminishes or increases. This note provides explicit answers to these questions. It defines "valuable"...

While increasing public attention is being directed toward the use of data in the 2012 presidential campaign, particularly by Obama for America, congressional candidates' use of data has largely avoided any type of public scrutiny. This lack of scrutiny is perhaps a symptom of both a media...

Cloud computing—computing done on an off-site network of resources accessed through the Internet—is revolutionizing how computing services are used. However, because cloud is so new and it largely is an intermediate input to other industries, it is difficult to track in the U.S. statistical...

The rapid expansion of the data economy raises serious questions about who “owns” data, and what data “ownership” entails. In most jurisdictions, data that are kept confidential can be protected as confidential information. However, such data are vulnerable to exposure through hacking or...

Concerns about anti-competitive effects of proprietary data collection have motivated recent European data portability laws. We investigate such concerns and search for evidence of direct benefits of data collection in the context of Pay How You Drive (PHYD) auto insurance, which offers tailored...

We provide a theoretical model of privacy in which data collection requires consumers' consent and consumers are fully aware of the consequences of such consent. Nonetheless, excessive collection of personal information arises in the monopoly market equilibrium which results in excessive loss of...

Th Public health policies need reliable data on health status, health care use and health determinants from population surveys for all EU and EEA member states. The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) is the instrument to collect such information. The corresponding methodological manual aims...

The present handbook represents the first comprehensive overview of conceptual and practical issues related the compilation of statistics on illegal economic activities (IEAs) in national accounts (NA) and balance of payments (BOP). Estimating the extent or the value of IEAs is clearly...

This report presents the results of an overview of the risk web-platforms and related risk data used in risk assessment at assessment at European level including member states of the European Union, EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and IPA (Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance)...