Data users and compilers search for consensus on statistics initiatives, resource implications

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In an effort to reach greater consensus on data priorities, compilers and users gathered in Washington, D.C., on February 23–24 for the IMF Conference on Capital Flow and Debt Statistics. The event drew 120 senior officials from central banks, finance ministries, national statistical offices, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the IMF, and other international and regional agencies, as well as top-level participants from commercial banks and investment firms.

The conference, cosponsored by the Financial Stability Forum’s Working Group on Capital Flows, was timed to complement an upcoming IMF Executive Board discussion of initiatives to strengthen the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) and General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) in the area of external debt and to provide wide-ranging commentary to the working group, which was finalizing its report on cross-border capital flows, external positions, and the analytical bases for risk and liquidity management.

Participants emphasized the key role that better and more timely data can play in facilitating more knowledgeable market decisions and more effective policymaking. But the exchange of views also highlighted the resource constraints that face already overburdened national statistical offices.

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The conference represented an important first step in expanding the degree of understanding that compilers and users in the public and private sectors have of each other’s needs. It helped delineate many of the critical issues before the statistical and policymaking communities, and frank exchanges helped clarify the differences in perspectives that shape user and compiler positions.

Overview

In his welcoming remarks, IMF Acting Managing Director Stanley Fischer noted that this conference represented a signal opportunity to improve understanding and coordination between data users and compilers. He asked attendees to consider a number of questions, including whether the push for improved data should not also encompass a press for greater resources for statistical operations and whether goals should be more clearly defined in the quest for better debtor and creditor data. On the debtor side, he asked participants to be mindful of the distinction between residents and nonresidents, look at both domestic and foreign debt, and address the question of reserves. From the creditor’s perspective, the question remains how to interpret international banking statistics.

The resources brought to bear on these data issues will be enhanced, Fischer added, if international and national efforts are coordinated and if international organizations complement—not duplicate—their efforts. Good data play a key role in formulating effective policies and avoiding crises, he said, and that lesson was vividly in evidence for the IMF during the Asian crisis, where the absence of timely data allowed debt problems to fester until they reached crisis proportions.

Mario Draghi, Director General of the Italian Ministry of the Treasury and Chair of the Financial Stability Forum’s Working Group on Capital Flows, briefed participants on the perspective his working group brought to these issues. He voiced concern that policymakers and market participants did not spend sufficient time communicating with one another and that data compilers were frequently not fully aware of users’ requirements. Draghi said the...