Measuring and communicating uncertainty in official statistics: state of the art and perspectives — 2021 edition

This paper examines the state-of-the-art methodologies that are available to measure and communicate uncertainties on official statistics in reports, publications and online resources. Our aim is to investigate the available tools for a more accurate representation of inherent uncertainties underlying economic and social statistics. For a complete assessment, we evaluate different categories of uncertainty ranging from sampling and non-sampling ones to conceptual uncertainty. We also briefly address some aspects of uncertainty, not necessarily related to its measurement, which could help in better understanding and interpreting it. Moreover, we discuss the quantification of uncertainty through quantitative methods and we investigate different communication tools applied by prominent European agencies. Further, together with some concluding remarks, we formulate a first series of recommendations addressed to statistical authorities. [+]