This project will support the Third International Conference on Establishment Surveys, to be held in Montreal, Canada in June 2007. The funds will partially offset travel and local costs of some invited speakers, full-time students, underrepresented groups, and organizing committee members. Funds also will be used to produce the conference proceedings that will document all the presented papers for libraries and individuals, including those who are not able to attend in person.
Official statistics are directly affected by the quality of the data derived from surveys. Yet there are few commonly accepted standards and methodologies for these studies. Two prior conferences have been held on these topics, but the survey world has changed dramatically since the last event due to electronic communication improvements, observed reductions in response rates, and a pressing need to "harmonize" international data. The term "establishment surveys" refers to efforts to ascertain characteristics and attributes of organizational entities, such as businesses, institutions, etc. Establishment surveys differ in approach and methodology from individual surveys, where both the practices and the statistics are well established. The conference will address registers and frames, design and sampling, data collection and processing, estimation, and dissemination. Additionally, specific sector issues in economics and education will be considered, along with issues that cut across several areas such as time series methods, meta-analysis, international comparisons, evaluation, and quality.
