INSEE - French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies - Business Statistics Directorate

Business indices division

INSEE - DSE / DSCT / Division ICA Timbre E320 88 avenue Verdier - CS 70058 92541 Montrouge cedex FRANCE

Turnover and volume of sales indices provide a short-term indication of changes in activity in the trade sector. They are calculated thanks to administrative data, the CA3 declaration , a form which enterprises must fill in monthly or quarterly for the payment of VAT. Volume indices also rely on price indices.

Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community rev2 / NACE Rev. 2.

French classification of activities (NAF rev. 2)

Turnover and volume of sales indices cover divisions 45, 46 and 47 of NACE Rev. 2 2008.

Trade turnover as defined in European regulation 2019/2152.

Turnover comprises the totals invoiced by the observation unit during the reference period, i.e. sales of goods or services supplied to third parties. Turnover also includes all other charges (transport, packaging, etc.) passed on to the customer, even if these charges are listed separately in the invoice.

Turnover excludes VAT and other similar deductible taxes directly linked to turnover as well as all duties and taxes on the goods or services collected by company.

Income classified as other operating income, financial income and extraordinary income in company accounts is excluded from turnover.

Legal unit

Legal units classified in trade (NACE Rev. 2 Divisions 45, 46 and 47 2008).

France

Time series cover the period back to 1999 (turnover) or 2005 (volume of sales).

Reference year is 2015.

Index

Month

At national level

Law No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951 on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics.

The statistics are based on tax information. Companies have to report their turnover to the tax authorities.

Law No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951 on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics

At European level

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics (EBS-Regulation) and its General Implementing Act (Regulation (EU) 2020/1197).

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics

Under the terms of the agreement between INSEE and the DGFiP (the French tax administration) on the recurrent transmission of tax data, the DGFIP transmits VAT returns to INSEE every month.

At the national level, Article 6 of Act No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951, as amended, on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics determines what statistical secrecy is, its limits and the conditions for its application. These rules apply to surveys conducted by the official statistical service (SSP) whether or not they are mandatory. The derogations provided for in this article are governed by the Act. As it stands, the only exemptions that remain applicable are those relating to the status of public archives for surveys and censuses, which authorise the disclosure of individual information contained in the questionnaires and relating to personal and family life and, in general, to the information contained in the questionnaires. family life and, in general, to private facts and behaviour, after a period of 75 years for individuals and 25 years for legal entities. According to the Act, this communication may not be used for tax control or economic repression.

The obligations relating to statistical confidentiality also apply to administrative data that INSEE or ministerial statistical services may have access to under the terms of Article 7 bis of the aforementioned Act, as well as to private data communicated under the terms of Article 3 bis. under the terms of Article 3 bis of the Act. Generally speaking, with regard to access to public data, confidentiality obligations relating to the protection of privacy or business secrecy and the protection of personal data are guaranteed by Act (Article 1 of the Act for a Digital Republic).

At the European level, the confidentiality of statistical information is affirmed by Article 338 of the EU Treaty. "The compilation of statistics shall respect (...) the confidentiality of statistical information". Statistical confidentiality is also the subject of Chapter V of Regulation 223/2009 as amended and Implementing Regulation No 557/2013 as regards access to confidential data for statistical purposes.

A Statistical Confidentiality Committee ensures that these statutory guarantees are maintained. Its powers are set out in Article 6 bis of Act No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951, as amended, on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics and Chapter II of Decree No. 2009-318 of 20 March 2009 on the National Council for Statistical Information and the Statistical Confidentiality Committee. Statistical Confidentiality Committee. It is called upon to give its opinion on any question relating to statistical secrecy, and gives its opinion on requests for communication of individual data collected by means of a statistical survey or transmitted to the official statistical service, for the purpose of establishing a statistical report. for statistical purposes. Researchers can also ask the committee to give an opinion on access to various administrative data other than public statistics.

Chaired by a State Councillor, it includes representatives of the National Assembly and the Senate. The composition and operating procedures of the committee are set by decree in the Council of State.

The beneficiaries of data communications resulting from ministerial decisions taken after the opinion of the Statistical Confidentiality Committee undertake not to communicate these data to anyone.

Any breach of the provisions of this paragraph shall be punishable by the penalties provided for in Article 226-13 of the Criminal Code.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European Statistics

Decree No. 2009-318 of 20 March 2009 on the National Council for Statistical Information (CNIS) and the Statistical Confidentiality Committee

Commission Regulation (EU) No 557/2013 of 17 June 2013 implementing Regulation (EC) No 223/2009

Law No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951 on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics

The main rules for turnover indices are : no dissemination of data if they are based on the compilation of less than 3 enterprises or if a single entreprise represents more than 85 % of the turnover of the field covered by the serie (dominance rule and p% rule).

Confidential treatment through TAU ARGUS (software designed to protect statistical tables) and confidential indices are not disseminated.

Software Tau-Argus

A calendar for the main economic indicators is available on insee.fr.

Publication calendars

Internet users can consult and download all the available statistical data free of charge on the INSEE website, as well as the information needed to interpret them correctly.

The rules of access, particularly the embargo rules, are described on insee.fr.

The transmission to Eurostat is made using the SDMX format, the day of the national release.

Monthly

The latest results are published in the collection « Informations Rapides ». This collection presents the latest indices and results of INSEE's business indicators.

The results are available in the indices and time series category of the « service » section on insee.fr. The data can be downloaded in xlsx or csv format. They can also be retrieved via a web service, available on the api.insee.fr portal and compliant with the SDMX standard.

The raw data are made available to researchers via the Secure Data Access Centre (SDAC), subject to the agreement of the Statistical Confidentiality Committee.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat via the Edamis portal both for use as input in European aggregates and for publication as national data.

Calculation of value indice (services turnover indices):

The gross turnover indices are calculated at the most detailed level of the French classification of activities : the NAF rev. 2 sub-classes. At this level, the index for month m is calculated by linking the index for month m-12 to the change in turnover between m-12 and m. Business demographics (start-ups, closures, entries and exits, changes in sector of activity) are taken into account on a continuous basis to accurately reflect the economic reality. Restructurings that may affect the sectoral outline of VAT returns are treated separately.

The turnover indices change their base and reference every 5 years, except for the next reference year being 2021 in reason of the particularities of year 2020. The indices now published have a base and reference year of 2015. The average value of the indices is 100 in 2015 (previously 100 in 2010).

Calculation of indices in volume:

The indices of services production at a fine level are defined as the ratio of the turnover index in value to an associated price deflator, specific to the sector. This is done for the different classes in the market services. Once the indices at the finest level of nomenclature are calculated, the indices for higher levels are calculated by aggregation (cf infra). They are disseminated on the INSEE website from the class level. They are calculated since 2005, according to the availability of the prices.

For most of sectors, the deflators used are production price indices in services (PPS). Production price indices in services are produced only quarterly (available at T + 60 days) so they have to be converted to monthly indices thanks to econometric methods. Then, at some point, the quarterly price indices are not yet available. Prices must therefore be predicted, before getting the true indice some months later.

Some sectors do not have a production price index for services. In these cases, we use a consumer price index (CPI), or a price index of production in another service appearing as a good proxy. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is measured all taxes included, so it is necessary to neutralize VAT rate changes.

Aggregation to upper levels:

The estimation of annual weights is based primarily on gross value added data by industry calculated by the annual national accounts (as for industrial production indices). At the finest levels of the classification, weights are also based on INSEE's Esane statistics (structural business statistics).

The 2015 rebasing implements an innovation, with the introduction of a two-weighting system (instead of a constant-weight system) in order to better take into account the structural evolutions. Until now, aggregation of elementary indices was done on the basis of constant weights representing the reference year -- i.e. 2010 previously. From now on, 2010 weights are used for the aggregation of elementary indices between 2005 (respectively 1999 for turnover indices) and 2012, whereas 2015 weights are used for the period after. The calculation on the whole period is then achieved by chaining both series (computation of a link coefficient on the year 2013). This change responds to a recommandation of Eurostat in order to increase the robustness of indices over a long period.

This quality report is published on the insee.fr website and is also available via the INSEE Metadata API.

It is also transmitted to Eurostat via Edamis.

API Metadata

Since 2005, the European Statistics Code of Practice has been the reference for assessing the quality of the output of national statistical institutes. Periodic reviews by European peers are organised to ensure that the principles of this reference framework are implemented and to ensure that each institute is committed to continuous improvement. Within this framework, INSEE has adopted a process-based approach. A range of tools, pooled within the Official Statistical Service (SSP), has been created to describe statistical production processes, analyse their strengths and weaknesses, assess the risks involved, examine their documentation (metadata) or assess a particular stage (analysis of users' needs, data validation, etc.). The diagnoses resulting from these « quality approaches » lead to the establishment of action plans that are regularly monitored in the context of « process reviews » . In addition, INSEE regularly conducts satisfaction surveys on the indicators and data it produces. The results of these surveys are available on the insee.fr website.

A full quality assesment was carried out in 2022 on the computing process of turnover indices and associated volume indices.

The turnover indices and associated volume indices are meant to be used by many clients (i.e. users) including Eurostat, the official statistical service (INSEE and the SSM) and the general public (inseenauts, private or public institutions, media).

Different types of products are produced by the team on tunover and volume indices:

• monthly « InfosRap » publications;
• aggregated data files and series available on the on-line database:
• monthly turnover index files (industry-construction, trade, services), Production Index in Services (IPS), Volume Index of Sales in Trade (IVVC) complying with the EU regulation « EBS-Regulation »;
• specific files responding to user needs (National Accounts, Business Cycle Analysis, Structural Surveys, SSM);
• microdata files used by INSEE services or customs;
• metadata: annual quality reports sent to Eurostat and made available on insee.fr;
• the five-yearly weights sent to Eurostat.

This process is not subject to a specific satisfaction survey for external users but internal users are satisfied with the quality and punctuality of indices.

This process complies with the regulatory requirements specified in the « Institutional Mandate » section.

Monthly tax returns cover about 97% of the returns.

not applicable

Late responses may lead to small revisions even though there is no particular bias.

There are no actions to speed up or increase the response rate as this is a near exhaustive administrative source.

Coverage error

The indices are calculated on the basis of all monthly VAT returns of enterprises.

Legal units declaring annually or quarterly are therefore excluded, but these represent a marginal share in most economic sectors.

Businesses that declare VAT on a monthly basis are those that are subject to the normal real tax regime.

The coverage rate (share of monthly declarations/total declarations) is over 97%.

The indices cover the whole of France, including the overseas departments with the exception of French Guiana and Mayotte, which are not subject to VAT.

VAT regimes

Form CA3

Measurement error

The measurement error is small: this would be due to inaccurate reporting not identified in the data clearance process.

Non response error

The non-response error is negligible.

Processing error

The process is robust and uses cross-validations methods.

Model assumption error

The results are published 30 days after the end of the reference period for early estimates (G47), 60 days otherwise.

Twenty-four months after the first release, the raw series are final.

Deadlines are respected and data have so far always been published on time.

Methods are comparable to those of other European countries using administrative tax data. They are compliant with the european regulation (EBS).

Consistency over time is ensured through the use of stable methods. In the case of methodological changes, or change of base period, past indices are backcast to ensure comparability over time.

A benchmarking with other STS data, structural data or national accounts can be carried out. In addition, national accountants use turnover indices for quarterly estimates or provisional annual estimates and provide feedback on consistency with past account data.

Internal consistency is ensured through the aggregation method.

Burden on INSEE: 4,000 hours

Companies do not bear any additional burden since the tax data are transmitted by Dgfip to Insee.

This transmission is not subject to any financial transaction.

The same revision policy is applied to STS data published at national level and transmitted to Eurostat.

All revisions are taken into account (routine revisions, major revisions, unscheduled revisions).

Routine revisions are mainly due - for raw data - to late respondents.

The really late data replace the old forecasts. For the SA-WDA data, there is also the new calculation of the SA-WDA coefficients. These revisions are taken into account monthly.

There is no revision calendar.

A paragraph dedicated to revisions of variations is published in the « Informations Rapides » publication.

Warnings are also published in this publication and on the insee.fr website when the revisions are major (after rebasing or changes in methodology). The raw data are final twenty-four months after the first release.

The average revision (MR) and the average absolute revision (MAR) are given below for the overall index. They are calculated for the year-on-year growth rates for the calendar adjusted data for the last three full years.

MR = 0.26 and MAR = 0.29.

The main source data are the monthly tax returns of VAT-registered businesses. The volume indices also use price indices.

For the early retail trade indices, private data (cash register data, payment card data) and business surveys are used.

Monthly

The monthly VAT returns are provided by Dgfip to INSEE according to the terms defined in the agreement signed between the two parties.

The data are validated before being sent to Eurostat. This validation is done in two stages: the checking (and if necessary correction) of individual data and then the checking of the aggregated indices. This second check may lead to further corrections on individual data.

The elementary (sub-class S) index of the month is calculated by applying the change in turnover (TO) of the companies between the month m and the same month one year before to the index value of the same month one year before: I(m) = I(m-12) * TO(m, S)/TO(m-12, S),  S is the sector of legal units (cf. documentation on methodology).

Aggregated indices are calculated as Laspeyres indices with a two-weighting system (cf. methodology).

Seasonal adjustment

The raw indices are seasonnaly and working-day adjusted (SA-WDA) using the X13 ARIMA program available in JDemetra +. The WD adjustment (trading days, leap year) and the seasonal adjustment decomposition are calculated at the 4-digit level of the NACE Rev. 2. The upper levels are obtained by aggregating the series (indirect method), in the same way as the agregation of raw data.

The Reg ARIMA calendar adjustment is used by constructing working day regressors based on the French national calendar (which takes into account working days specific to France).

Outliers (additive outliers, temporary changes, level shifts, seasonal outliers) are fixed in the past and are detected automatically ont the past 12 months onwards. The critical value for outlier detection, the filter length and the model/filter selection depend on the series and may have to be changed manually to improve the quality of the seasonal correction. This was the case to neutralize some particular points associated with the 2020-2021 health crisis (lockdowns for example), which would have induced an unjustified distortion of the seasonal coefficients over the past.

Either additive or multiplicative decomposition can be used. The seasonal adjustment models are reexamined every year (favouring stability) and the parameters are re-estimated every month.

Each month the SA-WDA data are revised from 2012. For the seasonal adjustment of indices in the recent past, the models are now estimated over a reduced sub-period (from 2005 onwards), in accordance with Eurostat guidelines, and in order to reinforce the robustness of the seasonal adjustment. The data before 2012 are fixed in evolution, in accordance with Eurostat's guidelines (avoid revisions over a too long period).