Experimental statistics

In line with Eurostat and other National Statistical Institutes, Istat experiments with the use of new sources and the application of innovative methods in producing data. The results are made available for users’ use and evaluation.

They are experimental statistics because they do not respect all the steps necessary to test new methodologies, to transform them into technological and organisational solutions, to verify if quality requirements and harmonisation rules are fulfilled.

But their potential is really high; they fill knowledge gaps in a timely way; they serve as a driving force for new analyses and indicators; they guarantee an important information support to policies.

To ease users in finding and utilising them, experimental statistics produced by Istat are organised in four different typologies:

1. Non-standard classifications produced on the basis of the official taxonomies defined at an international level and currently used by Istat, or proposed as experimental within analysis and research activities based on microdata processing
2. New indicators produced through the integration of a multiplicity of official and non-official sources; in this case, the focus is on phenomena under investigation rather than on statistical sources used to describe them
3. Interpretation frameworks and analysis of complex phenomena obtained through the integration of official sources
4. Results of Experiments on Big Data, characterised, by their very nature, by the use of non-official sources.

Experimental statistics are available in chronological order also.