Assessing the Accuracy of Non-Random Business Conditions Surveys: A Novel Approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Summary A number of central banks and other institutions publish their own business conditions surveys that rely on complex non-probability sampling methods. The results of these surveys influence policy decisions and affect expectations in financial markets. To date, no one has assessed the accuracy of these surveys because their complex (and often unique) sampling method renders this assessment non-trivial. The paper describes a novel approach for modelling unique sampling methods when many constraints (including quota sampling and clustering) are imposed. When no closed form solution exists, we show how to compute the selection probabilities from each firm in the known population and the dispersion of the sampling distribution by using Monte Carlo techniques. This method can also be used to assess the appropriateness of a survey sample size. Our approach is applicable to many major surveys conducted by various central banks and institutes across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we apply it to the Bank of Canada’s ‘Business outlook survey’. Although the survey’s coverage is significantly limited, we find, under certain assumptions, no evidence that the Bank of Canada’s firm selection process results in a wider dispersion in the sampling distribution than the stratified random sample.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.085 | 0.368 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".