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Dictionary definition: official statistics
- Article from:
- A Dictionary of Sociology
- Author:
Copyright© A Dictionary of Sociology 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998. (Hide copyright information)
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official statistics
Statistical information produced, collated, and disseminated by national governments, their agencies, and the international bodies which link them. These data are almost invariably nationally representative, because they are obtained from complete
censuses
or very large-scale national sample
surveys
, and they usually seek to present definitive information conforming to international definitions and classifications or other well-established conventions. The impersonal character of official statistics, and their resistance to innovation, stand in sharp contrast to statistics and data-sets from other sources: academic research, market research, independent research ...