DATA QUALITY IN THE AGRI-ECONOMIC RESEARCH IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Abstract

The transition process in the South-East European countries opened new research topics and encouraged use of new methodologies in agricultural economic studies. The process of transformation of the agri-food sector towards market economy principles required introduction of complex micro and macroeconomic models to evaluate the alternative solutions to the ongoing challenges. The models’ relevance and their usefulness depend on the availability and quality of input data. Data unavailability and big differences among databases make data sets unreliable and require adjustments to make them suitable for use. As an EU candidate country since 2005, the Republic of Macedonia conducts institutional and systemic harmonization, including the national statistics. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of data and their quality in the agricultural economics research in Republic of Macedonia, through a review of the available literature and experiences of the stakeholders (based on users’ survey) in the last decade. The analysis uses the attribute-based approach (Wang, Reddy and Kon, 1995), defining data quality as multi-dimensional and hierarchical concept. The paper underlines the role of data availability and their quality for the needs of evidence-based policy decision making; and the need for more active involvement of the agricultural economics science and practice in the creation, harmonization, quality assurance and sharing of data necessary for research.