The seven steps needed for good-quality backcasting

The new version of the French classification of activities, NAF Rev. 2, has become the benchmark classification for structural business statistics. To accompany the change, INSEE has developed a method for backcasting NAF Rev. 1 to NAF Rev. 2. The first step consists in processing “branches,” i.e., the primary activities of enterprises, identified in the Annual Enterprise Survey (Enquête Annuelle d’Entreprise: EAE). Next, we recalculate the enterprise’s principal economic activity (Activity Principale Exercée: APE). The method relies on an ad hoc “intermediate” classification. The branches are converted into the final classification in four steps—two deterministic, two probabilistic. Three further steps are needed to obtain APEs in the final classification. The backcast EAE data follow the statistical-processing sequence for structural business statistics all the way to end users, including the National Accounting system.