Work

How to Construct Nationally Representative Firm Level Data from the Orbis Global Database: New Facts and Aggregate Implications

Year: 2015

Type: report

Abstract: We construct nationally representative firm-level longitudinal data for European countries using financial statements from the Orbis database.We validate our data by comparing its coverage and firm size distribution to official statistics.We showcase two applications to show the importance of firm representativeness in understanding macroeconomic outcomes.First, we show that smalland-medium-sized firms (SMEs) account for a large share of aggregate economic activity.Second, we document that firm representativeness is important for calculating industry concentration trends over time as the share of economic activity accounted by top firms in an industry changes with the firm samples used.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

DOI: 10.3386/w21558

Authors: Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Bent Sorensen, Carolina Villegas-Sanchez, Vadym Volosovych, Sevcan Yesiltas

Institutions: National Bureau of Economic Research, Koç University, Tinbergen Institute, Esade, University of Houston, University of Maryland, College Park, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Centre for Economic Policy Research

Language: English

Topic: Firm Innovation and Growth

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2996160944

Cites: 23

Cited by: 277

Related to: 10