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Commercial sources & compiling statistics

Commercial sources & compiling statistics. Floortje Sniedt Statistics Netherlands Department of Business Statistics. Wiesbaden Group, Paris Session 6c: “ Measuring multinationals’ activity and groups register” 26 November 2008. Background.

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Commercial sources & compiling statistics

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  1. Commercial sources & compiling statistics Floortje Sniedt Statistics Netherlands Department of Business Statistics Wiesbaden Group, Paris Session 6c: “Measuring multinationals’ activity and groups register” 26 November 2008

  2. Background • - Outward-FATS (FATS = Foreign AffiliaTes Statistics) • - Registers (Chamber of Commerce, Tax Authorities) • Commercial databases? • Dun & Bradstreet; ORBIS (Bureau van Dijk) Research goal: to examine the usefulness and quality of commercial databases in compiling FATS statistics

  3. Research • Databases provided us with datasets for a sample of “Dutch companies with foreign affiliates” • Datasets were judged on several quality aspects • Relevance • Timeliness • Accuracy & reliability • Comparability • Accessibility • Stability & continuity

  4. …… 2005 2006 2007 Etc. …… 2007 2005 2006 Etc. Variables +referencelabel ORBIS Ownership database Financial-economic database Companies Variables Dun & Bradstreet Only most recent data Companies +referencelabel Ownership & financial-economic database Problem 1: structure of databases Local information providers

  5. Problem 2: availability & accuracy • - Accuracy of ownership-structures • - repeatedly wrong ‘UCI’s’ • - often foreign affiliates “missing” • - Accuracy of financial-economic data • - only ~25% of the data of foreign affiliates available • - however......NOT plausible!

  6. Problem 3: regional coverage • Several EXTRA-EU countries do not have “trusted” local information providers • Underrepresentation of companies in databases

  7. Conclusion • It is NOT POSSIBLE to compile outward- FATS using commercial databases • Data have to be collected by questioning Dutch UCI’s about activities in extra-EU countries(restricted to largest Dutch UCI’s)

  8. Company visits: insights • - Relevant data with respect to extra-EU affiliates are available at level of Dutch UCI • These data are not provided to other (government) agencies • For reporting by UCI’s, it would be helpful if the Business Unit structure will be taken into account

  9. Questions? Thank you for your attention! Floortje Sniedt ========= f.sniedt@cbs.nl

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