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Linking micro data. Some Norwegian experiences

Øyvind Hagen

Statistics Norway

Nordic meeting, Faeroe Islands September 2014

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Comments concerning reporting unit – enterprises - in different statistics

• To produce statistics we use information from registers as well as surveys

• Registers are often not designed to have statistics as a main goal

• Enterprise IDs, in the database of the trading agent, may not be valid for the reporting period. Experiences from other countries? Extra- v intrastat?

• Smaller enterprises do not appear in many surveys due to response burden

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Enterprise – business registration no.

• The most important enterprises belong to an enterprise group -EG

• Different enterprises within an EG may report to the various statistical areas

• Over time: within a statistical area the reporting unit may also change

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External trade in goods statistics

• The reporting enterprise might not be the one actually exporting

• Downstream value chain enterprises act as intermediaries without having actual production e.g. exports of fish.

• Several producing enterprises may report only using one of the enterprise ID’s.

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External trade versus structural business stat - sbs• Norway - profit figures – e.g. gross operating

surplus divided by turnover

• Aim - compare traders to non traders and across activity sector

• Challenge – certain EG’s may redistribute surplus to specific companies not necessarily present in ITGS data

• This may explain apparent large differences in profitability between traders and non - traders

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Norway profit 2010-2011

1IMP 1IMPT 1TWT 2EXP 2EXPT 2TWT 3NTRD TOT TOTE0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Activity_B 2010 Activity_B 2011 Activity_C 2010 Activity_C 2011 Total 2010 Total 2011

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Enterprise groups2011 - Enterprises reporting export of goods but not present in SBS (million euro)Industry Enterprise group Export value No. Enterprises of which in EG

A-B N/A 300 530  

A-B 1 1 195 173 100 %

C N/A 435 203  

C 1 61 23 100 %

Others N/A 1 961 1 606  

Others 1 124 371 100 %

Totalt   4 076 2 906  

2011 - Enterprises reporting export of goods and present in SBS (million euro)

Industry Enterprise group Export valueNo.

Enterprises

A-B 1 44 507 193

C N/A 2 023 1 297

C 1 24 671 2 256

Others N/A 1 488 5 132

Others 1 6 105 5 733

Totalt   78 795 14 611

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Further developments Questions

• Based on findings when merging different statistics by enterprise use EG as reporting unit

• Do we lose relevant information about the most detailed level?

• Will bring about more work to be done? Complex EG structure may cause problems concerning the distribution by e.g. industry sector.

• Have any of the countries tried to make a comparison on EG level?

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Further developments on the area

• MDL projects data 2008 -2012• Aim to develop robust rules for linking data on micro

level from different statistical areas.• Establish relevant indicators which can be efficiently

and reliably reproduced

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MDL project data sources• National Business Register

• External Trade commodity/sevices

• Structural Business Statistics

• Foreign Affiliates Statistic, outward/inward

• Community Innovatioan Survey

• ICT Usage e-Commerce enterprise Survey

• International Sourcing

• Business Demography Statistics