Business data linking

recent UK experience

business data in the UK

• common register (IDBR) since 1994• key law: Statistics of Trade Act 1947• data collection supervised by a Survey Control Unit

– concerns over burden on business– exemptions from repeat surveys for smallest firms

• devolved political and statistical framework– government departments separate bodies– data sharing has purposes and limitations specified

the Business Data Linking project (BDL)

• begun in the late 1990s– core dataset: Annual Respondents Database– other datasets: R&D, skills, Community Innovation

Surveys, e-commerce, New Earnings Survey…

• joint venture between ONS, OGDs*, academics• academics on secondment work in a “safe setting”• no access outside ONS• outputs checked manually for disclosure checking

*OGD: other government department

sample outputs

• solving the productivity problem?– UK multinationals as productive as foreign-owned firms– domestically-oriented firms even more unproductive?

• ecommerce lowers prices!– ...perhaps...– actually seems to emphasise existing market conditions– competition increases - but monopolies get stronger too

• on-the-job versus general skills– linking skills and schooling data to firm data indicates a

genuine productivity gain from general human capital

problems (1): “the ministry for adding things up”

• microdata quality suffers– statistical editing and block adjustment

• redefinition and interpretation of data or metadata– more problematic for micro users– eg SIC80-SIC92

• longitudinal integrity– crucial to micro analysis, irrelevant to macro numbers– not designed into repeat surveys

• documentation– different focus

problems (2): sampling frames

• small firms– low probability of reselection– smallest excluded by design

• changes in census band• voluntary surveys• non-IDBR sample selection

problems (3): inconsistencies

• inconsistent across time– eg ICT and innovation surveys

• inconsistent across surveys– eg foreign ownership

problems (4): confidentiality

• linking complicates disclosure control– increases number of quality assurers

• linking across small samples– reduces frequencies– increases likelihood of disclosiveness

• no general government right to share data– explicit agreement needed to share data across OGDs

new developments

• timely electronic documentation• automatic matching• feedback into survey design• integrated data and metadata system

• increasing awareness of benefits of microdata– increases value of data– lowers business burden– answers new questions– improves knoweldge of datasets

what have we learnt?

• enthusiastic data providers are the key– plan early for disclosure checking too– feed back

• check data version– may not be a ‘definitive’ file– and even ‘clean’ datasets need preparation time

• check micro validity - macro validity isn’t enough– duplicates and bad values– inconsistencies within and across datasets and time

• “useless” data can be useful when linked

finally...

• be prepared to take the lead• don’t get stressed

– recognise the data wasn’t collected for this purpose– enjoy the fact that is available

• talk about it

contact

Felix Ritchie

Business Data Linking

Office for National Statistics

1 Drummond Gate

London SW1V 1QQ

felix.ritchie@ons.gov.uk

bdl@ons.gov.uk