Publication: How to construct nationally representative firm-level data from the orbis global database: new facts on SMEs and aggregate implications for industry concentration
Program
KU-Authors
KU Authors
Co-Authors
Kalemli-Özcan, Şebnem
Sorensen, Bent E.
Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina
Volosovych, Vadym
Publication Date
Language
Type
Embargo Status
Journal Title
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Volume Title
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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 small and medium-sized firms 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
Publisher
American Economic Association
Subject
Labor share, Income distribution, Industry
Citation
Has Part
Source
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
Book Series Title
Edition
DOI
10.1257/mac.20220036