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
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November 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
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November 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
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November Problem 1: structure of databases Local information providers …… Etc …… Etc. Ownership databaseFinancial-economic database Companies Variables +referencelabel ORBIS Ownership & financial-economic database Only most recent data Companies +referencelabel Variables Dun & Bradstreet
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November 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!
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November Problem 3: regional coverage Several EXTRA-EU countries do not have “trusted” local information providers Underrepresentation of companies in databases
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November 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)
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November 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
Wiesbaden Group – 26 November Thank you for your attention! Questions? Floortje Sniedt =========