1. Upcoming Improvements to the Longitudinal Business Database and the Business Dynamics Statistics 
Martha Stinson* T. Kirk White* James Lawrence**   *Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau **Economy-Wide Statistics Division, U.S. Census Bureau
Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed.

2. Short History of the LBD
1980s: CES develops Longitudinal Research Database (LRD):
Longitudinally linked Annual Surveys and Censuses of Manufactures (ASM/CMF)
Late 1990s: CES develops Longitudinal Business Database (LBD)
Longitudinally linked establishment-level employment and payroll for entire non-farm employer economy from Census Bureau’s Business Register
Jarmin & Miranda (2002) describes earliest vintages

3. Shorter History of the BDS
Lots of influential research has used the LBD
Jarmin, Klimek, and Miranda (2005); Davis, Haltiwanger, Jarmin, and Miranda (2007)
Late 2000s: CES creates and releases the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS), tabulations from the LBD
annual measures of business dynamics, 1977-”present”
Recent releases include tabs by firm age, establishment age, size, state, MSA, 2-digit industry
See:

4. Related Census Bureau Data Product
Early 1990s: at request of SBA, Census Bureau’s Economy-Wide Division develops Business Information Tracking System (BITS)
Annual statistics on business dynamics using establishment-level data from the County Business Patterns (CBP) program, 1988-present
Tabulated as Statistics of US Businesses (SUSB):
Similar to BDS, but doesn’t publish firm age or firm-level dynamics
Most-downloaded Econ statistics

5. Related BLS Data Product
Since 2002, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has published Business Employment Dynamics (BED)
Statistics generated from Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)
Quarterly data series on gross job gains and gross job loss statistics, 1992 forward
Different data source and firm definition than BDS, but similar statistics at national level, annual frequency
See

6. Transitioning LBD/BDS to Production/ Integration with BITS
Until now, the LBD/BDS have been research products
Core BDS will become an official Census Bureau data product
Core LBD/BDS production will transition to a production division, Economy-Wide Statistics
Requires bringing code and specifications up to production standards
Makes sense to integrate LBD/BDS with BITS
Good opportunity to make systematic improvements

7. Upcoming Major Improvements to LBD/BDS
Consistent longitudinal linking methodology over entire LBD/BDS time series, 1976-forward
Use recently recovered CBP and BR microdata from to fill in data gaps and improve quality
Integration with BITS, keeping best features of both
Streamline and document code—easier to maintain and improve in future
Publish entire time series on NAICS basis
Implement new disclosure avoidance method

8. 1. Making Longitudinal Linking Methods Consistent over LBD Time Series
Vast majority of longitudinal links use estab-level numeric identifiers
However, numeric identifiers can change if:
Single-unit (SU) firm becomes multi-unit (esp. before 2002)
Firm “reorganizes”/changes its EIN
LBD has always included fixes to these broken links by name-and-address matching (for SUs), but..
Improvements to name-and-address matching methods applied only to most recent years of time series

9. 1. Making Longitudinal Linking Methods Consistent over LBD Time Series
Integrate LBD method with BITS name/address matching method
Include physical address data for entire time series
Use clerical review, matched W2 records, and machine learning to determine which types of links/matches are best
Rebuild entire LBD time series using best, consistent matching methods

10. 2. Filling In Data Gaps and Improving Data Quality
Current LBD:
Several BR files for SUs are completely are partially missing in late 1970s/early 1980s
Only recent years use microdata edits from CBP analysts
New LBD:
Fill in data gaps and improve quality with CES-recovered CBP microdata files for and missing BR files for
Improve data quality with CBP microdata files from EWD for 1988-forward

11. 3. Integrating LBD with BITS
Keep best parts of both programs:
BITS:
Uses CBP-edited data as inputs for entire time series
Code and methodology easier to maintain and consistent over time
LBD:
Longer time series (starts 1976 vs for BITS)
More extensive name/address matching
Firm age and firm dynamics
Birth/death retiming

12. 4. Streamlining and Documenting Code
LBD/BDS were developed in CES as research products
SAS code mostly written by economists
Not well-documented
Transition to production as official data product requires:
Entire program must be reproducible from written detailed specifications
Code written and maintained to programming division’s standards (e.g., code versioning and change control)
Will make LBD/BDS easier to maintain and enhance

13. 5. Publish entire BDS time series on NAICS basis
Current BDS published on an SIC basis
Most Census economic programs switched to NAICS beginning with 1997 reference year
We will use the Fort and Klimek (2016) method to assign latest NAICS coding to every establishment for the entire BDS time series

14. 6. Implement new disclosure avoidance method
Current BDS tables use cell suppression to avoid disclosing confidential information
Research is currently underway to implement a disclosure avoidance method called differential privacy (Dwork 2006)
Intuitively, the published tables will be synthesized from the actual tabulations in a way that puts an acceptable bound on the probability of disclosure, while preserving the data’s usefulness

15. Questions? Contact: Martha Stinson: Martha.Stinson@census.gov
T. Kirk White:
James Lawrence: