1. Business Demography: Eurostat’s development project
17th Annual Round Table
on Business Survey Frames
Session 7
30/10/2003
Hartmut Schrör, Eurostat

2. Requirement Council of Lisbon targets
High need for harmonised statistics on business demography at national and EU level
Challenge: how to produce comparable data with the tools currently available, with limited burden and in a timely fashion

3. Methodological issues (1/2)
Common methodology developed based on analysis of Business Register data
Identification of real births and deaths according to SBS Commission regulation:
elimination of inactive units
matching
economic activity and location
name and location
economic activity and name
others as appropriate

4. Methodological issues (2/2)
elimination of reactivations
Survival
1) without changes (employment and/or turnover)
2) by take-over of a new enterprise
Employment measured as head counts, yearly average
Statistical unit: enterprise

5. Challenges and Developments
coverage / thresholds
lack of time series data
legal basis
factors of success
false self-employment
employment in death
legal form breakdown
stability of administrative sources

6. Status and Outlook First publications released in 2003
Extension to countries acceding EU in 2004
Further methodological work