How to Construct Nationally Representative Firm Level Data from the ORBIS Global Database: New Facts and Aggregate Implications

127 Pages Posted: 14 Sep 2015 Last revised: 29 May 2022

See all articles by Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan

University of Maryland - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Koc University, Graduate School of Business

Bent E. Sørensen

University of Houston - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Carolina Villegas-Sanchez

ESADE Business School

Vadym Volosovych

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR); Tinbergen Institute

Sevcan Yesiltas

Koc University

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 2015

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 (SMEs) 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.

Suggested Citation

Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem and Sorensen, Bent E. and Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina and Volosovych, Vadym and Yesiltas, Sevcan, How to Construct Nationally Representative Firm Level Data from the ORBIS Global Database: New Facts and Aggregate Implications (September 2015). NBER Working Paper No. w21558, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2660017

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan (Contact Author)

University of Maryland - Department of Economics ( email )

College Park, MD 20742
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
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Koc University, Graduate School of Business ( email )

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Turkey

Bent E. Sorensen

University of Houston - Department of Economics ( email )

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

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Carolina Villegas-Sanchez

ESADE Business School ( email )

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Spain

Vadym Volosovych

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://https://www.eur.nl/people/vadym-volosovych/

Tinbergen Institute

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HOME PAGE: http://https://www.tinbergen.nl/person/1407/vadym-volosovych

Sevcan Yesiltas

Koc University ( email )

Rumelifeneri Yolu
34450 Sar?yer
Istanbul, 34450
Turkey

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