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Longitudinal Business Database in the UK

Contents

Details

Details

Summary

The Longitudinal Business Database is an experimental firm level set of spines of business references which provides a framework for longitudinally linking UK business microdata sources.

Description

The dataset takes snapshots from the Inter-Departmental Business Register and links economically active units at a quarterly frequency. The current release features units along the WERL spine (Enterprise Group (or WoW, which stands for Who owns Who), Enterprise, Reporting Unit, Local Unit). The variables are all derived from the Inter-Departmental Business Register, including turnover, employment, Standard Industrial Classification 2007, International Territorial Level 1 geography and legal status. Markers for economic activity indicate businesses that are changing their activity status during the quarter (e.g. being born, closing or reactivating). The Longtitudinal Business Database differs from other linked datasets like the Business Structure Database and the Longitudinal Inter-Departmental Business Register in three important ways: it provides information on business demography at quarterly frequency, crucial for analysis at business cycle frequencies; it establishes true longitudinality for all units that comprise the structure of a business, which allows the Longtitudinal Business Database to capture within-quarter activity faithfully; it makes explicit Inter-Departmental Business Register decision rules developed from its original purpose as a sampling frame and converts them into activity criteria that give rise to an economically meaningful definition of the business population. The Longtitudinal Business Database is an experimental dataset. Economic activity criteria, spines and input data may change in future releases. The datasets generated with the Longtitudinal Business Database are for research use and are not a replacement for business demography National Statistics.

Documentation:

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About this data

Data creator
Office for National Statistics
Temporal coverage
01 January 1999 to 30 September 2023
Frequency
Quarterly
Dataset theme
Business and economy
Restrictions for access
Access limited to specific researchers
Project approval
Projects must be accredited and have approval from the data owner
Search keywords
Business Economy

Metadata

Metadata

Dataset themeMain category for the topic of the resource
Business and economy
Dataset resource typeThe type of the dataset resource
Longitudinal
Geographic coverageThe geographic area covered by the dataset
UK
Temporal coverageThe timeframes covered by these data
01 January 1999 to 30 September 2023
FrequencyThe frequency at which the dataset resource is published or updated
Quarterly
Geographic levelThe lowest level of geography covered by the dataset
Region
Data creatorThe name of the organisation that produced or published this resource
Office for National Statistics
Data contributorsThe name(s) of any organisation(s), other than the data supplier or provider, that have data which are included in this dataset resource
Licensing statusThe license used for making this resource available and defining how it can be used
Restricted
Disclosure controlThe standard or bespoke disclosure control rules that apply to this dataset
Standard disclosure rules apply
Restrictions for accessRestrictions for users and researchers accessing data in Google Cloud Platform
Access limited to specific researchers
Research outputsThe approval route researchers must take for their outputs to be published
Research outputs must be sent to the data owner
Project approvalThe project approvals needed for this resource
Projects must be accredited and have approval from the data owner
Research disclaimerThe disclaimer required to be published with the outputs for this dataset
No requirements
AcronymAny other names or acronyms used to refer to the data
LBD
ProvenanceDetails of how this dataset resource came to be generated
Longitudinal Business Database, Inter-Departmental Business Register