OECD GLOSSARY

							 Issues arising from use of
different statistical units in
     business registers
    Bongho Choi and Denis Ward
            Aims of OECD work
To collect and disseminate information on:

• Statistical units models of international organisations
  (SNA 93, ISIC Rev. 3, EC Regs) and OECD Member
  countries.

• Their application across SBS (including SMEs) and STES
  collections, especially in the context of business registers.

• Impact of departures from international standards (how to
  measure?).

• Best practices
       Aims of Project (cont.)

 Bring together existing information from a
           range of sources such as:

• Eurostat Manual of Business Statistics;
• International Roundtable on Business;
  Survey Frames;
• UN ECE activities.
           Statistical Units Covered
• Enterprise: Concept based on a certain degree of
  autonomy.

• Local unit (estab.): Concept based on geographic location.

• Enterprise group: Concept based on ownership and control.

• Kind-of-activity unit: Concept devised to improve the
  homogeneity of statistics regarding economic activity

• Legal unit: Legal persons whose existence recognised by
  law (e.g. taxation law)
          Statistical units Covered

                          Enterprise
                          Local unit
                       Enterprise group           Units models
                             KAU
                          Legal unit



                      Business registers          Tools

Application
                SBS                        STES   Output
         Why statistical units are
               important
    To ensure the comparability of statistics for structural
     business statistics (SBS), including SMEs + short-term
                   economic statistics (STES).

•   within countries

•   between countries
                 Main issues
• Statistical units models adopted by countries are
  different.

• Some differences are essentially just
  terminological (wording)

• Others are more than terminological.

• Need to identify real impact on statistics
               Issues (cont.)
• Some countries base their statistics (e.g. SBS) on
  the enterprise

• Some on establishments

• Some on both enterprise and establishments

What is impact on statistical comparability between
                     countries?
                    Issues (cont.)
Definitional criteria and their interpretation to define
  statistical units are different across countries with
                        respect to:

•   relationship to administrative units
•   autonomy in decision making
•   homogeneity
•   ownership/control
•   availability of accounts
•   geographical criteria
•   ancillary activities.
                 Issues (cont.)
In defining enterprises basic approaches are different
                    across countries:

• Type I:     Legal unit = Enterprise derived from Business
              register

• Type II:    From profiling – Business register + feedback
              from surveys

• Type III:   No Business register – but from census data on
              establishments and separate data on legal units.
   Possible concluding remarks
Use of Business register based on taxation data is
indispensable for business statistics including SMEs

Alternatively, use of administrative data could also be
considered but need clear understanding of units used

More harmonisation is required between countries which
have formula “one legal unit = one enterprise” and those
which define enterprise through profiling

Need to implement good practice of clear and accessible
definitions of units and their application across collections