Longitudinal Business Database, UK
The Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) is an experimental firm-level set of spines of business references which provides a framework for longitudinally linking UK business micro data sources
The dataset takes snapshots from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) 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
- legal status
Markers for economic activity indicate businesses that are changing their activity status during the quarter (for example, being born, closing or reactivating).
The Longitudinal 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 Longitudinal 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 Longitudinal Business Database is an experimental dataset. Economic activity criteria, spines and input data may change in future releases.
The datasets generated with the Longitudinal Business Database are for research use and are not a replacement for business demography National Statistics.
All data hosted on the Integrated Data Service (IDS) are de-identified.