Costa Rica´s business registry:
Directory of institutional units and
establishments
Contacts:
Odilia Bravo: [email protected]
David Bullón: [email protected]
Overview
1
4
Origins and purpose
2
Structure, variables and sources
3
Coverage, updating and quality
Users and applications
1
Origins and purpose
• Origins
–
–
–
–
By law INEC is in charge of collecting and managing census data.
For many years lack of an authoritative source of firm level data.
In 2008 the Central Bank funded INEC to create the business registry.
Since 2010, the Ministry of Finance has funded INEC directly to update
the registry annually.
• Purpose
– Organized register of enterprises and establishments that reside in the
country with variables that characterize them in terms of:
ID number, location, size, and type of economic activity.
– Required for Central Bank’s project to update the base year.
– Sampling frame for various surveys.
2
Basic structure of business register
• Hierarchical structure of registry:
Group 1
Firm 1
Firm 2
Establishment
1
Firm 3
Establishment
2
Firm 4
Establishment
3
Establishment
4
• Unique ID based on national ID numbers
– Non-incorporated: 9 digit personal ID number (for all legal documents)
– Incorporated:
10 digit firm ID number – (for all legal documents)
But firms often use several firm ID numbers
2
Variables with full coverage
Secondary activities in
same location
Main enterprise
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Province, county, district
Comercial name
Legal name
ID number (unique)
Business address
Main phone number
Main fax number
Website
E-mail
Number of employees
Main activity description
Main activity ISIC Rev.4
code
• Start of operations (year)
• Contact/informant name
• Activity description
• ISIC (Rev. 4) code
• Activity production costs
estimation
• Number of employees
Firm
Activities at other locations
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Province, county, district
Commercial name
Legal name
ID number (unique)
Business address
Main phone number
E-mail
Number of employees
Main activity description
Main activity ISIC Rev.4
code
• Start of operations (year)
• Contact/informant name
Establishment
2
Data sources
Contributors
INEC
Data provided
Census for districts selected each year
INEC
Data collected through consumer and
construction price index surveys
INEC
Phone calls to update registers
Social Security Agency
List of all firms and employment data to
add missing firms and update registry
Ministry of Finance
List of major tax contributing firms to add
missing firms and update registry
Trade Promotion Agency
List of firms from exporters census to add
missing firms and update registry
National Registry
List of incorporated firms for verification
Electoral Authority
List of citizens to verify non-incorporated
firms
Various organizations
Survey
based
data
Other data provided by users through
special projects
Admin.
data
3
Coverage and updating
• Business registry created in 2008
– 45,888 firms, 6,779 establishments 2008.
– Census of 52% of firms using field survey in the 39 districts.
– Administrative records covered the remaining 434 districts.
• Annual updating (efficient and cost effective)
– 48,981 firms, 10,099 establishments and 796 groups in 2012.
– Identify new firms with updated administrative records.
– Phone interviews to 40% of registry + new firms identified with
administrative data.
– Census of 1-2 districts with significant variation in number of firms
Quality
control:
new
firms
from
3
administrative data
All records go through the following data cleaning process:
1. Correct / exclude out-of-range data
2. Convert activity code from ISIC Rev. 3 to Rev. 4
3. Exclusion of records with missing identifying info.
4. Validation of length of ID numbers
5. Verification of the existence of business using
unique ID number
6. Exclude units that do not meet the criteria (e.g.,
central and local government, autonomous
institutions, education boards, etc.)
3
Quality control: survey data
Census data collected with PDAs and survey
data collected by phone is submitted to the
following controls:
• Real-time: Automatic filters to catch mistakes.
• Biweekly: Calls to verify surveyors’ work.
• Monthly: Verify ISIC code and quality of
descriptions for 30% of registers covered.
• Yearly: Correct all error messages generated.
Uses:
Dissemination
through
4
annual bulletin
• Number of enterprises by
economic activity, size or
geographic area
• Changes in the most
important variables
• Dynamic analysis: mergers,
closings, births and
temporary cessation
• Employment generated by
new companies
• Available online
4
Uses: Projects to characterize firms
• INEC supports organizations by creating samples and
performing surveys
• National Bank of Costa Rica: Survey of SMEs
• Trade Promotion Agency: Census of exporters
• Ministry of Economy: Businesses near coasts and ports
• Nature of support
•
•
•
•
Selection of sample frame
Feedback on quality of data
Access to business registry and economic activity finder
Technical assistance for the analysis of database and
classification of economic activities
4
Uses: Micro-linking project
• Research with COMEX and IDE-JETRO
• Linking business registry to other sources
• Export data
• Free Trade Agreement utilization for exports
• Productivity data for multinationals
• Policy-oriented research
• Impact of trade and investment policy on the
development of clusters
• Firm-level econometric analysis
Costa Rica´s Business Registry:
Directory of Institutional Units and
Establishments
Contacts:
Odilia Bravo: [email protected]
David Bullón: [email protected]