The German Business Services Statistics Panel 2003 to 2007

Abstract

The majority of empirical studies on the firm level have focused only on the manufacturing sector, largely because there are few datasets that allow a detailed investigation of the service sector. However, the German structural survey in the services sector (“Strukturerhebung im Dienstleistungsbereich”), hereafter called the “German business services statistics”, contains a dataset that gives a better picture about enterprises and professional persons in the business-related services sector, namely, firms that are active in the German WZ2003 Sections I (transport, storage and communication) and K (real estate, renting and business activities). 1 This dataset includes information about the number of employed persons, turnover, salaries and wages, investments, subsidies, and variations in stocks. Because the sample of enterprises and professional persons required to give information in 2003 was also used in 2004-2007, it is possible to merge the cross-sectional datasets into a panel dataset that covers the reporting years 2003-2007. The combination is done within the AFiD project 2 of the research data centre of the statistical offices of the Federal States. The resulting “AFiD-Panel Services”, hereafter called the “German business services statistics panel”, allows panel analyses of the German business services sector for the first time. In the remainder of this paper, Section 2 gives an overview of the business services statistics. Section 3 describes the variables included in the panel dataset, and in Section 4 selected studies that have worked with the German business services statistics panel are presented to show the research potential of the dataset. Section 5 gives a short overview of upcoming changes to the services statistics in the reporting year 2008. Section 6 closes the paper with information about the way of data access. * Many thanks go to Karl-Heinz Pesch (Federal Statistical Office), Brigitta Redling (Federal Statistical Office), and Ramona Voshage (Research Data Centre of the statistical office Berlin/ Brandenburg) for helpful comments and valuable information concerning the specific characteristics of the business services statistics. All errors are my own. 1