Abstract
Economic geography has begun to explore the options involved in micro-data. New databases have become available and new techniques and an increase in computer power allow their treatment. However, two major issues impede the use of these datasets: the lack of geocoded spatial location and lack of exhaustivity in coverage. In this article, I explore the possibilities of using large micro-scale firm databases for economic geography in Europe. I show that current evolution in European official spatial data dissemination alows for geocoding of such databases using means that are accessible for researchers with minimal programming knowledge. For the specific case of the Amadeus database of the Bureau Van Dijk, I show that its limitations in terms of coverage have to be taken into acount, but do not hinder its use for analysis. Resulting maps show how the data allows to go further than classic databases such as the Eurostat Structural Business Statistics.
Highlights
Empirical economic geography lives through data, data for observation and data for attempts at explanation of spatial differentiations in economic development
Such data is available in aggregate form for specific territorial divisions, either because the data is only collected in this form, or because aggregation happens at the time of dissemination for reasons of resource limitations, confidentiality rules or tradition
From the above comparative analyses, it becomes clear that researchers always have to take care to analyse what the data they use represents. It seems that at least for some countries, and for most economic sectors, headquarter-based micro-data such as the Amadeus database can be used for analyses in economic geography without taking the risk of completely different results than with local units-based data
Summary
The process of geocoding is a combination of two processes: (a) decoding the address into its constituent parts (street, house number, postcode, and city) and (b) matching each of these parts to relevant data in the reference database. How these have to be applied depends on the data or service provided in each country. Most countries offering web services offer address parsing services, sometimes integrated into one service, sometimes as a separate service In the latter case, one has to first call the address parsing service to find a best match and the geocoding service to retrieve the coordinates of the found address. The aim is not to review the theory of geocoding in all of its aspects (see [30] for an overview), but rather to explore the practical issues in the context of current public data and service availability
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