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Redesigning the Longitudinal Business Database

Author

Listed:
  • Melissa C. Chow
  • Teresa C. Fort
  • Christopher Goetz
  • Nathan Goldschlag
  • James Lawrence
  • Elisabeth Ruth Perlman
  • Martha Stinson
  • T. Kirk White

Abstract

In this paper we describe the U.S. Census Bureau's redesign and production implementation of the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) first introduced by Jarmin and Miranda (2002). The LBD is used to create the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS), tabulations describing the entry, exit, expansion, and contraction of businesses. The new LBD and BDS also incorporate information formerly provided by the Statistics of U.S. Businesses program, which produced similar year-to-year measures of employment and establishment flows. We describe in detail how the LBD is created from curation of the input administrative data, longitudinal matching, retiming of economic census-year births and deaths, creation of vintage consistent industry codes and noise factors, and the creation and cleaning of each year of LBD data. This documentation is intended to facilitate the proper use and understanding of the data by both researchers with approved projects accessing the LBD microdata and those using the BDS tabulations.

Suggested Citation

  • Melissa C. Chow & Teresa C. Fort & Christopher Goetz & Nathan Goldschlag & James Lawrence & Elisabeth Ruth Perlman & Martha Stinson & T. Kirk White, 2021. "Redesigning the Longitudinal Business Database," NBER Working Papers 28839, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28839
    Note: IFM IO ITI LS PE PR TWP
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    Cited by:

    1. Richard Beem & Martha Stinson, 2025. "Measuring the Business Dynamics of Firms that Received Pandemic Relief Funding: Findings from a New Experimental BDS Data Product," Working Papers 25-05, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Katharine C. Sadowski, 2025. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Childcare Establishments," Working Papers 25-53, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Janet Gao & Wenting Ma & Qiping Xu, 2023. "Access to Financing and Racial Pay Gap Inside Firms," Working Papers 23-36, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    4. Kim, Seula, 2025. "Workers' Job Prospects and Young Firm Dynamics," IZA Discussion Papers 17655, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Erik Brynjolfsson & Cathy Buffington & Nathan Goldschlag & J. Frank Li & Javier Miranda & Robert Seamans, 2023. "The Characteristics and Geographic Distribution of Robot Hubs in U.S. Manufacturing Establishments," NBER Working Papers 31062, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Yuheng Ding & Karam Jo & Seula Kim, 2022. "Improving Patent Assignee-Firm Bridge with Web Search Results," Working Papers 22-31, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    7. Richard Beem & Christopher Goetz & Martha Stinson & Sean Wang, 2022. "Business Dynamics Statistics for Single-Unit Firms," Working Papers 22-57, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    8. Kyle Handley & Fariha Kamal & Wei Ouyang, 2021. "A Long View of Employment Growth and Firm Dynamics in the United States: Importers vs. Exporters vs. Non-Traders," Working Papers 21-38, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    9. Jay Hyun & Ziho Park & Vladimir Smirnyagin, 2021. "Import Competition and Firms’ Internal Networks," Working Papers 21-28, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Teresa C. Fort & Nathan Goldschlag & Jack Liang & Peter K. Schott & Nikolas Zolas, 2025. "Growth is Getting Harder to Find, Not Ideas," Working Papers 25-21, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    11. Kristin F. Butcher & Deniz Çivril & Sari Pekkala Kerr, 2024. "The Impact of State Paid Leave Laws on Firms and Establishments: Evidence from the First Three States," Working Paper Series WP 2024-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    12. Adam Bee & Joshua Mitchell & Nikolas Mittag & Jonathan Rothbaum & Carl Sanders & Lawrence Schmidt & Matthew Unrath, 2023. "National Experimental Wellbeing Statistics - Version 1," Working Papers 23-04, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    13. J. David Brown & Steven J. Davis & Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & John Sabelhaus, 2024. "Financing, Ownership, and Performance: A Novel, Longitudinal Firm-Level Database," Working Papers 24-73, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    14. Fariha Kamal & Jessica McCloskey & Wei Ouyang, 2022. "Multinational Firms in the U.S. Economy: Insights from Newly Integrated Microdata," BEA Working Papers 0202, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    15. Joonkyu Choi & Nathan Goldschlag & John C. Haltiwanger & J. Daniel Kim, 2021. "Early Joiners and Startup Performance," NBER Working Papers 28417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Smirnyagin, Vladimir, 2023. "Returns to scale, firm entry, and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 118-134.
    17. Yoshiki Ando, 2024. "Dynamics of High-Growth Young Firms and the Role of Venture Capitalists," PIER Working Paper Archive 24-012, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    18. Adela Luque & Vitaliy Novik, 2024. "Garage Entrepreneurs or just Self-Employed? An Investigation into Nonemployer Entrepreneurship," Working Papers 24-61, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    19. Babina, Tania & Barkai, Simcha & Jeffers, Jessica & Karger, Ezra & Volkova, Ekaterina, 2023. "Antitrust Enforcement Increases Economic Activity," HEC Research Papers Series 1488, HEC Paris.
    20. Martha Stinson & Sean Wang, 2025. "The Composition of Firm Workforces from 2006–2022: Findings from the Business Dynamics Statistics of Human Capital Experimental Product," Working Papers 25-20, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    21. Christopher Goetz & Martha Stinson, 2021. "The Business Dynamics Statistics: Describing the Evolution of the U.S. Economy from 1978-2019," Working Papers 21-33, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    22. Abhishek Bhardwaj & Abhinav Gupta & Sabrina T. Howell, 2025. "Leveraged Payouts: How Using New Debt to Pay Returns in Private Equity Affects Firms, Employees, Creditors, and Investors," Working Papers 25-12, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D0 - Microeconomics - - General
    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • F0 - International Economics - - General
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General

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