World Bank Enterprise Survey Data Download [TOP]
Thibaut Silverman
The WBES team has also released new follow-up survey data for Bangladesh, Iraq, and Timor-Leste. The previously published WBES were updated to include additional questions asked during the follow-up surveys, with the corresponding sampling weights.
World Bank Enterprise Surveys offer an expansive array of economic data on 200,000 firms in 155 countries. The data is presented in a variety of ways useful to researchers, policy makers, journalists, and others. Note that data users should exercise caution when comparing raw data and point estimates between surveys that did and did not adhere to the Enterprise Surveys Global Methodology.
The Enterprise Surveys cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, gender, corruption, infrastructure, innovation, competition, informality, and performance measures. Firm-level surveys have been conducted since 2002 by different units within the World Bank. Since 2005-06, most data collection efforts have been centralized within the Enterprise Analysis Unit. The individual country datasets, aggregated datasets (across countries and years), panel datasets, and all relevant survey documentation are available to those who register (registration is free).
In some countries, other surveys, which depart from the usual Enterprise Survey methodology, are conducted. Examples include 1) Informal Surveys- surveys of informal (unregistered) enterprises and 2) Micro Surveys- surveys fielded to registered firms with less than five employees.
The Enterprise Surveys use standard survey instruments to collect firm-level data on the business environment from business owners and top managers. The surveys cover a broad range of topics including access to finance, corruption, infrastructure, crime, competition, labor, obstacles to growth, and performance measures.
The full, firm-level data are available to researchers and include answers from all the survey questions- both global questions as well as country-specific questions. Note that the survey data results presented on the website are primarily in the form of indicators, i.e. firm-level data has been aggregated to the country level.
Survey data available for download include standard Enterprise Surveys as well as older surveys conducted by other World Bank units. Other available datasets include microenterprise, informal, sector-specific, and other surveys collected by the Enterprise Analysis Unit. Panel (longitudinal) datasets are also available for many countries.
Our team of interviewers and the businesses operating in Port-au-Prince were clearly affected by the unrest. Our data showed that 45% of businesses incurred costs for security and protection. Given the circumstances, the standard Enterprise Survey methodological approach had to be adapted to meet the dual goal of (1) prioritizing the safety of the team and (2) generating quality establishment-level data. These adjustments meant that the survey would not be fully comparable with all other Enterprise Surveys and the associated indicators were not published on the Enterprise Survey website, but the micro-data is available in the ES portal for download.
No data collection starts from scratch. Underlaying aggregate data is necessary for making inferences about the population. However, environments affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV), by their nature, are faced with continuously changing circumstances that affect the baseline. In business surveys, it is often the case that some businesses have ceased to operate while new ones have sprouted up. Under these circumstances, any census or registry data is likely to be out of date and not very useful.
This new platform features upgraded features for searching and downloading the datasets you are looking for. Please contact enterpri...@worldbank.org if you have any questions or issues.
Compare Economies and TopicsFirm-level survey data has been aggregated to country-level indicators. Options include viewing data by firm subgroups and obtaining standard error and number of observations statistics.
Data CatalogBrowse the Enterprise Surveys Data Catalog. Use keywords to search survey project descriptions, interview questions, and variable names and labels to find the data you are looking for.
There are two documents under here: the first is the code book which lists all of the questions asked in the surveys, the second is a PDF which is a manual on how to best interpret and analyze the questions and their answers. Last is the indicator data, it outlines how each indicator was constructed. Not necessary for analysis but if you're curious about the survey process, very informative.
The study is based on secondary data. These data were sourced from the World Bank business enterprise survey. The World Bank Enterprise survey employed a purposive sampling technique to select major staple agribusiness categories in Nigeria. The categories selected were those included in the World Bank's categorization of agribusiness enterprises. These categories include tobacco, food, textiles, leather, garments, paper industries and wood. The individual firms included in the survey were randomly selected from the selected agribusiness categories. In total, 721 agribusiness firms were selected. Data were analyzed with multiple linear regression at a 5% probability level.
Chukwuma-Ume, N. and Ume, C.O. (2023), "Status of agribusiness enterprises in Nigeria: evidence from World Bank Enterprise Survey data", Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. -04-2023-0100
globalEDGE
Statistical, economic, trade, government, and cultural data for almost every country around the world
(International Business Center and the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University)
Enterprise Surveys "provide the world's most comprehensive data for productivity analysis in emerging markets. Enterprise Surveys Data... are available on almost 85,000 firms in 106 countries. Data cover business perceptions and dozens of indicators on the quality of the business environment." The topics include:
Private Participation in Infrastructure Database "has data on more than 4,100 projects in 141 low- and middle-income countries. The database is the leading source of PPI trends in the developing world, covering projects in the energy, telecommunications, transport, and water and sewerage sectors."
This enterprise survey is being conducted for the purpose of benchmarking/tracking specific business environment indicators, measuring effects of reforms on specific firm-level performance indicators, assessing resource efficiency indicators and constraints to private-sector growth, as well as evaluating climate change adaptation and mitigation levels within Greece. The survey is scheduled to be completed by March 2019.
The Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE) data provides a snapshot of select economic and demographic characteristics of employer firms and business owners in 2014 by the 2-digit 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), at the national, state, and metropolitan area (top 50) levels, in the U.S. This survey conducted by the U.S. census Bureau is the largest annual survey of entrepreneurs ever done in the United States. It documents the story of American entrepreneurs, providing more frequent and extensive data than previously available. The ASE will supplement the Survey of Business Owners (SBO), conducted every five years.
Rand Family Life SurveysThe Family Life Surveys (FLS) are a set of detailed household and community surveys of developing countries conducted by the RAND Corporation, in collaboration with research institutions in the given countries. The currently available country surveys cover Malaysia (1976-77, 1988-89), Indonesia (1993, 1997, 2000), Guatemala (1995), and Bangladesh (1996).World Bank Private Participation in Infrastructure DatabaseThe Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) Project Database has data on over 5,000 infrastructure projects in 139 low- and middle-income countries. The database is the leading source of PPI trends in the developing world, covering projects in the energy, telecommunications, transport, and water and sewerage sectors.World Development IndicatorsThe World Bank's primary database for comparative development data.Data RepositoriesHarvard Dataverse NetworkThe world's largest collection of open-access social science research data.Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) This link opens in a new windowICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. It hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.QuandlQuandl is an open repository of over 7 million time-series datasets. Most of the data is in the domains of finance, economics, demography, sociology, markets, energy, and the environment.
This article shows how to use the publicy-available firm-level surveys produced by the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES) to reproduce the stylized facts that characterize firm heterogeneity and its relationship with global engagement, as established by Bernard et al. (2007) for manufacturing firms in the U.S. The article describes how to incorporate this exercise in different teaching activities such as small group classes and homework and courseworks assignments. The activities proposed allow students to develop skills handling and analyzing firm-level data and, since WBES surveys are available for more than 150 countries since 2002, they offer an unique opportunity to evaluate the extent to which the stylized facts established from U.S. data are also representative of countries of different size and stage of development. The activities proposed connect the theory of trade with heterogeneous firms to the real-world empirical evidence that motivated the development of these models.
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