Introduction to the LBD
The Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) is an anonymised dataset created by bringing together a range of survey and administrative data.
The LBD includes information from tax and survey-based financial data, merchandise and services trade data and a variety of sample surveys on business practices and outcomes. The LBD is built around the Longitudinal Business Frame (LBF), to which are attached, among other things, Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns, financial accounts (IR10) and aggregated Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) returns, from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), along with Statistics New Zealand surveys such as the Annual Enterprise Survey (AES, collected to generate the national accounts) and the Business Operations Survey (BOS).
Fabling and Sanderson provide a useful schema to envisage the datasets:
Useful Reading.
Start with:
Richard Fabling and Lynda Sanderson (2016) 'A Rough Guide to New Zealand's Longitudinal Business Database (2nd edition)' Motu Working Paper 16-03, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research http://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/16_03.pdf
For a summary of productivity related research using the LBD:
Corey Allan (2018), ‘Getting under the hood: Insights from Recent Firm-level Productivity Research in New Zealand’, Productivity Hub, https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/2981-getting-under-the-hood-insights-from-recent-firm-level-productivity-research-in-new-zealand
You can find a (exhausting, but not exhaustive) list of papers using the LBD in the cunningly-named Research using the LBD page.
Looking for an SNZ questionnaire? Try their Store House:
Or just go to our Underlying Datasets pages on this site.
Core Productivity Dataset
This is described in:
Richard Fabling & David Maré (2019), 'Improved productivity measurement in New Zealand's Longitudinal Business Database'
This paper makes use of developments from a suite of related papers, including:
Fabling, R. (2011). 'Keeping it Together: Tracking Firms in New Zealand’s Longitudinal Business Database'. Working Paper 11-01, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
Fabling, R. and D. C. Mare (2015a). 'Addressing the absence of hours information in linked employer-employee data'. Working Paper 15-17, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
Fabling, R. and D. C. Mare (2015b). 'Production function estimation using New Zealand’s Longitudinal Business Database'. Working Paper 15-15, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
The core productivity tables are updated annually. There have been a number of changes to the underlying data collections and how they are treated since the publication of Fabling and Maré (2019). A summary of the updates is included here Measuring Productivity.
Of historical interest…
An early piece describing the development of the LBD
Richard Fabling, Julia Gretton, & Claire Powell, (2008), ‘Developing the Prototype Longitudinal Business Database: New Zealand’s Experience’, https://www.oecd.org/sdd/41143039.pdf
The first piece investigating the microeconomic dynamics of the New Zealand economy using this powerful new SNZ-held dataset
Richard Fabling, Arthur Grimes, Lynda Sanderson, & Philip Andrew Stevens, (2008), ‘Some Rise by Sin, and Some by Virtue Fall: Firm Dynamics, Market Structure and Performance’, Ministry of Economic Development, Occasional Paper 08/01, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46448900_Some_Rise_by_Sin_and_Some_by_Virtue_Fall_Firm_Dynamics_Market_Structure_and_Performance
Can you believe what people say? You can find out by comparing qualitative statements in surveys with financial tax data…
Richard Fabling, Arthur Grimes, & Philip Andrew Stevens, (2008), ‘A Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Firm Performance Measures’, Ministry of Economic Development, Occasional Paper 08/04, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46448897_A_Comparison_of_Qualitative_and_Quantitative_Firm_Performance_Measures
Contents
Useful reading
Fabling and Sanderson’s Rough Guide to the LBD
Working in the DataLab
Getting Started in the Data Lab: A guide for new users
Microdata Access Guide
Microdata Output Guide
