Enterprise Survey 2007 - Albania

Abstract
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The objective of the survey is to obtain feedback from enterprises in client countries on the state of the private sector as well as to help in building a panel of enterprise data that will make it possible to track changes in the business environment over time, thus allowing, for example, impact assessments of reforms. Through interviews with firms in the manufacturing and services sectors, the survey assesses the constraints to private sector growth and creates statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries.

The standard Enterprise Survey topics include firm characteristics, gender participation, access to finance, annual sales, costs of inputs/labor, workforce composition, bribery, licensing, infrastructure, trade, crime, competition, capacity utilization, land and permits, taxation, informality, business-government relations, innovation and technology, and performance measures. Over 90% of the questions objectively ascertain characteristics of a country’s business environment. The remaining questions assess the survey respondents’ opinions on what are the obstacles to firm growth and performance. The mode of data collection is face-to-face interviews.

Geographic coverage
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National

Analysis unit
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The primary sampling unit of the study is the establishment. An establishment is a physical location where business is carried out and where industrial operations take place or services are provided. A firm may be composed of one or more establishments. For example, a brewery may have several bottling plants and several establishments for distribution. For the purposes of this survey an establishment must make its own financial decisions and have its own financial statements separate from those of the firm. An establishment must also have its own management and control over its payroll.

Universe
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The manufacturing and services sectors are the primary business sectors of interest. This corresponds to firms classified with International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) codes 15-37, 45, 50-52, 55, 60-64, and 72 (ISIC Rev.3.1). Services firms include construction, retail, wholesale, hotels, restaurants, transport, storage, communications, and IT. Firms with 100% government/state ownership are not eligible to participate in an Enterprise Survey.

Kind of data
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Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure
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The study was conducted using stratified random sampling. Three levels of stratification were used in this country: industry, establishment size, and region.

Industry stratification was designed in the way that follows: the universe was stratified into one manufacturing sector (including several industries), one services industry - retail, and one residual sector.

304 interviews were completed in total, out of an original target of 360 interviews. The main constraint to reach the target interviews was the universe size and composition, which proved to be smaller than originally expected. Particularly, firms with more than five employees in the Services sector were scarce. Firms from sector 51 (Wholesale) were issued to compensate the shortfall in the Services sector 52 (Retail). The majority of the relevant information, including the accounting data was obtained and entered into the data base. The Productivity section had a high non-response rate on average, reaching between 20 - 25%, depending on the questionnaire. Even if call backs were done to complete the section, the response rate could not be improved by much.

Size stratification was defined following the standardized definition used for the Enterprise Surveys: micro (1 to 4 employees), small (5 to 19 employees), medium (20 to 99 employees), and large (more than 99 employees). For stratification purposes, the number of employees was defined on the basis of reported permanent full-time workers.

Regional stratification was defined in terms of the geographic regions with the largest commercial presence in the country: Tirana, Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Vlora were the four metropolitan areas selected in Albania.

It was not possible to obtain a usable frame for Albania. Therefore, the design returned to first principles, using a blocks enumeration methodology. Detailed maps of major cities were obtained. These were from aerial mappings projected to a usable scale. They served as the basis of a multi-stage approach. Firstly each city (region) was divided into "blocks" and then the blocks were classified into strata defined by the predominant spatial use, using local knowledge. The classifications used for the blocks included industrial, commercial, commercial/residential (mixed), and residential coding. The accuracy of the classification was tested using 30 pilot blocks. That test proved successful. Subsequently another 328 blocks were selected and enumerated; building by building, floor by floor. Each separate unit was identified, classified as to use and in the case of business establishments further details collected as to employee numbers, activity, name, and phone number. This enumeration of a total of 358 blocks was then employed to project to universe totals by reference to the screening results and the number of blocks in each stratum. The establishments enumerated in those blocks were then used as the frame for the selection of a sample with the aim of obtaining interviews at 360 establishments with five or more employees. In addition the World Bank requested interviews at 120 small manufacturing establishments with less than five employees, to be delivered separately as an additional survey. That target was subsequently reduced to 80 as only some 180 small manufacturing establishments had been enumerated. Disproportionate methods were used to reduce the variance of estimates.

The quality of the frame was assessed at the onset of the project. The frame proved to be useful though it showed positive rates of non-eligibility, repetition, non-existent units, etc. These problems are typical of establishment surveys, but given the impact these inaccuracies may have on the results, adjustments were needed when computing the appropriate weights for individual observations. The percentage of confirmed non-eligible units as a proportion of the total number of contacts to complete the survey was 6.8% (29 out of 425 establishments).

Sample selection was carried out by the TNS team in London using the data obtained from the block enumeration. The selections for Albania were augmented by additional selections from enterprises interviewed during the BEEPS survey in 2005 and a "Large Taxpayers" database obtained by the local agency. To reduce non-response bias the samples was drawn in matched replicates so that each sampled establishment had at least one matched substitute (where sample available) in the event of non-contact or refusal.

Mode of data collection
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Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument
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The current survey instruments are available:
- Core Questionnaire + Manufacturing Module [ISIC Rev.3.1: 15-37]
- Core Questionnaire + Retail Module [ISIC Rev.3.1: 52]
- Core Questionnaire [ISIC Rev.3.1: 45, 50, 51, 55, 60-64, 72]
- Screener Questionnaire

The “Core Questionnaire” is the heart of the Enterprise Survey and contains the survey questions asked of all firms across the world. There are also two other survey instruments - the “Core Questionnaire + Manufacturing Module” and the “Core Questionnaire + Retail Module.” The survey is fielded via three instruments in order to not ask questions that are irrelevant to specific types of firms, e.g. a question that relates to production and nonproduction workers should not be asked of a retail firm. In addition to questions that are asked across countries, all surveys are customized and contain country-specific questions. An example of customization would be including tourism-related questions that are asked in certain countries when tourism is an existing or potential sector of economic growth.

The standard Enterprise Survey topics include firm characteristics, gender participation, access to finance, annual sales, costs of inputs/labor, workforce composition, bribery, licensing, infrastructure, trade, crime, competition, capacity utilization, land and permits, taxation, informality, business-government relations, innovation and technology, and performance measures. Over 90% of the questions objectively ascertain characteristics of a country’s business environment. The remaining questions assess the survey respondents’ opinions on what are the obstacles to firm growth and performance.

Cleaning operations
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Data entry and quality controls are implemented by the contractor and data is delivered to the World Bank in batches (typically 10%, 50% and 100%). These data deliveries are checked for logical consistency, out of range values, skip patterns, and duplicate entries. Problems are flagged by the World Bank and corrected by the implementing contractor through data checks, callbacks, and revisiting establishments.

Response rate
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Complete information regarding the sampling methodology, sample frame, weights, response rates, and implementation can be found in the document "Description of Albania Implementation" in "Technical Documents" folder.

摘要
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本调查旨在从客户国的企业获取关于私营部门现状的反馈，并协助构建企业数据面板，以便能够追踪商业环境随时间的变化，从而实现对改革影响的评估。通过访谈制造业和服务业的企业，调查评估了私营部门增长的制约因素，并创建了具有统计学意义的、跨国家可比较的商业环境指标。
标准企业调查主题包括企业特征、性别参与、融资渠道、年度销售额、投入/劳动力成本、劳动力构成、贿赂、许可、基础设施、贸易、犯罪、竞争、产能利用率、土地和许可、税收、非正式性、商业与政府关系、创新和技术以及绩效指标。超过90%的问题客观地确认了该国商业环境的特征。其余问题评估了调查受访者对企业增长和绩效障碍的看法。数据收集方式为面对面访谈。
地理覆盖范围
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全国
分析单元
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研究的主要抽样单元是机构。机构是指进行商业活动和工业运营或提供服务的地方。一个企业可能由一个或多个机构组成。例如，一家啤酒厂可能有几个灌装厂和几个分销机构。在本调查中，机构必须能够做出自己的财务决策，并拥有与其企业财务报表分开的财务报表。机构还必须拥有自己的管理和对其工资单的控制。
总体
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制造业和服务业是主要关注的商业部门。这对应于国际标准产业分类（ISIC）代码15-37、45、50-52、55、60-64和72（ISIC Rev.3.1）中的企业。服务企业包括建筑、零售、批发、酒店、餐馆、运输、仓储、通信和IT。100%政府/国家所有权的公司无资格参加企业调查。
数据类型
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样本调查数据 [ssd]
抽样程序
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本研究采用分层随机抽样方法进行。在本国使用了三个分层级别：行业、机构规模和地区。
行业分层的设计如下：总体被分为一个制造业部门（包括几个行业）、一个服务行业——零售，以及一个剩余部门。
总共完成了304次访谈，原定目标为360次访谈。未能达到目标访谈的主要限制因素是总体规模和组成，这证明比最初预期的要小。特别是，服务业中拥有五个以上员工的企业稀缺。为了弥补服务业52（零售）的短缺，对51（批发）部门的企业进行了调查。大多数相关信息，包括会计数据，都已获得并输入数据库。生产力部分在平均情况下非响应率较高，达到20%至25%，具体取决于问卷。即使进行了回访以完成该部分，响应率也无法显著提高。
规模分层是根据企业调查中使用的标准化定义来定义的：微型（1至4名员工）、小型（5至19名员工）、中型（20至99名员工）和大型（超过99名员工）。为了分层的目的，员工人数是根据报告的永久全职员工数量来定义的。
地区分层是根据国家中商业存在最大的地理区域来定义的：阿尔巴尼亚的四个选定的主要城市地区为地拉那、杜尔斯、埃尔巴桑、费尔和弗洛拉。
无法获得阿尔巴尼亚的可用框架。因此，设计回到了第一原理，使用区块列举方法。获得了主要城市的详细地图。这些是从空中测绘投影到可用比例尺的。它们成为多阶段方法的基础。首先，每个城市（地区）被划分为“区块”，然后根据主导的空间用途，使用当地知识将这些区块分类为不同的层级。用于区块的分类包括工业、商业、商业/住宅（混合）和住宅编码。使用30个试点区块测试了分类的准确性。那次测试证明是成功的。随后，又选择了328个区块进行编号；逐栋、逐层进行。每个单独的单位都被识别出来，根据用途进行分类，在商业机构的情况下，进一步收集了关于员工人数、活动、名称和电话号码的详细信息。然后，根据筛选结果和每个层级的区块数量，将总共358个区块的编号用于投影到总体总数。这些区块中的机构被用作选择样本的框架，目的是在360个拥有五名或更多员工的机构中获得访谈。此外，世界银行要求对120家拥有少于五名员工的中小型制造企业进行访谈，作为附加调查的单独交付。该目标后来减少到80，因为只有大约180家中小型制造企业被编号。使用了不成比例的方法来减少估计的方差。
在项目开始时评估了框架的质量。框架证明是有用的，尽管它显示了非合格率、重复率、不存在单位等正面的比率。这些问题是机构调查中典型的，但考虑到这些不准确可能对结果产生的影响，在计算个别观察的适当权重时需要进行调整。被确认的非合格单位占完成调查的总联系数的6.8%（425个机构中的29个）。
样本选择由伦敦的TNS团队使用从区块列举中获得的数据进行。阿尔巴尼亚的选择通过从2005年进行的BEEPS调查中访谈的企业和当地机构获得的“大型纳税人”数据库中的额外选择进行了补充。为了减少非响应偏差，样本以匹配复制品的形式抽取，以便在无法接触或拒绝的情况下，每个抽样机构至少有一个匹配的替代机构（如果样本可用）。
数据收集方式
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面对面 [f2f]
研究工具
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当前调查工具包括以下内容：
- 核心问卷 + 制造业模块 [ISIC Rev.3.1: 15-37]
- 核心问卷 + 零售模块 [ISIC Rev.3.1: 52]
- 核心问卷 [ISIC Rev.3.1: 45, 50, 51, 55, 60-64, 72]
- 屏蔽问卷

“核心问卷”是企业调查的核心，包含向全球所有企业提出的调查问题。还有另外两种调查工具——“核心问卷 + 制造业模块”和“核心问卷 + 零售模块”。调查通过三种工具进行，以避免向特定类型的企业提出无关的问题，例如，与生产和非生产工人相关的问题不应向零售企业提出。除了在各国提出的问题外，所有调查都是定制的，并包含特定于国家的问题。定制的例子包括在某些国家询问与旅游相关的提问，因为旅游是现有或潜在的经济增长部门。
标准企业调查主题包括企业特征、性别参与、融资渠道、年度销售额、投入/劳动力成本、劳动力构成、贿赂、许可、基础设施、贸易、犯罪、竞争、产能利用率、土地和许可、税收、非正式性、商业与政府关系、创新和技术以及绩效指标。超过90%的问题客观地确认了该国商业环境的特征。其余问题评估了调查受访者对企业增长和绩效障碍的看法。
数据清理操作
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承包商负责数据输入和质量控制，并将数据分批（通常是10%、50%和100%）交付世界银行。这些数据交付将检查逻辑一致性、超出范围值、跳过模式和重复条目。问题被世界银行标记并由实施承包商通过数据检查、回访和重新访问机构进行纠正。
响应率
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有关抽样方法、样本框架、权重、响应率和实施的完整信息，可在“技术文件”文件夹中的“阿尔巴尼亚实施描述”文档中找到。