Longitudinal Business Database, 1999-2024: Secure Access

<div>The <span style="font-style: italic;">Longitudinal Business Database</span> (LBD) is an experimental firm-level set of spines of business references. It provides a framework for longitudinally linking UK business microdata sources, using a consistent methodology. It can also be used to analyse changes to firms economic activity status such as business births and deaths.</div><div><br></div><div>The LBD takes snapshots from the <span style="font-style: italic;">Inter-Departmental Business Register</span> (IDBR) and links economically active units at a quarterly frequency. This is the first dataset produced for general release with the LBD. The current release features units along the WERL spine (Enterprise Group or WoW, which stands for Who owns who)  Enterprise, Reporting Unit and Local Unit. Future development will explore the possibility of adding administrative business units: Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Value Added Tax (VAT) and Company Registration Number (CRN).</div><div><br></div><div>This release of the LBD covers 1999 Q1 to 2024 Q4 at a quarterly frequency. The LBD variables are all derived from the IDBR. They include turnover, employment, Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007, International Territorial Level 1 (ITL 1) geography and legal status. Markers for economic activity indicate businesses that are changing their activity status during the quarter (e.g. being born, closing or reactivating). The LBD differs from other linked, IDBR based datasets like the <span style="font-style: italic;">Business Structure Database</span> (BSD) and the <span style="font-style: italic;">Longitudinal IDBR</span> (LIDBR) in three important ways:</div><div>(1) it provides information on business demography at quarterly frequency, crucial for analysis at business cycle frequencies.</div><div>(2) it establishes true longitudinality for all units that comprise the structure of a business. This feature allows the LBD to capture within quarter activity faithfully.</div><div>(3) it makes explicit IDBR decision rules developed from its original purpose as a sampling frame and converts them into activity criteria that give rise to an economically meaningful definition of the business population.</div><div><br></div><div>The LBD is an experimental dataset. Economic activity criteria, spines and input data may change in future releases. The datasets generated with the LBD are for research use and are not a replacement for business demography National Statistics.</div><div><br></div><div>Please see the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence Discussion Paper <span style="font-style: italic;">The UK Longitudinal Business Database: A User Manual (Lui et al., TBD)</span> for methodology details. The documentation supplied with the SRS dataset further explains the current data linking strategy and economic activity criteria applied.</div><div><br></div><div>The data are available only in CSV format. </div>

纵向企业数据库（Longitudinal Business Database，LBD）是一套实验性企业层面业务参考骨干数据集，旨在通过统一方法为英国企业微观数据来源提供纵向关联框架，同时可用于分析企业经济活动状态的变化，如企业诞生与消亡。

LBD从部门间企业登记册（Inter-Departmental Business Register，IDBR）中获取快照，并按季度频率关联经济活跃单位。本数据集的首次通用发布即围绕该关联逻辑展开。当前发布版本涵盖WERL骨干（企业集团或WoW，即“谁隶属于谁”）维度下的企业、报告单位与地方单位。未来版本将探索添加行政业务单位的可能性，包括工薪所得税（Pay As You Earn，PAYE）、增值税（Value Added Tax，VAT）及公司注册号（Company Registration Number，CRN）对应的单位。

本次发布的LBD覆盖1999年第一季度至2024年第四季度的季度数据。LBD的所有变量均源自IDBR，包括营业收入、就业人数、2007年标准行业分类（Standard Industrial Classification，SIC 2007）、国际一级区域层级（International Territorial Level 1，ITL 1）地理信息及法律状态。经济活动标记可用于识别当季度内发生经济活动状态变更的企业（如诞生、关停或重新激活）。LBD与其他基于IDBR的关联数据集（如企业结构数据库（Business Structure Database，BSD）及纵向部门间企业登记册（Longitudinal IDBR，LIDBR））存在三方面核心差异：
（1）按季度频率提供企业人口统计信息，这对经济周期层面的分析至关重要；
（2）为构成企业架构的所有单位确立真正的纵向关联性，可精准捕捉当季度内的企业活动；
（3）明确源自IDBR原始抽样框架设计的决策规则，并将其转化为可赋予企业群体经济意义的活动判定标准。

LBD属于实验性数据集。未来发布版本中，经济活动判定标准、骨干框架及输入数据可能发生调整。基于LBD生成的数据集仅用于科研用途，无法替代企业人口统计官方统计数据。

请参阅卓越经济统计中心（Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence）的讨论论文《英国纵向企业数据库：用户手册》（Lui等，待公布）以获取方法学细节。SRS数据集附带的文档将进一步说明当前采用的数据关联策略与经济活动判定标准。

本数据集仅提供CSV格式文件。