Costa Rica´s business registry: Directory of institutional units and establishments Contacts: Odilia Bravo: David Bullón:

Overview Origins and purpose Structure, variables and sources Coverage, updating and quality Users and applications

Origins and purpose Origins – By law INEC is in charge of collecting and managing census data. – For many years lack of an authoritative source of firm level data. – In 2008 the Central Bank funded INEC to create the business registry. – Since 2010, the Ministry of Finance has funded INEC directly to update the registry annually. Purpose – Organized register of enterprises and establishments that reside in the country with variables that characterize them in terms of: ID number, location, size, and type of economic activity. – Required for Central Bank’s project to update the base year. – Sampling frame for various surveys. 1

Basic structure of business register Hierarchical structure of registry: Unique ID based on national ID numbers – Non-incorporated: 9 digit personal ID number (for all legal documents) – Incorporated: 10 digit firm ID number – (for all legal documents) But firms often use several firm ID numbers Group 1Firm 3Firm 4 Establishment 3 Establishment 4 Firm 1Firm 2 Establishment 1 Establishment 2 2

Variables with full coverage Main enterprise Province, county, district Comercial name Legal name ID number (unique) Business address Main phone number Main fax number Website Number of employees Main activity description Main activity ISIC Rev.4 code Start of operations (year) Contact/informant name Secondary activities in same location Activity description ISIC (Rev. 4) code Activity production costs estimation Number of employees Activities at other locations Province, county, district Commercial name Legal name ID number (unique) Business address Main phone number Number of employees Main activity description Main activity ISIC Rev.4 code Start of operations (year) Contact/informant name FirmEstablishment 2

Data sources Contributors Data provided INEC Social Security Agency Ministry of Finance National Registry Electoral Authority Trade Promotion Agency INEC Various organizations List of all firms and employment data to add missing firms and update registry List of major tax contributing firms to add missing firms and update registry List of incorporated firms for verification List of citizens to verify non-incorporated firms List of firms from exporters census to add missing firms and update registry Data collected through consumer and construction price index surveys Other data provided by users through special projects 2 Census for districts selected each year Phone calls to update registers Survey based data Admin. data

Coverage and updating Business registry created in 2008 – 45,888 firms, 6,779 establishments – Census of 52% of firms using field survey in the 39 districts. – Administrative records covered the remaining 434 districts. Annual updating (efficient and cost effective) – 48,981 firms, 10,099 establishments and 796 groups in – Identify new firms with updated administrative records. – Phone interviews to 40% of registry + new firms identified with administrative data. – Census of 1-2 districts with significant variation in number of firms 3

Quality control: new firms from administrative data All records go through the following data cleaning process: 1.Correct / exclude out-of-range data 2.Convert activity code from ISIC Rev. 3 to Rev. 4 3.Exclusion of records with missing identifying info. 4.Validation of length of ID numbers 5.Verification of the existence of business using unique ID number 6.Exclude units that do not meet the criteria (e.g., central and local government, autonomous institutions, education boards, etc.) 3

Quality control: survey data Census data collected with PDAs and survey data collected by phone is submitted to the following controls: Real-time: Automatic filters to catch mistakes. Biweekly: Calls to verify surveyors’ work. Monthly: Verify ISIC code and quality of descriptions for 30% of registers covered. Yearly: Correct all error messages generated. 3

Uses: Dissemination through annual bulletin Number of enterprises by economic activity, size or geographic area Changes in the most important variables Dynamic analysis: mergers, closings, births and temporary cessation Employment generated by new companies Available online 4

Uses: Projects to characterize firms INEC supports organizations by creating samples and performing surveys National Bank of Costa Rica: Survey of SMEs Trade Promotion Agency: Census of exporters Ministry of Economy: Businesses near coasts and ports Nature of support Selection of sample frame Feedback on quality of data Access to business registry and economic activity finder Technical assistance for the analysis of database and classification of economic activities 4

Uses: Micro-linking project Research with COMEX and IDE-JETRO Linking business registry to other sources Export data Free Trade Agreement utilization for exports Productivity data for multinationals Policy-oriented research Impact of trade and investment policy on the development of clusters Firm-level econometric analysis 4

Costa Rica´s Business Registry: Directory of Institutional Units and Establishments Contacts: Odilia Bravo: David Bullón: