Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - UC3M

Overview of the data

The ESEE is a statistical research package that each year samples a representative panel of manufacturing firms. It has a rather flexible design, and it is suited to be utilized in two different potential ways. On the one hand, it makes possible to analyse in depth the evolution of the manufacturing industry through a large number of data items related to the activities and the decisions taken by manufacturing firms. On the other hand, the ESEE's design is intended to provide panel microeconomic information adapted to the specification and contrast of the econometric models resulting from the economic theory.
Which is its coverage?

• The ESEE's population of reference is made up by the firms with 10 or more employees belonging to the manufacturing industry. The geographical scope of reference is all the Spanish territory, and the variables have a yearly temporal dimension. 
• One of the most relevant characteristics of the ESEE is its representativeness. The initial selection was carried out combining exhaustiveness and random sampling criteria. In the first category were included those firms which have over 200 employees, and whose participation was required. The second category includes firms employing between 10 and 200 workers, which were selected through a stratified, proportional, restricted and systematic sampling, with a random start. In the first year, 1990, 2,188 firms were interviewed along the above mentioned criteria. Later special care has been paid to maintaining its representativeness with regard to the population of reference. The effort has been oriented, on the one hand, to reducing as far as possible, the deterioration of the initial sample, trying to avoid the reduction of the firms' collaboration, and on the other, including each year into the sample all the newly incorporated firms which employ over 200 workers, as well as a randomly selected sample which represents around 5% of the newly incorporated firms which have between 10 and 200 employees.

What information does it include?

Regarding its informative content, the sample is aimed above all at capturing information about the firms' strategies, that is, about the decisions they take regarding the competition tools at their disposal. These tools include from the most flexible, which experience frequent short-term oscillations (prices), to those which require longer periods (R&D expenses). As these decisions are taken in close interaction with the company's competitive environment, the sample collects ample information concerning that environment (the company's markets). This information is completed with some accounting data which make possible to measure its results. Summary of the content of the questionnaire of the survey :

• ACTIVITY, PRODUCTS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES: It includes some characteristics of the company and its activities, as are its industrial and non-industrial facilities, its legal structure and some of the significant participations in its social capital, activity and characteristics of the manufactured products, technology employed. 
• CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS: It includes information regarding the nature of the company's customers, the final destination of the products which it manufactures, distribution channels employed, marketing activities, characteristics of the suppliers and services contracting. 
• COSTS AND PRICES: It provides information about the prices paid by the company and about the sale price policy. 
• MARKETS COVERED: It includes information regarding the markets covered by the company, which must cover at least 50% of all its sales, being identified by product lines, kind of customers, geographical area or other characteristics. The information is referred to the company's market share, number of competitors and the share belonging to the most important, the variation experienced in the prices during the year, and the reasons of that change. 
• TECHNOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES: It includes questions related to the R&D activities, patent filing, product and process innovations and payments and income for licenses and technical assistance. 
• FOREIGN TRADE: It includes exports and imports, distribution by geographical areas and access channels to international markets. 
• EMPLOYMENT: It includes the employees working in the company, its structure according the kind of contracts, their professional categories and qualifications, as well as other data for determining the effective work time during the year. 

How to access this database

• Only by appointment. Contact Lluís Santamaria (lsantama@emp.uc3m.es).

How to use this database

Basic information on how to use this database can be found in Survey of Business Strategies.