The German Business Services Statistics Panel 2003 to 2007

The majority of empirical studies on the firm level have focused only on the manufacturing sector, largely because there are few datasets that allow a detailed investigation of the service sector. However, the German structural survey in the services sector (“Strukturerhebung im Dienstleistungsbereich”), hereafter called the “German business services statistics”, contains a dataset that gives a better picture about enterprises and professional persons in the business-related services sector, namely, firms that are active in the German WZ2003 Sections I (transport, storage and communication) and K (real estate, renting and business activities). 1 This dataset includes information about the number of employed persons, turnover, salaries and wages, investments, subsidies, and variations in stocks. Because the sample of enterprises and professional persons required to give information in 2003 was also used in 2004-2007, it is possible to merge the cross-sectional datasets into a panel dataset that covers the reporting years 2003-2007. The combination is done within the AFiD project2 of the research data centre of the statistical offices of the Federal States. The resulting “AFiD-Panel Services”, hereafter called the “German business services statistics panel”, allows panel analyses of the German business services sector for the first time.