Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (Istat)

Dipartimento per la produzione statistica (DIPS)

Direzione centrale delle statistiche economiche (DCSE)

Servizio Statistiche strutturali sulle imprese, istituzioni pubbliche e non-profit (DCSE/SEC)

Via Tuscolana 1788, 00173 Roma

Structural business statistics (SBS) describes the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors).

SBS covers all activities of the non-financial business economy with the exception of agricultural activities and personal services. Limited information is available on banking, insurance and pension funds.

 Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:

• Business demographic variables (e.g. Number of enterprises)
• "Output related" variables (e.g. Turnover, Value added)
• "Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Total of purchases); capital input (e.g. Material investments)

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE): NACE Rev.1 was used until 2001, NACE Rev. 1.1 since 2002, and NACE Rev 2 is used from 2008 onwards. Key data were double reported in NACE Rev.1.1 and NACE Rev.2 for 2008. From 2009 onwards, only NACE Rev.2 data are available.

The regional breakdown of the EU Member States is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS). Detailed information about the consecutive NUTS Regulations can be found at Eurostat's website

The product breakdown is based on the Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) as stated in the Regulation establishing CPA 2008 and its amending  Commission Regulation (EU) No 1209/2014  (from reference year 2015 onwards)

The SBS coverage was limited to Sections C to K of NACE Rev.1.1 until 2007. Starting from the reference year 2008 data is available for Sections B to N and Division S95 of NACE Rev.2. With 2013 as the first reference year information is published on Nace codes K6411, K6419 and K65 and its breakdown.

The statistical characteristics are defined in Annex I of Commission Regulation (EC) No 250/2009

Enterprise - the definition is in line with the Regulation

All active (at least a part of the reference year) enterprises that are, according to their main activity, classified in sections B – J and L – N as well as in division 95 of section S.

Also it includes active enterprises classified in parts of section K (classes 6411 and 6419 as well as in division 65).

The units active in Italy; the branches of foreign enterprises are included, while the activities abroad of the Italian units are excluded.

1996-2020

Not applicable.

• Number of enterprises and number of local units are expressed in units.
• Monetary data are expressed in millions of €.
• Employment variables are expressed in units.
• Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head.

Ratios are expressed in percentages.

2020

The Italian SBS data reference year is the calendar year, and in most cases it corresponds to the fiscal year. For each enterprise with a different financial year than the calendar year, we decide to take into account the longest financial year, that is more than 6 months, in the corresponding SBS reference period. This decision is maintained every subsequent year for comparability reasons. Only in very few cases, when the fiscal year is more than 12 months, we estimate the 12 month calendar year. 

Year 1995 was the first year for the implementation of the Council Regulation No 58/97 (SBS Regulation).

The Council Regulation No 58/97 has been amended three times: by Council Regulation No 410/98, Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 and European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2056/2002. As a new amendment of the basic Regulation it was decided to recast the Regulation No 58/97 in order to obtain a new "clean" legal text. The European Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008 was adopted on 14/02/2008 and the provisions of this Regulation are applicable from the reference year 2008. Regulation No 295/2008 has been amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 446/2014.

Not applicable.

Confidentiality primary rules are based on the number of enterprises (less than three statistical units per domain of estimate).

For secondary suppressions the Tau-Argus software is used, using the auxiliary variable "value added" to suppress cells by minimizing totals.

At the national level the data are published on Istat website in general in November/December t+2.

The calendar is accessible at the link https://www.istat.it/it/informazioni-e-servizi/per-i-giornalisti/appuntamenti/calendario-diffusioni-ed-eventi

Data are disseminated in accordance to the domains of estimates of SBS Regulations;

The press are informed by a release calendar while the users can find the updated data on-line in the Istat datawarehouse (dati.istat.it)

All users have the same access.

Special requests are submitted to the Istat contact center (https://contact.istat.it), and if it is possible to release data, managed directly by it.

Annual

The news release are provided at the main page of Istat website (www.istat.it)

Statistical report on the SBS data available in official website of Istat in pdf format and macro data in Excel format (annually).

Datawarehouse from the website of Istat is updated annually.

http://www.istat.it/en/archive/140708 for the reference year 2012 (Italian/English version)

http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/175950 for the reference year 2013 (only Italian version)

http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/191838 for the reference year 2014 (only Italian version)

http://www.istat.it/en/archive/191843 for the reference year 2014 (Italian/English version)

https://www.istat.it/it/files/2018/04/Report-Risultati-economici-imprese-2015.pdf  for the reference year 2015 (only Italian version)

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/223346 for the reference year 2016 (only Italian version)

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/234313 for the reference year 2017 (only Italian version)

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/249271 for the reference year 2018 (only Italian version)

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/263052 for the reference year 2019 (only Italian version)

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/276829 for the reference year 2020 (only Italian version)

SBS Italian data are disseminated annually through the on-line database on the web site of Istat at the following address http://dati.istat.it/

Istat provides microdata files from its surveys free of charge for study and research purposes or for statistical-scientific purposes, in compliance with the regulations in force. The files released are those available at the time of the request and may be subject to statistical revisions and conficentiality rules (https://www.istat.it/en/analysis-and-products/microdata-files)

Data are sent to Eurostat, either to be used in European aggregates or to be released also as national data.

Rivista di statistica ufficiale n.1/2016 (http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/192775): The paper summarises the main features, methodological and technological details of the new statistical register on economic accounts of the Italian units. This documentation is only in English language.

Rivista di statistica ufficiale n.1-2-3/2017, 2nd issue (https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/253415, English: The paper describes the Regulations on data confidentiality, the methods applied to protect data, the IT aspects, and the channels used to disseminate the information. This documentation is only in English language.

The Information System on Quality (SIQual - accessible only from the intranet) contains metainformation on the statistical production processes (primary surveys, statistical compilations and informative systems) and secondary processes (pilot surveys, ad hoc modules, oversampling, quality control surveys or experiments) carried out by Istat. It includes metadata on process content, its operational characteristics (process phases and operations) and the quality considered both in terms of activities of prevention, monitoring and evaluation of errors (quality actions) and in terms of documentation on process and product quality with different degree of complexity (Methodological notes of the Statistical Yearbook, Quality declaration, Extensive documents on Quality). This documantation is only in Italian language.

The quality report is transmitted to Eurostat, on an annual basis, when the compilation and validation of SBS data is completed.

Documentation is available on Eurostat website, quality reports are only available in English language

Samples are extracted by reducing response burden on enterprises, administrative sources are used to reduce burden and recover non-responses.

Italian SBS data are compiled with the use of administrative data covering basic statistical variables. A survey on enterprises is supplementarly conducted, in order to collect data for the statistical variables that cannot be retrived from administrative data. The use of administrative data is in terms of completeness, coverage of enterprises, and timeliness is very effective.

The data collection phase is continuously monitored. Sub phases of it are: 1) survey data collection monitoring, 2) survey data editing, 3) administrative data editing, 4) comparisons among different sources (administrative and survey), 5) estimation of missing data. In addition, the data are compared with the previous year's one and checked for large changes in the data, especially large deviations in the main variables.

The continuous cooperation of Istat with the tax and other administrative authorities providing data is basic.

The quality is assessed as high.

No survey related to the user's satisfaction is compiled.

Structural Business Statistics cover the total set of variables defined by the relevant Regulations of the European Union.

Starting from SBS2012, Istat have combined administrative sources with survey data aiming at reducing the sampling error and improving data quality.

SBS data have traditionally been transmitted by combining the estimates from the survey on small and medium enterprises with less than 100 persons employed (PMI) with those from the total survey on enterprises with 100 persons employed and more (SCI). Both surveys use administrative sources to integrate total non-responses.

The innovation in the production process involves the enterprises with less than 100 persons employed: variables estimates are based on exhaustive administrative sources for the main economic variables (turnover, purchases of goods and services, value added, personnel costs, etc.), combined with other economic variables not available from administrative sources, which are estimated exploiting PMI direct survey data by using either weighted regression estimators, or calibration (e.g. investments). The structural variables (number of persons employed, number of employees, economic activity, administrative region) come from the Business Register (Asia).

The administrative sources (Financial Statements of the corporate enterprises from Chambers of Commerce, Sector Studies survey and Tax Return data from the fiscal authority, and Social security data), have been analysed in terms of both coverage of the SBS target population as listed in the Business Register, and available variables. A comparative analysis of the variables observed in each  administrative source and in the PMI survey has led to the integrated use of the relevant administrative sources according to a specific “hierarchy”. The sources’ hierarchy is based on how the variable definitions are close to the SBS ones and on the reliability of the sources (stability, availability, completeness, etc.).

Target variables not available in the administrative sources have been estimated through massive imputation, using a mixed approach, depending on the coverage rate of the target variables to be estimated: classical predictive model-based approaches have been used for estimating highly covered variables, while models based on PMI data have been adopted for estimating the remaining variables.

In this way a multidimensional micro data matrix has been built up (called “Frame”), containing the Business Register variables and the economic variables for all the SBS population units.

The activities carried out for building the Frame consist of: 1) analysis of available administrative sources (metadata analysis); 2) construction of the variables of interest; 3) comparison of variables at the micro level among the administrative sources and PMI survey data; 4) hierarchical selection of the sources; 5) analysis of the coverage of the business register; 6) estimation procedure with an approach based on a predictive model-based approach for the main variables (mass imputation) and a design-based approach for the other variables.

The main SBS variables are obtained from the Frame by sum (number of enterprises, number of persons employed, number of employees, turnover, personnel cost, value added at factor cost, etc) while others (such as investments) are estimated from the survey through calibration methodology. 

From the reference year 2016 the sample survey PMI regards the enterprises with less than 250 persons employed while the total survey SCI regards the enterprises with 250 and more persons employed.

From the reference year 2017 the SBS Regulation No 295/2008 has been implemented with regards to the Statistical Unit Regulation (No. 696/93)

Some variables, such as the investments, are estimated by surveys while the other SBS ones are directly calculated from the micro database Frame built on the base of administrative sources.

For the variable "investments" which is estimated by survey by the calibration methodology, the bias resulting from non-response is limited. For the other variables of interest the bias is resulting by use of administrative sources.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat 18 months after the reference year.

Data at national level are disseminated 23 months after the reference year.

Italian SBS series are currently sent to Eurostat on time.

The same statistical concepts are applied in the entire national territory

1996-2007 in Nace Rev.1.1;

2008-2020 in Nace Rev.2 

The coherence between number of enterprise and number of persons employed is checked between SBS and the Statistical Business Registers.

As for non-financial activities and the number of enterprises, both SBS and BD use the SBR as source. As for the number of persons employed and employees, SBS in very few cases uses information from surveys and BD information from the SBR. As for section K, the number of enterprise and the number of persons employed and employees for SBS comes from external sources, while BD uses the SBR.

The aggregates are always consistent with their main sub-aggregates.

Istat reduces the burden on the enterprises through the sample coordination methodology.

Annex I-IV: We make additional checks during data collection using administrative sources especially for the larger enterprises.

Data are corrected in case errors are detected.

Sample survey combined with administrative information.

Sample survey PMI for the enterprises with less than 250 persons employed: stratified design based on economic activity, size classes of persons employed and regions (76.514 units)

Total survey SCI for the enterprises with 250 and more persons employed (3.703 units)

The administrative source used in the process of data production are the following: Financial statement of the corporate enterprises from Chambers of Commerce; ISA (synthetic indices of reliability) data and Tax return data from the Fiscal authority; Social security data

Main economic variables (turnover, purchases of goods and services, personnel cost, value added, etc.) are directly available from the administrative sources. The number of enterprises, number of persons employed and number of employees are extracted from the Business Register.

The administrative sources are available at micro level and are used both as basic data and for imputation in case of non-response.

Annual data collection

The enterprises involved in the survey receive a communication via PEC (Certified Electronic Mail), containing an official letter by the Istat data collection department who invites to fill out an online questionnaire via the Business Portal (https://imprese.istat.it).

Many remainders are made.

- Intra-dataset checks special for the administrative sources;

- Intra-source checks for choosing the best administrative source to use for the statistical purposes;

- Intra-dataset checks for the process of micro data validation using also the administraive sources; 

- Intra-domain on the purpose to analyze some breaks;

In the process of data validation, the Integrative Notes of the Financial Statement, available from the Chambre of Commerce, are also used.

Data for non-respondent units are imputed using adminstrative sources (financial statements and tax data).

Not applicable

No further comments.