Glossary:Micro Data Linking (MDL)

<Micro Data Linking (MDL) is a statistical method for combining data available for individual entities. Entities may be enterprises or persons or, also, a combination of the two.

In official statistics, it has become a strategic approach for exploring new informative needs (for example, globalization and green transition) without increasing the statistical burden on respondents.

MDL may use traditional statistical sources - for example, data collected with surveys already conducted in the Member States under the European regulation - but also new data collections, such as administrative sources available at the national level or, as a promising future perspective, the vast amount of big data emerging from private-sector data sources.

National Business Registers (BR) of enterprises represent the crucial statistical infrastructure for implementing MDL techniques in the European Structural Business Statistics (SBS). They provide the necessary linking keys that uniquely identify the unit of interest – the enterprise - in the various business domains of interest.

During recent years, Member States have launched several projects on MDL in the SBS domain. These initiatives have provided encouraging results to take the next steps in the direction of developing a permanent infrastructure in the field of business statistics by linking together statistics coming from different domains^[1].

Overall, these experience at the country level highlights the importance of coordination among countries to develop harmonized and comparable outputs. This approach also implies the need to share the organizational aspects of every step, together with the final objectives of the specific project undertaken.

Further information

Related concepts

Statistical data

[Microdata linking in business statistics]

[[<Category:Statistical concept, Statistical indicator, Statistical method, Data collection AND Survey, or Nomenclature>]] [[<Category:Glossary>]] [[<Category:(Sub)theme glossary>]]

↑ see *[Eurostat Micro data linking project in European business statistics European Commission – Eurostat Directorate G: Global business statistics]

[1] see *[Eurostat Micro data linking project in European business statistics European Commission – Eurostat Directorate G: Global business statistics]

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