The IAB establishment panel : from sample to survey to projection

"The IAB Establishment Panel is an annual survey of establishments and is unique in Germany, as it represents all industries and establishment sizes nationwide and can also be analysed on a longitudinal basis. The design of the IAB Establishment Panel was developed in the early 1990s and subjected to a wide range of tests. This process also involved parallel development activities taking place on the Hannover Firm Panel, which were carried out on behalf of the "Forschungsstelle Firmenpanel" at the University of Hanover (Gerlach et al.: 1998) and the Institute for Applied Economic Research in Tübingen (IAW). The survey began in West Germany in 1993, with the aim of building up a representative information system for continuous analysis of labour demand. It has been carried out in East Germany since 1996, making it a nationwide survey. The IAB Establishment Panel is conceived as a longitudinal survey, i.e. a large majority of the same establishments are interviewed every year. Consequently, it enables both analysis of developments across time through comparison of cross-sectional data on different points in time, and also longitudinal studies of individual establishments. Now in the IAB Establishment Panel approx. 16,000 establishments are surveyed on a large number of employment policy-related subjects, including employment development, business policy and business development, investment activities, innovations in the establishment, public funding, personnel structure, vocational training and apprenticeships, new and exiting personnel, recruitment, wages and salaries, working times in the establishment, further training and general data on the establishment. The survey also includes varying focal topics every year. With the exception of Hamburg, all the German federal states (Bundesländer) currently contribute regional extension samples to the IAB Establishment Panel. This firstly enables evaluations on the federal state level, and secondly results in a total range of samples that significantly widens the evaluation options on the nationwide level. The IAB Establishment Panel contains high data quality, achieved by means of the high-quality sample, the high exploitation level and the sophisticated process of data monitoring and error correction. The survey is carried out by TNS Infratest Sozialforschung GmbH on behalf of the IAB. A general introduction to the IAB Establishment Panel is contained in German in Bellmann (2002) or in English in Kölling (2000). The IAB Establishment Panel is based on a complex study design, which also presents challenges for users of the dataset. This paper provides an overview of the methodology of the IAB Establishment Panel. It goes into detail on the design of the samples and survey, the weighting process, and data access at the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The most important points are presented at the beginning of each chapter. It is intended for users of the IAB Establishment Panel, firstly as a collection of methodological aspects of the IAB Establishment Panel, and secondly to make it easier for first-time users in particular to start using the data. This paper is also aimed at users of the IAB Linked-Employer-Employee Dataset (LIAB1), in which the IAB Establishment Panel is an important component." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))