National Establishment Time-

Series Database©

Key Personnel OVERVIEW

Donald W. Walls For more than thirty-two million establishments, the National
Principal Investigator Establishment Time-Series (NETS) Database© provides time-series
President and Owner
information on mobility patterns, employment and sales growth
Walls & Associates
performance, job creation and destruction, business startups and
dwalls2@earthlink.net
(510) 763-0641 failures, changes in primary markets, corporate affiliations, and
historical Dun and Bradstreet ratings, to name a few. Developed
URL through a joint venture with Dun and Bradstreet, it covers more than
www.establishmentdynamics. 250 fields and seventeen years of historical information thoroughly
com (available January 2008) documenting economic activity from 1989 through 2006. This unique
Type of Data business establishment database is the only commercially-available
Private, commercial survey and historical database of its kind on the market.
administrative data
Availability of Data Set PROCEDURES FOR ACCESSING THE DATA SET
On request, fee applies Researchers may arrange one-time delivery with a two-year national
Activity Measured or state/region license. Updates are available annually. Special
1989 through 2006 selection criteria requests, delivered in Microsoft Access® or Excel®
(other database formats as requested), also are accepted ($2,500
Data Collected minimum). Requests for data or cost estimates for unique extracts
1989 through 2006 should be submitted to Don Walls (dwalls2@earthlink.net).
Number of Observations
16.2 million active records in 2006;
32.2 million total records
METHODOLOGY
The NETS Database, updated annually, has been constructed from
Dun & Bradstreet's DUNS Marketing Information (DMI) archives to link
establishments longitudinally. This comprehensive, easy-to-use
database can be exploited to conduct establishment dynamics
research and analysis on topics such as:

ƒ The size and performance of specific markets over time and

whether we want to invest in them;
ƒ How a specific firm’s (or set of firms’) market share has
changed over time;
ƒ The important employers in a region and who contributes
most to the region’s growth;
ƒ Who’s likely to move within an industry or geography;
ƒ What occupations will be in demand;
ƒ What links exist between businesses in a given state;
ƒ Impact of tax changes, environmental regulations, and
educational performance on business location decisions;
ƒ Product line forecasting;
ƒ Economic development targeting;
ƒ Business startup and failure analysis; and
ƒ Job creation and destruction at the industry level by
establishment.

NATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT TIME-SERIES DATABASE© 1

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1022962

2007 Kauffman Symposium on Entrepreneurship and Innovation Data

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Neumark, David, Junfu Zhang, and Brandon Wall. “Employment Dynamics and Business Relocation: New
Evidence from the National Establishment Time Series” (October 2005). NBER Working Paper No.
W11647. http://ssrn.com/abstract=819807.

Neumark, David, Junfu Zhang, and Jed Kolko. “Interstate Business Relocation: An Industry-Level Analysis”
(June 19, 2006). Public Policy Institute of California. Available at:
www.ppic.org/content/pubs/op/OP_606DNOP.pdf.

Wallace, Nancy E., and Donald W. Walls. “Agglomeration Economies and the High-Tech Computer Sector.”
Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, Working Paper 292. University of California, Berkeley.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/iber/fcreue/fcwp/292/.

UNDERUTILIZED TOPICS
1. Job creation and destruction, and how they vary by industry, type of firm and region
2. Market sizing at very targeted levels (more than 18,700 defined industries)
3. Predicting which establishments are most likely to move over the next three years
4. What “attracts” establishments to metropolitan areas

FUTURE
Walls & Associates just released a national summary of the 2006 NETS Database that provides for every
year 1990 through 2006:
1. Establishments, jobs, and sales by six-digit SIC and NAICs Codes;
2. Establishment size category summaries by industry divisions;
3. Three-digit establishment, jobs, and sales summaries for the ten federal regions;
4. Metropolitan and non-metropolitan establishment, jobs, and sales summaries by state;
5. Establishment births and deaths by state;
6. Total establishment and job relocations by state, including moves between counties and outside the
state of origin;
7. Establishments, jobs, and sales by first and last year of establishment; and
8. Summary of establishment types (headquarters, branch, or stand-alone).

The summary subscription is $5,000 ($2,500 for current subscribers to any other NETS Database product).

2 NATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT TIME-SERIES DATABASE© WWW.KAUFFMAN.ORG/DATASYMPOSIUM

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1022962