Introduction

The Longitudinal Establishment and Enterprise Microdata (LEEM) comprises skeletal data on almost all U.S. private sector businesses that paid any employees during the period from 1989 through 2001. These data have been linked together over time so that there are annual observations on each business establishment, including information on the entire firm (or enterprise) to which it belongs each year. Each establishment is a business location at which goods or services are produced, and these establishments are carefully tracked over time, even as they change legal form, ownership, primary industry, or location. Potentially new businesses are identified from new entries in the Master Business List of the Internal Revenue Service, and Census Bureau programs then use additional administrative data, surveys, economic censuses, and estimates to collect more detailed information on each business and to update this annually.

These microdata facilitate research on the dynamics of American businesses – especially on their patterns of formation, employment change, mergers and acquisitions, and survival. These patterns can be analyzed for establishments in different industry sectors and regions, and for firms of various sizes and other characteristics. They constitute the only comprehensive source of longitudinal microdata covering most U.S. businesses that includes the characteristics of the firm to which each establishment belongs.

Brief Description of the LEEM Database

The LEEM database (which the U.S. Small Business Administration refers to as the Business Information Tracking Series, or BITS) is a unique product of the complex register that Census maintains, with information on all businesses in the United States.