| ENTREPRENEURSHIP INDICATORS PROGRAMME (EIP) - TIMELY INDICATORS |
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EIP HARMONISED DEFINITIONS |
1. Population of active enterprises
The population of active enterprises consists of all enterprises that had either turnover or employment at any time during the reference period. The EIP recommends to use data on active enterprises only.
2. Statistical unit
Statistical unist are defined on the basis of 3 criteria:
- Legal, accounting or organisational criteria
- Geographical criteria,
- Activity criteria.
The EIP collect data on enterprises.
The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods and services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit. (Council Regulation (EEC) definition)
An establishment is an enterprise, or part of an enterprise, that is situated in a single location and in which only a single productive activity is carried out or in which the principal productive activity accounts for most of the value added. (SNA definition)
3. All enterprises, employer and non-employer enterprises (size thresholds)
The EIP gives preference to employer enterprises (i.e. active enterprises with at least one employee).
The project on timely indicators collect data produced by countries and store information on all enterprises as well as employer enterprises.
4. Market activities, excluding agriculture
The EIP excludes data on:
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing (ISIC3/NACE1: A+B - ISIC4/NACE2: A)
- Public administration and defence; compulsory social security (ISIC3/NACE1: L - ISIC4/NACE2: O)
- Activities of households as employers (ISIC3/NACE1: P - ISIC4/NACE2: T)
- Extra-territorial organizations and bodies (ISIC3/NACE1: A - ISIC4/NACE2: U)
These activities are excluded because they are not yet compulsory for statistical business registers in the EU or are not relevant for the purposes of business demography.
The project on timely indicators collect data on all activities.
ENTRIES AND BIRTHS
5. Entries
Businesses that are present in a given period T but were not present in the previous period. New enterprises are identified
An entry can be the results of :
- Simple registration,
- The beginning of an activity - when an enterprise becomes active,
- When there is a threshold: entry by growth (the enterprise was active before the entry),
- Reactivation
- Mergers, break-ups, split-off
- etc.
6.Date of registration and the date of commencement of activity
The basis of the method to be used is the concept of the population of active enterprises. The date of registration should not be used as the primary means of identifying new enterprises as information on the date of commencement and cessation of activity is not available for all enteprises and all Member states, and such dates may represent administrative rather than statistical events.
7. Real births
A birth amounts to the creation of a combination of production factors with the restriction that no other enterprises are involved in the event. Births do not include entries into the population due to:
- Mergers (Fr: Fusions),
- break-ups (Fr: Scissions),
- split-off (Fr: Eclatement),
- restructuring a set of enterprises (Fr: restructuration),
- take-over (Fr: Reprise),
- any creations of additional legal units/enterprises solely for the purpose of providing a single production factor (e.g. the real estate or personnel) or an ancillary activity for an existing enterprise.
- change in legal form (e.g. a successful sole proprietor changes the legal form of the enterprise to a limited liability company),
- reactivated enterprises if they restart activity within 2 calendar years,
- temporary associations that do not involve the creation of new factors of production
- It does not include entries into a sub-population resulting only from a change of activity.
The aim is to produce data on the creation of new enterprises that have started from scratch and that have actually started activity. An enterprise creation can be considered an enteprise birth if new production factors, in particular new jobs, are created.
8. Subsidiaries
New national or foreign subsidiaires should be included in the enterprises births if:
- They are real enterprises (legal units rather than just local units) with autonomy of decision making
- New production factors are createdn rather than transfered from another unit
EXITS AND DEATHS
10. Cessation of activity
11. Deaths
