Comparison of Estimates: Survey of Business Owners, Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, and Annual Business Survey

Sari Pekkala Kerr and William Kerr

CES Technical Notes Series from Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau

Abstract: We generated a standardized sample of recently founded, non-public employer firms to evaluate the data consistency of key owner characteristics between the Survey of Business Owners (2007, 2012), Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (2014-2016), and Annual Business Survey (2017-2019). We also contrast the trends found in this analysis to some of the Census Bureau press releases pertaining to a broader population of firms and owners, to the ACS IPUMS data on self-employed individuals in incorporated businesses, as well as our own previous disclosures using the LEHD first year top-3 earners of the founding team. We find some data consistency issues across the three surveys (SBO, ASE, ABS) that sometimes happen around changes in the way certain questions are posed. Other patterns suggest that there may have been differences in the type of respondents reached by the three surveys. We also provide some suggestions aimed at making the restricted access micro data and the public use data products more accessible to a wider range of researchers and other potential users.

Keywords: SBO; ASE; ABS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-sbm
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