KOF Enterprise Panel

Since 1996 there has been an enterprise panel at the KOF that is based on a sample of some 6,500 firms taken from the Business Register (BR) of the Federal Statistical Office. The sample, which covers manufacturing industry, construction and the commercial area of the service sector, is stratified according to sectors and sector-specific variables and is adjusted regularly.

The corresponding address bank, which in addition to numerous structural features of the firms, contains all the data that are required to ensure that panel surveys run smoothly (specific contact points, checking the replies, recalls, and incomplete surveys etc.), was developed continuously and updated regularly throughout the project.

Together with the KOF enterprise panel, regular collections of data on the innovative activities (every third year) and on the investment plans (annually) of Swiss companies are made. In addition, data on various aspects of the structural change in the Swiss economy are collected sporadically (approx. once a year). Until now such data have focused on the use of information and communications technologies, on organisational change in the companies surveyed, on workforce skills, on the internationalisation of the Swiss economy as well as on company start-ups.