Company groups in official German economic statistics - methodological, empirical and technical problems and their solution

The results of the official company statistics in Germany are systematically distorted in certain respects. Especially the size structure of firms and thus the concentration in the economy are not adequately included. This particularity, which does not only apply to German statistics, no longer does justice to the complexity and dynamism of economic reality and is no longer in line with current methodological, technical and empirical possibilities. The Monopoly Commission of the German government has worked out proposals for including company groups and complex firm structures in the official company statistics. In January of this year, the German Bundestag commissioned the Federal Statistical Office and the Monopoly Commission with the task of including company groups in the concentration-statistical system of the official statistics. Dr. Rainer Feuerstack of the research staff of the Monopoly Commission reports on the steps that have been undertaken to link new sources of data for including company groups, with the help of administrative and court registers as well as private databases, with the data of the official statistics. This will help the official statistics to adjust to changes in the economy.