dynemp: A routine for distributed microdata analysis of business dynamics

In this article, we introduce a new command, dynemp, that implements a distributed microdata analysis of business and employment dynamics and firm demographics. As its data source, dynemp requires business registers or comparable firm- or establishment-level longitudinal databases that cover the (near-)universe of companies in all business sectors. Access to such confidential data is usually restricted, and the microlevel data cannot be brought together to a single platform for cross-country analysis. To solve this confidentiality problem while also maintaining a high level of harmonization of the key economic concepts, dynemp can be distributed in a network of researchers who have access to the national confidential microdata. This way, the rich firm-level employment dynamics can be analyzed from new angles (such as firm age and size), significantly expanding the scope of analyses relying only on more aggregated data. Copyright 2015 by StataCorp LP.