Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Sevcan Yeşiltaş Johns Hopkins University September 2015Abstract Firm-level data on productivity, financial activity and firms' international linkages have become essential for research in the fields of macro, international finance and growth. This paper describes the development of a firm-level global panel dataset for public and private companies based on the administrative micro-dataset ORBIS, provided commercially by Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvD). The ORBIS database provides data on firms' financial and productive activities from balance sheets and income statements together with detailed information on firms' domestic and international ownership structure for over 130 million companies across the world. Researchers need to overcome several challenges before making the database usable for research. First, the database is not designed for large downloads that is essential for an econometric analysis. Second, there are several inherent biases in the database that affect the download process and lead to missing information. Third, the raw data may contain a number of irregularities which, if not dealt with, will result in data loss during a standard cleaning procedure. In combination, these issues cause minimal coverage of small firms, extensive missing data, and poor national representation. We give detailed instructions on the data gathering process from ORBIS in terms of downloading methodology and cleaning procedure so that a researcher can construct a database that is nationally representative with minimal missing information. We provide examples from several European countries to present the process and discuss the resulting dataset in detail.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Sevcan Yeşiltaş Johns Hopkins University September 2015Abstract Firm-level data on productivity, financial activity and firms' international linkages have become essential for research in the fields of macro, international finance and growth. This paper describes the development of a firm-level global panel dataset for public and private companies based on the administrative micro-dataset ORBIS, provided commercially by Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvD). The ORBIS database provides data on firms' financial and productive activities from balance sheets and income statements together with detailed information on firms' domestic and international ownership structure for over 130 million companies across the world. Researchers need to overcome several challenges before making the database usable for research. First, the database is not designed for large downloads that is essential for an econometric analysis. Second, there are several inherent biases in the database that affect the download process and lead to missing information. Third, the raw data may contain a number of irregularities which, if not dealt with, will result in data loss during a standard cleaning procedure. In combination, these issues cause minimal coverage of small firms, extensive missing data, and poor national representation. We give detailed instructions on the data gathering process from ORBIS in terms of downloading methodology and cleaning procedure so that a researcher can construct a database that is nationally representative with minimal missing information. We provide examples from several European countries to present the process and discuss the resulting dataset in detail.

We present new stylized facts on bank and firm leverage for 2000-2009 using extensive internationally comparable micro level data from several countries. The main result is that there was very little buildup in leverage for the average non-financial firm and commercial bank before the crisis, but the picture was quite different for large commercial banks in the United States and for investment banks worldwide. We document the following patterns: a) there was an increase in leverage ratios of investment banks and financial firms during the early 2000s; b) there was no visible increase for commercial banks and non-financial firms; c) off balance-sheet items constitute a big fraction of assets, especially for large commercial banks in the United States; d) the leverage ratio is procyclical for investment banks and for large commercial banks in the United States; e) banks in emerging markets with tighter bank regulation and stronger investor protection experienced significantly less deleveraging during the crisis. These results show that excessive risk taking before the crisis was not easily detectable because the risk involved the quality rather than the amount of assets.JEL Classification: E32, F15, F36

We thank Yasin Şimşek for excellent research assistance. We acknowledge the support from ICC Research Foundation. The study is funded by ICC. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

We present new stylized facts on bank and firm leverage for 2000-2009 using extensive internationally comparable micro level data from several countries. The main result is that there was very little buildup in leverage for the average non-financial firm and commercial bank before the crisis, but the picture was quite different for large commercial banks in the United States and for investment banks worldwide. We document the following patterns: a) there was an increase in leverage ratios of investment banks and financial firms during the early 2000s; b) there was no visible increase for commercial banks and non-financial firms; c) off balance-sheet items constitute a big fraction of assets, especially for large commercial banks in the United States; d) the leverage ratio is procyclical for investment banks and for large commercial banks in the United States; e) banks in emerging markets with tighter bank regulation and stronger investor protection experienced significantly less deleveraging during the crisis. These results show that excessive risk taking before the crisis was not easily detectable because the risk involved the quality rather than the amount of assets.JEL Classification: E32, F15, F36