Enterprise Survey 2019

Malta, 2018 - 2019

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Reference ID

MLT_2019_ES_v01_M

DOI

https://doi.org/10.48529/mfz7-7m47

Producer(s)

World Bank Group (WBG), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB)

Collection(s)

Enterprise Surveys

Metadata

Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON

Study website

Created on

Dec 17, 2019

Last modified

Dec 17, 2019

Page views

40628

Downloads

802

Identification

Survey ID number

MLT_2019_ES_v01_M

Title

Enterprise Survey 2019

Country/Economy

Name	Country code
Malta	MLT

Study type

Enterprise Survey [en/oth]

Series Information

As part of its strategic goal of building a climate for investment, job creation, and sustainable growth, the World Bank has promoted improving business environments as a key strategy for development, which has led to a systematic effort in collecting enterprise data across countries. The Enterprise Surveys are an ongoing World Bank project in collecting both objective data based on firms' experiences and enterprises' perception of the environment in which they operate.

An Enterprise Survey is a firm-level survey of a representative sample of an economy's private sector. Firm-level surveys have been conducted since 1998 by different units within the World Bank. Since 2005-2006, most data collection efforts have been centralized within the Enterprise Analysis Unit. The Enterprise Surveys are conducted across all geographic regions and cover small, medium, and large companies. The surveys are administered to a representative sample of firms in the non-agricultural formal private economy. Data are used to create indicators that benchmark the quality of the business and investment climate across countries.

As of December 2019, the ES covers over 180,000 firms in 150 countries, of which 142 have been surveyed following the standard methodology. This allows for better comparisons across countries and across time. Data are used to create statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries. The ES are also used to build a panel of enterprise data that will make it possible to track changes in the business environment over time and allow, for example, impact assessments of reforms.

Abstract

The survey was conducted in Malta between December 2018 and September 2019 as joint project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group (WBG).

The objective of the Enterprise Survey is to gain an understanding of what firms experience in the private sector. As part of its strategic goal of building a climate for investment, job creation, and sustainable growth, the World Bank has promoted improving the business environment as a key strategy for development, which has led to a systematic effort in collecting enterprise data across countries. The Enterprise Surveys (ES) are an ongoing World Bank project in collecting both objective data based on firms' experiences and enterprises' perception of the environment in which they operate.

Kind of Data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Unit of Analysis

The primary sampling unit of the study is the establishment. An establishment is a physical location where business is carried out and where industrial operations take place or services are provided. A firm may be composed of one or more establishments. For example, a brewery may have several bottling plants and several establishments for distribution. For the purposes of this survey an establishment must make its own financial decisions and have its own financial statements separate from those of the firm. An establishment must also have its own management and control over its payroll.

Version

Version Description

Version 01. Edited, anonymous dataset for public distribution.

Scope

Notes

The 2019 Malta Enterprise Survey covered the following topics:

General information of a firm/ establishment
Infrastructure and services
Sales and supplies
Management practices
Degree of competition
Innovation
Capacity
Time use of top manager
Land and permits
Crime
Finance
Business-Government relations
Labor
Business environment
Performance

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

National coverage

Universe

Malta ES was based on the following size stratification: small (5 to 9 employees), medium (10 to 49 employees), large (50 to 49 employees) and very large (250 or more employees).

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name
World Bank Group (WBG)
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
European Investment Bank (EIB)

Funding Agency/Sponsor

Name
World Bank Group
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
European Investment Bank

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

The sample for 2019 Malta ES was selected using stratified random sampling, following the methodology explained in the Sampling Note.

Three levels of stratification were used in this country: industry, establishment size, and region.

Industry stratification was done as follows: Manufacturing - combining all the relevant activities (ISIC Rev. 3.1 codes 15-37) and Services (ISIC 45, 47, 50, 51, 55, 60-64, and 72).

For the Malta ES, size stratification was defined as follows: small (5 to 9 employees), medium (10 to 49 employees), large (50 to 49 employees) and very large (250 or more employees).

There was no regional stratification in the Malta ES 2019.

Note: Refer to Sampling Structure section in "The Malta 2019 Enterprise Surveys Data Set" document for further details on sampling.

Response Rate

Survey non-response must be differentiated from item non-response. The former refers to refusals to participate in the survey altogether whereas the latter refers to the refusals to answer some specific questions. Enterprise Surveys suffer from both problems and different strategies were used to address these issues.

Item non-response was addressed by two strategies:
a- For sensitive questions that may generate negative reactions from the respondent, such as corruption or tax evasion, enumerators were instructed to collect the refusal to respond (-8) as a different option from don’t know (-9).

b- Establishments with incomplete information were re-contacted in order to complete this information, whenever necessary.

The number of interviews per contacted establishments was 13.0%.

Weighting

Since the sampling design was stratified and employed differential sampling, individual observations should be properly weighted when making inferences about the population. Under stratified random sampling, unweighted estimates are biased unless sample sizes are proportional to the size of each stratum. With stratification the probability of selection of each unit is, in general, not the same. Consequently, individual observations must be weighted by the inverse of their probability of selection (probability weights or pw in Stata.)

Special care was given to the correct computation of the weights. It was imperative to accurately adjust the totals within each region/industry/size stratum to account for the presence of ineligible units (the firm discontinued businesses or was unattainable, education or government establishments, no reply after having called in different days of the week and in different business hours, no tone in the phone line, answering machine, fax line, wrong address or moved away and could not get the new references). The information required for the adjustment was collected in the first stage of the implementation: the screening process. Using this information, each stratum cell of the universe was scaled down by the observed proportion of ineligible units within the cell. Once an accurate estimate of the universe cell (projections) was available, weights were computed using the number of completed interviews.

Survey instrument

Questionnaires

The structure of the data base reflects the fact that 2 different versions of the survey instrument were used for all registered establishments. Questionnaires have common questions (core module) and respectfully additional manufacturing- and services-specific questions. The eligible manufacturing industries have been surveyed using the Manufacturing questionnaire (includes the core module, plus manufacturing specific questions). Retail firms have been interviewed using the Services questionnaire (includes the core module plus retail specific questions) and the residual eligible services have been covered using the Services questionnaire (includes the core module). Each variation of the questionnaire is identified by the index variable, a0.

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End
2018-12	2019-09

Data Collection Notes

The survey was implemented following a 2-stage procedure. Typically, first a screener questionnaire is applied over the phone to determine eligibility and to make appointments. Then a face-to-face interview takes place with the Manager/Owner/Director of each establishment. However, sometimes the phone numbers were unavailable in the sample frame, and thus the enumerators applied the screeners in person.

Access policy

Confidentiality

Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required?	Confidentiality declaration text
yes	Confidentiality of the survey respondents and the sensitive information they provide is necessary to ensure the greatest degree of survey participation, integrity and confidence in the quality of the data. Surveys are usually carried out in cooperation with business organizations and government agencies promoting job creation and economic growth, but confidentiality is never compromised.

Citation requirements

The use of this dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:

the identification of the Primary Investigator (including country name)
the full title of the survey and its acronym (when available), and the year(s) of implementation
the survey reference number
the source and date of download (for datasets disseminated online).

Example:

The World Bank. Malta - Enterprise Survey (ES) 2019, Ref. MLT_2019_ES_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from https://www.enterprisesurveys.org/portal/login.aspx on [date].

Archive where study is originally stored

Enterprise Surveys
https://www.enterprisesurveys.org/Portal/
Cost: None

Disclaimer and copyrights

Disclaimer

The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.

Contacts

Name	Affiliation	Email
Enterprise Analysis Unit	World Bank Group	enterprisesurveys@worldbank.org

Metadata production

DDI Document ID

DDI_MLT_2019_ES_v01_M

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
Development Economics Data Group	The World Bank	Documentation of the DDI

Date of Metadata Production

2019-12-16

Metadata version

DDI Document version

Version 01 (December 2019)

Citation

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