From AEAStat staff:
The Census Bureau invites economists to comment by May 29, 2020 on the design of the Report of Organization (formerly the Company Organization Survey) for 2020-22.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/30/2020-06566/proposed-information-collection-comment-request-2020-2022-report-of-organization
The Census Bureau conducts the annual Report of Organization to update and maintain a central, multipurpose Business Register (BR) database. In particular, the Report of Organization supplies critical information on the composition, organizational structure, and operating characteristics of multi-location companies.
The BR serves two fundamental purposes:
First and most important, it provides sampling populations and enumeration lists for the Census Bureau's economic surveys and censuses, and it serves as an integral part of the statistical foundation underlying those programs. Essential for this purpose is the BR's ability to identify all known United States business establishments and their parent companies. Further, the BR must accurately record basic business attributes needed to control sampling and enumeration. These attributes include industrial and geographic classifications, and name and address information.
Second, it provides establishment data that serve as the basis for the annual County Business Patterns (CBP) statistical series. The CBP publications present data on number of establishments, first quarter payroll, annual payroll, and mid-March employment summarized by industry and employment size class for the United States, the District of Columbia, island areas, counties, and country-equivalents. No other annual or more frequent series of industry statistics provides comparable detail, particularly for small geographic areas.
The 2020-2022 Report of Organization collection strategy will focus on electronic reporting as the standard collection option. The 2020-2021 Report of Organization will request company-level information from a selection of multi-establishment enterprises, which comprise roughly 42,000 parent companies and more than 1.4 million establishments. Additionally, the panel will include approximately 5,000 large single-location companies that may have added locations during the year.
The Census Bureau will conduct the 2022 Report of Organization in conjunction with the 2022 Economic Census and will coordinate these collections to minimize response burden. The consolidated Report of Organization/census mail canvass will direct inquiries to the entire universe of multi-location enterprises that comprises roughly 165,000 parent companies and more than 1.9 million establishments. Additional Report of Organization inquiries will apply to the 15,000 multi-unit establishments classified in industries that are out-of-scope of the economic census.
Form NC-99001 is directed to multi-establishment location enterprises. Questions cover ownership or control by a domestic parent, ownership or control by a foreign parent, and ownership of foreign affiliates; research and development; employees from a professional employer organization. Establishment inquiries include questions on operational status, mid-March employment, first quarter payroll, and annual payroll of establishments. Form NC-99007 collects data from large single-location enterprises that may have added some locations.
The Census Bureau indicates that the survey instrument will be unchanged from 2017-19. The forms and supporting statement for those years can be seen at
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l9s4icc4j8zcjdf/AAAa7CZ1FvJhjVdzpjKN_UXKa?dl=0
For AEA members wishing to provide comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806 AEA staff support is available at areamer@gwu.edu and 202-510-3681.
