Abstract
Information on local economic activity is often collected from a list of firms. However, it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of any one source of business listings, given that there is no independent list against which a source may be evaluated. The research presented here constructs such a master list by combining records from several sources and verifying the accuracy of a substantial number of the records. The five lists used to construct the master file are then evaluated against this complete listing. The lists compared here include Dun's Market Indicators, the Hanis Directory, Covered Employment and Wages file (ES202), the Manufacturers Directory, and a locally enumerated database.
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