Abstract

This research was conducted in Hungary in June-July 2010 as part of the third round of The Financial Crisis Survey. Data from 151 establishments from private nonagricultural formal sector was analyzed to quantify the effect of the 2008 global financial crisis on companies in Hungary.

Researchers revisited establishments interviewed in Hungary Enterprise Survey 2009. Efforts were made to contact all respondents of the baseline survey to determine which of the companies were still operating and which were not. From the information collected during telephone interviews, indicators were computed to measure the effects of the financial crisis on key elements of the private economy: sales, employment, finances, and expectations of the future.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

The primary sampling unit of the study was 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.

Universe

The manufacturing and services sectors were the primary business sectors of interest. This corresponded to firms classified with International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) codes 15-37, 45, 50-52, 55, 60-64, and 72 (ISIC Rev.3.1). Formal (registered) companies were targeted for interviews. Services firms included construction, retail, wholesale, hotels, restaurants, transport, storage, communications, and IT. Firms with 100% government ownership were excluded.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

291 establishments that participated in Hungary Enterprise Survey 2009 were contacted for The Financial Crisis Survey. The implementing contractor received directions that the final achieved sample should include at least 150 establishments.

For Hungary Enterprise Survey 2009, the sample was selected using stratified random sampling. Three levels of stratification were used in this country: industry, establishment size, and region.

Industry stratification was designed in the way that follows: the universe was stratified into 23 manufacturing industries, 2 services industries -retail and IT-, and one residual sector. Each sector had a target of 90 interviews.

Size stratification was defined following the standardized definition for the rollout: small (5 to 19 employees), medium (20 to 99 employees), and large (more than 99 employees). For stratification purposes, the number of employees was defined on the basis of reported permanent full-time workers. This seems to be an appropriate definition of the labor force since seasonal/casual/part-time employment is not a common practice, except in the sectors of construction and agriculture.

Regional stratification was defined in three regions. These regions are Central Hungary, West Hungary and East Hungary.

Given the stratified design, sample frames containing a complete and updated list of establishments for the selected regions were required. Great efforts were made to obtain the best source for these listings. However, the quality of the sample frames was not optimal and, therefore, some adjustments were needed to correct for the presence of ineligible units. These adjustments are reflected in the weights computation.

For most countries covered in 2008-2009 BEEPS, two sample frames were used. The first was supplied by the World Bank and consisted of enterprises interviewed in BEEPS 2005. The World Bank required that attempts should be made to re-interview establishments responding to the BEEPS 2005 survey where they were within the selected geographical regions and met eligibility criteria. That sample is referred to as the Panel. The second frame for Hungary was the Dun & Bradstreet database, which was considered the most reliable for the country. That frame was sent to the TNS statistical team in London to select the establishments for interviews.

The quality of the frame was assessed at the onset of the project. The frame proved to be useful though it showed positive rates of non-eligibility, repetition, non-existent units, etc. These problems are typical of establishment surveys, but given the impact these inaccuracies may have on the results, adjustments were needed when computing the appropriate weights for individual observations. The percentage of confirmed non-eligible units as a proportion of the total number of contacts to complete the survey was 4.6% (29 out of 630 establishments).

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Telephone Interview [cati]

Research instrument

The following survey instrument is available: - Financial Crisis Survey Questionnaire

Cleaning operations

Data entry and quality controls are implemented by the contractor and data is delivered to the World Bank in batches (typically 10%, 50% and 100%). These data deliveries are checked for logical consistency, out of range values, skip patterns, and duplicate entries. Problems are flagged by the World Bank and corrected by the implementing contractor through data checks and callbacks.