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Government Information Quarterly

Volume 15, Number 3, 1998

CONTENTS

Determining Economic Census Content
Judy M. Dodds ...................................................................................... #

Introducing the North American Industry Classification System
Carole A. Ambler and James E. Kristoff ................................................................................... #

Conducting the Economic Census
Shirin A. Ahmed, Lawrence A. Blum, and Mark E. Wallace ................................................................................... #

Disseminating Economic Census Data
Paul T. Zeisset ..................................................................................................................................................... #

Public and Private Sector Uses of Economic Census Data
Mark E. Wallace ...................................................................................... #

Evolution of the U.S. Economic Census:
The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
William F. Micarelli ................................................................................... #

About the Authors .................................................................................. #

Determining the content of the Economic Census is one of the Census Bureau's most important tasks. It involves balancing the needs of the data user with the burden imposed on the respondents; deciding which of the competing needs for data are most important and appropriate for the Economic Census; and working with groups that represent both data users and data suppliers to develop questions that will result in data that are both accurate and relevant.

Since the 1930s, Economic Census data have been published based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, developed and maintained by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The decision by OMB to replace the SIC with the new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) has had a profound effect on planning, data collection, data processing, and publication activities of the Economic Census. It was necessary to design new and different forms, expand the kinds of questions included on the forms, canvass a larger number of companies to request classification information, and develop a process for recording over five million business establishments to a NAICS basis.

This article is divided into five parts: the organizational structure behind the Economic Census, basic concepts and methodology, centralized collection processing, decentralized post-collection processing, and publication of data/distribution of results.

This article describes the ways that data from the 1997 Economic Census will be reported, both in print and in electronic media. Particular attention is given to the impact of the new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) on the design of census reports, and to its implications for the assembly of time series from Economic Censuses past and future.

This article describes the principal uses of the data collected in the Economic Census. Namely, the data serve as a framework and statistical benckmark for current economic surveys; as a source data for calculating composite measures of the nation's economy; and as the basis for planning and monitoring of national, state, and local economic policies and programs. The data also are used for research, planning, marketing, and management by private sector businesses. In addition, they are important for measuring and tracking changes in economic activity.

The economic censuses reflect growing industrialization and the spread of communications in the United States since the early 19th century. Temporary organizations took these censuses with increasing detail almost every 10 years from 1810 to 1900. Demands for more frequent enumerations and current data were major factors in the establishment of a permanent census office in 1902. The 20th century features censuses of manufacturers every 2 years and later at 5-year intervals, construction industries; minerals industries; minority- and women- owned businesses; retail and wholesale trades; service industries; financial, insurance, and real estate industries; truck inventories and use survey; commodity flow survey; transportation, communications, and utilities.

In the 1950s, the censuses were integrated to ensure a complete, unduplicated, comparablee data for all of their components. Enumeration was increasingly by mail, and for small establishments, by the use of administrative records in lieu of returns. The introduction of mechanical, electronic tabulation, and computers and CD-ROMs increased the variety of data products available and how the information could be accessed.