The documented dataset covers Enterprise Survey (ES) panel data collected in Zambia in 2007 and 2013, as part of Africa Enterprise Surveys roll-out, an initiative of the World Bank.
Zambia ES 2013 was conducted between December 2012 and February 2014, Zambia ES 2007 was carried out in October and November 2007. The objective of the Enterprise Survey is to obtain feedback from enterprises on the state of the private sector as well as to help in building a panel of enterprise data that will make it possible to track changes in the business environment over time, thus allowing, for example, impact assessments of reforms. Through interviews with firms in the manufacturing and services sectors, the survey assesses the constraints to private sector growth and creates statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries.
Stratified random sampling was used to select the surveyed businesses. The data was collected using face-to-face interviews.
Data from 1,204 establishments was analyzed: 568 businesses were from 2013 ES only, 332 - from 2007 ES only, and 304 firms were from both 2007 and 2013 panels.
The standard Enterprise Survey topics include firm characteristics, gender participation, access to finance, annual sales, costs of inputs and labor, workforce composition, bribery, licensing, infrastructure, trade, crime, competition, capacity utilization, land and permits, taxation, informality, business-government relations, innovation and technology, and performance measures. Over 90 percent of the questions objectively measure characteristics of a country’s business environment. The remaining questions assess the survey respondents’ opinions on what are the obstacles to firm growth and performance.