Firm-level Database: Variable Overview

Author

Roberto Jara

Survey of R&D Expenditure and Personnel

This dataset provides detailed information at the firm level regarding research and development (R&D) activities. Firms are further classified according to size and economic activity, allowing for disaggregated analyses across different sectors and firm scales.

Structure and Coverage

A notable feature of this dataset is its panel dimension, which tracks firms from 2009 to 2023. This longitudinal structure facilitates the study of R&D evolution over time, as well as potential links with firm performance and internationalization trends.

The dataset includes a wide range of variables related to R&D, including personnel, expenditures, and other innovation indicators. In particular, the variable B2001 reports firms’ export values in thousands of pesos, providing a measure of international engagement at the firm level.

Limitations

While the dataset offers extensive information on R&D activities, it presents certain limitations:

Lack of product-level export information: There is no breakdown of the specific products that are exported by each firm.
No export destination data: The countries or regions to which the exports are sent are not recorded.

Notes

The combination of firm-level panel data and rich R&D variables makes this dataset a valuable resource for studying innovation dynamics across sectors and over time.
Linking this dataset with trade registries or customs data remains a challenge, as it would allow richer information on exported products and destinations.

National Customs Service: Export Data

The National Customs Service (Servicio Nacional de Aduanas) provides a complementary dataset that records export operations by firms at the product level, classified according to the Harmonized System (HS) of goods. This database contains detailed information on the type of exported products, export destinations, and trade flows aggregated by customs offices and operations.

Structure and Coverage

The Customs dataset is structured at the firm level, where each record corresponds to an exporting firm identified by its export operations over time. However, the available information focuses almost exclusively on transactional data, with limited details about firm characteristics beyond their export activity.

Each observation includes variables such as:

FECHAACEPT: acceptance date of the export declaration.
PAISDESTINO: destination country of the exported product.
CODIGOARANCEL: product classification according to the international Harmonized System (HS).
FOBUS: export item value (in USD).

Although firms can be identified within this dataset, the available indicators are only valid internally, meaning that they cannot be directly merged with external firm-level sources such as the R&D survey. Moreover, firm-specific information is scarce, restricting the analysis mainly to export behavior and patterns rather than broader firm characteristics.

This dataset provides broad coverage across sectors and destinations, offering a comprehensive picture of Chile’s export activity over time.

Potential Integration with R&D Data

Although the customs data do not include explicit firm-level identifiers compatible with the R&D survey, an indirect linkage can be established through industry codes. Specifically, by applying a correspondence between the Harmonized System (HS) —which classifies products— and the ISIC/CIIU Rev.4 —which classifies economic activities—, it is possible to map exported products to their corresponding industries.

It is important to note that this correspondence relies on a strong assumption: that the exported products are representative of the firm’s main economic activity. In practice, a firm may belong to a particular industry (for example, food manufacturing) while also exporting products from different sectors (such as packaging materials or processed inputs).

By applying this mapping, we therefore associate each export with the primary industry of the firm, under the assumption that export activity reflects its main line of production. This methodological choice has relevant implications, as it affects how we interpret sectoral export intensity and innovation linkages — particularly in cases where firms diversify their product portfolio beyond their principal activity.

This mapping enables analyses such as:

Estimating export intensity by industry and comparing it with firms’ R&D investment patterns.
Studying sectoral specialization in innovation and exports, identifying industries with high R&D activity and high export participation.
Exploring heterogeneity across destinations, such as whether more technologically intensive sectors export disproportionately to developed economies.

Complementarity with the R&D Survey

The integration of the Customs dataset and the R&D survey allows for a richer understanding of the relationship between innovation and internationalization. While the R&D survey captures firm-level efforts and resources devoted to innovation, the customs data provide an external validation of market outcomes — namely, export performance and product specialization.

In this sense, the two datasets are complementary:

Aspect	R&D Survey	Customs Data
Unit of observation	Firm	Export transaction
Temporal coverage	2009–2023	Continuous (annual)
Focus	R&D personnel, expenditure, innovation	Products, destinations, trade value
Classification system	ISIC Rev.4 (CIIU4.CL 2012)	Harmonized System (HS)
Linkage potential	Via HS–CIIU4 correspondence	Via HS–CIIU4 correspondence

Aggregation and Sector-Level Indicators

Given that the customs data are disaggregated by product and destination, whereas the R&D survey operates at the firm level, the integration requires shifting the analytical focus toward the sectoral level.
This approach involves constructing aggregated indicators of innovation and productivity by sector and year, derived from the microdata of the R&D survey.

This alignment allows for the creation of a sector–year panel combining:

Export outcomes: total export value, product diversification, destination markets.
Innovation outcomes: average R&D intensity, share of R&D-performing firms, productivity metrics.

Such an integrated database enables the analysis of how sectoral R&D investment relates to export performance, product composition, and destination patterns.