Access Concept

Due to data security reasons and due to the protection of the polled firms’ and the data providers’ confidence in us, the admission to the EBDC company panels has to comply with high security standards. The guest researchers and the EBDC enter into a contractual agreement that serves the interests of all parties.

Projects

The research projects must be strictly for scientific and not for commercial purposes.
Passing on data to third persons and export of data is not allowed; processing the data takes place in a secure environment.
Researchers are allowed to export results and analyses on an aggregated level.
The firm-level data is provided in anonymized form.
The data of particular branches, sectors and single firms can be excluded from access to prevent single-firm identification.

Location

The EBDC is located in a separate, closed-off area at the Ifo Institute and is subject to strict physical access controls; access for unauthorized parties is prohibited.

Infrastructure:

The firm-level dataset of the EBDC is situated on a protected server.
The working places of our guest researchers are not connected to the Internet and do not permit the export or storage of data on external media.

Results

The results of research projects may not convey information that allows the identification of single firms. This is checked by the staff of the center before clearance for a publication is given.
A publication shall be marked with a reference to LMU-Ifo EBDC.
A copy of the research study shall be given to EBDC.