Internationalisation monitor 2012 - CBS

12 Statistics Netherlands
• secondly, they illustrate the consequences of these trends and developments for
employment, economic growth and enterprise performance based on combining
micro-data on enterprises;
• and finally they facilitate a well-balanced and factual debate on globalisation and its
socio-economic consequences for the Netherlands.
Section 1.2 illustrates the statistical challenges and innovations that were necessary
to describe a complex and vast phenomenon as globalisation. The main findings and
conclusions of this publication are illustrated in section 1.3. Section 1.4 describes the
structure of this Internationalisation Monitor. This introduction is concluded with a
paragraph on further developments and plans with respect to studies on internationalisation
at CBS.
Measuring internationalisation: statistical innovation
To be able to say something about globalisation and its consequences for the Dutch
economy, enterprises and employees is a relatively new and great challenge for statistical
authorities. Due to the interdependency of many economic dimensions, traditional
statistical concepts and frameworks – for instance systems of national accounts or balance
of payments principles – are increasingly difficult to construct. In addition, the complexity
of the activities of (multi)national enterprises in and outside the Netherlands makes
integrating statistics of such developments a vital function of statistical agencies. While
restricted to a national mandate, it also is a great challenge to confront and integrate the
many dimensions and effects of globalisation in such a way that justifies the intrinsic and
methodological nuances of the individual indicators as well as the interconnectedness of
the dimensions.
Statistical agencies have an obligation and a responsibility to prevent that, based on their
data and analyses, partial or incorrect conclusions are drawn. In order to ensure a correct
interpretation of the trends and analyses, each chapter provides a clear overview of which
data is used, which limitations we encountered and which methods and empirical tools
were implemented. As such, each table, statistic and analysis is presented within a context,
in order to provide our findings in a well-balanced and exhaustive manner.
A key way to develop new indicators and analyses on globalisation is by integrating
micro-data from various sources (surveys and registers) available at CBS. Data on international
trade in goods, combined with information from the general business register
(enterprise population) and supplemented with data on employment allowed us to
explore some of the social consequences of globalisation in the monitor of last year. This
year, we integrated information from the General Business Register with International
Trade in goods, Foreign Affiliate statistics (FATS) in order to investigate the demography
of the Dutch enterprise population, the dynamics in this population and the determinants
and consequences of such dynamics for the economy.