【正文】
of the corporation (administrative ID number, corporation name, address, activity, legal form, number of employees, total value of majority and minority interests). shareholders of the canvassed corporation: corporate name, address (at least nationality), and percentage of voting rights held by each shareholder (only for legal persons). position of the shares’ portfolio: for each subsidiary or affiliate, the corporation name, address, administrative ID number, activity, percentage of capital and voting rights held, and value of the interests reported in the accounts of the canvassed corporation. The sampling list is derived from a statistical database of the accounts of all corporations registered in France, that integrates copies of the corporate tax reports. An algorithm delineates from the financial links the position of each EG, its group head, and for each subsidiary its rank (. one for direct subsidiaries of the group head, n+1 for subsidiaries of a corporation that is itself of rank n). One of the most delicate points concerning statistics on EGs has to do with the territory in which their subsidiaries are located, because it goes beyond the national borders. This is the case when the ownership chain has several links beyond the borders: the first link is collected via LIFI, but is more difficult with lower ranked corporations for foreign EGs. In order to make up for this weakness of information, since 1994 INSEE has been making use of data on foreign investments in France from the administrative files of the Treasury Office. This gives information not only on the direct investor, but also on the country of origin of the equity capital, that is, the country of the parent corporation of the investor group. Other available information is used as well (information published by panies). For more on the production of EG statistics. 2 Economic statistics on Enterprise Groups INSEE has developed an integration system for business statistics that provides a census, based on administrative data, of financial reports for all corporations. In particular, for each corporation an ine statement, a balance sheet and other sets of information are available. These accounts are nonconsolidated ones. Information drawn from the annual structural business surveys adds in particular the main activity code, a breakdown of turnover by elementary activity, information on mergers and splitters of corporations, information on the workforce. By merging the file of EGs ponents and the file of corporation accounts, we get for each EG economic information on all subsidiaries under its control (including the group head as well). A simple way to get estimates of the economic importance of an EG is to add up all quantitative characteristics, in order to approximate roughly the full consolidation method of the consolidated accounts. Doing that, we do not cancel out intra flows neither intra claims neither intra liabilities. Concepts that are “ted” by definition are however not impacted by this limitation. This is the case for value added, operating profit, exports and imports, employment, salaries paid, investment, tangible assets… On the contrary, some concepts are very sensitive to this kind of measurement: turnover, production, purchases of goods and services for instance. In many EGs, the internal flows of goods or services amount to an important share of the consolidated sales or purchases. This is the case as well for financial debts, since the group head or a few corporations in each EG often manage the financial resources of the whole group. For the financial surplus of the group, things bee very plicated, due to the payment of dividends. The evaluation of intangible assets raises the very plex issue of the assessment of goodwill, wh