KOF Micro Data Centre

The KOF Microdata Center is only open to researchers and their research projects. For strict research purposes, the use of the Microdata Center is free of charge. Special conditions apply for other purposes.

Microdata refers to data at the smallest aggregation level, such as individuals or businesses. Access to microdata is essential for many economic questions. Currently, business-level microdata from all surveys based on the KOF Enterprise Panel (KEP, https://kof.ethz.ch/en/surveys/structural-surveys/kof-ep.html) is available in the Microdata Center.

The KOF highly values data security and guarantees our survey participants complete confidentiality. For this reason, the following restrictions apply in the KOF Microdata Center:

• The microdata are only available at the specific workstations in the KOF Microdata Center. The Microdata Center is located within the closed wings of the KOF and is not accessible to the public.
• The workstations only contain the data and software for analyzing this data (Stata® and R) and lack Internet access or interfaces for importing or exporting data.
• The data is completely anonymized and does not allow any inference on the underlying businesses. In order to maintain a panel structure, the data points have randomly generated keys.
• Data is only imported and exported on request. Exports are only granted for aggregated and anonymized data. Microdata will not be exported under any circumstances. The publication of results based on data from the Microdata Center requires the consent of KOF.

These measures are only in place for data security reasons and complete freedom of research is guaranteed at all times.

If you would like to work with the microdata, request an appointment including your intention of use.