Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The databank contains financial accounts for individual British companies operating principally in the UK. These have been standardised into a format which is uniform across companies and across years. The data for the early years originate with the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR): subsequent years come from the Board of Trade/Department of Trade and Industry. DTI's main objective in assembling these accounts has been to provide figures for short-run analyses of particular industries or of the company sector as a whole. The Cambridge version makes these data more suitable for longer-term analysis. This has involved, for example, transferring data for early years in the series from punched cards to magnetic tape, converting the accounting schemes of different periods into a single format and adding information to the computerised records.
The series begins in 1948 with the new disclosure requirements of the 1948 Companies Act, and ends in 1990 when the Government discontinued their analysis of company accounts.