Dataset on Firm Innovation: Merging Enterprise Surveys, Cultural Dimensions, and Economic Freedom Data

Abstract

This dataset is used in an academic paper investigating the influence of culture on firm innovation. The primary dataset is derived from the Enterprise Surveys (ES), a collaborative effort by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, and the World Bank Group, collected between 2018 and 2020. For the purpose of this study, the ES data has been merged with the cultural dimensions dataset proposed by Kaasa and Minkov (2022), which includes the dimensions of freedom-concern and responsibility-faith. The cultural dimension values have been rescaled to range from 1 to 10, facilitating a smoother interpretation of their quantitative effects on firm-level innovation. After excluding responses such as “Don’t know” and “Does not apply,” the final dataset contains 4,894 observations from 37 countries. To ensure robustness, the Economic Freedom Index from the Fraser Institute has been incorporated. By averaging the Economic Freedom Index scores for each country from 2018 to 2020 and rescaling these values to range between 1 and 10 (where higher values indicate greater economic freedom), we refined our dataset further. This additional step produced a comprehensive dataset of 4,193 observations across 33 countries. The two datasets—one without the economic freedom variable and one with it included—offer valuable insights for analyzing the interplay between cultural dimensions, economic freedom, and firm innovation. Modifications to both the cultural and economic freedom variables have been applied to maintain data consistency and integrity.