Additional Common Topics (Listed Alphabetically)

ERI utilizes an enhanced Standard Industrial Classification (eSIC) code modeled after the replaced 1987 US SIC. Several reasons for ERI’s use of its own industry eSIC code exist:

The SIC replacement, the North American Classification System (NAICS), was under dispute between Canada and the United States until agreements were settled in 2007. Statistics Canada, the Economic Classification Policy Committee (ECPC) of the United States, and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI) agreed upon the limited industry revisions for NAICS 2007. The revision went into effect for the reference year 2007 in Canada and the United States and for 2009 in Mexico.

2. Agreements took place in 2007 for the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC) of the United Nations and the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE, Nomenclature statistique des activités économiques dans la communauté européenne). The revised ISIC (Rev. 4) was adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2006 for world-wide statistical classification of activities and products. NACE is the European-level statistical classification of economic activities, with the first reference year for NACE Rev. 2 being 2008. ERI maintains a crosswalk for these files.

3. Many countries copyright their postal codes and unique industrial code variations; and whereas ERI leases these rights from Geocoder.ca and the UK National Statistics Office.

4. Differences exist within Europe, as the UK SIC is now an extended/evolved version of NACE.

5. "On April 9, 1997, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced its decision to adopt the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS pronounced Nakes) as the industry classification system used by the statistical agencies of the United States and in doing so NAICS replaced the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification." (See www.bls.gov).

6. "Statistical agency" does not include the US Securities and Exchange Commission that utilizes its own unique 445 industry set of SIC-like codes. ERI utilizes the SEC 10-Ks, 8-Ks, and proxies as a key data source in the creation of the Executive Compensation Assessor.

7. The US IRS, although asking for an NAICS code on personal and corporate tax returns, uses an "Activity Code" for nonprofit organizations formed before 1998 or the National Tax Exempt Entities code (NTEE) code for those formed thereafter. (Form 990s report neither; this code is taken from the IRS Masterfile of nonprofits.)

8. ERI leases certain financial data from private providers under Distributor [License] Agreements. Other financial information within the Licensed Products, used with permission, may be proprietary to other entities. These sources have their own unique SIC-like codes that require concordance.

9. For historical purposes and cross-industry and country comparisons, ERI's research requires a common industrial classification code -- including use with ERI archive data where Principal Business Activity codes (PBAs), now discontinued, are the norm. Over 30 major and minor industry codes series exist in ERI's datasets.