This paper describes the coverage and representativeness of Orbis, a commercial database of firm-level records across many countries. Such databases can provide key insights into global economic trends and shed light on how policies affect firms within and across countries. As a benchmark, the paper uses industry-level data from the OECD STAN dataset as well as micro-aggregated data from the OECD MultiProd and DynEmp projects, which draw on official microdata representative of the entire firm population. Results indicate that Orbis is more suitable for studies that: i) take a global perspective rather than make comparisons across countries; ii) analyse top performers and multinationals rather than underperforming firms; and iii) focus on mean performance or changes within firms rather than the entire firm distribution or entry and exit.
