Unlocking Financial Insights Through Data

Explore our curated finance research datasets.

About the Data

Our website provides a user-friendly interface where researchers, data scientists, and business analysts can access and download a global business network.

You will find the corresponding working paper “Global Business Networks” here: Download Paper

By downloading the dataset, you gain access to a global time-varying business network for more than 63,000 global firms. There are currently three variants available for download: a network based on the open-source T5-XXL sentence transformer model, and two embedding models from OpenAI (text-embedding-3-small and text-embedding-3-large). We also provide networks based on business descriptions where company identifying information was masked, as well as AI-generated historical business descriptions from annual reports.

Original networks

Sentence-T5-XXL based global business network.

Global Business Network (T5-XXL)

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small based global business network.

Global Business Network (OpenAI-Small)

OpenAI text-embedding-3-large based global business network.

Global Business Network (OpenAI-Large)
Masked networks

We also provide networks based on business descriptions where company identifying information was masked:

Masked Sentence-T5-XXL based global business network.

Masked Global Business Network (T5-XXL)

Masked OpenAI text-embedding-3-small based global business network.

Masked Global Business Network (OpenAI-Small)

Masked OpenAI text-embedding-3-large based global business network.

Masked Global Business Network (OpenAI-Large)
Additional files

AI-generated business descriptions used in the project.

AI business descriptions

Mapping file for linking the custom identifier to CRSP and Refinitiv/LSEG.

Mapping File

Citation Requirement

Users of the data provided on this website are required to cite the following study in any work that uses the dataset, including academic research, replication, or derivative analyses.

Reference:
Breitung, Christian and Müller, Sebastian (2025). Global Business Networks. Journal of Financial Economics, 166, 104007.

BibTeX:

@article{breitung2025global,
  title     = {Global Business Networks},
  author    = {Breitung, Christian and Müller, Sebastian},
  journal   = {Journal of Financial Economics},
  volume    = {166},
  pages     = {104007},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {Elsevier}
}