ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a description of several databases that were used to undertake the empirical studies. The data represented in the databases comprise accounting, qualitative and share return indicators for periods of five or ten years. The primary criterion was that a failed company should appear on the London Business School share price data tapes and be classified there as failing during the 29 years 1956-1984. For this purpose, failure was defined as the company being put into the hands of a receiver or being wound up. The plan was that qualitative indicators should be collected as well as accounting data, the primary source being the companies' annual reports. Initially it was intended that these should be obtained from the Companies House fiche and hard copy records. The indicators derived from the qualitative data were generally dichotomous. Finally, share price returns of the failed and control companies in the two databases had to be collected.
