January 2001 This rich new database on 4,000 Asian firms--operating in Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand--focuses on the impact of Asia's economic crisis and on the longer-run determinants of productivity, employment practices, and financial structure. Researchers have decried the limited supply of objective, comparable firm-level data from developing countries. Hallward-Driemeier describes a new database that helps fill this information gap. The database has detailed records on 4,000 firms operating in Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. A comparable survey instrument and sampling methodology was used in each country, and all five studies were carried out simultaneously. The data cover three years (1996-98), allowing for measurements of firm performance before and immediately after the East Asian financial crisis. The questionnaire focused on measuring the impact of the regional financial crisis at the microeconomic level and understanding the longer-run determinants of productivity, employment practices, and financial structure. This database--the first step in the important Firm Analysis and Competitiveness Surveys initiative that the World Bank is spearheading--will be joined by additional country databases. The aim is to fill the gap in much-needed microeconomic evidence using comparable instruments. This paper--a product of Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to collect comparable firm-level information from developing countries. The research was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project "Impact of the East Asian Crisis" (RPO 632-28). The author may be contacted at [email protected].