Agricultural & Applied Economics 7971: Agribusiness Management Strategy

The U.S. government created the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system in 1937 to classify business establishments by type of economic activity.  Beginning in 1997, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico switched to a new system called the North American Industrial Classification System or NAICS.  Besides federal, state, and local governments, commercial publishers make industry data available organized by NAICS.  You'll often need to know the code for your industry when doing research in order to find relevant information. You can use the links below to find the number you need.  Search for a:

Correspondence tables show the correlation between NAICS and SIC numbers.

You can also use a database to find the correct NAICS/SIC code for an industry if you know the name of a company within that industry.

1. Go to Mergent and do a search by company name.
2. Select your company from the list of results.
3. In the blue bar toward the top, you'll see the heading "Industry" and the SIC codes and NAICS codes.  The first number listed for each will be the code for the primary line of business.  You can use that number to find data by industry.