Firm and Establishment Data from the Great Depression Manufacturing Census

A collection of establishment-level data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures, used to study how multi-plant firms allocated resources during the Great Depression. It was created by Nicolas Ziebarth to analyze the geographic propagation of local economic shocks through firm networks. The specific row count, column count, and file size are not provided in the input.

Use Cases

• Analyze establishment employment changes in response to local credit supply shocks affecting other establishments within the same multi-plant firm.
• Study the geographic propagation of local economic shocks through firm networks using establishment-level location data.
• Model resource allocation decisions of multi-plant firms across their constituent establishments during the Great Depression period.

Strengths

• Data is derived from the authoritative U.S. Census of Manufactures.
• Focuses on a historically significant period, the Great Depression.
• Enables analysis of firm networks and multi-establishment operations.

Limitations

• The dataset's size, specific variables, and sample representativeness are unknown.
• Data is archival and historical, limiting direct applicability to modern contexts.
• Potential limitations in geographic or industry coverage within the manufacturing sector are not specified.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Census of Manufactures.

Collection Method

Archival data compilation and harvesting by ICPSR from Dataverse.

Time Range

Great Depression era (circa 1929 onward).

Freshness

Metadata was last updated on 2026-02-23, though the underlying data is historical.

Geography

United States (implied by use of U.S. Census data).