Elites and Public Goods in Early 20th Century Ecuador, Parish-Level Data

Early 20th century data from Ecuador, aggregated at the parish level. The dataset combines digitized records from the 1909 Guía Comercial, Agrícola e Industrial del Ecuador and a 1914 Ministry of Treasury inventory of state-owned assets. It was created by Daniel Baquero-Mendez for replication of the article 'Diverse But United' in the Journal of Historical Political Economy.

Use Cases

• Replicate statistical analyses and figures from the associated journal article based on the provided R script.
• Study the relationship between local elites and public goods provision in early 20th century Ecuador based on the described data sources.
• Analyze the distribution of commercial, agricultural, and industrial assets at the parish level in 1909 Ecuador.
• Examine the inventory of state-owned assets across Ecuadorian parishes in 1914.

Strengths

• Data is aggregated at the parish level, providing a specific geographic unit of analysis.
• Combines two distinct historical sources from 1909 and 1914, allowing for temporal comparison.
• Includes an R script to reproduce all tables and figures from the published article, ensuring methodological transparency.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analyses.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the specific historical sources and period.

Provenance

Source

Digitized from the Guía Comercial, Agrícola e Industrial del Ecuador (1909) and the Ministry of Treasury inventory (1914).

Collection Method

Original data digitization and aggregation at the parish level.

Time Range

1909 and 1914

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-30 16:44:17; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Ecuador, parish-level