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The Census of Manufactures: An Overview

Handbook of Cliometrics

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the Census of Manufactures (COM) from the early nineteenth century through the late twentieth century. The focus is on research that uses the original establishment-level schedules. After summarizing how the COM has changed over time in terms of content and quality, the chapter demonstrates the usefulness of the COM in studying a variety of economic questions. These questions include the sources of long-run productivity growth, the causes and consequences of business cycles, and changes in the income distribution. It then highlights the value of collecting additional establishment-level data from other sources.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    One theory is that the original spreadsheets were transferred to Excel format, but earlier versions of Excel limited the number of columns a spreadsheet could have, thus cutting off a number of variables in industries with many products listed on the schedules.

  2. 2.

    The website https://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html provides additional details on what is available.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Chris Vickers

  2. Department of Economics, Auburn University and NBER, Auburn, AL, USA

    Nicolas L. Ziebarth

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  1. Chris Vickers
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  2. Nicolas L. Ziebarth
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Correspondence to Nicolas L. Ziebarth .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. BETA/CNRS (UMR 7522), University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, Strasbourg Cedex, France

    Claude Diebolt

  2. University of Wisconsin Department of Economics, La Crosse, WI, USA

    Michael Haupert

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Vickers, C., Ziebarth, N.L. (2019). The Census of Manufactures: An Overview. In: Diebolt, C., Haupert, M. (eds) Handbook of Cliometrics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_66-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_66-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-40458-0

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    The Census of Manufactures: An Overview
    Published:
    21 July 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_66-2

  2. Original

    The Census of Manufactures: An Overview
    Published:
    21 November 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_66-1

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