Construction of a Census of Companies for the Netherlands in 1896

To overcome the lack of a representative dataset on the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands before the first census of companies in 1930, we construct an alternative census of companies for 1896. Based on a large collection of local-preserved municipal reports, we estimate the number of establishments, employees, and steam engines, standardised for all Dutch municipalities and all manufacturing sectors. In contrast to other source material around this time period, this newly created dataset gives researchers for the first time a view on the structure and competitiveness of the Dutch manufa... Mehr ...