Historical manufacturing census of Sweden: Data description and quality assessment

This article presents a comprehensive database featuring the digitized, cleaned, geocoded, and linked data of the Swedish manufacturing censuses between 1863 and 1900. The data covers close to the universe of Swedish manufacturing activity and includes establishment-level information on workers, the sum of production value, and toll as output value. The article describes how the data was originally collected and the steps taken to go from raw data to the digital database. We discuss each variable’s definition, how it changed over time, and provide an assessment of the reliability of the data pertaining to each variable. We also assess the quality of the data by comparing it to various other data sources from the same time period. The level of detail in the data makes the users able to both detect and address potential weaknesses of the data. The database offers a unique resource for scholars to study the manufacturing sector during a time of significant transformation in the Swedish industry. To the best of our knowledge, this is among the earliest sources of annual, establishment-level data worldwide. We discuss potential applications for researchers and potential extensions of the database.

Almås, I., Berger, T., Boppart, T., Burchardi, K., Ejermo, O., Eriksson, B., Larsson, A., Malmberg, H., Maukner, S., Olsson, M., & Ostermeyer, V. L. (2025). Historical manufacturing census of Sweden: Data description and quality assessment. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History. Advance online publication.