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Tracking Detroit business activity with the Yellow Pages 1920–1957

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  • Anderson, Robert Warren

Abstract

This paper approaches the Great Depression, World War II and the post war boom with a novel dataset: business addresses from the phone book. Using more than 265,000 business year observations from Detroit I create a business count measure to proxy economic activity from 1920 to 1957. While this count is a small subset of all businesses, the over trend is consistent with broader economic movements. Individual industries of taverns, appliances, auto related industries, banks and housing have idiosyncratic fluctuations that reflect prior research. The overall correlation of the total business count with GDP along with distinctive individual industry movements suggests that counting entries from phone books can proxy for economic activity at a city and even industry level. Applying Artificial Intelligence to large scale digitization of phone books in potential future research will yield an annual look at city demographics and economic activity at the address level.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Robert Warren, 2026. "Tracking Detroit business activity with the Yellow Pages 1920–1957," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 171-182.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:76:y:2026:i:c:p:171-182
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2025.12.001
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    JEL classification:

    • N82 - Economic History - - Micro-Business History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N92 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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