Finnish mortality in the eighteenth century: A reply

Abstract

In SEHR No.2, 1978, Eino ]utikkala took issue on a number of points with my article published in SEHR No.2, 1977, and I should like to make several comments in reply, Firstly, I have found it misleading to call the results of my data adjustments as ‘correction coefficients’. This term tends to suggest that my corrections produce precise results, an impression which the caveats explicitly stated in my text were designed to prevent. My purpose was to provide a rough suggestion of, and an approximation to the extent of errors, since it would have profited no one had I concluded the study with the simple acknowledgment of gaps in the registers and the admission that there is no way of determining their extent. Because this type of research is still relatively new, and because there seemed to be no other way of assessing the number of infants who died below one year of age, but were omitted from the registers of ‘baptised’ and ‘buried’, the national figures were used for the corrections, and an attempt was made to ensure that this approach did not lead to an overestimation of error.     

Rejoinder to sture martinius on peasant destinies

Abstract

1. I wrote ² Gadd, op. cit. p. 190, (it.ad.) that “many of Martinius' conclusions appear to be based on insufficient evidence”, not “findings”, as in Martinius' rendering. Conclusions are dependant not only on evidence but also on logic.     

Norway and the scandinavian economic history review

Abstract

In the first volume of SEHR, published in 1953, we can find articles from Denmark, Finland and Sweden but not from Norway. The question is whether this was accidental or symptomatic. Professor Johan Schreiner was the Norwegian representative on the editorial board from the beginning, and I assume that he also took part in the founding meeting in 1952, described by Kristof Glamann. He also published an article in the second volume (1954) entitled “Wages and Prices in England in the Later Middle Ages”. Schreiner stayed on as the Norwegian representative throughout the Sdderlund period, that is until 1961. During this period 11 main articles by Norwegians appeared in SEHR, most of which dealth with aspect of pre-industrial agrarian history, a field that had been developed by Professor Andreas Holmsen, who was the author of four of the eleven articles.     

Housekeeping ideology and equilibrium policy in eighteenth-century Sweden

Abstract

In the last issue of SEHR, Jonas Ljungberg carried out an analysis, based on his price history studies, of various methods of measuring economic/industrial transformation.¹ In the main the article opposes two methodological approaches against each other, the one referring to the works of Josefsson/Örtengren and consisting of the measuring of transformation pressure in the diffusion of relative prices over fixed demarcated periods, and the other alluding to the work of Gerschenkron and measuring transformation by means of a running coupling of variously-constructed indices of price movements. The comments on Ljungberg's methods and results which follow are intended as a criticism of his very imprecise use of the concept of the “Gerschenkron effect” and thus of the concept of transformation. They are not to be construed as an opinion on the general question of methodology, where we entirely share Ljungberg's view as to the general fruitfulness of using index calculations in an historical analysis.     

Comment

Abstract

When I started the study which has been discussed in the preceding review, advertisements for an assistant were put into Le Monde and The Economist. There were about one hundred applicants, of which ten were selected for personal interview. One of them was Dr. William N. Parker who was at that time in the Ruhr, working on a study of the German steel industry. I have often said and I repeat it now, after having read his review of my book, that one of the greatest mistakes I have made was not to engage Dr. Parker as a member of my small research team. I am very gratified that he, nevertheless, has taken the trouble to penetrate so deeply into my study.     

Scandinavian economic history review the first ten years — A personal memoir

Abstract

Together with my good friend and LSE colleague, the late Donald Coleman, I was Assistant English Editor of the Scandinavian Economic History Review from 1952, when the work first started, to the tenth number which appeared in 1962 and was a Festschrift to Ernst Söderlund. Our association with the Review sprang above all from Söderlund's insistence, strongly endorsed by all his co-editors, that the Review should appear in well written English, not in Svenklish. Of course, since both Donald and I were economic historians, though specialising in very different fields, we were able to advise on academic questions relating to the subject matter as well as with linguistic niceties.     

The entelechies of mercantilism

Daniel Waldenström's debate article in this issue of the SEHR raises several interesting questions for discussion. I will not comment on his criticisms of Swedish economic historians' publishing practice and their international participation; I will state only that I think economic and business historians in the Nordic countries should increase their international activities and their publications in international journals. In my opinion this concerns particularly scholars in my own country, Norway. Waldenström makes, however, several normative assertions about economic history that concern the discipline as a whole, including the guiding principles of the editorial policy of the SEHR. His normative claims about content and the methodological foundations of economic history deserve an answer.     

Book briefs

G Antonelli and A Quadrio‐Curzio (eds) The agro‐technological system towards 2000 North Holland.

W J Baumol Superfairness: Applications and theory The MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1986

E Boonzaier and J Sharp (eds) South African keywords: The uses and abuses of political concepts David Philip, Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1988

C Bryant (ed) Poverty, policy, and food security in Southern Africa Lynne Rienner Publishers. Boulder, Colorado, 1988

J Butler. R Elphick and D Welsh (eds) Democratic liberalism in South Africa: Its history and prospect David Philip, Cape Town and Johannesburg. 1987

D P Chaudhri and A J Dasgupta Agriculture and the development process: a study of Punjab Croom Helm, London, 1985

R Cohen (ed) Satisfying Africa's food needs: Food production and commercialization in African agriculture Lynne Rienner Publishers. Boulder/London, 1988

J M Conrad and C W Clark Natural resource economics: Notes and problems Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987

D E Janvry and K Subbarao Agricultural price policy and income distribution in India Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1986     

Book briefs

B Eichengreen (ed) The gold standard in theory and history Methuen, New York and London, 1985

F Ellis Peasant economics: Farm households and agrarian development Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988

G Feder, T Onchan, T Chalamwong & C Hongladarom Land policies and farm productivity in Thailand (Published for the World Bank). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1988.

C Ford Runge (ed) The future of the North American granary: Politics, economics, and resource constraints in North American agriculture Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, 1986     

Book briefs

Eastern Cape publication

Institute of Social and Economic Research

Development issues in the Eastern Cape: A review and assessment Working Paper 25, University of Rhodes, 1986, 96 pp. R5.

Richard N Langlois (ed)

Economics as a process ‘Essays in the New Institutional Economics’, Cambridge University Press, London, 1986, xi + 262 pp, R87,70

Paul Collier, Samir Radwan and Samuel Wangwe with Albert Wagner

Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania ‘Ujamaa and Rural Development in the United Republic of Tanzania’, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, vii + 143 pp, £17,50

Allen Buchanan

Ethics, efficiency, and the market Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985, xi + 135 pp, £15,00     

Sweden's iron ore exports to Germany, 1933–1944

Abstract

Rolf Karlbom's article about Swedish iron ore exports to Germany during the Nazi era¹ is an attempt to examine a very important problem as yet unsolved—the significance of the Swedish ore deliveries to Germany. His study begins with the following two questions:² 1. ‘How much of the total consumption of this raw material by German industry did Swedish ore cover during these years?’

2. ‘How far was access to Swedish iron ore a sine qua non for the continuance of the armaments programme?’

3. These basic questions indicate the main problems. Karlbom's answers to them are not wholly convincing because of some weaknesses in his approach.

     

Determinants of Malaysian Trade Balance: An ARDL Bound Testing Approach – A Commentary

Abstract

This commentary is served as an additional light both from theoretical and empirical perspectives, on the study by Duasa (Global Economic Review, 2007, 36, pp. 89–102) who examined the short- and long-run relationships between trade balance, real exchange rates, income, and money supply for Malaysia. The final words I would like to make are that the results documented by Duasa require further investigation before it can be generalized.     

Internal migration and industrialization in Finland, 1878–1939

Abstract

For the economic historian the statistics of population are quite as important as those of trade. To understand the economic development of a country it is necessary to have some knowledge I: 0 of the distribution of population at different periods, 2:0 of what changes have been effected by migration, and also 3 : 0 of the forces influencing migration. The analysis of these forces helps, moreover, to illuminate the nature of man's economic behaviour.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Mark Bailey, The English manor, c. 1200‐c. 1500 Ian Anders Gadd and Patrick Wallis, eds., Guilds, society and economy in London, 1450–1800 Perry Gauci, The politics of trade: the overseas merchant in state and society, 1660–1720 Bridget Hill, Women alone: spinsters in England, 1660–1850 Margaret Ackrill and Leslie Hannah, Barclays, the business of banking, 1690–1996 Susanna Wade Martins, The English model farm: building the agricultural ideal, 1700–1914 Peter King, Crime, justice and discretion in England, 1740–1820 John Belchem, Merseypride: essays in Liverpool exceptionalism Trevor Griffiths, The Lancashire working classes, c. 1880–1930 Peter Clarke, The Cripps version: the life of Sir Stafford Cripps, 1889–1952 Terry Gourvish British Rail, 1974–97: from integration to privatisation Noel Thompson, Left in the wilderness: the political economy of British democratic socialism since 1979 Linda L. Clark, The rise of professional women in France: gender and public administration since 1830 Robert J. Smith, The Bouchayers of Grenoble and French industrial enterprise, 1850–1970 Jacob Meunier, On the fast track: French railway modernization and the origins of the TGV, 1944–1983 Paul Hendrix, Sir Henri Deterding and Royal Dutch‐Shell: changing control of world oil, 1900–1940 J. Adam Tooze, Statistics and the German state, 1900–1945: the making of modern economic knowledge Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary law in Italy, 1200–1500 Donald Filtzer, Soviet workers and late Stalinism: labour and the restoration of the Stalinist system after World War II Malcolm Gee and Tim Kirk, eds., Printed matters: printing, publishing and urban culture in Europe in the modern period Rudy Koshar, ed.,Histories of leisure Charles Perrow, Organising America: wealth, power, and the origins of corporate capitalism Ian Jackson, The economic Cold War: America, Britain and East‐West trade, 1948–63 John Mason Hart, Empire and revolution: the Americans in Mexico since the Civil War Jan Rath, ed., Unravelling the rag trade: immigrant entrepreneurship in seven world cities Wolfgang Streeck and Kozo Yamamura, eds., The origins of nonliberal capitalism: Germany and Japan in comparison Lance E. Davis and Robert E. Gallman, Evolving financial markets and international capital flows: Britain, the Americas, and Australia, 1865–1914 Francine McKenzie, Redefining the bonds of Commonwealth, 1939–1948: the politics of preference Catherine R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an international financial centre: emergence and development, 1945–1965 Marco H.D. van Leeuwen, Ineke Maas, and Andrew Miles, HISCO: historical international standard classification of occupations Witold Kula, trans. Richard Szreter, The problems and methods of economic history Jack Birner, Pierre Garrouste, and Thierry Aimar, eds., F. A. Hayek as a political economist: economic analysis and values     

Landowners and tenants in Norway

Abstract

During the past two decades Norwegian historical research has to a considerable extent been concentrated on problems connected with the peculiar nature of the distribution of landownership in Norway before 1661, in which year the king of Denmark and Norway embarked upon a large-scale selling of Crown lands and secularised ecclesiastical estates. The results of the investigations so far carried out have for the most part been published only in parish or other local histories or in short articles in Norwegian periodicals, especially in Heimen, the organ of Norwegian local historians. It is only quite recently that a more comprehensive work has been published in this field, Halvard Bjørkvik's Jordeige og jordleige i Ryfylke i eldre tid.¹ In the present article I propose first to review this book and then to supplement it with a survey of the results of earlier research.     

Finnish mortality in the eighteenth century: The sources and the reality

Abstract

Mr. Niels Steensgaard, in his ‘Consuls and Nations in the Levant from 1570 to 1650’¹ referred in note 4, p. 14, to my article on the beginning of Anglo-Turkish relations, and stated: ‘Apparently Horniker is not aware of the existence of the French capitulations of 1569’. There is no point in arguing whether or not I am aware of them, but later on I will give my reasons for omitting reference to them in my article. The implication of Steensgaard's statement, however, is that they were new capitulations, which, of course, they were not. They were a renewal, in the form of a grant,² by Sultan Selim II of the treaty concluded between his predecessor Suleiman I Kanuni and Francis I in 1536.³ Revised capitulations were granted to France in 158l.4 These, and the treaty of 1536, gave the French certain exclusive privileges in the Ottoman Empire. And until 1593, when Elizabeth I of England obtained capitulations which gave her subjects the same privileges as those enjoyed by the French, France was the paramount capitulatory nation in the Levant.     

Book Reviews/Compte rendu de livres

Book reviewed in this article: R.C. Burke, Decision Making in Complex Times: The Contribution of a Social Accounting Information System L.D. Etherington and I.M. Gordon. Internal Control in Canadian Corporations: A Management Perspective Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Local Government Financial Reporting: A Research Study. CICA L'Institut Canadien des Comptables Agréés, Le contrôle interne dans la stratégie du vérificateur: Procédés de vérification. Louise Martel et Jean-Guy Rousseau, Simulation en vérification D.H. Drury and V.R. Errunza, Managing Foreign Exchange Exposure T. J. Mock and I. Vertinsky, Risk Assessment in Accounting and Auditing W.D. Darlington, K.R. Lavery, and F.L. Meslin, Effective Inventory Management     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: AYMARD, M. (ed.) Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism. COBBE, J. H. Governments and Mining Companies in Developing Countries. FRANK, A. G. Reflections on the World Economic Crisis. HAHN, F. Money and Inflation (Mitsui Lectures in Economics). HIBBS, J.Transport without Politics…? A study of the scope for the competitive markets in road, rail and air. HICKS, Sir John. Collected Essays on Economic Theory. Volume I: Wealth and Welfare; and Volume II: Money, Interest and Wager. I.L.O. Multinationals Training Practices and Development. I.L.O. Employment Effects of Multinational Enterprises in Developing Countries. NATTRASS, Jill.The South African Economy. Its growth and change. NSEKELA, A. J. Southern Africa – Toward Economic Liberation. SAUNDERS, C. T. East-West-South. Economic Interactions between Three Worlds.     

The theories of ‘stages of growth’

Abstract

The idea of a ‘virtuous circle’ has always been implied in the theories of ‘stages of growth’, though never systematically demonstrated, We are here concerned with two aspects of these theories: (1) the implied theory of circular causation with cumulative effects; (2) the implicit systematic biases. The biases operate through the selection of strategic factors on which interest is focussed and of assumptions concerning their role in historical processes. This selection of strategic factors and of assumptions about their role remains essentially a priori, however much illustrative material is amassed. It never is—and, in this teleological approach, it never can be—empirically verified or refuted. A fundamental preconception is, moreover, the similarity of evolution in different countries at different historical periods; this is why these theories can be used, and are used, for prediction. But similarity depends on the level of abstraction and the choice of features compared. Such comparisons can be refuted only by demonstrating that other principles of selection and comparison are equally possible—and, of course, ex post, that the predictions do not come true.     

The city of Trondheim, 1880–1914

Abstract

The four volume history of Trondheim is one of the most ambitious works ever written on Norwegian local history. The first volume, St. Olavs by 1000–1537, by Grethe Authén Blom, was reviewed in the Scand. Econ. Hist. Rev. in 1957 (Vol. V: 1, 4–7). The volume covering the period 1537 to 1807 has not yet been written. The third and fourth volumes deal with the 19th century and constitute a very important contribution to the social and economic history of that period. Volume III, Fra Sögaden t?l Strandgaten, 1807–1880 by Knut Mykland (Trondheim, 1955, reviewed in Scand. Econ. Hist, Rev., IV: 2 (1956), 189–91), is not merely an excellent piece of research, but it also indicates that a serious historical study can still be a work of art.