Stockholms Enskilda Bank,German Bosch and IG Farben. A short history of cloaking

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse the possibilities of Finnish households saving and their consumption patterns in the beginning of the 1950s. As a tool for this analysis, the article estimates unbalanced sector accounts and private consumption for 1950s Finnish households. These accounts allow analysing the structure of the Finnish households' income and the structure of household consumption. As these accounts are estimated for the whole country and in addition for three different categories of municipalities, they allow an analysis of welfare differences between different regions. This article is not limited to the macro analysis. Based on the individual replies of the cost living studies, some households are analysed in more depth to get a broader view on their way of living. The analysis of individual household replies is also based on the sector accounts, i.e. accounts similar to those on the aggregated level are estimated for individual households.     

Consumption,Credit, and Macroeconomic Policies: Theory and Evidence from the United States

Abstract

The paper examines determinants of private consumption in the USA. The empirical model includes disposable income, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, the interest rate, and the real effective exchange rate. Anticipated movements in these determinants are likely to affect planned consumption, while unanticipated changes determine cyclical consumption. Fluctuations in private consumption are mostly cyclical with respect to changes in disposable income and the consumers’ sentiment index. In contrast, an increase in the interest rate decreases both planned and cyclical consumption. Fiscal policy has a direct negative effect on cyclical consumption, which is not dependent on the interest rate. Monetary growth, in contrast, increases liquidity to finance both planned and cyclical private consumption.     

Food consumption in the pre-industrial Nordic societies

Abstract

The article reviews different measures as to when the change from a survival society to a consumer society took place in the Nordic countries, and summarizes the results of earlier research. Among the measures used are foodstuff consumption, real wage levels, demographic development, and changes in human stature. The consumer revolution most likely started in Denmark before 1800 and in Norway and Sweden at the beginning of the nineteenth century, whereas in Finland and Iceland such change did not take place until after 1850.     

The ‘Special’ World: Stalin's Power Apparatus and the Soviet System's Secret Structures Of Communication

ABSTRACT

Two of the most defining trends of the nineteenth century were the growth of international trade and the increased role of government activities in the economy. In the conjuncture between these developments lie taxes on foreign trade. Sweden was one of the examples where customs revenue became the single most important source of revenue before WWI. This article sets out to test how this source of revenue could increase as much as it did. The analysis focuses mainly on trade policy and how tariffs were set and how that affected revenue. The results show that Swedish liberalisation of trade forced a switch in the fiscal structure of tariffs, moving revenue to fewer commodities. Increased importance was given to consumption goods with lower elasticity of demand. Trade continued to increase under fiscal taxation, which led to increases in revenue. During the early period increased revenue was achieved with higher tariffs on a few key commodities. Towards the end of the century tariffs on agricultural and capital goods became more fiscally relevant, which could have clashed with protectionist intentions. The article highlights that more work is needed on this fiscal component of trade policy.     

The gold standard,trade and recovery in the 1930s:

Abstract

For some twenty years, Norway's recovery from the depression of the 1930s has been explained by the supply-side transformation of domestic industry. This article presents an alternative view. By analysing Norwegian developments in an international context, the mechanism of recovery is related to the increased foreign demand for Norwegian export products following the ending of Gold Standard constraints in 1931. Generally, we argue that just as it was external forces that led Norway into the Great Depression, such forces also paved the way for the subsequent recovery. Increased exports renewed optimism in domestic markets, bringing about a growth in investment activities and eventually a recovery in private consumption.     

The Retirement Consumption in Korea: Evidence from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study

Abstract

This paper examines the retirement consumption in Korea using the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study. This paper reports a significant post-retirement consumption fall among elderly households. The empirical results of this paper suggest that a reduction in work-related expenses is an important factor to explain the observed post-retirement consumption fall. In addition, this paper finds that the post-retirement consumption growth rate varies depending on each household's pre-retirement wealth level. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence on retirement consumption in an emerging market with no matured public pension programmes.     

Men at work. Wages and industriousness in southern Sweden 1500–1850

ABSTRACT

In his classic works on the industrious revolution, Jan de Vries argues that demand for new consumer goods trigged eighteenth century Europeans to work more. This implies that industrious behaviour and new consumption patterns were two parallel and interdependent processes that preceded the industrial revolution. However, there is an alternative explanation for any increase in labour output on household level, namely that the labourers were forced to work more to meet ends. An indication of this could be that day labourers’ relative wages decreased over time. In this article, we investigate this by studying wages from annual and casual labour in southern Sweden and compare their levels with consumption baskets.     

Norway's recovery from the Great Depression – an act of balancing?

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how Norway recovered from the Great Depression and tries to show that a monocausal Schumpeterian explanation is flawed. Three elements of such an explanation are being discussed and dismissed: the shift in employment structure; the spread of electric power; and the changes in household consumption. The paper comes to a more balanced conclusion. Mainly for chronological reasons, supply-side factors can't independently explain the recovery. Not before 1934–35, when recovery had been underway for roughly two years, did supply-side factors start to have a real impact. Only by viewing these forces in interaction with the demand side, in particular export demand generating an investment boom, can a more plausible explanation of Norway's recovery from the Great Depression be presented.     

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.

     

Nordic networks: patent agents and the business of technology intermediation in Sweden and Finland, 1860–1910

ABSTRACT

The article analyses Swedish and Finnish patent agents and their businesses at the turn of the twentieth century. Due to legal requirements, all foreign patent applications had to pass through the hands of patent agents. Despite the central role, this transnational business of technology intermediation has received only limited attention in the scholarship. The article studies the business relationships between the patent agents and their clients, and employs new datasets, which include information about all foreign patentees using a patent agent in 1860–1910. The main findings are that the transnational business relationships affected the specialisation of national patent agents, especially in Finland, where patent agents with a legal background contributed to the inflow of inventions managed by Swedish patent agents. Patent agent services also represented significant indirect costs of the patent systems for their foreign clients.     

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.     

Understanding urban poverty in two high-density suburbs of Harare,Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

Urban communities are heterogeneous and averages mask inequities and deprivations among poor and rich urban communities. This article examines the situation of households residing in two low-income, high-density suburbs of Harare, Zimbabwe. The aim of the research was to contextualise urban poverty by looking at selected urban communities and vertically analysing the patterns and determinants of poverty. A household survey was administered to 1000 households and qualitative data were collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The study found high levels of income poverty and also found differences in poverty experiences between the two suburbs. The major proximate determinants of poverty were large family size; low education level of the household head; lack of income from permanent employment; low cash transfers; and short length of residence in the suburb. Increasing household income consumption can be addressed through scaling-up industries, which would result in more quality employment.     

Joseph Schumpeter in Sweden

Abstract

Different aspects of Schumpeter's relationship with Sweden are explored in this article. Schumpeter visited Sweden a few times in the inter-war period in his capacity of well-known economist. During World War I he also wished to go to Sweden to gather information that would be of assistance to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Schumpeter refered occasionally to Sweden in his writings, usually as a symbol for socialism and as a threat to capitalism. However, he failed to recognise that Sweden also had a vigorous tradition of entrepreneurship, as exemplified by the Wallenberg family and the Rausings. Schumpeter's view of Swedish economists is also discussed, as is the extent to which Swedish economists have been influenced by Schumpeter.     

Could Sweden have stopped the second world war?

Abstract

In a recent article in the Scandinavian Economic History Review, R. Karlbom raised an important issue, and one which had not up to that point received the attention it merited.¹ This issue is the degree to which Germany was dependent on Swedish exports of iron ore between her invasion of Poland and her defeat of France. Could Germany have conquered Norway, Denmark, France, Holland and Belgium without a regular supply of iron ore from Sweden? Could Sweden, as Mr. Karlbom implies, have stopped the war?     

Are children poor men's riches?

Abstract

Extract

Fertility declined fairly simultaneously in most western countries nearly a century ago. The question of which social groups were early in starting the decline is thought to have been answered: the common assertion is that the highest social groups started to control their fertility and, as time passed, that their new reproductive behaviour percolated down through the social layers. The current project on the secular decline in fertility in Norway has revealed that the families at the very top of the social hierarchy were the national pioneers in family limitation. The hypothesis in this article is, however, that family limitation in Norway also had an independent point of departure in the rural lower classes. In this article, I will therefore challenge the ‘general truth’ that there is always an inverse relationship between fertility and social status in the initial phase of the secular decline in fertility.     

Modern theories of regulation: An old story. Danish gasworks in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The Great Northern Telegraph Company was established in 1869 and enjoyed a very successful era thanks to a de-facto monopoly on the telegraph lines from Northern Europe to the Far East. After 1945 the Company changed its focus from telegraphy to wireless communication and electronic equipment. This article presents an analysis of the dramatic developments in the decades following the Second World War.

The relationship between the changing strategies and the established structure is analysed using Alfred D.Chandler Jr's well-known Strategy and Structure concept. After 40 years this concept still seems relevant to the understanding of the peculiar capacity for survival and growth demonstrated by old, well-established firms. In the conclusion it is argued that the post-war growth of the Great Northern Telegraph Company was based on several factors. These were the fortune originating from the Company's golden age in the 1910s and the 1920s, the industry investment strategy during and after the Second World War and finally, the changes of the organisational structure in the 1970s, which created the vital correspondence between strategy and structure.     

The Swedish model and manufacturing industry:

Abstract

During the post-war period profound changes have occurred in the cluster of institutions and organisations called “The Swedish Model”. This article deals with those changes and with their interplay with other social changes. More specific, changes in the system for industrial vocational training, an early and cherished domain for the Swedish model-type of co-operation, are related to transforming industrial structure and to changes in industrial work organisation. The article results in an economichistorical explanation of how the very centrally managed model of the 1960s was transformed to a more local one.     

Building resilient infrastructure in the face of climate change in African cities: Scope,potentiality and challenges

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to explain the capacity and limitations of African cities in building resilient infrastructure in the face of climate change. In this article, resilience means the ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organisation, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change. To expose the capacity and limitations of African cities in building resilient urban infrastructure, the article presents comparative case studies on contemporary experiences in Harare, Nairobi, Abuja, Cairo and Johannesburg relative to the Latin American and Asian cities where resilient infrastructure practices are in vogue. We conclude that most African cities exhibit critical bottlenecks towards emulating the Asian prototypes. Corruption is among the key explanations for the shortcomings of African cities in the delivery of resilient infrastructure and services. Corruption and non-participatory approaches prevailing in most cities have only courted resistance by citizens in the reimbursement of loans obtained from both international and local financial houses.     

Food,fare and nutrition some reflections on the historical development of food consumption

Abstract

Cajsa Warg's old maxim ‘One eats what there is’ — apparently self-explanatory in its simplicity — has a different significance for the understanding of the historical development of food consumption and diet from what might be expected at first glance. The absolute food surplus which industrial and post-industrial society has generated during the last century has helped to conceal certain essential links between food consumption and more general economic and social development in fare-industrial society which was not characterised by self-generating and constantly increasing growth. The assumption of food scarcity in former times, allied to a paucity of research in this field, has among other things conjured up an image of a continual improvement and increase in food consumption coupled with the massive rise in productive capacity during the most recent centuries.     

Manors and states: the distribution and structure of private manors in early modern Scandinavia and their relation to state policies

ABSTRACT

This article explores the development of private manors in Scandinavia between the reformation and the eve of the great agrarian reforms in Denmark ca. 1770 and their relation to state policies. It compares Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Skåne and Schleswig-Holstein. Firstly, it analyses the amount of land held by private landlords and the internal structure of the landholding class. It shows that it changed considerably over time, but in very different ways in the different territories. This is explained by the interaction of the nobility or landholding classes with the state power. Secondly, the article looks at the economic and spatial structure of manors with specific attention to the degree of demesne farming based upon corvee. It is discussed to which degree these manors came to follow the path of Gutsherrschaft or demesne lordship associated with the lands south of the Baltic. Demesnes of Scandinavia were erected and enlarged out of a mixture of agricultural economic considerations, tax evasion and status needs. Also this differed with territory. Part of the explanation is a different structure of the nobility emerging from massive ennoblements in Sweden, but also in other direct or indirect ways the state furthered, hindered or checked the development.