Nordic historical National Accounts since the 1880s

Abstract

In many respects the history of National Accounts (NA) and of Historical National Accounts (HNA) is common to all the Nordic countries, The first rudimentary accounts can be found by the end of the nineteenth century while the first income tax statistics of the early twentieth century provided a further stimulus. It was the 1920s and the 1930s, however, that saw the real breakthrough. In Sweden it took the form of HNA, and in the other countries the form of NA, with Denmark and Norway in the lead. The commodity-flow method provided the common characteristic.

Later developments somewhat differed in the individual countries. All participated in the Kuznets project ofHNA. Denmark and Norway had obtained new series by the mid 1960s and the early 1970s. Sweden and Finland came later, at the end of the 1980s, and consequently today have the most up-to-date series. These though reveal differences in methodology and a new project has been started, whose aim is to revive the spirit of Nordic community.     

Select bibliography of contributions to economic and social history appearing in Scandinavian books,periodicals and year-books, 1981

Abstract

This issue of the annual bibliography of the Review is arranged according to themes. Within each of the eight sub-divisions the contributors are presented in alphabetical order. The country of publication is indicated by ‘D’ ‘F’ ‘N’ or ‘S’ for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, respectively.     

Clé Lesger,The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange – Merchants,Commercial Expansion and Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries,c.1550–1630

Abstract

Between 1930 and 1935, Sverre Steen wrote four volumes of Det norske folks liv og historie [The Life and History of the Norwegian People], covering the period 1500–1814. He has now half completed the task of bringing the work further towards our own time in a comprehensive series entitled ‘Free Norway’. The first three volumes are devoted to political history in the period immediately following 1814. In this, the fourth volume, entitled ‘The Old Society’, Steen examines the social and economic history of the period 1814–1840. Both the title and the arrangement of the book indicate that Steen's intention is to provide a survey of the foundations of Norwegian society before continuing his work in further volumes, not only about ‘Free Norway’, but also about ‘New Norway’.     

Select Bibliography of Contributions to Economic and Social History Appearing in Scandinavian Books,Periodicals and Year-books, 1986

Abstract

This issue of the annual bibliography of the Review is arranged according to themes. Within each of the eight sub-divisions the contributors are presented in alphabetical order. The country of publication is indicated by ‘D’, ‘F’, ‘N’ and ‘S’ for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, respectively.     

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.     

The transition from tenancy to freehold peasant ownership in Norway

Abstract

Already in the late seventeenth century many tenant farmers in Norway were buying their farms, and it has been held that by about 1750 freeholders were in the majority in the country.     

Serfdom in esthonia during the period of Swedish rule

Abstract

For quite some time after World War II peasant behavior in less developed countries was ‘unproblematic’. There was a general consensus that peasants were not ‘economic men’, in the sense that they tried to maximize profits as postulated by mainstream economic theory. Instead, their acts were assumed to be governed by ‘tradition’, or ‘conservatism’, which by and large had nothing to do with the type of maximizing or minimizing behavior which acquired prominence in economic theory not least by the central role that was conferred on it in Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis.¹ Their ambitions and horizons were thought to be limited in such a way as to render standard economic theory inapplicable in the study of peasant behavior. The discussion focused on the ‘inert’, or ‘lazy’, (satisficing) peasant.²     

The ‘price revolution’ of the sixteenth century: Some Swedish evidence

Abstract

Since the publication in 1895 of George Wiebe's work, Zur Geschichte der Preisreuolution des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, ¹ the ‘price revolution’ has been a generally accepted concept found in most historical textbooks. By the ‘price revolution’, Wiebe meant the general rise in commodity prices which occurred in western Europe during the 16th century, the primary cause of which according to him was the influx of silver from the new Spanish possessions in America. His explanation also came to be generally accepted, but perhaps an even more significant contribution to the influence which this book has wielded is the fact that he synthesized in readily usable form the price analyses in existence when he wrote, i.e. at the end of the 19th century. In the 1930s his tables still formed the basis of sweeping conclusions and generalizations.     

Technical change and the ‘technology’ myth

Abstract

In recent years, historians and other English-speaking commentators on technical change and technical functions have often chosen to discuss these matters under the heading ‘technology’. Thus, there have been discussions about such matters as ‘echnological innovation’, ‘technological invention’, and even ‘the imperatives of technology’, ‘the technostructure’ and ‘technological drivenness’.¹ One economist with a special interest in historical matters, Kuznets, has virtually defined a separable condition of ‘modernity’ as the era of ‘technology’ — ‘The epochal innovation that distinguishes the modern economic epoch is the extended application of science to problems of economic production’ alternatively, it is ‘the utilization of a potential provided by modern technology’. An economic historian (Musson) has it that ‘applied science is … the major force behind modern economic growth’. And a prominent historian of the so-called ‘technology’, Forbes, has argued that in ‘our modern world both technology and engineering are branches of applied science’.²     

Work in progress

Abstract

Work on the nineteenth century America may indeed be called work in progress —if that notoriously unfashionable word can be given any meaning at all in our fashionably disillusioned century. In any case, though ‘work in progress’ may logically imply progress in work, these notes are offered as a simple tribute to a fine scholar, not as an advance claim to accomplishment. No occasion would be more inappropriate to such a claim. Preferable indeed would be the kind of finely wrought, finished product that on such an occasion Söderlund himself would have produced. But even under his critical scrutiny—‘as ever in my great Taskmaster's eye'—a short sketch of some of the current effort in the United States may pass muster. It is sometimes wise, indeed, to look at the rose while the dew lies still upon it, before its flaws and frailties are opened out to pitiless light.     

European trade liberalisation and the stillborn Nordic customs union in the 1950s

Abstract

Historical research on the aborted Nordic customs union of the 1950s has emphasised the conflicting commercial interests of the countries involved. This study identifies the common commercial interests that from 1954 committed governments to further progress in the customs union issue. It argues that increased frustration over the ‘hardening’ of the European commercial regime made the governments opt for a customs union to develop Nordic manufacturing industries.     

Norwegian clergy

Abstract

The purpose of this important book is, in the words of the author, 'to throw light on the Norwegian clergy as a social group' in nineteenth century Norway. Dr. Mannsaker emphasizes that, as implied by the local and temporal definition of his subject, his approach is historical rather than sociological or demographic. This means that he is interested not primarily in the most general aspects of his subject, but in those which are peculiar to conditions in Norway in the historical period under consideration.     

English timber imports from Northern Europe in the eighteenth century

Abstract

English commercial history has tended to concern itself with tracing the pattern of exports, especially of textiles, rather than that of imports. There are, however, certain commodities on the import side that have attracted more attention than others—strategically important articles, for example, such as tar and pitch, which used to be designated as ‘naval stores’. These commodities, together with iron, constituted northern Europe's most important contribution to English imports in the eighteenth century.¹ The import of ‘naval stores’, like that of iron, was based upon northern Europe's vast forest resources combined with proximity to England. Of the regions within the orbit of English trade, only North America could boast continuous tracts of forest on a comparable scale; but the long transatlantic crossing retarded such imports from America, for wood and wood products were bulky commodities in relation to their value.     

Urbanization and mortality in Britain,c. 1800–50

In the long-running debate over standards of living during the industrial revolution, pessimists have identified deteriorating health conditions in towns as undermining the positive effects of rising real incomes on the ‘biological standard of living’. This article reviews long-run historical relationships between urbanization and epidemiological trends in England, and then addresses the specific question: did mortality rise especially in rapidly growing industrial and manufacturing towns in the period c. 1830–50? Using comparative data for British, European, and American cities and selected rural populations, this study finds good evidence for widespread increases in mortality in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this phenomenon was not confined to ‘new’ or industrial towns. Instead, mortality rose in the 1830s especially among young children (aged one to four years) in a wide range of populations and environments. This pattern of heightened mortality extended between c. 1830 and c. 1870, and coincided with a well-established rise and decline in scarlet fever virulence and mortality. The evidence presented here therefore supports claims that mortality worsened for young children in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but also indicates that this phenomenon was more geographically ubiquitous, less severe, and less chronologically concentrated than previously argued.     

II. The farm territories

Abstract

The enquiries into the organization of farm territories in Norway must be based partly upon the study of old records, and partly upon field work. As long as the breach with the past is still a fairly recent occurrence, the field investigations will produce more than simply a record of the visible traces of the past. Of course, this record itself plays a very important part. Features such as characteristic boundary marks, various traces and relics found within the old multiple abode (tun), of holdings which have moved outside it, former balks that are still visible—these are all important pieces in the jigsaw puzzle which must be completed in order to obtain a picture of the ancient organization of the farm territory. But in addition to this, we can make use of the memories of those of the farming population who grew up in earlier times and took part in the daily work and who know of old traditions which were handed down to them by still earlier generations. The younger generations worked alongside the older and carried on the inheritance from them. This is clearly shown in the story about the man who took his young son along to show him the boundaries of the farm. Every time they reached an important marking on the boundary the father gave his son a box on the ear so that the spot should stand out in his memory. One of the Institute's most reliable informants, an old schoolmaster from Sunnmöre, can account for traditions as far back as to the middle of the eighteenth century; he usually confirms his tales with such expressions as: ‘The old man said so, and he got it from grandma’.     

Structural change in the Dutch trade with the baltic in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Affluence easily veils failure and cripples creativity. In the eighteenth century, the Dutch Republic probably enjoyed the world's highest national per capita income. The Republic was the first state to ascend beyond the modest pre-industrial income levels, interestingly enough without itself industrializing. Yet, economically the Republic stagnated visibly. Ships on the international routes increasingly passed Amsterdam by and trade — the old foundation of prosperity — declined in the midst of a general revival of North and West European commerce. The stagnation affected all walks of economic life and created a feeling of resignation that baffled many attempts at redress.¹ The fascination with the fate of the Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century arises in part from this juxtaposition of affluence and decay. Did structural change cause the decline of Dutch trade or was it precisely the want of structural adjustments that became fatal? There is a great deal of confusion in Dutch historiography on this issue. Johan de Vries — to start with the Nestor among the historians of the Dutch decline — speaks of ‘structural alterations in the trade’ that ultimately undermined the position     

The rise of the middle class: the income gap between salaried employees and workers in Sweden,ca. 1830–1940

ABSTRACT

We present the first comprehensive, long run salary information on Swedish middle-class employees before the twentieth century. Our data include, for instance, school teachers, professors, clerks, policemen and janitors in Stockholm and Sweden, ca. 1830–1940. We use the new data to compare the annual earnings of these middle-class employees with the annual earnings of farm workers, unskilled construction workers and manufacturing workers. The results show that the income gap between the middle class and the working class widen drastically from the mid-nineteenth century to a historically high level during the 1880s and 1890s. The differentials then decreased during the first four decades of the twentieth century. The bulging earnings advantage of middle-class employees vis-à-vis unskilled workers chimes with Kocka’s depiction of the latter half of the nineteenth century as the era of the bourgeoisie.     

Electricity Generation and Economic Efficiency: Panel Data Evidence from World and East Asian Countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of electricity generation on countries’ economic efficiency. By using a sample of 42 World and East Asian countries for the time period 1996–2006 the paper employs Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) window analysis and econometric panel techniques. The results reveal that there is an inverted U-shape relationship between electricity generation and countries’ economic efficiency. Finally, the turning point for the European countries is much smaller compared to the one of East Asian countries indicating that the European countries shift in energy use from electricity to other sources of energy. In addition the electricity generation–economic efficiency relationship depends also on the structure of the economy.     

The way to industrialisation: A Finnish town history

Abstract

Scientific research on urban history in Finland dates from the end of the 19th century. The pioneer was Professor Carl von Bonsdorff, whose study of 17th century Turku (Åbo) is still a standard work in this field.¹ At the beginning of this century Professor Väinö Voionmaa added to the literature on the old pre-industrial towns his investigation of the rapid growth of Tampere (Tammerfors).² This city, ‘Finland's Manchester’, is a young industrial town; in order to survey its development before the beginning of the 20th century Voionmaa had to take a new quantitative approach. Since then Finnish research on urban history has grown to an extent that is quite out of proportion with the fact that urbanisation here is a late phenomenon. Historical studies now exist of practically every town, generally written by historians with professional training. In Finland historians have perhaps devoted themselves to a greater extent than elsewhere to research in local and thus also town history. The most ambitious attempt to produce a comprehensive history of a town from its foundation to the present is the history of Helsinki on which about ten historians are collaborating, six volumes of which have so far been published.³     

Bridging skills demand and supply in South Africa: The role of public and private intermediaries

ABSTRACT

Demand-led skills development requires linkages and coordination between firms and education and training organisations, which are major challenges considering that each represents a ‘self-interested’ entity. The need for a ‘collaborative project’ involving government, firms, universities and colleges, and other bodies is thus increasingly recognised. However, the crucial role of intermediaries has been largely overlooked. The article addresses this gap by investigating the main roles of public and private intermediaries across three case studies: sugarcane growing and milling, automotive component manufacturing, and the Square Kilometre Array sectoral systems of innovation. The research highlights the need for a move towards systemic thinking, to bridge across public and private objectives. It shows that private intermediaries play a larger role than is recognised in policy; that public–private intermediaries play crucial roles in coordination; and the potential for public intermediaries to contribute more effectively to systemic functioning.