A ‘First Go’ on Financial Accounts for Denmark, 1875–2005

Abstract

Financial accounts can be used in an attempt to paint a coherent picture of the development of the financial system and the financial structure. To date projects related to historical national accounts have – both in Denmark and internationally – only focused on the real side of the economy. The article presents a first attempt to construct a set of annual financial account stock data for Denmark for 1875–2005. Furthermore, the article addresses some of the more methodological and conceptual aspects of using financial accounts as a framework for the organisation of historical financial statistics.     

The Danish cattle trade during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Abstract

Danish production and exports of oxen have been the subject of frequent investigation from various points of view. Historians have chiefly tended to stress the social lop-sidedness of the trade and the dependence of these exports on the vicissitudes of the international market. While the dominant political position of the Danish nobles enabled them to monopolize the production of oxen, their economic prosperity depended on the successful maintenance of the exports.¹ Against this interpretation, however, some historians have argued that the cattle production was not only of fundamental importance to Danish agriculture but that it also made a significant contribution to the European supply. According to Erik Arup, oxen provided Denmark in the fifteenth century with an export commodity of high quality, and Astrid Friis has stressed the fundamental importance of oxen exports to the economic development of sixteenthcentury Denmark. Both interpretations, however, maintain that the production and export of oxen provided a solid economic foundation for the aristocratic rule of Denmark.²     

The economic and social position of peasant freeholders in late seventeenth-century Denmark

Abstract

The overwhelming majority of Danish peasants in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were tenants on crown or privately owned estates. Thus they were directly affected by the consolidation of a seigneurial system which had emerged well before the seventeenth century but had become more firmly entrenched when the absolute monarchy in Denmark, established in 1660, began the alienation of the crown estates. However, the small minority of peasants known as freeholders (selvejere or jordegne bønder) did not entirely disappear, although their position was becoming increasingly uncertain.1 It is the aim of this article to define this small group, assess the economic and social implications of their position, and attempt to clarify the nature of peasant ownership of land in Denmark in the late seventeenth century.     

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.     

Crisis in finnish agriculture at the end of the nineteenth century

Abstract

The arrival of cheap American wheat in the European market the 1870's brought down the prices of agricultural produce, in particular those of grain. The resulting agricultural depression led in turn to the adoption in most countries of protectionist policies. In Scandinavia, however, only Sweden resorted to protection; Denmark, Norway and Finland adhering to free trade. Denmark was successful in her efforts to switch over to a many-sided dairy-farming; the agricultural policy of Norway was — according to O. A. Johnsen1 Norwegische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 1939, pp. 499-503. — not successful since not only the import of cereals but even the import of butter increased.     

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.     

A Tale of Two Peripheries: Real Wages in Denmark and New Zealand 1875–1939.

Abstract

Denmark achieved dramatic real wage growth after 1870, compared to other European economies and to those of the New World. The ingredients of Denmark's success are gauged by comparison with one its major competitors in the British food-products markets, New Zealand. Faster Danish productivity growth explains only part of Denmark's faster real wage growth. Open economy forces, chiefly international capital flows before 1913, and especially Danish trade union militancy around the end of World War I, influenced income distribution and especially favoured wages over property income in Denmark. Denmark's GDP per capita equalled New Zealand levels between the world wars but her real wages surged past those of New Zealand as distributional shifts favoured Denmark's wage earners.     

Monetary policy and theory in Denmark, 1784–1800 part I

Abstract

With the fall of Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the secretary of the Council, on 14 April 1784, the group of men who took over political and military power in Denmark were faced with a number of serious economic problems. One of the most urgent was the uncertain state into which the monetary system had fallen, and monetary matters therefore came to occupy an important place both in the deliberations of the government and in contemporary writings.     

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?     

From growth to crisis

Abstract

Banking history has had little attention in Denmark if compared to many other countries. The purpose of this article is to present some current topics of interest in Danish banking history from about 1850 to the interwar years. Special emphasis will be laid upon the relations between banks and industry as well as the boom and bust phases of the banking system during the period.     

William Clark,Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University

Abstract

Compared with the rest of Scandinavia Denmark has fairly uniform conditions of nature and settlement, and this fact has through the ages left its stamp on the structure of the agricultural community. This relative uniformity made it possible to carry through, for the most part within one single generation, the redistribution of land and the abolition of the openfield system in Danish villages.     

Aspects of industrial financing in Denmark 1840–1914

Abstract

The period of time studied in the present dissertation, viz. from 1840 to 1914, can be characterised as a period of considerable economic growth in Denmark. Moreover it was a period during which a series of innovations of a technical and economic nature occurred, including for example an accelerated expansion of the communication and transport systems and,the establishement and enlargement of the institutional capital market. These factors, in conjunction with the notable industrial growth and advances occurring during the period, have been responsible for the attention hitherto focused upon this era by students of industrial history as being one when some kind of industrial revolution took place in Denmark. Although there are divergent opinions concerning the scope and detailed timing of this revolution, scholars participating in the debate have up to now been united in the view that the period was indeed marked by a considerable degree of industrial growth.     

Price formation in the Danish stock market in the 1890s

Abstract

Trading¹ in stocks has a fairly long history in Denmark. It dates back to the end of the 17th century at least, as evidenced by M?glemes Articler from 1684, where one can find information about brokerage fees for sales and purchases of shares of the East Asian, West Asian and other chartered trading companies. In the beginning of the 18th century, newspapers started carrying information about transactions in stocks. Stock exchange price quotes were listed in the newspapers fairly regularly from around 1760.     

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.     

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.     

Book Review

Abstract

The importance of Swedish iron ore to the re-armament and wartime economy of Nazi Germany has been touched upon in a number of writings about the international politics of the period here under review. Erik Lonnroth has demonstrated how the question of continued ore deliveries constituted the flashpoint of Swedish-German relations during the 1930s.¹ Gunnar Häggläf describes the Swedish Foreign Office's balancing act between English and German desires in regard to the ore trade, and their role in the regulating of trade with the two belligerents in the autumn of 1939.² Magne Skodvin has explored the strategic and economic aspects of the attack on Norway and Denmark on 9 April 1940.³     

Power and plenty: Trade,war and the world economy in the second millennium

Abstract

Under the Treaty of Vienna of 1864 Denmark lost the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, and it was not until the peace treaty at the end of the First World War that the Danish areas of North Schleswig (South Jutland) were returned, after a referendum, to the realm. Fifty years after the re-union Miss Askgård has investigated the industrialisation of South Jutland. The resulting book, which illuminates a hitherto neglected aspect of the turbulent history of this border territory, is based on a winning entry for the Copenhagen University Geography Prize for 1967.     

Land measurement and land valuation in medieval Denmark

Abstract

The art of surveying is old in Denmark. In prehistoric times man already knew how to survey arable land and knew that a piece of land of known measurements could be sown with a certain amount of seed. When one considers the mathematical accuracy with which the recently excavated fortifications from the Viking Age at Trelleborg in Zealand and Aggersborg and Fyrkat in Jutland were constructed. with all measurements in Roman feet. there is nothing surprising in the fact that the farmers of the time could measure the sowing areas of their fields with great accuracy.     

The role of the engineer in Danish modernisation, 1850–1920

Abstract

The article attempts to assess the role of engineers in the modernisation of Denmark in the period 1850 to 1920. Using both quantitative and qualitative evidence, it argues that though it is hardly possible in absolute terms to measure the influence of the engineers, it is possible to reach some indicative conclusions.

By looking at the position before 1850 and the periods 1850–1890 and 1890–1920 and using statistics on the employment of the engineers graduating from Polyteknisk Lareanstalt in Copenhagen, it is clear that these professional engineers affected society in a number of ways. The influence of engineers on the growing Danish industry has hitherto been presumed to be only minor. but this view needs some correction. As early as the 1870s and 1880s professional engineers played an important part in the largest Danish industrial firms, and prior to that held important positions in the new, technologically-pioneering, Danish industries. Danish engineers also influenced the State s telegraph service, the railways, gas- and water works, and town planning.

That, too, a considerable number of the early graduates from Polyteknisk: Lcereanstalt worked as teachers had no small importance, as, until some time after the mid nineteenth century, the teaching of the natural sciences in Denmark was sporadic and of uneven quality.     

The technological development of the plastics industry

Abstract

In a recently published doctoral thesis in economic history Povl A. Hansen and Goran Serin chart and analyse the development of the innovation process in the plastics industry, both internationally and in Denmark.¹ The starting point is the concrete development of the individual firms, but the results obtained are discussed, naturally enough, in relation to various established theories. Put in more general terms, the aim is to examine the relation between science, technology and the market, taking the plastics industry as an example and placing the main emphasis on the development of information structures. The four chapters of the book each contain accounts both of concrete development and of various theoretical elements.