The ‘annual budget’ of north Finnish farmers at the end of the 17th century

Abstract

The extent to which the 17th-century farmer received money for his produce, for the payment of taxes, and how much he may then have had left over for other purposes is a question which has been but little discussed in historical research either in Finland or in the other Nordic countries. The solution of the problem is made difficult by the defects in, or even absence of, trade statistics for the period, and because it is not known what proportion of his taxes the farmer paid in kind and what proportion in money. Ostrobothnia or, more generally, northern Finland, is the most suitable area for study, especially for the purpose of examining the payment of taxes. It has been possible to show that in Ostrobothnia the taxes of the 17th-century farmers were paid almost without exception by the urban burgher, the very man who provided the farmer with credit. ¹ According to an inspection carried out in 1679. about 80 per cent of the Ostrobothnian fanners did their main business with those burghers to whom they were chiefly in debt. Finnish State Archives (FSA), Crown fiscal records, vol. 9177. Luukko, Etelä-Pohjanmaan historia [History of Southern Ostrobothnia] III (1945), pp. 249–257. A more difficult problem in Ostrobothnia is the volume of the annual exports of the towns in the province during this period. Even if estimates could be made, it would still be difficult to tell how many of the export goods arriving in Ostrobothnian towns originated from the province itself and how many from central and eastern Finland. Moreover, the farmers' own shipping, i.e. the transport of rural produce through the Ostrobothnian towns direct to the staple towns or elsewhere, has also to be taken into account.     

History of Finland's rural trade and tradesmen

Abstract

During the ascendancy of mercantilism, from the beginning of the 17th to the middle of the 19th century, trade in the Finnish countryside was pursued only by city burghers who travelled round on business or attended the fairs held in certain places at definite dates, and by pedlars. Among the latter were the famous Russo-Karelians, immortalised by J. L. Runeberg in his poetical work Elgskyttarne. Resident merchants were not permitted in the rural areas. Alanen shows, however, that liberation of rural trade from mercantilist shackles in the mid-19th century largely amounted to the acceptance by the authorities of changes already effected. Although a few new towns were founded in the interior, most parts of Finland were still very far from any town and the number of rural fairs was reduced in 1821 from 50 to 9. Yet the thriving farmers increasingly consumed in their households more purchased goods, and in consequence must obviously have sold more agricultural produce than before. When St. Petersburg replaced Stockholm as the principal market for Finnish butter and other country produce, the ship-owning burghers of the coastal towns were unable to maintain their dominance as middlemen to the same extent as during the period of Swedish rule. The export trade in eastern Finland gradually came to be handled by farmers who specialised in this work and who travelled with their products, while the peasants no longer made their purchases in towns to the former extent. In the country as a whole the retailing of imported goods came to be managed by, in addition to the burghers, pack pedlars from Russian Karelia and other travelling vendors and, in the large villages, by illicit traders who paid bribes to the authorities for their freedom of action. Had rural trade not already been well developed, the forgotten demands of Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) or the forceful arguments advanced by J. W. Snellman (1806–81) for the liberation of rural trade would hardly have impressed the Senate and the Governor-General. It would otherwise be impossible to understand the fact that permission to trade in agricultural produce and in products of home crafts was granted in rural districts in 1842 during the régime of Baron L. G. von Haartman, a firm opponent of liberalism. Only one condition was made, that no ‘open shops’ should be established.     

Endogenous and exogenous variables in trade agreement policy:

Abstract

Trade agreement negotiations are the forum in which a state tries to synchronise its trade policies with other countries. This article examines the effects of endogenous and exogenous variables in trade agreement decision-making. The study concentrates on Finland's most important trade agreement negotiations with the Soviet Union, Germany, Great Britain, and EFT A from the 1930s to the 1960s. Finland was a small, open economy that was dependent on foreign trade. In the 1930s Finland had to adapt to international protectionism, which came to dominate international trade until the late 1950s. During the Second World War Finland had to regulate her foreign trade as a part of rationing systems. After the war protectionist ideas continued to dominate international trade policy decision-making. Accordingly, many regulative policies survived into the post-war period too. Finally, deregulation in Finnish foreign trade policy started in the late 1950s, the FINN-EFTA-negotiations being the final turning point to a more liberal era in foreign trade. The essential question in the article is, what kind of influence did the endogenous interests have on Finnish trade policy decision-making considering the various situations in international politics, for example, protectionist and deregulative tendencies.     

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     

Select bibliography of contributions to economic and social history appearing in Scandinavian books,periodicals and year-books, 1982

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a newly constructed database on foreign trade of Sweden–Finland 1738–1805, consisting of all exports and imports that were recorded by the custom houses in this period, and is made available at www.historia.se/Swedish foreign trade 1738_1805.xlsx. The traditional view as presented by Eli Heckscher, who was very critical of the mercantilist policies of the time, was that the overseas trade of Sweden-Finland saw a trend of secular stagnation during the course of the eighteenth century. By contrast, we show that in conjunction with a substantial expansion of the population, total trade nearly increased twofold during the period of study. Despite that, there was a small decrease in the value of exports in relation to GDP, mostly explained by a drop in the relative price of bar iron. The degree of specialisation of Swedish exports saw a declining tendency in this period. While exports from Sweden had a higher degree of specialisation than Finnish exports, imported goods to Finland were more concentrated than Swedish imports. Lastly, the composition of imports did not markedly alter, meaning that a consumer revolution did not take place in either Sweden or Finland.     

The reliability of the english port books

Abstract

Modem trade statistics start with the series of English customs ledgers from 1696 onwards. The French ledgers of imports and exports follow twenty years later, the Swedish series (including Finland) begins in 1738, and the Scottish one in the 1750s.1 For other European countries they are even more recent. This means that before 1700 we have to rely on the customs books of various individual ports, except in occasional cases where reliable (or unreliable) compilations for a particular year, a commodity or an area are preserved. Of the latter, a Scottish historian, T. C. Smout, has recently written: ‘Customs books are an invaluable source for the historian of trade. In them he may discover the commodities exported and imported, he may read the names of ships, skippers and merchants, he may learn where they were bound and whence they came, and from them he may perhaps judge which places within the realm had the greatest traffic with foreign parts. Given a sufficiently long and unbroken series of customs material, he may be tempted to cull statistics about these and other matters. This, however, is a dangerous practice, for the books of the seventeenth century were designed merely as a record of dues paid to the Crown, and were not meant, like modern Board of Trade returns, as a mirror of commercial trends or as a register of the volume and value of goods passing in and out of the country.’²     

Emotions,trading practices and communication in transnational itinerant trade: encounters between ‘Rucksack Russians’ and their customers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between ‘Rucksack Russians’, itinerant traders from Russian Karelia, and their local customers in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural Finland. Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, but, according to Finnish law, itinerant trade was illegal for people without citizenship rights in the Grand Duchy. The trade was, thus, illicit, although often seen through the fingers. We study trader–customer relations through emotions, trading practices and communication, with a special focus on the consumption of women. We argue that analysing the relations from these perspectives deepens the understanding of the functions of itinerant trade for the shaping of a consumer society. For access to a consumer perspective, we use ethnographic questionnaires, a source type that historians have acknowledged only in recent decades. The questionnaires complement and nuance the predominantly negative attitudes towards itinerant trade conveyed in the newspapers, which mainly represent the viewpoints of the authorities and local merchants. Through the theoretical perspectives and through shifting focus from the consumption of the elite to that of that of the lower strata of society, the article offers a fresh take on such aspects of trader–consumer relations that previous historical research on itinerant trade has overlooked.     

Sino-US trade balance from national income perspective and global income chains

ABSTRACT

Trade volume biases trade benefits under the background of economic globalization. Employing the input-output technique, important progress has been made in research on trade in value-added. It is noteworthy that capital globalization is one of the important manifestations of economic globalization. Owing to the ever-increasing transnational flow of capital, mainly by foreign direct investment (FDI), production of exports shows great dependence on foreign capital. A large part of value-added in exports are obtained by foreign factors owners, since foreign-invested enterprises account for a large proportion in host country’s total exports, which is foreign income. The ultimate goal of trade is to boost national income. We propose to study trade benefits and trade balance from national income perspective, and further introduce the concept of global income chains to reveal economic benefits distribution within international specialization.     

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.     

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.     

Wealth and credit in the Finnish countryside, 1850–1910

Abstract

In Finland, the early phase of industrialisation, that period of transition when trade and industry began to assume modern form, commenced around the middle of the nineteenth century. A legislative programme of economic liberalism was implemented: steam sawmills were permitted, the customs system reformed, foreign trade freed from controls and rural trade allowed. The supply of credit to farming was eased by the mortgage credit institute. The Free Trade Act of 1879 was based on completely free entrepreneurial activity. These measures, together with exogenous economic factors, stimulated new economic and intellectual forces.¹     

Swedish foreign trade in the mid-sixteenth century

Abstract

For many years our image of economic conditions in 16th-century Sweden has been that depicted by Eli F. Heckscher: a medieval economy, reorganised by a central government of increasing authority in the person of King Gustav Vasa, and gradually transformed after his death in 1560. Sweden's foreign trade appeared to Heckscher as a particular example of his general rule. Its role in the national economy as a whole was very small: such commodities as were imported in exchange for exports were for the most part luxury goods; the only notable exception was the import of salt, to which Heckscher assigned extreme importance, because a vast consumption of salted food featured in his concept of the Swedish ‘medieval’ pattern of overall consumption. Heckscher saw no reason to postulate any major changes in the form and direction of Swedish trade during the reign of Gustav Vasa himself (1521–60); on the contrary, a theme vigorously argued in his book is that the political liberation of Sweden from the influence of Liibeck in the 1530s did not produce any shift of trade routes: most Swedish foreign trade still went via Lübeck. The customs ledgers of a single year, 1559, had an important influence on Heckscher's views.     

Handbook of New Institutional Economics

Abstract

Recent Scandinavian work on the relationship between exports and economic growth gives preference to home market factors as opposed to foreign demand, thus strengthening the view that growth is home-led rather than export-led. This article claims that the difficulty in determining the causal role of exports stems from the failure to differentiate between individual industries and macro-economic growth. Addressing the macro-aspect, the argument, called the ‘export specialization theory’, is developed that for small countries trade and pro-trade policies have been central to their economic success; moreover; in these cases it makes no sense to distinguish between home-led or foreign-led development, since by definition trade includes both demand and supply factors. In the light of this clarification the current controversy about the causal role of exports for successful growth in small countries disappears. By way of conclusion, the article argues that country size may prove to have been a critical variable in successful economic growth.     

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.     

Most-favoured-nation treaty in service of trade? Case: early trade policy relations between Finland and Japan and their impact on the sales networks of the Finnish forest industry

This article scrutinises the significance of the most-favoured-nation (MFN) treaty in promoting the development of commercial activity and its results in transnational trade. As cardinal agents of trade policy, governments act as ‘umpires’ in formulating and guarding the rules of international trade, while the ‘players’ are private corporations which conduct commercial operations in the playing field of international trade. Within the framework of Finno-Japanese trade relations, the players established and developed their trade networks (corporate interconnections) regardless of the umpires and their official rules, meaning the commercial treaties. Through a close examination of the early trade policy relations between Finland and Japan along with the formation and development of the Finnish forest industry’s sales networks into the Japanese market in the early twentieth century, this study demonstrates that there was no explicit causal connection between MFN treaties and the evolution of the Finnish forest industry’s export efforts – and their results.     

Finland and the question of West European economic integration, 1947–1961

Abstract

The study deals, on one hand, with the international politics connections, and, on the other, the endogenous economic policy implications of Finland's relationship with West European economic arrangements from the Marshal! Plan up to the FINN-EFTA Agreement. In the 1950s, the Finnish economy was, in fact, a closed economy, albeit highly dependent on foreign trade. Finland's international position in the Soviet sphere of influence imposed restraints with regard to participation in international economic integration. Finland, for example, remained outside the Marshal! Plan and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), and even Nordic cooperation was a delicate matter from the point of view of relations with the Soviets. However, the protectionist foreign trade policies, consisting of both tariffs and quantitative restrictions, explain at least as much of the relative isolation of the Finnish economy. In these circumstances, Finland's participation in EFTA cooperation, within the framework of the FINN-EFTA agreement, from 1961 onwards was the decisive turning point towards an opening economy.     

Swedish imperialism under the microscope

Abstract

Interest in Sweden's Age of Greatness was keen among historians in Sweden and Finland from 1870 until as late as 1970. Apart from the extensive studies written by C.T. Odhner and F.F. Carlson, a whole succession of Swedish scholars defended dissertations on such minor issues as Sweden's relations with ‘such and such a country’ during ‘such and such years’ in order to qualify for positions as lecturers. At the same time, literature with a more geopolitical leaning was appearing, such as the works by Harald Hjärne and Eirik Hornborg on Sweden-Finland's eastern problem.¹     

Denmark's relations with Lübeck and Hamburg in the seventeenth century

Abstract

Denmark's political relationship with the Hanseatic towns in the sixteenth century was one of increasing disengagement and self-assertion. During the reign of Frederick II, for instance, there were operations against Hamburg in 1562 and 1574, with the seizure of Hamburg ships in Danish-Norwegian waters; similarly, Hamburg's interests in Iceland were interfered with and her purchases of com from Holstein fanners obstructed. These tendencies became still more marked under Frederick's successor, Christian IV. Princely dislike of the republican cities and national business interests combined in the spirit of early mercantilism. Lubeck's privileges were not confirmed, In 1602 Copenhagen, Malmo and Helsinger were given the right to trade with Iceland, a right which had previously been exercised by Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck. Together with the founding of Gliickstad, the efforts to command the estuaries of the Elbe and Weser, and the King's expansionist policy in north Gennany, this gave the cities sufficient grounds for anxiety.     

An Atlas of Finnish history

Abstract

Finland has a fine tradition in cartography. The ‘Atlas of Finland’ was started as early as 1899 and appeared in several new editions long before the editing of the Atlas of Sweden, for instance, was started. It is only logical therefore that Finland should also have a historic atlas without counterpart in Scandinavia and indeed in most other countries. This atlas first appeared in 1949, edited by Eino Jutikkala, Professor of History at the University of Helsinki. The present new revised edition appeared in 1959.     

Salt and cloth in Swedish economic history

Abstract

The precise significance of foreign trade in the economic life of a nation at different periods in the past cannot usually be accurately assessed. In the few fortunate cases where it is possible to get at least an approximate idea of the extent of trade, the figures obtained can rarely be set in any firm relationship with other statistical data. Since, for example, the size of population is usually a matter of little more than guess work, it is impossible to calculate the quantity of exports or imports per head of population. It is more difficult still to determine the relation of exports and imports to national income, since domestic production is even more difficult to estimate than the volume and composition of foreign trade. Only rarely is it possible to ascertain how domestic production Teacted to an increase in imports or how much of any commodity which was mainly an export product was consumed within the country. Discussions of the history of foreign trade, therefore, unavoidably tend to be somewhat hypothetical: the problem being to assess the significance of a phenomenon which can only be seen in occasional glimpses for populations of unknown size and with unknown total production.