Swedish trade unions and the social democratic party: The formative years

Abstract

The history of labour movements in many countries of the Western world includes a period in which the relationship between the trade-union arm and the political arm undergoes significant change. This formative period is conditioned in an immediate way by the political framework and more generally by the economic and social milieu. In respect of the actors themselves—trade unions and party organisations—latter-day interpreters have frequently regarded developments of union-party relationships as a process in which the unions, to the extent they are successful and true to their character and objectives as trade unions, free themselves from party domination. ¹ The most obvious example is found in the works of the late Professor Selig Perlman, especially his A Theory of the Labor Movement, (New York, 1928). It is recognised here that Perlman did not discuss Swedish developments. The historical fragment which follows is intended to demonstrate that, for the Swedish experience, such an interpretation leaves much to be desired.     

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.     

Trends in the development of physiocratic doctrine

Abstract

Of the two versions of Quesnay's Tableau économique, the one was constructed in 1758 and the other published in 1766. The latter derives from certain essential requirements of the former. Nevertheless they display striking differences. The earlier concept aimed solely at demonstrating the consequences for economic reproduction of different ways of spending money. Upon this was grafted the far more ambitious purpose of giving a complete picture of the annual reproduction and circulation of goods in a prosperous agricultural economy. The flexible and dynamic zigzag diagram thus developed into the rigid and static Formule du Tableau économique.* L. Herlitz, ‘The Tableau economique and the Doctrine of Sterility’, Scand. Econ. Hist, Rev. ix. (1961), passim. The change in the purpose and form of the Tableau took place precisely at the time that physiocracy grew into a well-disciplined and militant school, armed with an eschatological doctrine. The Formule, illustrating the ordre naturel, is the proper document of this school. Nevertheless the stamp of the earlier, cruder, more flexible and tentative concept still remains on the definitive Tableau; and especially does it remain on the physiocrats' own interpretations of it, making them difficult to understand when not related to the original zigzag diagram.     

The Swedish iron industry during the First World War and the Post-War depression

Abstract

In a paper read at the annual meeting of Jernkontoret (The Swedish Ironmasters' Association) in 1912 Professor E. F. Heckscher gave an estimate of the proportion of the total annual outpout of the Swedish iron industry which was exported. Including material entering into the exports of steelusing industries, it was estimated at 65–70 %. Assuming this to be correct, then only the saw-milling and paper- and pulp-making industries were at that time more dependent upon foreign markets than the iron industry. ¹ Jernkontorets Annaler (hereafter cited JKA) 1912. p. 183 ff. Cf. E. F. Heckscher, Svenska produktionsproblem, p. 107 and JKA 1919, pp. 181–202.      

The Nordic Countries' Trade Liberalisation in the 1950s: An introduction

Abstract

The fall of the Soviet Union re-awoke the interest in economic regime transformation. ¹ See for instance Dornbusch, R. et al (eds.), Postwar Economic Reconstruction and the Lessons for the East Today, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 1993. How should liberated states navigate the complex and difficult transition from state controlled bilateralism to a market-oriented multilateralism? Liberalisation and structural adjustment could happen faster than the social institutions were capable of absorbing. Transnational economic integration brings returns and efficiency, but at the same time challenges the social and political institutions on which the economic transactions are based. Liberalisation of trade, capital and payments impose considerable constraints on the democracies' governments in their pursuit of national consensus, stability and prosperity. This topic is at the core of the globalisation debate, and formulated as a trilemma between economic integration, proper public economic management and national sovereignty. ² Lawrence, S.H., Reflections on managing Global Integration, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 23, 1999, 3–18.      

Increased international integration is a prerequisite for more and better research in economic history

Abstract

In the article “Is Swedish Research in Economic History Internationally Integrated?” ¹ Daniel Waldenström, Is Swedish Research in Economic History Internationally Integrated?, Scandinavian Economic History Review, vol. LIII, 2005:2, 50–77 , I present new facts on the past international publications and conference participation activity of Swedish economic historians. In contrast to claims made in a recent large public investigation, my data show that Swedish economic historians have not published extensively in international journals, or books, in recent years. This can in part be explained by the custom to write predominantly monographs, to write mostly in Swedish, and to use hardly any quantitative methods or theory-based economic analysis. Naturally, I am well aware that there may also be some other factors at work, and that empirical investigations of this kind are always open to objections. Problems regarding sample selection, variable definitions and so forth cannot be avoided, and to focus mainly on journal article publications in a field where books and anthologies play an important role raises some concern. ² See, e.g., the discussion in my article on these issues relating to the works by Diana Hicks and others. However, my article does not advocate any methodological dogmatism and acknowledges that economic history research can be conducted and presented in many different ways, using several different methodologies. The important thing is to recognise that there is great potential in combining such an open-minded methodological attitude with an active interest and participation in the research that appears in the many international peer-reviewed journals. This would not be to import some foreign (American) methods or views of the field so much as trying to revive the true Swedish economic history in the spirit of Eli F. Heckscher. In my view, this is the most consistent strategy to ensure both more and better future Swedish research in economic history.     

The deformation of cohorts

Abstract

Investigations of the Swedish mortality decline during the 19th century have hardly considered the cohort-aspect. Generally, they are concerned with the question of period mortality. This is quite striking since we have mortality models which allow a separation of the cohort and period effects, and because the cohort aproach has been used in analysing other demographic phenomena during the period. ¹ In textbooks as well as elsewhere, Erland Hofsten, however, has asserted the necessity of considering the cohort aspect in population analysis — In this investigation the cohort is constituted of the individuals of the age groups 0–10 years during a ten-year period.      

Race and land ownership in Rhodesia: trajectories of conflicting nationalisms in Shimmer Chinodya's Dew in the morning (2001)

This paper analyses Shimmer Chinodya's novel Dew in the morning in order to demonstrate that fiction has the capacity to reveal patterns of meaning that comment on race relations and to show how these are related to the issue of land ownership in Rhodesia. The novel questions the assumption that bitterness and anger over economic dispossession necessarily leads to rebellion. Dew in the morning recounts different kinds of resistances that emphasise the ‘peasant option’ (Ranger, 1985 Ranger, T. 1985. Peasant consciousness and guerrilla war in Zimbabwe, Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House.  [Google Scholar]) in which Africans developed groups to stave off the possibility of being absorbed as full-time wage earners. The novel adds complexity to the notions of the armed political struggle and the peasant option by showing that these routes produced differentiated African subjectivities based on race, class and gender nationalisms. The movements or trajectories of these forms of peasant consciousnesses produced conflict-ridden nationalisms characterised by moments of resistance, incorporation and obeisance to colonial rule.     

The valuation of water for conservation projects in South Africa

A number of water development and conservation programmes are currently being undertaken in South Africa, one of the most notable being the Working for Water Programme. The economic rationale underlying the programme in selected mountain catchments in the Western Cape was presented by Van Wilgen et al. (South African Journal of Science, 93: 404–11, 1997 VAN WILGEN, BW, LITTLE, PR, CHAPMAN, RA, GÖRGENS, AHM, WILLEMS, T and MARAIS, C. 1997. The sustainable development of water resources: history, financial costs, and benefits of alien plant control programmes. South African Journal of Science, 93: 404–11. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) and Marais (Unpublished, PhD thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 1998 MARAIS C 1998 An economic evaluation of alien plant control programmes in the mountain catchment areas of the Western Cape province, South Africa Unpublished PhD thesis. Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch  [Google Scholar]). A cost–benefit analysis of the Working for Water Programme in the Mgeni catchment in KwaZulu‐Natal was conducted by Gillham & Haynes (Unpublished paper presented at Tenth South African National Hydrology Symposium, 2001 GILLHAM S HAYNES M 2001 Evaluating a riparian clearing programme as a water management strategy Unpublished paper presented at the Tenth South African National Hydrology Symposium, Pietermaritzburg, 26–28 September  [Google Scholar]). Cost–benefit analysis has also been conducted in the Eastern Cape by Hosking & Du Preez (South African Journal of Science, 95: 442–8, 1999 HOSKING, SG and DU PREEZ, M. 1999. A cost–benefit analysis of removing alien trees in the Tsitsikamma mountain catchment. South African Journal of Science, 95: 442–8. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). There are, however, aspects of these assessments which merit more attention than they have been given thus far. One of these aspects is the value of water benefits, and this article examines it from the perspectives of marginal cost and willingness to pay. It is shown that different approaches are appropriate for different project locations, and that significantly different results are being obtained using these approaches. It is concluded that great care is needed in relating the value of water benefits to the specifics of the various locations where the conservation project is being implemented.     

The monetary history of Rome

Abstract

The internationally-renowned Swedish historian, Professor Sture Bolin, has devoted himself, ever since his youth, to the problems of monetary history and to the study of coinage as a historical source. His doctoral thesis on the finds of Roman coins in independent Germany ¹ Fynden av romerska mynt i det fria Germanien. appeared in 1926; it was an important work which, by using numismatic source material, contributed considerably to the understanding of the relations between the Roman Empire and the Germans. After the publication of this work he continued to study the functions of money in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and this research resulted in the publication, between 1939 and 1957, of a number of important papers. During the same period he worked steadily on a major work designed to provide a synthesis of the problems relating to the state and its currency from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The first volume of this work, State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 A.D. ² Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm, 1958, p. 357, 45 Sw. Kr. , has now been published. The book is the product of a lifelong study of a central theme of economic history, and it unquestionably justifies the great efforts expended on it. It is a work of genius, epoch-making in its field, throwing completely new light upon Roman monetary history, and marking a culminating point in this branch of study.     

A case study in German economic imperialism: The colonial economic committee, 1896–1914

Abstract

The most thorough attempt so far made to estimate the population of Finland in the 17th century is that by the Swedish military historian, Major S. Sundquist. The purpose of his investigation was to discover the basis of enlistment in the army of the kingdom of Sweden under Gustavus II Adolphus. Sundquist obtained the number of farmsteads from the Crown terriers of the first decade of the 17th century and from lists drawn up in connexion with a levy raised to buy back the castle of Elfsborg lost to Denmark in the war of 1611–1613. His next step was to assess the average size of households. In source materials from the sheriffdoms (fögderier) of Porvoo (Borgå) and Kymi (Kymmene) an assessment term, näbb, was found. Sundquist interpreted this term as indicating the number of married couples living in a farm household in addition to the farmer and his wife. In the two sheriffdoms mentioned, the number of such additional couples was 1.14 per farmstead. Sundquist changed this ratio into the round figure of one which he applied to the whole country, thus assuming a national average of two married couples per farm. Assuming, furthermore, that the population structure was the same in the 17th century as in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the earliest official population statistics were drawn up, he assumed for each married couple the same number of widows and widowers, unmarried adults and children as appeared in these statistics. In this way he arrived at a ‘probable minimum’ of 350,000 persons; he also calculated a ‘proved minimum’ of 219,000 by assuming that the average number of married couples per farmstead was 2.14 in the sheriffdorns of Porvoo and Kymi but only 1.0 in the rest of Finland. ¹ S. Sundquist, Finlands folkmängd och bebyggelse i början av 1600-talet [Finland's population and colonization at the beginning of the 17th century], Meddelanden Iran generalstabens krigshistoriska avdelning II, Stockholm.      

Swedish artisans in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The history of the artisan class and of the gild system in Sweden has been dealt with in a number of works, such as Professor E. Heckscher's Sveriges ekonomiska historia [The Economic History of Sweden] and in two of the volumes of the great work of Landsorganisationen ¹ Landsorganisationen, popularly known as ‘L.O’, the Swedish equivalent of the T.U.C. : Den svenska arbetarklassens historia [History of the Swedish Working Class], as well as in Professor E. Söderlund's Stockholms hantverkarklass 1720–1772 [The Artisan Class of Stockholm, 1720–1772]. These topics are of course also touched upon in histories of towns and other literature. However, in those studies which cover the whole country the subject has only been pursued to the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th. The subsequent period is discussed in Henry Lindström's two books Näringsfrihetens utveckling i Sverige 1809–1836 and Näringsirihetsirågan i Sverige 1837–1864 [The Development of Industrial Freedom in Sweden, 1809–1836, and The Problem of Industrial Freedom in Sweden, 1837–1864], but only from a special point of view. Thanks, however, to the good offices of Sveriges hantuerks- och småindustriorgonisation (The Swedish Craft and Minor Industries Organisation), an attempt has now been made, in a work by Dr. Tom Söderberg that has been in preparation for some time, to fill the gap thus existing in respect of the period after 1815. The result, in spite of the relatively limited number of pages, is a very comprehensive exposition, even if the subject obviously cannot be exhausted within the given frame of reference.     

Early history of banking in Gothenburg discount house operations 1783–1818

Abstract

For many years Sweden lacked a well-developed banking system. Even by the middle of the eighteenth century, there were no established institutions for the effective mobilising and channelling of capital. However, Sweden's economic development during the eighteen century, when commerce and the production of goods were expanding swiftly, increased the need for some institutionalising of capital movements and the establishment of fixed forms, especially for personal credits. During the latter half of the century, the Swedish Rikshankdid deliberately conduct certain types of operation whose effect was to satisfy a growing demand for capital in some sectors, of the economy. This was effected through such bodies as Manufakturdiskontoen(The Manufacturers' Discount Bank), Generalassistans-kontoret(General Assistance Office), Diskontkompaniet(the Discount Company), Generaldiskontkontoret(the General Discounting Office) and Riksgäldskontoret(the National Debt Office). ¹ On this development generally see Fritz, S., Studier i svenskt bänkväsen 1772-1789, Stockholm 1967 and literature referred to therein.      

Managing the costs of HIV/AIDS: A case study of a South African contract cleaning company

This paper, based on a case study of a South African contract cleaning company in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, adds to the recent literature on the management of the financial impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. After situating the research alongside recent contributions that have examined large enterprises, and small, medium and micro enterprises, the paper provides a profile of the company and its predominantly female workforce. The company's management of costs incurred due to HIV/AIDS is critically assessed from the perspective of financial sustainability, using an AIDS Projection Model developed by Matthews (2007 Matthews, A. 2007. Computational modelling of the impact of AIDS on business. AIDS, 21(Supplement 3): S91–7. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). It was found that while continued employment of this workforce is economically sustainable, both from the perspective of the business and the associated provident fund, the costs to employees are far from equitable. The paper therefore recommends the implementation of a holistic HIV/AIDS management programme, including treatment and prevention activities.     

An Econometric Analysis of the Determinants of Fertility for China, 1952–2000

This study investigates the determinants of the fertility rate in China over the 1952–2000 period. Consistent with theory, the key explanatory variables in our fertility model are real per capita income, infant mortality rate, female illiteracy and female labour force participation rates. The long-run results and the test for cointegration are based on the Johansen (1988 Johansen, S. 1988. Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 12: 231–254. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Johansen & Juselius (1990 Johansen, S and Juselius, K. 1990. Maximum likelihood estimation and inference on cointegration – with applications to the demand for money. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 52: 169–210. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) approach. Our long-run results conform to theory in that all variables appear with their expected signs, and the dummy variable used to capture the effects of the family planning policy indicates that in the years of the policy, fertility rates have been falling by around 10–12%. Our results suggest that socio-economic development – consistent with the traditional structural hypothesis – played a key role in China's fertility transition.     

The banks and the financing of industry in Sweden,c. 1900–1927

Abstract

In the recently published third volume of Fagerstabrukens Historic, Professor E. F. Söderlund has given a detailed and penetrating account of the formation in 1927 of the Fagersta concern, resulting from the amalgamation of five leading Swedish iron works. ¹ Cf. Professor B. Boëthius' article above. pp. 174. His analysis offers a most useful background for a discussion of certain general problems of industrial finance and ownership, and of banking, in Sweden during the First World War and the 1920s. To provide such a discussion is the purpose of this article, and to that end it will be necessary to summarise Professor Söderlund's narrative. As, however, the story is in all essential respects the same for each of the works, a brief resume of the main facts in the history of one of them, Fagersta Bruk, will suffice.     

Social capability deficits and productivity behaviour of African manufacturing firms: Evidence from Lesotho garment producers

Despite attempts to induce strong competitiveness in African manufacturing firms, poor productivity performances continue to hinder their ability to operate successfully in international markets. This paper argues that, while many plausible explanations can be put forward for this failing, analysis of the firms' social and institutional contexts can provide useful insights into why they have continued to perform badly. Adopting the technological catch-up framework proposed by Abramovitz (1986) Abramovitz, M. 1986. Catching up, forging ahead and falling behind. Journal of Economic History, 46(2): 385–406. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], the paper uses the case of Lesotho garment producers to illustrate how an environment characterised by significant social capability deficits has a negative impact on local firms' competitiveness. Strategic interventions to improve the quality of infrastructural services deliveries are suggested as urgently needed remedial measures.     

Incentive and Dilution Effects of Employee Stock Bonuses and Stock Options: Evidence from Taiwan

Employee stock bonuses (ESBs) and employee stock options (ESOs) are the means for high-technology companies in Taiwan to reward their employees. This research connects the Ohlson (1995 Ohlson, JA. 1995. Earnings, book values, and dividends in equity valuation. Contemporary Accounting Research, 11: 661–687. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) model and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) model to investigate these effects of ESBs and ESOs, respectively, for a sample of high-technology companies in Taiwan. I generate two empirical generalizations. (1) The incentive effects of ESBs are significantly associated with performance, thus enhancing firm value; in addition, the incentive effects of ESBs are greater than the dilution effects. (2) The incentive effects of ESOs are also significantly associated with performance, whereas the dilution effects of ESOs are insignificant. Although evidence supports the incentive effects of providing ESOs and ESBs, it is debatable whether ESOs and ESBs dilute shareholders’ equity.     

Panel Cointegration Estimation of International Knowledge Spillovers

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of international knowledge spillovers through import on a country's productivity, using panel data from 13 Organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries during 1981–1999 and two alternative estimation methods for the panel cointegration model. The results confirm the robust effect of international knowledge spillovers through the flows of intermediate goods import. The magnitude of the effect is much greater in the non-G7 countries than in the G7 countries according to the fully modified ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation. By contrast, domestic knowledge capital stocks help enhance a country's productivity only in the G7 countries.