Sweden's first bank-notes

Abstract

Sweden's first bank, Stockholms Banco, began to function in 1657. Its name is familiar among economic historians because it was the first bank in Europe to issue bank-notes in the modern sense of the word. It is exactly three hundred years since this issue began, and to celebrate the jubilee the Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) has published a work on the first Swedish bank-notes; its author IS Aleksandrs Platbārzdis of the Royal Coin Cabinet, Stockholm. The book is beautifully produced and richly illustrated.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Dr. Utterström's dissertation completes the large project initiated in the 1930s under the auspices, and mainly at the expense, of Landsorganisationen (the Swedish TUC): the production of a comprehensive history of the Swedish working classes.Throughout the undertaking basic research in public and private archives has been necessary, the source material having been used before only to a very limited extent. The final work comprises 12 volumes, written by nine authors, including some of Sweden's leading political scientists and economic historians. This investigation of working class history became one of the main themes of Swedish research in social and economic history for several years; it has accordingly affected the direction of that research in several important respects.     

Is Swedish research in economic history internationally integrated?

Abstract

This paper presents empirical evidence of the international integration of Swedish economic historians. Contrary to the claims of a recent national evaluation of the discipline, the Swedish shares of international publications and conference presentations are robustly below available cross-country and cross-discipline benchmarks. Also considering levels of research inputs, the relative underperformance of the Swedish field is alarming. Four main explanations to this situation are forwarded: 1) being among the largest economic history communities in the world, Sweden has become self-sufficient and almost independent of the international arena; 2) the dominating research language is Swedish; 3) the dominating publication format is the monograph (in Swedish); and 4) Swedish economic historians are reluctant to use modern economic theories and statistical analysis to complement the traditionally dominant qualitative research methods.     

Juhana Aunesluoma & Susanna Fellman (eds), Från olika till jämlika. Finlands och Sveriges ekonomier på 1900-talet. Svenskt i Finland – finskt i Sverige III

Abstract

The decades immediately before and after 1900 were a ‘take-off’ period in the history of Swedish merchant banks; their total assets rose from 650 million Swedish kronor in 1890 to 3,000 million in 1913. Simultaneously, however, the vigorous industrial expansion offered great opportunities for ingenious private financiers. One of their fields was the financing of innovations or new business combinations which, despite the apparent promise of a prosperous future before them, found it impossible to obtain adequate credit from the banks, owing to continuing uncertainty, or too distant a prospect of profits, or perhaps also to the inadequate personal finances of the men of ideas behind them. A clever and ruthless financier could earn a handsome reward for the support he gave or arranged in return for the considerable risks he ran. The prize was a large and enduring profit if success was not too long delayed, or if he was able at a suitable opportunity to shift the burden on to someone else, but failure could lead to disaster and the bold operator himself needed sufficiently close connections with a bank with large resources and risks spread nationwide. Ernest Thiel was a substantial and characteristic representative of such private financiers, who played a significant role in the history of economic growth in Sweden. One of Thiel's main interests in the 1890s was the largescale exploitation of the iron ore deposits in Lapland and the building up of extensive exports of Swedish ore. All the ingredients were present: a brilliant idea for future development, a poor business situation for those most closely concerned, and an uncertain period before the idea could be translated into economic success. There was room for many participants in the game; Thiel was one of those who profited greatly by it.     

Neutrality and free trade: Sweden and trade liberalisation, 1948–1958

Abstract

This article discusses the Swedish attitude to European economic cooperation, an attitude that has been described as reluctant. The traditional explanation for this has been Sweden's neutrality. This explanation has been challenged by researchers, who have claimed that a nationally self-sufficient social democracy was responsible for the reluctance towards Europe. In this article, neutrality is still seen as the main explanatory factor. Swedish strategies for dealing with European integration linked the concepts of neutrality and global free trade. Nordic cooperation was also seen as a strategy to meet demands for European integration. Swedish activities within the European organisations were limited by neutrality concerns. Within these limits Sweden worked for economic policy solutions, which might be called social democratic.     

Svenskt arbete och liv

Abstract

Among Eli F. Heckscher's works on economic history, his Merkantilismen (first published in Swedish, 1931) and Sveriges ekonomiska historia från Gustav Vasa (1935-50) are the most significant.     

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.     

SEHR & IEHA — the early years

Abstract

In January 1952, Professor Astrid Friis asked me to accompany her and our colleague Aksel E Christensen to Stockholm for the inaugural meeting of a closed circle of Nordic historians who had set themselves the task of publishing an English-language journal of economic history. The meeting was arranged by Professor Ernst Söderlund. By way of introduction he brought us greetings from Eli F Heckscher, who by his work and debating ability had done more than anyone else to create respect for the subject of economic history in Sweden, and whose name was also renowned internationally thanks in part to his book on mercantilism. His latest achievement was the second volume of his mammoth work of Swedish economic history. Heckscher was in hospital at the time and died shortly afterwards. Thus it came about that the torch was passed on, but still it was clear that the Heckscher era was ebbing to its close.     

Swedish Financial Politics, 1815–18

Abstract

Dr. Per Gudmund Andreen's dissertation deals with a period in Swedish history which is of great interest both to the economic and the general historian. From 1812 to 1834, the year of the final currency reform, the problems created by inflation and by post-war crises dominated Swedish domestic politics; only the great issues of foreign policy engaged more of the government's attention.     

Carin Israelsson,Kor och människor. Nötkreatursskötsel och besättningsstorlekar på torp och herrgårdar 1850–1914

Abstract

During the 18th and the early 19th centuries there was one main dynamic factor in the Swedish economy: the merchant houses of Stockholm and Gothenburg. Their dynamic power derived from their especial role in capital accumulation and in international credit movements. Many of these houses were at that time helping to finance the Swedish iron industry. Later, during the industrial revolution, many of them were to make decisive contributions, as entrepreneurs, financiers and exporters, to the building of the Swedish forest industries. Not until then did their true dynamic power make itself felt; before the industrial revolution the generally stationary state of the economy had prevented any significant number of innovations. But in so far as there were innovations in the economic life of pre-industrial Sweden, they were due to these merchant houses.     

Reviews

Abstract

Professor Hugo E. Pipping's work on the vicissitudes of the Bank of Finland (the central bank of the country) is one of the weightiest contributions that has yet been made to Finnish economic history. With the completion of volume lIt he has brought the story up to the beginning of World War I.     

The Bank Failure Rate,Economic Conditions and Banking Statutes in the U.S., 1970–2009

Given the significance of bank failures for the economic health and stability of the U.S., it is imperative to have insights into factors that systematically influence bank failures, including major federal government banking statutes that are implemented. Accordingly, this exploratory study investigates factors influencing the bank failure rate in the U.S. over the period 1970 through 2009, with emphasis on two major banking statutes, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 (FDICIA) and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 (RNIBA). After allowing for a variety of economic and financial variables in the U.S. over the study period, the evidence strongly implies also that FDICIA acted to reduce bank failures whereas RNIBA (presumably by increasing competition and/or increasing costs through branch bank expansion) induced a net increase in bank failures in the U.S.     

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     

The Birkarlians in the melting pot

Abstract

In 1924 the Finnish historian, Jalmari Jaakkola, published a study Pirkkalaisliikkeen synty (The Birth of the Birkarlian Movement) in which he argued convincingly for the theory that the Birkarlians (Pirkkalaiset), who lived in the sixteenth century in the northernmost corner of the Gulf of Bothnia and levied taxes on the Lapps, were of Finnish origin. In Jaakkola's opinion, the Birkarlians were the successors of even older west-Finnish armed Lapland-farers, the men of Kainuu, who from at least the thirteenth century onwards made long hunting treks, chiefly from the parish of Pirkkala (Birkala) in Upper Satakunta, into Lapland and along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and gradually subjected a great proportion of the Lapps to taxation. This theory has been generally accepted in Finnish historical literature, and a number of Swedish scholars have even given it their blessing with minor reservations.¹ In the summer of 1964, six months after the death of Professor Jaakkola, a complete surprise was sprung from the Swedish side. Birger Steckzén, former keeper of Sweden's military archives, published a 500-page work entitled Birkarlar och lappar (Birkarlians and Lapps). In it, he tried to refute the Finnish theory and made the Birkarlians of the Far North into Swedes. The Swedish word 'birkarls', in his opinion, is an archaic form of the ‘biurkarl’ (biur = beaver in Old Swedish). The Birkarls, i.e. beavermen, were thus, he claimed, Swedish beaver trappers who subjugated the whole of Lapland in the early Middle Ages.     

The Swedish Salt Market during the Great Northern War

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the effects of the great naval blockade on the Swedish salt market during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). Whether or not salt can be perceived as a strategic good subject of wartime shortage is important in interpreting the reasons behind the famous Swedish Navigation Act of 1724. New research claims that the Navigation Act was a welfare enhancing institution, as it helped to secure salt imports. This essay shows that although Sweden was at war with most European Great Powers and the subject of sea blockades during the Great Northern War, the salt market still worked remarkably well. Neither supply nor salt movements show any signs of a great crisis. Thus, there was no need to secure salt imports during the period of peace that followed. Consequently, the Swedish Navigation Act had little to do with welfare but more with rent seeking and monopolies on the freight market.     

The entelechies of mercantilism

Daniel Waldenström's debate article in this issue of the SEHR raises several interesting questions for discussion. I will not comment on his criticisms of Swedish economic historians' publishing practice and their international participation; I will state only that I think economic and business historians in the Nordic countries should increase their international activities and their publications in international journals. In my opinion this concerns particularly scholars in my own country, Norway. Waldenström makes, however, several normative assertions about economic history that concern the discipline as a whole, including the guiding principles of the editorial policy of the SEHR. His normative claims about content and the methodological foundations of economic history deserve an answer.     

Dispersion of engineers in a transitional society; Teknologins nytta

Abstract

The increasing interest shown in recent years by economic historians in the role of technology and technicians in industrial development has produced surprisingly few attempts to analyse technical phenomena within their social context, i.e. utilising the theories and methods of social science. These attempts include a group of Swedish projects under the heading ‘Technicians and Scientists in Swedish Industrialisation’ located at the History Institute ofUppsala University and financially supported by The Bank. of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Rolf Torstendahl publishes in Dispersion of Engineers in a Transitional Society the results of those parts of the studies particularly concerned with the social mobility of Swedish engineers during the period before and especially during industrialisation. His other project report, Teknologins nytta, deals mainly with aspects of the political background to the growth of technicians' training during the decades before the industrial breakthrough. The publication of other reports by participants in the studies may be expected soon.     

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.

     

Opposing Prêt-à-Porter: Mills,Guilds and Government on Ready-made Clothing in Early Nineteenth-Century Stockholm

Abstract

This article discusses how economic thought constituted an institutional obstacle to the development of a consumer society in Sweden, during the decades around the year 1800, with reference to the production and distribution of ready-made clothing. The analysis is based on the discussions sparked by the Stockholm Tailor's Guild's repeated applications for permission to open a ‘clothes warehouse’. The article examines the positions taken by the different actors on the local arena and on the state level. It argues that although rivalry over the local market and conflicts between different corporate bodies did play a role, the decisive factor in deciding the question was the role and position of the Swedish textile industry. Appeals to what was beneficial and of practical use to Stockholm inhabitants were countered by warnings of increased smuggling and weakened control over the quality of industrial and craft products, as well as arguments concerning the optimal uses of the country's workforce. Thus, an apparently simple application for permission to sew clothes together, and then sell them, developed into a discussion of the entire basis of Swedish society's economic structure.