Family Capitalism within Big Business

Abstract

The article addresses central questions in the research of family business, corporate governance and the transformation of Swedish industry. The analysis is drawn from the example of the Wallenberg family in Sweden, an industrial dynasty of five generations. Ideas of ownership and overriding values are discussed in relation to pressures of change in international industries. In detail, the article deals with 1) the concepts of corporate governance, long-term active ownership and networking capacity and the chronology of successful family capitalism, 2) the pressures for change experienced in early post-World War II Swedish industry in general and in the three multinational companies in particular, 3) how the owners and top management of the three companies responded strategically to these pressures and 4) the extent to which the provision of capital was accompanied by industrial competence or if simple patience on the part of capital was sufficient.     

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.     

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.

     

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.     

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.     

Influence of the public sector on activity in Denmark, 1929-39

Abstract

The article presents the first quantification of Denmark's discretionary fiscal policy of the 1930s. The measuring of the discretionary budget effects is based on a revision of the changes in the aggregate public sector budget balance and a computation of the size of the automatic stabilisers. It is shown that Danish fiscal policy became steadily more contractive between 1932/33 and 1936/37, while changes in an expansive direction occurred only in 1931/32 and in the late 1930s. It is concluded that the fiscal policy pursued in Denmark had considerably more points of similarity with fiscal policy in Great Britain than with the Swedish policy of the 1930s.     

The price of milk: Perspectives on the history of Norwegian dairy cooperation

Abstract

A study of OEEC's industrial statistics for 1949 is liable to lead to the conclusion that Sweden at that date enjoyed an exceedingly favourable position. Subject to the reservation that no figures are available for Switzerland, Sweden showed a greater rise in production over 1938 than any other country of Western Europe. The Swedish increase was stated to be 50–60 per cent, compared with an average increase for the OEEC countries during the same period of about 10 per cent. At the other extreme, West Germany showed a fall of about 25 per cent.     

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.     

The general strike in Sweden 1909

Abstract

This book deals with the events leading up to the great Swedish labour conflict of 1909, which began in June of that year with an extensive lockout by the three national employers' associations led by the newly formed confederation of big industrial concerns, Svenska Arbetsgivare Förening (SAF), and was extended on 4 August by the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen or LO) into a general strike involving 300,000 workers. By 4 September the trade unions were compelled to look for a way of terminating the conflict. After the defeat they had consequently lost half their members by 1910. The employers' organisations were then able to ensure peace on the labour market right up to 1917. Nevertheless they accepted the principle of collective bargaining, although they did not achieve the basic general agreement with established negotiating procedure which had been their aim in the struggle of 1909.     

Swedish Historical National Accounts, 1800–2000: Principles and Implications of a New Generation

Abstract

A new set of data and estimates of historical national accounts for Sweden is concluded with the project Structural Change in the Swedish Economy, 1800–1980: Construction and Analysis of National Product Series. This article provides a short overview of earlier efforts, beginning in the 1930s, to construct historical national accounts and an account of the present project. The new estimates resulted in partly new representations of economic growth and change. They are also compared with earlier data. Furthermore, effects of the deflation techniques ( i.e., double deflation) are analyzed by comparing the series with those resulting from single deflation. Finally, structural changes are analyzed using modern time series analysis.     

Labour relations and industrial productivity

Abstract

Britain and Sweden have often been cited to illustrate the contrasting fortunes of post-War European economies. Britain seemed destined to struggle with bad labour relations and comparatively poor levels of output, whilst Sweden established a reputation as a model of corporatist management and high productivity.¹ The industrial turmoil of the 1970s swept Scandinavia as well as the U.K. and blurred this convenient contrast, but it was the dramatic improvement in the performance of British manufacturing in the 1980s which has forced us to reappraise the nature of ‘the British disease’. This improvement has been attributed by a number of writers to the changed climate of industrial relations, as many employers broke with the bad bargaining practices of earlier decades.² The power of the unions has been curtailed if not completely extinguished and resistance to new technologies has been overcome in many of the traditional strongholds of craft production. It seems logical to conclude that the defeat of the unions and the reform of industrial relations have been essential prerequisites of improved output.³ Yet the evidence is, at best, ambiguous. Current debates on productivity in Britain during the 1980s indicate the difficulty of measuring changes in contemporary output and the limits of the data available for such an exercise.⁴ The Swedish economy, and Scandinavia more generally, were historically successfully in combining a steady improvement in output with very high levels of trade unionism.⁵ It was able to sustain this progress during the 1970s and 1980s in the face of mounting pressures on the Swedish model. Established agreements were called into question by the outbreak of large scale strikes whilst dissatisfaction with central negotiations became apparent on the shop floor and in the board rooms of Swedish industry. Wage differentials increased whilst productivity improvements declined during the 1980s, particularly in the export industries. The trade unions were less attractive to manual workers in Sweden as well as Britain and in the opening months of the 1990 the Social Democrats were thrown into crisis by the resistance to their efforts to introduce austerity controls on labour. Sweden seemed to have belatedly arrived at the same impasse which British labour faced a decade earlier.     

Big business in Sweden: The golden age of the great Swedish shipyards, 1945–1974

Abstract

This article examines the great Swedish shipyards during the long period of expansion and transformation which lasted from the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the shipping crisis in 1974. It aims to try to explain the successes achieved during this period of growth. Swedish shipbuilding's character as an export industry was linked to the rapidly growing international oil economy and the building of tankers which created enormous opportunities for development. The tanker vessel's simple hull, along with the requirement of tightness, brought an early orientation towards welding and sectional building. The demand for ever-larger vessels resulted in the alignment of production systems towards such construction. The consequences of this are studied in terms of markets, financing problems, investment. production technology and the role ofthe state.     

Norwegian seter-farming

Abstract

This article compares financial groups in Japan and Sweden in order to examine functional and structural changes and continuities since the 1980s. The main question is to what extent controlling blocks and symbiotic relationships to banks have faded away in favor of arm's length distance between actors and a more market-oriented system reminiscent of those in the United Kingdom and the United States. The article gives an insight into how the industrial finance system in Japan and Sweden have responded to the deregulation of the credit market in the 1980s, the financial and industrial crises in the early 1990s and early twenty-first century, and the globalization of markets and businesses. The choice of Japan and Sweden is motivated by the fact that these countries by tradition have been two of the strongest representatives of a control-oriented industrial finance system in the world. In this article, a diachronic and synchronic comparative analysis is used, with focus on four distinctive parameters of the industrial finance system: ownership and control, bank relationships, crisis management and personal networks. The article draws on empirical findings from a variety of sources, including archives.     

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 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.     

Nordic networks: patent agents and the business of technology intermediation in Sweden and Finland, 1860–1910

ABSTRACT

The article analyses Swedish and Finnish patent agents and their businesses at the turn of the twentieth century. Due to legal requirements, all foreign patent applications had to pass through the hands of patent agents. Despite the central role, this transnational business of technology intermediation has received only limited attention in the scholarship. The article studies the business relationships between the patent agents and their clients, and employs new datasets, which include information about all foreign patentees using a patent agent in 1860–1910. The main findings are that the transnational business relationships affected the specialisation of national patent agents, especially in Finland, where patent agents with a legal background contributed to the inflow of inventions managed by Swedish patent agents. Patent agent services also represented significant indirect costs of the patent systems for their foreign clients.     

Methods and sources for the study of Swedish standards of living

Abstract

Recent studies of trends in Swedish standards of living raise questions of principle. Are the trends best measured in terms of individuals or of households, in monetary units or by the acquisition of goods and services? How ought income to be defined for this purpose? Is it better to investigate a cross-section of the population or occupational groups, and which years ought to be studied to obtain a valid series over time? Some of these problems have been elucidated by two dissertations published in the course of the inter-university research project on Swedish living standards 1925-1960, M. Järnek's study of household incomes in the city of Malmö between 1925 and 1964 and the present author's investigation of certain occupational groups in Gothenburg from 1919 to 1960.¹ This article is an attempt to continue and expand the discussion.     

Networks and Scientific Integrity: Eli Heckscher and the Construction of Economic History in Sweden, 1920–1950

Abstract

This article deals with the US government's efforts to curb the Swedish ball bearing producer SKF's exports to the East early in the Cold War, 1950–1952, and interprets this process within the framework of hegemony theory. In doing this, the article makes use of previously unutilised US archival material. The period up to mid-1951 saw increasing US pressure upon Sweden and SKF to consent to US hegemony by abiding by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) embargo. To achieve its objectives US policymakers developed a flexible ‘carrot and stick’ approach, and the article adds considerable detail regarding the US government's handling of SKF. US tolerance and flexibility was dependent upon Swedish consent to American hegemony in Western Europe, which was received through the signing of the Stockholm agreement – a hegemonic apparatus through which Sweden's abidance by the embargo was handled – in mid-June 1951. A small amount of exports was accepted by Washington as long as the main US objective – to deny the Eastern Bloc strategic technology – was adhered to by SKF. The article also reveals the lack of policy coordination in the Swedish government, and the conflicts between the government and SKF regarding the responsibility for adhering to the embargo.     

Swedish iron exports to the United States, 1783–1860

Abstract

For about half the period reviewed in this article, the United States was the biggest purchaser of Swedish iron, having particularly close links with western Sweden. An earlier work analysed in detail how the character of the American demand exerted an influence on the organisation of iron sales in Gothenburg. The present article lays the main emphasis less on the local and more on the international aspects.¹ The exposition divides itself into four periods: a) the beginning of the market, 1783-1808; b) the war years, 1809-15; c) the era of high sales, 1816-42; and d) adaptation to new conditions, 1843-60.     

Joseph Schumpeter in Sweden

Abstract

Different aspects of Schumpeter's relationship with Sweden are explored in this article. Schumpeter visited Sweden a few times in the inter-war period in his capacity of well-known economist. During World War I he also wished to go to Sweden to gather information that would be of assistance to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Schumpeter refered occasionally to Sweden in his writings, usually as a symbol for socialism and as a threat to capitalism. However, he failed to recognise that Sweden also had a vigorous tradition of entrepreneurship, as exemplified by the Wallenberg family and the Rausings. Schumpeter's view of Swedish economists is also discussed, as is the extent to which Swedish economists have been influenced by Schumpeter.