The measurement of production movements: Lessons from the general engineering industry in Italy, 1861–1913

In the literature the (Italian) engineering industry is seen as one that transformed metal into machines; its time path is inferred from that of its consumption of metal. Newly recovered evidence indicates that far more metal was turned into (traditional) hardware than into (modern) machines. Machine production grew rapidly from a very small base: metal consumption fails to capture this change in the product mix, and understates the growth of new production at constant prices. Moreover, maintenance activity was in general as significant as new production. Maintenance was labor-intensive rather than metal-intensive, trend-dominated rather than cyclical, and relatively larger, next to new production, in 1861 than in 1913: metal consumption overstates the growth rate of the industry’s total product at constant prices, and much overstates its cyclical volatility. Technical progress was negligible in maintenance, but rapid in new production: constant-price-weighted physical measures fail to capture productivity growth, and even late-weighted series overstate the growth of the industry’s real product. These results are not tied to conditions peculiar to pre-War Italy: the new estimates presented here pave the way for emending, or at least reevaluating, the engineering-industry product series reconstructed for other times or places.     

Regional inequalities and the West–East divide in Turkey since 1913

This paper examines the evolution of regional disparities within the present-day borders of Turkey since 1913. Based on our estimates for 58 provinces, we find β-convergence, an inverse U, and more recently, the beginnings of an N-shaped pattern for value added per capita. We also find that regional disparities in Turkey exhibit a number of special features that do not easily fit the well-studied pattern of the early industrializers. First, while per capita value added in other regions moved towards country averages, the differences between the East and the rest of the country persisted and even increased until recently. Second, spatial distribution of economic activity became more concentrated over time due to continued migration to the megacity of Istanbul. Third, we find that regional disparities in per capita value added in Turkey and other developing countries have been higher than those experienced by the early industrializers. These findings raise questions about the extent to which the regional disparities experiences of Turkey and other developing countries have been different than those of the early industrializers.     

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.     

The South African labour market, 1995–2015

This study investigates the changes in the South African labour market in the post-apartheid period. While unemployment increased over the 1995–2015 period, employment also increased. Nonetheless, the extent of employment increase is not rapid enough to absorb all net entrants into the labour force, resulting in increasing unemployment, or an employment absorption rate of 65.3%. Unemployment is concentrated in specific demographically and geographically defined groups, most notably Africans, the lowly educated and those aged below 30 years, residing in rural areas in Gauteng. Finally, four worrying findings are observed: youth jobseekers aged below 30 years struggle to find their first job; chronic unemployment is more serious for the relatively older jobseekers (aged 45 years or above) with past work experience; employees working for small, medium and micro enterprises still stagnate at approximately 3.5 million; and jobseekers from the older age cohorts are less likely to actively seek work by enquiring at workplaces and answering job advertisements.     

Public–private sector segmentation in the Pakistani labour market

This study investigates public–private sector wage differentials for male and female waged employees in Pakistan. This is done using latest nationally representative data from the Pakistan Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) 2005. We adopt three methodologies to obtain robust estimates of the wage differential and the results reveal that public sector workers enjoy large wage premia. The gross pro-public wage differential is much larger for women than for men. Our findings also show that while private and public sector workers’ differing characteristics ‘explain’ a larger proportion of the private–public wage gap for men, this is not the case for women.     

Innovation and industrial renewal in Sweden, 1970–2007

This study explores the question of whether the Swedish innovation output of the 1970s and 1980s (and the following decades) indicates structural lock-in or renewal. It is motivated by inconsistent explanations in the current literature about the relation between the economic slowdown and subsequent industrial renewal, as well as a lack of research focusing, in this context, on the primary driver of economic growth and structural change: innovation. By observing the number and type of innovations as they hit the market, the data in this paper tell a real time story about micro level innovation activity during the time that the economic crisis unfolds. The analysis considers Swedish innovation output between 1970 and 2007, characterising the number of significant innovations, their novelty, and their origin (including size of firm and industry sector). Three central findings emerge, defined by both the time period and the character of innovations. First, the magnitude of innovation activity peaks in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Second, starting in the late 1970s, small firms begin to outperform large firms in terms of both innovation quantity and quality (i.e. world market novelties). Third, the 1980s saw a distinct shift in the industrial origin of innovations, with software and telecom becoming the leaders in innovation output. The findings suggest that the observed industrial renewal is more nuanced than what has emerged from previous research.     

Tariff protection in Sweden, 1885–1914

Abstract

The Swedish finance company crisis was a kind of “run” that happened in September, 1990. It marked the beginning of the Swedish banking crisis of the early 1990s. The crisis was initially focused on the finance company Nyckeln. The specific negative information about Nyckeln is identified, and so is the extreme lateness with which it reached, if at all, the supervisory authority and the banks that were involved in lending to the finance companies. The paper then inquires whether there were warning signs of the forthcoming crisis in capital market and other public information, by means of the usual event study methodology. The data employed include indices for the banking industry and the real estate and construction industry, and share prices and trading volume for finance companies. The conclusion is that the crisis really came as a surprise, with very little advance warning.     

Coal exports and British shipping, 1850–1913

We export of British coal was a major feature of late 19th-century ocean shipping. It has often been argued that British coal was key to the success of British shipping, but close examination raises doubts. Most British coal went to European ports where British ships carried a smaller proportion of the trade than they did in more distant trades. Shared costs between outward and homeward freights created an important relationship between coal freight rates and the freight rates on imports into northwestern Europe. In general, however, there seems to be little connection between Britain's shipping success and the export of coal.     

Between conquest and independence: Real wages and demographic change in Spanish America, 1530–1820

On the basis of a newly constructed dataset, this paper presents long-term series of the price levels, nominal wages, and real wages in Spanish Latin America – more specifically in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina – between ca. 1530 and ca. 1820. It synthesizes the work of scholars who have collected and published data on individual cities and periods, and presents comparable indices of real wages and prices in the colonial period that give a reasonable guide to trends in the long run. We show that nominal wages and prices were on average much higher than in Western Europe or in Asia, a reflection of the low value of silver that must have had consequences for competitiveness of the Latin American economies. Labour scarcity was the second salient feature of Spanish Latin America and resulted in real wages much above subsistence and in some cases (Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina) comparable to levels in Northwestern Europe. For Mexico, this was caused by the dramatic decline of the population after the Conquest. For Bolivia, the driving force was the boom in silver mining in Potosi that created a huge demand for labour. In the case of Argentina, low population density was a pre-colonial feature. Perhaps due to a different pattern of depopulation, the real wages of other regions (Peru, Colombia and Chile) were much lower, and only increased above subsistence during the first half of the 18th century. These results are consistent with independent evidence on biological standards of living and with estimates of GDP per capita at the beginning of the 19th century.     

Sanitary infrastructures and the decline of mortality in Germany, 1877–1913†

Clean water provision is considered crucial for eradicating waterborne diseases. However, the benefits of piped water can be limited in environments characterized by the inadequate storage and disposal of waste. This article studies the impact of waterworks and sewerage on mortality in German cities during the period 1877–1913. The results show that the supply of safe drinking water reduced the number of deaths, although to a lower extent than suggested previously. In the absence of efficient systems of sewage removal, contact with faeces and water contamination created a favourable environment for the spread of enteric ailments, offsetting some of the positive effects of waterworks. Moreover, the study shows that sanitary investments had important heterogeneous effects. First, their impact was markedly lower in municipalities with high levels of economic inequality and employment in the textile sector. Second, cities located in non-Prussian territories experienced lower declines in mortality following the construction of sanitary infrastructures. The results in this article highlight the importance of analysing public health measures jointly as well as their interaction with local socioeconomic and institutional factors to understand historical progress against ill health and premature death.     

Migration,marriage and social mobility: Women in Sweden 1880–1900

We study the intergenerational social mobility of women by looking at how migration was associated with socioeconomic marriage mobility using complete-count census data for Sweden. The censuses 1880–1900 have been linked at the individual level, enabling us to follow almost 100,000 women from their parental home to their new marital household. Marriage market imbalances were not an important push factor for migration but we find a strong association between migration distance and marriage outcomes, both in terms of overall marriage probabilities and in terms of partner selection by SES. These results highlight the importance of migration for women's intergenerational social mobility during industrialization.     

Corn-price rises and equalisation: Real wages in stockholm 1650–1719

Abstract

The period between the price revolution of the sixteenth century and the long inflation which set in around 1730 was marked over large tracts of Europe by stable or even falling prices and rising real wages.¹ The features of stagnation and defensive adaptation are often pointed out by way of contrast with the pronounced economic and demographic expansion of the preceding and succeeding periods.²     

Integration in European coal markets, 1833–1913†

This article analyses coal market integration in Europe over the long nineteenth century. The market integration of coal, a key commodity associated with the industrial revolution, is an aspect of European economic history that has received little attention. The literature on the evolution of markets has concentrated on agricultural products, mostly cereals. This article examines intra- and international market integration in the principal coal-producing countries, Britain, Germany, France, and Belgium; and adds three main consuming southern European countries to the analysis of the international market. It provides new evidence on prices, as well as trade, and uses a straightforward approach to address coal price behaviour. Despite shocks, clear trends toward integration in both domestic and international markets can be observed, even if by one of our measures the latter started at a later date. Processes of market integration, however, seemed to slow from the end of the nineteenth century. Explanations are offered as to the causes of the extent and timing of integrations: reductions, mainly, in transportation costs, but also in information costs, and, in the international market, protectionism. The influence of cartels, on the other hand, may have been limited, particularly in the international market.     

Innovation trends and industrial renewal in Finland and Sweden 1970–2013

We examine trends in innovation output for two highly ranked innovative countries: Finland and Sweden (1970–2013). Our novel dataset, collected using the LBIO (literature-based innovation output) method, suggests that the innovation trends are positive for both countries, despite an extended downturn in the 1980s. The findings cast some doubt on the proposition that the current stagnation of many developed countries is due to a lack of innovation and investment opportunities. Our data show that Finland catches up to, and passes, Sweden in innovation output in the 1990s. In per capita terms, Finland stays ahead throughout the period. We find that the strong Finnish performance is largely driven by innovation increase in just a handfull of sectors, but is not restricted to few companies. Both countries saw a rise in innovation during the dot-com era and the structural changes that followed. Since 2000 however, Sweden has outperformed Finland in terms of total innovations, especially in machinery and ICT, while the Finnish rate of innovation has stabilised. We suggest that these patterns may be explained by different paths of industrial renewal.     

Reconstructing Scandinavian farms 1660–1860: Sources in Denmark,Iceland, Norway and Sweden

Abstract

The great economic and cultural variations to be found in the preindustrial peasant societies of nearly all European countries does not mean that any attempt to make generalizations about them must be abandoned. It does, however, imply that such generalizations as are made can be meaningful only if they are based on a large number of local case studies over as broad a spectrum as possible. In Scandinavia there is a powerful tradition, reaching back to the eighteenth century, of the writing of provincial, parish and village histories, although the scholarly standards achieved in these have been very variable, and some areas have been much better covered than others in this way. And individual farms have been looked at in detail in only exceptional cases.     

Ebb and flow: Structural and spatial change in Victoria's brewing industry, 1870–1900

The brewing industry has undergone profound structural and spatial change over the last 150 years. We examine how consolidation began in Victoria's brewing industry using a historical GIS approach. We argue that industry restructuring was shaped by four interlocking dynamics between 1870 and 1900: (1) structural economic change; (2) railway development; (3) technological innovation; and (4) regulatory reform. We show that the ebb and flow of these interacting dynamics generated a non-linear process of change. Similar to North America and Europe, the industry became highly concentrated. However, this process was complicated by local factors such as climate, economy, and distance.     

Recovery from financial crises in peripheral economies, 1870–1913

What drives recoveries after financial crises? I address this question for the 1870–1913 “first era of globalization,” focusing on whether trade policy changes or positive movements in commodity prices played a bigger role in stimulating output growth after financial crises in peripheral economies. At this time before governments had modern fiscal and monetary policy tools to use while responding to crises protectionism was one of the few national-level policy options available for shaping economic activity. Improving terms of trade is another major factor that could influence output growth in the commodity-exporting countries included in this analysis. While previous studies of this period have looked at longer-run associations between these explanatory variables and economic growth, I focus on the aftermath of crises, and find that tariff rate increases had a positive impact on GDP per capita growth, while positive terms of trade changes did not have a significant effect on output growth. This suggests that governments played a substantial role in shaping post-crisis recoveries during this period.