Kristina Lilja

To depend on one's children or to depend on oneself: savings for old-age and children's impact on wealth

How did workers make provisions for old age before the introduction of old age pensions? What was the relative importance of dependence on children and saving for old age respectively? This article concerns the transition from a traditional family-based system for economic support in old age to a more modern system. Regarding the nineteenth century, studies have shown that (a) savings generally were insufficient for full retirement, and that (b) families were dependent on childrens incomes when the breadwinner became older. Little attention has been paid to the question of how the relative importance of these two alternatives changed during the century. This question is addressed here in a cross-sectional study of net wealth based on probate inventories for three Swedish towns in the 1820s and the 1900s. The results show that in general the economic importance of children was larger among the lower socio-economic strata. They also reveal that net costs for having children increased between the investigated periods. This means that dependence on children became more expensive. Consequently, the economic importance of this alternative decreased. This may have been a strong motive for the fertility transition. On the other hand, net wealth for workers increased at the end of the nineteenth century. Financial assets constituted a great part of the increase. Workers with children had less financial savings than those without children, showing that there was a conflict between the traditional and the modern systems for support in old age. However, still at the turn of the twentieth century funds were generally too small to allow an old worker to retire. These results indicate that neither the old, nor the modern systems, fully satisfied the need for support in old age. This may explain why several Western European countries introduced old age pensions at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The Deposit Market Revolution in Sweden

Financial organizations have an important role in countries’ economic performance as they can exploit investment synergies and encourage output growth through the capital stock.1 One particular task for these intermediaries is to attract households’ savings. The intermediaries permit households to move resources through time to better meet their temporal consumption preferences, as such preferences seldom are perfectly synchronized with income flows.2Depositors help secure liquidity and make credit accessible, both locally and nationally. It is therefore very important to convert from unproductive liquid (and real) assets to assets available to the financial sector. The possibility for the intermediating sector to increase its size (in terms of both physical locations as well as total assets) depends on its efficiency and to what extent it can offer a wide range of services to its customers.3Banks attract deposits and capital through their ability to diversify and thereby satisfy different interests on the part of savers and investors. Their ability to respond and adjust to the market has been shown to have a spin-off effect also on the early securities market.4Banks and securities markets may therefore be regarded as complementary, and as such, mutually reinforce each other in mobilizing capital, rather than merely serving as substitutes for one another.5The financial intermediaries are also highly dependent on having a good reputation for being stable, well-functioning and trustworthy organizations.

Tables and Chairs Under the Hammer: Second-Hand Consumption of Furniture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in Sweden

In comparison with many other goods, furniture is usually comparatively expensive and durable, both reasons why second-hand consumption has been and remains important, not least through the auction trade.1 As is the case with many other goods, furniture also has considerable symbolic meaning, reflecting the economic, social and cultural status of the individual consumer. To buy furniture often meant judging between one’s present economic means and the lifestyle to which one aspired. For many people, second-hand consumption represented an affordable way to reconcile these two objectives.

The risk of pioneering: Private interests, the State, and the launching of civil aviation in Sweden. The case of SLA 1918–23

The making and running of one of the early Swedish civil aviation companies – Svenska Lufttrafikaktiebolaget 1919–23 – show that military representatives and private entrepreneurs were highly important during this phase. We state that the making of this early civil aviation company in Sweden had not been possible without close personal ties between bankers and entrepreneurs, as well as their beliefs in the future of civil aviation as a natural and an evident part of Swedish infrastructure. However, the enterprise was indeed pioneering the field and faced the 1920–23 Swedish crisis. Svenska Lufttrafikaktiebolaget did not survive, despite minor subsidies. The article shows that the initial position of State involvement regarding civil aviation was not a clear-cut matter in the late 1910s and early 1920s. We claim that only later in the 1920s the Swedish State properly supported civil aviation.

Adolescents’ Impact on Family Economy in Sweden: During the First Decades of the Twentieth Century

Adolescents’ income contributions to working-class families decreased between the 1910s and the 1930s in Sweden. This was significant for adolescents’ right to self-determination. By using household budget surveys, this article shows that at the time of the Great Depression, working adolescents paid less at home than had been common at the beginning of the twentieth century. Youth unemployment is one explanation, although it was also a consequence of children keeping more of their earnings for themselves. This development led to rising costs for having children and is interpreted as an aspect of the trade-off between quantity and quality of children.

Forandring og forankring: Sparebankene i Norge 1822--2014 [Change and roots: the Norwegian savings banks 1822--2014]

pp. 206f.). In the whole it is not clear, why some works like Stefan Selzers excellent book about the Hanse from 2010 or Bo Poulsens about the Dutch herring fisheries from 2008 were used and others not. Because of this the book has become a curious mixture of new and outdated works. Also for the second problem, dealing with the new literature about Bergen and the Bergen trade, the selection strategy of the author is remarkable. In the moment at least three younger, prominent researchers are dealing with Bergen: Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz, Geir A. Ersland and Mike Burkhardt. Nedkvitne only acknowledges two of them: Wubs-Mrozewicz and Burkhardt, while Ersland is totally absent in the book. And of the two, who completed their PhD’s about Bergen in 2008 and 2009, Nedkvitne accused both either of plagiarism (pp. 20f., 365ff.) or just of wrong interpretation, by this starting a longer, public discussion (HGBll 2014), where Nedkvitne’s tone of accusation is remarkable. At the same time other works of both of them, like Mike Burkhardts important article about the Bergen–Boston trade (‘One hundred years of thriving commerce at a major English sea port. The Hanseatic Trade at Boston between 1370 and 1470’, in Hanno Brand and Leos Müller, eds., The Dynamics of Economic Culture in the North Seaand Baltic Region in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. Hilversum: Verloren, 2007) were ignored. Even if the author does not agree with Burkhardt, he cannot ignore him (e.g. on pp. 458ff.). In regard to the third problem, it is really hard, to change the point of view and the general focus of such a substantial book. But also the general focus to the hanseatic trade and the Hanse as such has changed in the last 30 years. When the book was written, the Hanse was still seen as a German power-organisation, dominating and ruining the Norwegian trade (and at least the Norwegian nation too). In this point, this book was an important step forward in putting the Bergen-history into a new perspective. But now, the research is not only discussing other interpretations of this organisation, but also a totally different time frame for the development of the whole Hanse. The author is aware of these developments, but he is not able to put them into the main frame of his book. In the end it must be said, that this book leaves a very ambivalent mark. The substantial groundwork, done by the author, is remarkable and will endure. By this it was an excellent choice to translate and to print the volume. But it would have served the research and this volume, if there had been a clearer differentiation between the old text and the new supplements. As it is printed now, Arnved Nedkvitnes ‘The German Hansa and Bergen’ looks like a new book, containing very old, sometimes outdated, ideas and a very selective and fragmentary variety of modern research. Therewith it is doubtful, if the author has with this book rendered a service to himself and the readers.

Savings banks and working-class saving during the Swedish industrialisation

This article deals with savings banks and the extent to which they encouraged workers to save. A study of probate inventories from three Swedish towns shows that just 20-30 per cent of workers had ...