Lennart Schön

Electricity, technological change and productivity in Swedish industry, 1890 1990

Electricity and electrotechnical industry have taken a central position in Swedish industrial development ever since the breakthrough of the high-voltage technique in the 1890s. Some reasons for the importance of electricity are quite obvious. Due to her natural resources, Sweden had at an early stage developed many energy intensive industries such as iron and steel works and pulp and paper mills. She lacked, however, deposits of fossil fuels while the supply of water power was abundant. Hence, early on there was a strong stimulus to develop a system of generation and transmission of electrical power as well as to invest in electrotechnical equipment. Similarly, there was a strong stimulus to the development of a domestic electrotechnical engineering industry. This industry became a backbone of the more sophisticated manufacturing that spurred Swedish industrialization from the 1890s onwards.

Swedish regional GDP 1855–2000: Estimations and general trends in the Swedish regional system

This paper uses a method devised by Geary and Stark to estimate regional GDPs for 24 Swedish provinces 1855-2007. In empirical tests, we find that the Swedish estimations yield results of good precision, comparable to those reported in the international literature. From the literature, we generate six expectations concerning the development of regional GDPs in Sweden. Using the GDP estimations, we test these expectations empirically. We find that the historical regional GDPs show a high correlation over time, but that the early industrialization process co-evolved with a dramatic redistribution of productive capacity. We show that the regional inequalities in GDP per capita were at their lowest point in modern history in the early 1980s. However, while efficiency in the regional system has never been as equal, absolute regional differences in scale of production has increased dramatically over our investigated period. This process has especially benefited the metropolitan provinces. We also sketch a research agenda from our results.

Internal and external factors in Swedish industrialization

Abstract While external factors have been emphasized in »export models« or »globalization models« of Swedish industrialization, this article argues that internal factors were crucial for the Swedish integration into a global economy and in shaping the outcome of that process. From the point of view of a »domestic market model«, internal markets were of key importance in the diffusion of the new impacts and initiatives. In particular, the distribution of income from profits to wages in the course of long cycles was important in creating structural tensions and a basis for recurrent structural transformation. Such transformations were a prerequisite for long term growth and convergence. These perspectives are presented in a discussion of the outlines of Swedish development from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth centuries.

Domestic markets and international integration: paths to industrialisation in the Nordic countries

Abstract This article scrutinises the role of structural change and foreign trade in the Nordic countries, except Iceland, in industrialization prior to 1914. Sector contribution to GDP as well as the role of the foreign trade is compared across the countries. The comparison uncovers different paths to industrialization that cannot be explained by reference to received views, such as the shock of free trade or open economy forces. Denmark was not only richer than the rest of the ‘Nordic Periphery’ but also earlier in industrialization. Furthermore, agriculture had a much neglected role in Swedish catch-up, and despite its relatively large export sector, Norway lagged behind, as did Finland. Economic growth was characterised not only by rising exports but also by capital imports and increasing consumption, indicating wider economic and social change. Different sector structures in the Nordic countries largely explain why there was no clear pattern of catch-up or convergence, neither in the region nor in relation to the Western European leaders. We conclude that the social capability of the Nordic countries to integrate and respond to external influences 1850–1914 must be seen in the perspective of the evolving domestic markets and the prior establishment of market institutions.

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.

Technological Shifts and Convergence in a European Perspective since 1950

Abstract The paper analyses the behaviour of convergence/divergence primarily within Western Europe and the OECD in relation to market integration and to major technological shifts such as the second and the third industrial revolution. It also relates the behaviour to traditional growth theory and endogenous growth theory as well as to historical generalisations based on structural analysis. The empirical focus is on an econometric analysis of convergence/divergence since 1950 in order to develop measures of these forces as continuous processes over time. The analysis indicates trend shifts from convergence to divergence with the appearance of stronger divergent forces in combination with the major technological shifts. There is as well a cyclical variation between divergence/convergence from the 1970s. It also indicates a pronounced structural divergence from 1990 in combination with accelerated growth in mainly English-speaking economies.

Proto-industrialisation and factories: Textiles in Sweden in the mid-nineteenth century

Abstract In analyses of the prerequisites of the industrial revolution in Europe, interest during recent times has centred to a large extent upon proto-industrialisation, or the period of industrial growth in agrarian society prior to the modern industrialisation of the nineteenth century. It has been claimed that the development of industry in agrarian society was significant because it created industrial employment, capitalistic social relationships with wage-paid labour and capital accumulation, and inter-regional markets.1 In this way proto-industrialisation prepared the ground for the west European industrial revolution, creating conditions crucially different, for example, from the ones prevailing in those underdeveloped countries which sought in vain to achieve industrialisation during the twentieth century.2

Regional wages in industry and labour market integration in Sweden, 1861–1913

Abstract This study examines the extent to which wages of industrial workers converged during the period of Swedens industrial breakthrough, thereby relating to the international discussion on market integration. About 350 local wage series for nine regions in Sweden for the period 1861–1913 are used, deflated by regional cost-of-living indices. The main result is that there was a general wage convergence during the period of study. Wage differentials decreased across occupations and regions, but also within occupational groups and regions (sigma-convergence). There was also a general tendency of initially lower wages to grow more quickly than initially higher wages (beta-convergence). The convergence pattern in this respect differed between sub-periods, which may be related to the pattern of industrial and infrastructural development in Sweden. The occurrence of wage convergence may be interpreted as evidence of an integration of the labour market, which corresponds to the integration of product and capital markets presented in other investigations.