Magnus Lindmark

An EKC-pattern in historical perspective: carbon dioxide emissions, technology, fuel prices and growth in Sweden 1870-1997

The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) has been subject to research and debate since the early 1990s. This articleexamines the inverted-U trajectory of Swedish CO2 emissions during an extended time ...

Commercial banking, insurance and economic growth in Sweden between 1830 and 1998

We examine empirically the dynamic historical relation between commercial bank lending, insurance and economic (income) growth in Sweden using time-series data from 1830 to 1998 and performing tests for Granger causality. Because of the non-stationary nature of the time series examined the procedure of Toda and Yamamoto (1995) is used. Our results, which have accounted for possible regime changes due to different exchange rate mechanisms over time, indicate that insurance has Granger-caused economic growth and bank lending. Therefore, we conclude that insurance is an important prerequisite for stimulating economic growth and that this could have important implications for contemporary developing economies

Energy consumption, pollutant emissions and growth in the long run: Sweden through 200 years

This article examines the evolution of energy use and pollution emissions in Sweden over the past two centuries – a much longer period than has been investigated in the large literature on the envi ...

The evolution and development of the Swedish insurance market

Abstract In this paper we provide an overview of the historical development of the insurance market in Sweden from the eighteenth century up to modern times. We consider theoretical perspectives drawn from the economics and political regulation literature that might help to explain important institutional features of the market – in particular, its oligopoly structure, the lack of foreign participation and the significant presence of mutual forms of organisation. We also offer a prognosis as to the current challenges and prospects of the Swedish insurance market in an increasingly competitive and global market.

The determinants of reinsurance in the Swedish property fire insurance market during the interwar years, 1919–39

Drawing a framework from agency theory, we use a panel data design to examine the factors motivating the level of demand for reinsurance in the rapidly developing Swedish property fire insurance market during the interwar period 1919–39. We find that as hypothesised, reinsurance enabled Swedish fire insurers to mitigate underwriting and solvency risks and thus increased their capacity to underwrite new business in uncertain economic times. This in turn helped to increase the supply of indemnity coverage for property (buildings) fire risks in the Swedish insurance market. We also find that as expected, investment earnings are inversely related to reinsurance purchases. However, contrary to what was hypothesised, reinsurance appears to be positively related to liquidity levels, suggesting that over our period of analysis, fire insurers could have been reinsuring to ‘protect’ earnings and accumulated cash reserves therefore enabling investment opportunities to be realised. Analysis of the sub-period 1919–28 further supports this contention, while our results for the economic depression years after 1929 show that reinsurance helped mitigate underwriting and insolvency risks, suggesting that the reinsurance decision of fire insurance companies could be motivated by macroeconomic factors.

Expansion for pollution reduction? Environmental adaptation of a Swedish and a Canadian metal smelter, 1960–2005

We examine the historical developments of the environmental adaptation process at one Swedish metal smelting firm, contrasting the result with cases in Canada. The findings suggest that the Swedish system in excluding stakeholders, focusing on plant emissions and stipulating pollution reduction at economically feasible costs mitigated risk which resulted in long-term contracts in a cooperative framework in which engineers were given a high degree of discretion. This enabled an ‘expansion-for-emission-reduction’ strategy which is consistent with the so-called Porter and van der Linde hypothesis. Moreover, the findings suggest that environmental management systems should be considered in the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) research.

Mutuality as a control for information asymmetry: A historical analysis of the claims experience of mutual and stock fire insurance companies in Sweden, 1889 to 1939

We test two competing arguments regarding the influence of organisational form on underwriting performance using data from the Swedish fire insurance industry for the years 1889 to 1939 – a period of both economic growth and stagnation. Since mutuality is a response to information asymmetry problems, mutual insurers are expected to report lower annual claims relative to premiums than stock insurance companies. However, an alternative view is that stock insurers seek to reduce information asymmetry problems by issuing non-participatory rights insurance contracts with high deductibles that induce risk-sharing between the insurers shareholders and policyholders. This implies that stock insurers are likely to report lower annual claims than mutual insurers. Our results show that organisational form is an important determinant of the claims experience of Swedish fire insurers, suggesting that mutuality acts as an effective control for information asymmetries in the market.

Life insurance and income growth : the case of Sweden 1830-1950

Abstract In this paper we provide an analysis of the life insurance market in Sweden from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. We consider determinants put forward in the financial history literature to explain the growth of life insurance. The paper shows that income elasticity of demand gives a fairly good approximation of the development in the twentieth century, while the development of risk and insurance innovation among other things need to be taken into account to explain the growth of life insurance in the nineteenth century. The price of life insurance, measured as the overhead-to-premium-income ratio, remained fairly constant during the second half of the nineteenth century, while the risk, as indicated in terms of crude mortality rates and its volatility, did decline. This probably improved the return on life insurance savings and further helped the entry of new firms. The average premium size was reduced to enable the diffusion of life insurance to workers.

Growth and structural change in Sweden and a story of convergence Finland, 1870–1990: A story of convergence

Abstract This article studies convergence between Finland and Sweden during the 1870–1990 period. Convergence is defined primarily as convergence in income levels and growth rates, but the article also examines divergence and convergence in economic structure. It studies both the performance of the total economy and the manufacturing industry sector, the latter with special attention to multi-factor productivity as an indicator of technical progress. The results suggest that Finnish manufacturing industry was not obviously backward in comparison with its Swedish counterpart, and that convergence, particularly during the post-war period, was influenced by falling profit shares in Swedish manufacturing industry. It is hypothesised that certain Swedish institutions may account for this.

Competing Models of Organizational Form: Risk Management Strategies and Underwriting Profitability in the Swedish Fire Insurance Market Between 1903 and 1939

Mutual and stock insurers have coexisted and competed against each other in insurance markets for centuries. In this article, we examine the risk management strategies and underwriting profitability of the different organizational forms in Swedens property fire insurance market between 1903 and 1939. We demonstrate that stock insurers acted as intermediaries between policyholders and reinsurers to operate effectively in the potentially high-risk segments of the fire insurance market. In contrast, nationwide mutual insurers kept larger reserves to balance fluctuations in claims experiences, while local insurance pools relied on social obligation and trust to mobilize capital after adverse fire events.