Scandinavian Economic History Review
Dados do Periódico
| Tipo | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Editora | Informa (GB) |
| ISSN | 0358-5522 / 1750-2837 |
| Scopus | 29461 |
| Wikidata | Q11999656 |
| OpenAlex | S170287006 |
| MAG | 170287006 |
| Site | https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/sehr20/current |
| Total de publicações | 1.228 |
| Período coberto | 1953 - 2026 |
| País | FI |
| Idioma | EN |
| Indexação | Scopus |
| Citada por | 52 |
| Fator de impacto | 0.424 |
| SJR | 0.309 (Q1) |
| SNIP | 1.088 |
| CiteScore | 2.1 |
| Índice h | 4 |
| Índice i10 | 1 |
| Participação feminina na autoria | 28.6% |
Scandinavian Economic History Review focuses on economic history within a specific region. Social and cultural history with ethnographic or theoretical scope is a related area, making this a cognate social science venue with regular, though not central, anthropological intersection
History · Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) · Aerospace Engineering · Geography, Planning and Development · Agricultural Economics and Policy · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Diverse Scientific and Economic Studies
Stretching the boundaries of urban power
This article examines how the moral economy shaped the actions of urban authorities in late medieval Bruges, one of the leading urban centres of north-western Europe. While E.P. Thompson and subsequent scholarship have primarily focused on early modern protests against high grain prices, this study shifts the attention to bottom-up complaints over seasonal and highly perishable marine products, such as fresh herring and shellfish (venteghoedt). D…
Beyond cold and class
While anthropometric measurements are a recognised proxy for a population's living standards, socioeconomic status often explains only a portion of the observed variance. We study Finnish conscripts born 1910–1926 to elucidate key factors causing these differences. Our data include draft measurements of height and weight, as well as information on men’s social and regional backgrounds, which are linked to municipality-level climate and agricultur…
Preserving land in noble families. Entailed manors ( fideikommiss ) in Sweden and Finland, 1686–1975
This article explores the establishment of fideikommiss in Sweden and Finland from 1686 to 1975. Fideikommiss was the right to entail land to a single heir, thus preserving it for future generations. By using probate inventories, the extent of fideikommiss has been measured, revealing that they were mainly established between 1720 and 1810, when the right to found new ones was abolished. The establishment of fideikommiss partly responded to incre…
Industrialisation in the Nordic region
This article provides an overview of research on industrialisation in the Nordic countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland – between 1850 and 1914. The starting point is Lennart Jörberg’s classic synthesis from 1973, and the article traces how the subsequent debate has developed across themes such as: the explanatory power of the export model and the home market model; technological transfer, human capital, and the capacity to industrialise…
Strategic selectivity and hybrid state capitalism
This article analyses the political economy of state ownership and privatisation in Spain through the lens of strategic selectivity [Jessop, B. (2002). The future of the capitalist state. Polity Press] and recent theories of hybrid state capitalism. It argues that the creation and endurance of the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) reflect not a withdrawal of the state from the economy but its strategic adaptation. By adoptin…
Was it really so high? New estimates on income inequality in Finland, 1865–1959
Previous studies have found very high levels of income inequality in Finland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries [Roikonen, P. (2022). Income inequality in Finland, 1865–2019. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 70(3), 234–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/03585522.2021.1901774; Roikonen, P., & Heikkinen, S. (2020). A Kuznets rise and a Piketty fall: Income inequality in Finland, 1865–1934. European Review of Economic History, 24(1), 46–79…
Equity issues and other capital actions by publicly listed companies in Finland, 1912–1981
Equity issues are a crucial part of properly functioning financial markets as they facilitate the allocation of capital to its most efficient use. Historically, publicly listed firms have often had superior opportunities to raise new equity capital from investors. This paper analyses equity issuances and their role as a source of capital to Finnish firms listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (HSE) from 1912 to 1981. The results show that the role…
Between consensus and contention. Economic defence, industry interests, and the funding of metal stockpiling in Sweden, 1973–1987
The turmoil of conflict and international crisis affects government as well as business interests. This article investigates how government–business relationships developed to tackle the potential problems of so-called peacetime crises that could adversely affect the country's steel and metal industries if the imports of alloy metals were disrupted in Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. Based on extensive archival material and using an Advocacy Co…
‘La Sueca’
When Svenska Tändsticks AB established a match stick company and factory, La Consolidada Industrial in Havana, Cuba, during the early 1950s, it was met by heavy resistance and political problems from trade unions and other factory owners. Central to this resistance was the view of Svenska Tändsticks as foreign capitalists seeking to undermine Cuban industry. In response, or in anticipation of this perceived risk, La Consolidada Industrial attempt…
Family planning, fertility and abortion
A large literature considers family planning programs with a focus on birth control and finds that access reduces fertility. In this paper, I study the fertility effects of access to a Danish family planning program introduced in 1939 and designed as a political response to decades of declining fertility and widespread use of illegal abortions. I exploit variation in the timing of program implementation and use digitised data for Danish towns and…
Ice blocks from Norway
Economic shrinking and total factor productivity
Inside the ‘Outer Seven’ but outside ‘the Six’
This article investigates the goals and strategies of Swedish business interest associations (BIAs) in relation to postwar European economic integration between 1949 and 1965. By situating Swedish BIAs within the context of European business organisations, it identifies three distinct phases. The first phase (1949–1955) was characterised by caution, the second (1956–1959) by a proactive strategy, and the third (1960–1965) by consolidation. The an…
Resource management and institutions in Northern Spain's fisheries. Basque fishermen guilds (18th to early 20th centuries)
This paper examines the interplay between fishing communities, marine ecosystems, and institutional arrangements along the Basque coast from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Drawing on archival evidence, it analyses how Basque maritime guilds built a resilient system for managing common-pool resources through monopolistic control over access to fishing grounds and fish markets, underpinned by their role in the naval recruitment syst…
Technological change and structural shifts in Sweden's Labor Market, 1870–1930
This paper documents changing occupational structure and skill composition during industrialisation in Sweden. Using population censuses and the HISCO/HISCLASS scheme, the paper documents a shift from unskilled to more-skilled occupations at the aggregate level. The evidence is consistent with the idea that the structural shift away from agriculture is associated with skill upgrading, though substantial portion of this upgrading took place within…
Technology policy by other means? The recent history of state-owned acquisitions in Europe (2011–2020)
This paper covers the recent history of cross-border M&As by State-owned enterprises (SOEs) from emerging economies to Western Europe between the Sovereign Debt Crises (2011) and the Covid-19 Pandemic (2020). Academic studies posit that cross-border M&As became a new channel for emerging economy SOEs to enhance their technological capabilities, attributing this to the advantage of operating in close ties with national governments that allocate re…
Institutional and economic development in a limited access order of Lithuania (1386–1569)
This paper studies the Grand Duchy of Lithuania between 1386 and 1569, asking if there was a relationship between its institutional development and economic outcomes. Lithuania developed a more sophisticated institutional environment by the 1490s, as it transitioned from personal governance by a warrior elite to a corporation of landowners bound by public law and shared beliefs. Structural breaks in the trends of new manors and churches suggest t…
A century of divorce
Divorce increased throughout the twentieth century across Western nations. Procyclical divorce, i.e. following macroeconomic cycles, is often suggested and women’s increased economic independence is considered a contributor to increasing divorce rates. Research has, however, overlooked that different factors may drive divorce rates across time horizons. Macroeconomic conditions, like unemployment, covary with divorce in the short term, while proc…
More than meets the eye
This article examines the evolving role and attitudes of Finnish employers towards centralised bargaining from the late 1960s to the early 2020s. Employing a qualitative historical approach and analysing archival documents from Finnish peak employers’ associations, we explore the motivations behind employers’ commitment to centralised bargaining, from wage moderation and competitiveness to broader political and societal goals. Recently, there has…
Unravelling income differentials
This paper documents the evolution of income differentials between skilled and unskilled workers in Sweden throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Using newly digitised data on income taxes, this paper demonstrates that the skill premium decreased throughout 1900–1950, and most rapidly from 1930 onward. This is similar to the fall in skill premium documented for the United States. However, unlike in the United States, the fall in skil…
Did the Great Leveling begin after 1921
The U-Curve of income inequality in the United States is a longstanding stylised fact in economic history. The ‘Great Leveling’ that led to the trough that lasted from the 1940s to the early 1980s is argued by scholars like Piketty and Saez (2003. Income inequality in the United States, 1913–1998. The Quarterly journal of economics, 118(1), 1–41) to have occurred suddenly and precipitously during the 1940s, whereas others such as Geloso et al. (2…
Church funds used for credit in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rural Sweden
Private lenders are still considered to have been the dominant lenders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although various types of institutional lenders appeared from the late 1700s onwards. This paper analyses one of the earlier and probably underestimated institutional lenders in northern Europe, the Church, using Sweden as a case study. As late as 1834, the Swedish church lent about the same amount of money as all other credit instit…
Casting new lines in the backwaters of Europe
This article presents a new dataset for the Norwegian fishery exports from 1731 to 1794. The total value of fishing exports followed a U-shaped pattern, with fishery exports increasing until the mid-1750s, before declining the next two decades and then rebounding towards the end of the century. This pattern is closely tied to a change in the export composition: herring became the main fishery export commodity as its export value increased steadil…
Impact of grain export on the Russian Empire’s industrial development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
This paper investigates the influence of grain export on Russia’s industrial development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Employing ARDL, NARDL, and VECM models, the authors explored how grain export affected industrial growth, ultimately concluding a long-term negative impact on Russia's industry. The study identifies four channels of influence: consumption, savings, distribution of labour, and investment. Specifically f…
The size of the offshore sector in the Norwegian economy
Writers on Norwegian economic history often claim that industries related to the sea played a major role in the Norwegian economy for centuries. However, little has been done to quantify this sector’s contribution to the economy. The present paper seeks to quantify the size of the key offshore industries compared to GDP and exports. To do so it has been necessary to draw on new historical national account calculations and export data in addition …
The scope and structure of the Danish negro slave trade
The aim of this study is to determine the scope and structure of the Danish negro slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. This, it will be shown, did not consist merely of a Danish triangular slave trade within a closed Danish mercantilist colonial system: it was based upon extensive cooperation with other slave trading nations both in Africa and the West Indies. The Danish slave trade embraced three branches: slaves imported in…
Defense and distribution
Between 1796 and 1801 Toussaint L'Ouverture emerged as the undisputed leader of the Haitian insurgents against French supremacy. During this period he gained military control over the entire island of Hispaniola. The insurgents were given a moment of rest in the long wars of liberation which had commenced in 1791. A rest was urgently needed, not least for economic reasons. The colonial economy, which had exported sugar, coffee, cotton and indigo,…
The Danish Asiatic Company, 1732–;1772
The reorganisation of Danish commerce with the East Indies which was carried through in 1732 by the foundation of the Asiatic Company (Asiatisk Kompagni) differed in many respects from previous attempts to reorganize this trade. The main difference lay in its success. Not only was Copenhagen's overseas trade immediately revived but as a result of the foundation of the new company a contact was established between Denmark and Asia of a much more r…
The Inter-War Land Reforms in Estonia, Finland and Bulgaria
This study compares the development and performance of the interwar land reforms in Estonia, Finland and Bulgaria: three countries within the so-called Agrarian Reform Zone, which constituted previous parts of the Russian and Ottoman Empires heavily influenced by the Russian revolutions. In spite of their different scope and outlook these land reforms aimed at solving similar problems of an agrarian and socio-economic developmental character. Fin…
Effects of the taxation of wealth in Athens in the fourth century B. C
In the fourth century B.C., Athenians were often accused of avoiding their civic obligations and of concealing their wealth.1 These attested cases show that economic behaviour in classical Athens could be affected by taxation. The purpose of the present study is to systematically explore the economic incentives resulting from the taxation of wealth. The first issue is the effects of the property taxes on the relative attractiveness of different a…
Slave demography of the Danish West Indian islands
In recent years a number of studies have investigated demographic and social conditions among the slaves of the West Indies and the American mainland. A vital problem in many of these studies has been the fact that the source-data have been of more fragmentary character than in similar studies of European demographic and social history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where population censuses and parish registers have been available t…
Danish East India trade 1772–1807 statistics and structure
The period from the outbreak of the War of American Independence until Danish involvement in the Napoleonic Wars in 1807 was regarded by contemporary observers as ‘the golden age of trade’. They perceived a close connection between the policy of neutrality and the extraordinary growth of commerce and shipping under the Danish flag. It was common knowledge that the trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope was less extensive than the West India trade or …
Danish emigration prior to 1914 trends and problems
In the distinguished account of the last generation of research into emigration which Professor Thistlethwaite presented to the International Congress of History held in Stockholm in 1960, the historians of individual European nations were urged to address themselves to the study of overseas emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; for, he pointed out, the topic had been painstakingly examined in the United States from the standpoint…
Burn-beating as the technical basis of colonisation in Finland in the 16th and 17th centuries
In the forest regions of northern Europe burn-beating has always been associated with the clearance of previously untilled land and human settlement. Colonisation based on burn-beating continued in Finland well into modern times, and burn-beating was practised in many places even after the period of first settlement. In Finland's eastern provinces of Savo and Karelia, it was still the predominant form of cultivation in the 18th century; in these …
Soviet industrial production and waste dispersal
This article examines the industrial wastes and environmental effects of Soviet technological development through the history of the Karelian Isthmus, a border territory that had previously been Finnish. Focusing primarily on the history of two large enterprises – the Svetogorskii (former Enso) and Sovetskii (former Johannes) pulp and paper making plants, the authors illustrate the polluting nature of the Soviet economy in the 1940s–1980s. We con…
The Danish Asiatic Company's voyages to China, 1732–1833
The first Danish East India company was established in 1616 shortly after the founding of the English East India Company and the Dutch Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie. Trading expeditions were soon being despatched to India, where the town of Tranquebar was acquired in 1620. Sailings over the next hundred years were irregular, however, and the economic returns fluctuated very widely
Denmark in China 1839–65
Denmark's trading connections with China date back to the seventeenth century, but it was not until the establishment of Asiatisk Kompagni (the Danish Asiatic Company) in 1732 that they became at all regular. In the period between the Company's foundation and the outbreak of war with England in 1807, 124 ships were sent to China; imported Chinese products were the basis of the trade, and of course the Danish market was too small to absorb such a …
The study of the effects of emigration
One facet of migration studies seems to have been neglected even more than others, namely, the effects of emigration on the countries where emigration originated. Some discussion of this aspect of migration, together with suggestions as to how research might proceed and examples of the work already done, could possibly stimulate further activity
The finnish glass industry
In 1948 the Finnish glass industry celebrated the 200th anniversary of its first permanent establishment. Although Finland's first glassworks was built as early as 1681, in Uusikaupunki (Nystad), it was burnt down immediately afterwards and all memory of its existence had disappeared when new plans to build a glassworks were put in hand. This enterprise was the Avik glassworks, erected in 1748, and the pioneer plant in Finland. To mark this anniv…
Maritime trade and economic development in South Ostrobothnia
Provincial history has been an object of lively interest in Finland during the last ten years or so. The majority of provinces are planning to have their histories written. Amongst these plans, that for South Ostrobothnia is the most advanced: four large volumes are now complete, covering the history of the region from prehistoric times down to 1809
Internal migration and industrialization in Finland, 1878–1939
For the economic historian the statistics of population are quite as important as those of trade. To understand the economic development of a country it is necessary to have some knowledge I: 0 of the distribution of population at different periods, 2:0 of what changes have been effected by migration, and also 3 : 0 of the forces influencing migration. The analysis of these forces helps, moreover, to illuminate the nature of man's economic behavi…
The beginning of the transatlantic market for Swedish iron
From the commencement of the American Revolution until the expiration of the treaty of 1783,1 the diplomatic relations of the United States with Sweden were determined mainly by political circumstances arising out of the relations of each of the two countries with the great powers of Europe. By the time the treaty expired in 1798, both the United States and Sweden had broken with Revolutionary France, and since Gustavus Ill's high hopes for Swedi…
New light on eighteenth century Sweden
n Bergslag, originally: corporations which had obtained monopolies to mine specific deposits; later: districts where mining privileges were granted.For centuries these mining districts were constituted as independent administrative and judicial units.Later on, however
The distribution of wealth in Finland in 1800
In the year 1800 a capital levy was imposed by the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament), and in connection with this levy a property valuation was made which affords a unique cross-section of the distribution of property among the different districts, occupational sections, and families in Finland and Sweden
The two crises in the Netherlands in 1557
It is an axiom of economists of today that in the treatment of the economic conditions of a country the financial policy of the government, insofar as it may possibly react on economic life, must be considered and vice versa, that anybody undertaking an investigation into the finances of a state cannot pass any judgement on measures taken without having adequate knowledge of the prevailing economic conditions. In addition the political situation …
Iron ores and iron works in Finland, 1809–1884
After more than forty years work, Prof. Laine has finally completed his study of the Finnish Iron and Copper Industries 1809–1884. His 2000-page account is extremely detailed. Vol. I aims at providing a synthesis of all the separate aspects of development. Vol. II contains monographs on all the iron and copper works, Vol. III on all the mines, bloomeries and metal factories. Thus, these. two volumes, apart from their independent value for local h…
Eli F. Heckscher
(1953). Eli F. Heckscher. Scandinavian Economic History Review: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 137-140
The Dutch East India company's trade in Japanese copper, 1645–1736
Towards the end of the 1930's, Japanese copper appeared, like some strange bird in the northern skies, as an object of study in Scandinavian economic history. The occasion was the publication of the second volume of Professor Eli F. Heckscher's comprehensive work on Sweden's economic history,1 in which the author amongst other things described the copper policy in the heyday of Swedish power. Making use of the abundant Swedish source material whi…
The early sawmills industries in Finland
The purpose of Dr. Nils Meinander's “Story of the Water-Driven Sawmill” in Finland is quite different from that of his Ph. D. thesis, published five years later. The former was written in celebration of the Finnish Sawmills Owners' Association's fiftieth anniversary and covers the whole field of the history of the early sawmills business in Finland. The latter gives a systematic and detailed account of the use of forest resources and of other pro…
Crisis in finnish agriculture at the end of the nineteenth century
The arrival of cheap American wheat in the European market the 1870's brought down the prices of agricultural produce, in particular those of grain. The resulting agricultural depression led in turn to the adoption in most countries of protectionist policies. In Scandinavia, however, only Sweden resorted to protection; Denmark, Norway and Finland adhering to free trade. Denmark was successful in her efforts to switch over to a many-sided dairy-fa…
Social stratification and social mobility in eighteenth century Finland
These two fairly recent doctoral dissertations from the University of Helsinki are proof of the active interest in problems of social history shown 'by the younger generation of historians in Finland. Social mobility has been a focus of attention of Finnish historians since the very early years of the century. Professor Gunnar Suolahti (1876–1933), pioneer of research in social and cultural history, devoted great interest to these problems and in…
A hundred years of Swedish timber exports
This is a memorial publication issued by the Swedish Wood Exporters' Association (Svenska Trävaruexportföreningen) on the occasion of the Association's 75th anniversary. Professor Soderlund of Stockholm University has both edited the work and written the largest single section - the history of the timber exporting industry during the period 1850-19°0. The second half-century has been shared by Miss Annagreta Hallberg and Mr. Jan Sandin, with 1922…
Scandinavian iron ore mining and the British steel industry 1870–1914
Until the year 1856, when Bessemerpatented his new process for the easier and' cheaper manufacture of wrought iron, the production of iron in Great Britain in the form of cast and wrought iron had predominated over its conversion into steel. In the early 1850s only a very small percentage of the annual output of pig iron was converted into steel. Although in Bessemer's patent, only wrought iron was specified as the object of the new process, it w…
Tax money and plough money
If one marks on the map of Europe the location of finds of coins dating from the period between 950 and 1075, a clear demarcation line is evident running southwards from the North Sea, roughly following the Elbe and its tributary, the Saale, and then turning eastwards. To the East and North of this line finds are many and rich. To the West and South they are few and meagre. Strangely enough scarcely any of the coins comprising these hoards were m…
A new journal
This new journal, published by Günther Franz in collaboration with a group of German scholars, offers a new forum for the discussion of the economic, social and legal history of agriculture and of modern agrarian sociology. Although the recently published first number is dominated by German writings about German problems, it is a stated intention of the review to extend its interests beyond the frontiers of the country of publication; the first n…
The convoy affair of 1798
During the summer of 1798, British men-of-war compelled two Swedish convoys destined for south European ports to put into a British harbour. The decision of the Admiralty Court was pronounced a year later: confiscation of both the vessels and their cargoes. The dominant sea power thus denied the right of a neutral to prevent search by the use of convoys. The decision aroused great attention at the time and has become a precedent in respect of the…
Swedish-American economic relations
The book deals with Swedish-American connections at different periods from the time of the westerly excursions of the Vikings to the present. The authors begin by pointing out that the Vikings were the first Europeans to discover North America, although they reached no further than the inhospitable shores of Labrador and Newfoundland; their discovery was, in consequence, of no great significance. The Swedish colony on the Delaware in the 17th cen…
Salt and cloth in Swedish economic history
The precise significance of foreign trade in the economic life of a nation at different periods in the past cannot usually be accurately assessed. In the few fortunate cases where it is possible to get at least an approximate idea of the extent of trade, the figures obtained can rarely be set in any firm relationship with other statistical data. Since, for example, the size of population is usually a matter of little more than guess work, it is i…
Some population problems in pre-industrial Sweden
The causes of the great increase in population which occurred in Western and Northern Europe during the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century have for a long time attracted great interest. The increase began too early to be explained simply as a result of the changes in methods of production, especially in industry; nor can it be wholly regarded as a cause of industrialization. There is no a priori answer to the question whether a l…
Wages and prices in England in the later Middle Ages
In recent years the economic development of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has been the subject of much attention in international historical research. The results of local and of national studies are now for the first time being discussed within their European framework.1
The dissolution of estaste society in Norway
The concept of the ‘dissolution of estate society’ (standssamfunnets opplesning) has not been much used in Norwegian historical research. The great process of social change which took place in the 19th century, the main features of which have their counterparts in the social development of the other Scandinavian countries, has been discussed within other conceptual contexts. Norwegian historians have often stressed the contrast between an urban s…
A survey of the public records system in Sweden
The public records system in Sweden consists of the National Archives (Riksarkivet) in Stockholm, the provincial archives (landsarkiv) at Lund, Uppsala, Vadstena, Gothenburg and Härnösand, the county archives (länsarkiv) at Visby and Ostersund and the municipal archives (stadsarkiv) of Stockholm and Malmö, the National Archives being the supreme authority for this system. The military archives system has its own authority: the Royal Archives of t…
Growth and stagnation in the European economy
At the risk of oversimplifying them, the major conclusions of this important study by Professor Svennilson may be stated as follows: 1. From 1913 up to the Second World War total output and output per capita increased only slowly in Europe. Growth, taken over the whole period, was slow relative both to the development of the United States and to the European experience of earlier decades. Presumably the opportunity for faster growth existed in 'i…