Skandinavisk ekonomisk historia ca 1800-1900

The basic story of Scandinavian 19^th century economic history is: Denmark was from the beginning the richest country of the three, based on its supreme agricultural sector, but from the 1870s onwards Norway and Sweden industrialized faster than Denmark did, and Sweden caught up in terms of GDP per capita at the beginning of the 20^th century.[1] Denmark was in fact in 1820 one of the richest countiries in the world, in terms of GDP per capita (Prados dela Escosura 2000: Table 9). According to van Zanden (1991: 219), the agricultural efficiency frontier in 1870 consisted of Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and Denmark. In a Scandinavian comparative perspective it is also worth noting that the Norwegian and Danish economies were more connected to the dynamic British economy than Sweden was (Krantz and Nilsson 1974: 54). Denmark had more efficient farming and Norway an efficient shipping sector; Sweden’s advantage only came with the growth of the manufacturing sector. Swedish and Norwegian industrialization was heavily connected to natural resources in the form of minerals and timber. A further difference in the type of industrialization between Denmark on the one hand and Norway and Sweden on the other hand is that in the two latter countries’ industrialization was much more export-oriented. Denmark exported almost no industrial goods until the 1890s (Jörberg 1970: 406). Norwegian exports in the late 19^th century were to a much higher degree in the other Scandinavian countries concentrated to services, in the shape of shipping, which stood for about 40 per cent of the country’s exports (Jörberg 1970: 425–6).

                      Denmark began on the richest level in the early 19^th century.[2] The other two countries caught up with it over the century: average annual growth rate 1820 to 1899 was 1.12 per cent for Denmark but 1.21 per cent for Norway and 1.41 for Sweden. In table 1 we see growth rates per decade.

Table 1. GDP per capita growth and population growth, 1820–1899

		1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1890
DK	GDP p/c	0,45	0,73	2,18	-0,04	1,44	0,88	1,48	1,81
	Pop	0,98	0,64	1,00	1,24	1,08	0,98	0,98	1,11
NO	GDP p/c		1,28	0,27	1,81	1,86	1,13	1,21	0,95
	Pop	1,48	1,00	1,15	1,38	0,84	1,01	0,40	1,11
SWE	GDP p/c	0,67	0,65	1,01	1,64	1,53	1,17	1,57	2,26
	Pop	1,12	0,83	1,04	1,00	0,86	0,94	0,45	0,68

Source: Maddison database. GDP/capita in 1990 US Dollars.

We see rapid growth rates especially in Denmark in the 1840s and 1890s, Norway in the 1850s and 1860s (cf. Hodne and Grytten 2000: 277), and Sweden in the 1850s, 1880s and 1890s.

We know that population pressures played a role in the determination of wages in preindustrial society so Table 1 also shows population growth. Population grew in the entire 1820–1899 period by 1.00 per cent in Denmark, 1.05 per cent in Norway and 0.86 per cent in Sweden.

In Denmark, industrialization was not as dramatic as in for Norway and Sweden. Table 2 shows that the increase in the employment share of industry 1870–1913 was actually quite modest.[3]

Table 2. Employment shares per sector, Scandinavia 1870 and 1913

	Agriculture		Industry		Services
	c. 1870	c. 1913	c. 1870	c. 1913	c. 1870	c. 1913
Denmark	47.8	41.7	21.9	24.1	30.3	34.2
Norway	49.6	39.6	22.9	25.9	27.5	34.5
Sweden	67.4	45.0	17.4	31.8	15.2	23.2

Source: Broadberry et al (2010: 61).

Danish industrialization was gradual, but 1870 still seems the relevant point, if any, for an industrial take-off in the country. This is in accordance with Johansen’s (1987: 3) clear statement: “Up to about 1870 Danish manufacturing mainly used craftmanslikemethods and worked for a limited market. /…/ Between 1870 and 1914 the first wave of industrialization reached Denmark.” In Norway the industrialization phase occurred somewhere between 1850 and 1920 (Minde and Ramstad 1986: 91). Hodne and Grytten (2000: 210)  claim that although industry stood for a larger portion of GDP in 1900 than the primary sector did, Norway was not fully an industrial country in that year. Sejersted (1992) emphasizes that industrial growth begins in the 1830s. The country’s main exports in the early 19^th century were fish and timber; trading was also a strong sector. Sejersted (1993) stresses that these three sectors stood for most of the growth from the 1830s to the 1870s (cf. Hodne and Grytten 2000: ch. 8), but without innovation: it was extensive growth. From the 1840s on on the other hand more advanced mechanical industries and pulp industries are establishesd, but they do not become quantitatively important until after the 1870s (cf. Hodne and Grytten 2000: ch.13). In Hodne and Grytten (2002: ch. 2) 1900–1920 is the industrial breakthrough, based on water power, foreign capital and growth in large industries. Electricity had been important since the 1880s. Norwegian industrialization like the Swedish but unlike the Danish was strongly connected to raw materials (pulp, iron) and located to a large degree in the countryside (Christensen 1995: 18).

                      When it comes to population growth and proletarianization, for the Norwegian case, Sejersted (1993: 67) comments on the 1840s: ”Vi ser tendenser til at det dannes et proletariat på bunnen av samfunnet. Økonomisk vil det si at det ble overskudd på billig arbeidskraft.”[4] According to Sejersted, the over-supply of labour did not end until the great wage of emigration to the United States in the 1880s. In Sweden, Winberg (1975) has stressed the growth of a proletariat in the countryside from 1750 to 1850 due to population growth outstripping land use growth. Winberg found that the share of (självägande) farmers decreased from ½ in 1750 to ¼ in 1850. Schön (2000): 54–6) points to a demographic shift in the 1820s, with increasing population growth and proletarization. Eli Heckscher discussed a pauperization of the Swedish rural population in the mid-19^th century and in this vein Sandberg and Steckel (1988: 17) claim that from the 1840s to 1870s in Sweden ”the increased agricultural productivity was ending up in the hands of the relatively well to do”.

                      Another factor that has been argued to matter for wages in the late 19^th century is migration, and especially the great emigrations from Europe to America. For example Ljungberg (1997) has made the case for Sweden that emigration during the second half of the 19^th century drove up real wages for the remaining workers. Sweden and Norway both saw very large emigrations to the United States but Denmark less so. The scope is seen decade for decade from 1850 to 1913 in Table 3.

Table 3. Gross emigration per 1000 inhabitants to the United States from Scandinavia, 1850–1913

	1850s	1860s	1870s	1880s	1890s	1900–13
Denmark			1.97	3.74	2.60	2.80
Norway			4.33	10.16	4.56	7.15
Sweden	0.51	2.52	2.96	8.25	5.32	2.93

Note. Source: Hatton and Williamson (1992: Table 1).

Both in Norway and Sweden we see accelerations in emigration in the 1880s (on Norway see Pryser 1993: 59–68). There is an increase in Denmark too but to a much lower level.

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[1] Note that there is quite a difference in the estimated difference between Denmark and Sweden between Maddison (whose data are used here) and Prados de la Escosura. According to the latter, Sweden is richer already in 1830 and 1840, even though Denmark is then richer 1850–1900. In 1913 the two countries are level.

[2] Johansen (1998) shows that the consumer revolution began in Denmark before 1800, in Sweden and Norway around 1800, and in Finland later than that.

[3] Cf. Boje (2002: 24): “According to some historians Denmark was an agrarian society until the beginning of the 1960s. Not until then did the value of industrial exports surpass that of agrarian products.”

[4] ”Mellom 1800 og 1850 hadde bygdene i Norge fått 400 000 flere mennesker, jordbruksnæringen var ikke i stand til å livnære alle disse. Både revolusjonsbølgen i Europa rundt 1850 og den begynnende organiseringen av arbeiderklassen i Norge var påminnelser om hvor skjør den sosiale orden var. Interessen for fattigdomsproblematikk og sosialpolitiske tiltak hadde klar sammenheng med frykten for sosial uro som protestbevegelsene fremkalte.” http://www.ssb.no/inntekt-og-forbruk/artikler-og-publikasjoner/fattigstatistikk-mellom-okonomi-og-moral

References

Christensen, Niels Finn (1995) “Arbejderklasserne i de nordiske lande før 1920: et forsøg på komparation”, Arbejderhistorie 14–21. 

Hodne, Fritz and Ola Honningdal Grytten (2000) Norsk ekonomi i det 19. århundre (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget).

Jörberg, Lennart (1970) “The Industrial Revolution in the Nordic Countries”, in The Fontana Economic History of Europe, ed. by Carlo Cipolla (London: Fontana). 

Ljungberg, Jonas (1997) “The Impact of the Great Emigration on the Swedish Economy”, Scandinavian Economic History Review 45: 159–189. 

Pryser, Tore (1993) Norsk historie 1800–1870: Frå standssamfunn mot klassesamfunn (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget).

Sandberg, Lars G and Richard H Steckel (1988) “Overpopulation and malnutrition rediscovered: Hard times in 19th century Sweden”, Explorations in Economic History. 

Sejersted, Francis (1993) Demokratisk kapitalisme (Oslo). 

Van Zanden, Jan L. (1991) “The First Green Revolution: The Growth of Production and Productivity in European Agriculture, 1870-1914”, Economic History Review 44: 215–239.