One and a Half Millennium of Economic Change in Sweden

Olle Krantz ()
Additional contact information
Olle Krantz: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden

No 249, Lund Papers in Economic History from Lund University, Department of Economic History

Abstract: Construction of historical national accounts has a long history in Sweden. It started in the interwar period and later a number of improvements and extensions backward and forward in time have been made. Thus, now there are series from 1300 onwards. Of course, due to limitations of the source material, the estimates are more and more uncertain the further back in time they refer to. In this paper GDP per capita for the entire period is analysed. Growth episodes and stagnation periods are identified and comparisons of income levels with other countries are made. It is found that Sweden was not distinctly backward at any time during the whole period. Economic changes before 1300 are also discussed on the basis of previous historical research. Hence, it is to a certain extent conjectures. There were long-term ups and downs in the economy also in this early period. Furthermore, it is questioned whether the old opinion of the area later called Sweden as very poor compared to the rest of northern Europe can be upheld. Scandinavia was for instance expansive internationally with trading and raiding in the Viking period. Could this have characterised a very poor region?

Keywords: historical national accounts; Sweden; GDP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N13 O44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2023-06-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/6375f743-9531-4ee5-95cc-842c4a9f3e78 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0249

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Lund Papers in Economic History from Lund University, Department of Economic History Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tobias Karlsson () and Benny Carlsson ().