showing 34 related works from this author
Tillväxt och demokrati : om ekonomins politiska långtidseffekter
2018
The poor man’s goldmine? : Career paths in Swedish and Finnish merchant shipping, c. 1840–1950
2017
This article analyses the career paths of Swedish and Finnish sailors from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The article shows that, for the most of the men, the seaman’s occupation was just a passing phase before taking up a job on shore, but many of them also created a longlasting and advancing career by going to sea. There was not necessarily, however, a clear distinction between job opportunities at sea and those on shore in those days: men worked both at sea and on shore. We therefore argue that an individual’s advancement in a maritime career was a context-specific socio-economic phenomenon. In Scandinavia, work on board ships was dependent on features that characterized the divis…
Navigation Acts and the integration of North Baltic shipping in the early nineteenth century
2017
This article discusses how Navigation Acts affected shipping and commodity trade from and to the Northern Baltic during the early nineteenth century. We use Finnish shipping and foreign trade as an example of trade integration at the time. Finland can be used as a ‘laboratory case’ to study the importance of the Navigation Acts, as the eastern part of the area followed Russian legislation without the Navigation Act to restrict shipping to domestic vessels, while the western part followed Swedish legislation with strict protection through the Swedish version of the Act ( Produktplakat). The article argues that the role played by foreign vessels in shipments of Finnish export goods was far m…
More or less equality?
2021
Geopolitik och identitet 1890-1930
2018
Road to unity? : Nordic economic convergence in the long run
2022
This study examines Nordic economic convergence from the sixteenth to twentieth century respective of the economic leaders, in effect the UK before 1914 and USA thereafter. The paper uses a novel approach of combining the analysis of both GDP and wages. The examination of real GDP per capita suggests that there was a catch-up process in play, both with the economic leaders and among the Nordic states, from the early nineteenth century onwards. However, the examination of the adjusted silver wages suggests convergence among the Nordic economies by the end of the eighteenth century. Therefore, we argue, no single Nordic Model emerged from these development patterns, even though the Nordic sta…
Smooth sailing toward more peaceful societies? Long-run Nordic development paths
2022
Publisher Copyright: © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Christopher Lloyd and Matti Hannikainen. In this chapter, the authors aim to compare the Nordic societies in a broad fashion in the last 200 years in their process of “sailing” (with the implication of rough waters along the way) from social fragmentation to more inclusive welfare societies. The authors’ main goal is to examine the coevolution of economic, political, and fiscal factors among the Nordic societies in the long run by making use of recent longitudinal data sets. In this way, they can map out some key patterns that characterized the shift toward more peaceful and well-functioning societies. First, the authors focus on t…
Technological change and wage premiums amongst high-skilled labour
2019
This study examines the impact of the steam engine, which produced wide and long-lasting economic growth from the 19th century to the early 20th century, on the wages of high-skilled seamen in the Swedish merchant maritime shipping industry. The analysis focuses on the years 1869–1914, which was a transition period during which traditional sailing ships were replaced by steam-powered vessels. The study shows that all high-skilled occupations received wage gains under steam technology. The evidence on wage polarization amongst the high-skill occupations remains subtle, although there is certain evidence that wage premiums vary by occupation. peerReviewed
Towards Big Data: Digitising Economic and Business History
2020
This chapter describes the experiences in computational and digital history of economic and business historians who for decades have been forerunners in digital history data gathering and computational analysis. It attempts to discuss the major developments within this area internationally and, in some specific cases, in Finland in the fields of digital economic and business history. It concentrates on a number of research projects that the authors have previously been involved in, as well as research outcomes by other economic and business historians within Finland and elsewhere. It is not claimed that the projects discussed are unique or ahead of their time in the field of economic and bu…
Tackling Market Failure or Building a Cartel? Creation of an Investment Regulation System in Finnish Forest Industries
2015
Government intervention in the economy is often justified by the need to correct market failures. This study analyzes one case, the investments of Finnish forest industries, in which, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, both policy makers and the trade association representing the sector reasoned that intervention was particularly necessary because otherwise, the only substantial natural resource in the small country would be overexploited. In the long run, however, the growth of forest resources turned out to be higher, and the demand for wood lower, than expected. Furthermore, the most influential industrialists managed to “capture” the regulatory system and make it a component of their ne…
Modern Finnish Economic History
2022
The Finnish economy has experienced a relative late growth and catch-up process in relation to many other advanced Western economies. During this growth period, Finland also experienced a rapid structural change from an agrarian society to a developed service society. In a small open economy, the export industries have played a vital role in this development. Over several centuries, the forest industries have had a dominating impact in exports, along with the metal industries; however, the latter, as well as the electronics industry, with Nokia as the flagship company, gained more importance in the late 20th century in aggregate exports. The egalitarian educational system has to a large ext…
Keski-Suomen yritysten historiatietoisuus
2021
Tämä raportti on osa Jyväskylän yliopiston monitieteistä Menestystä menneisyydestä -tutkimushanketta, jossa selvitetään yritysten historiatietoisuutta. Raportin teko ei olisi ollut mahdollista ilman Keski-Suomen liiton ja Business Finlandin rahoitusta – kiitos molemmille tärkeästä tuesta tutkimushankkeelle. Kiitos myös Keski-Suomen Yrittäjille ja Keski-Suomen kauppakamarille, joiden verkostojen kautta kysely levisi keskisuomalaisyrityksille. Raportti on pohjana tutkimushankkeen seuraaville vaiheille, joissa sekä syvennytään tarkemmin yksittäisten yritysten historiatietoisuuteen että laajennetaan analyysiä valtakunnalliselle tasolle.
Deskilling and decline in skill premium during the age of sail : Swedish and Finnish seamen, 1751–1913
2016
The study examines the evolution of skill premium and share at industry level in shipping during the age of sail. We argue that the period from the 1750s to the 1910s represented deskilling for the seamen working in sailing ships. The growth of international trade and shipping during the first era of globalization increased the overall demand for sailors but decreased the relative demand for skilled labor in favor of less skilled ones. This deskilling was associated with a decline in wage inequality, as the premium for high skilled seamen fell relative to mean wages in the shipping industry. The decline in skill premium may have facilitated the growth of trade and shipping, as the relative …
Maritime Trade and Merchant Shipping: The Shipping/Trade-Ratio from the 1870s Until Today.
2016
This paper discusses the development of countries’ market shares in world shipping over the last 150 years. The analysis is based upon a new and purpose-built indicator: the shipping/trade-ratio. This indicator presents the relationship between the merchant marine of a country and the country’s role in world trade. Analysis of the shipping/trade-ratio identifies two important developments. First, although the share of the world fleet registered in Europe has dropped significantly, Europe’s role in world shipping over the last fifty years has been more stable than is commonly perceived. Second, there appears to have been an increasing specialisation in the world shipping industry, both among…
Always in crisis, always a solution?
2021
Miksi julkaista ulkomailla?
2014
Business as usual
2016
Kaksi onnistunutta ennustusta – valitettavasti
2015
Magnus Henrekson and Mikael Stenkula, eds., Swedish taxation: developments since 1862 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. 334. ISBN 978113747814…
2017
Finnish Shipping — A Nordic Exception?
2012
The Finnish economy has for centuries been dependent on seaborne transport. In some periods, such as the mid-nineteenth century and the 1970s, Finland also emerged as an important shipping nation in international cross-trades. In the mid-1970s, Finnish tonnage was the sixth largest in the world in per capita terms — just after the Scandinavian countries (Karonen, 1992; Kaukiainen, 2008b). Nevertheless, compared to the other Nordic countries, it was a minor player in international shipping and, subsequently, it has fallen even further behind. In 1987, for example, the freight earnings of Finnish shipping were about one-fifth of those of Norway and about one-third of those of Denmark and Swed…
Varieties of State Aid and Technological Development: Government Support to the Pulp and Paper Industry, the 1970s to the 1990s
2018
Countries promote the development of pulp and paper industry through industrial, technology and innovation policy measures. Direct interventions and regional and environmental policies, together with more general governmental measures on trade negotiations, taxation, labour policies, and infrastructure development (e.g. roads, energy) have also had an impact on shaping the geographical location of and investments in the pulp and paper industry. This chapter presents an historical overview of government support on pulp and paper industry in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from roughly the 1970s to the 1990s. As the earlier literature suggests, in c…
The Evolution of Pulp and Paper Industries in Finland, Sweden, and Norway, 1800–2005
2012
In this chapter, we study Finland, Sweden and Norway as examples of countries with small firm populations without intense domestic competition. This has enabled firms to build certain organizational capabilities while neglecting others. The basic story-line in the Nordic paper industry evolution is that a few firms that emerged as industrial populations were (a) built on to exploit abundant raw materials (timber, water, labor); (b) focused to a large extent on exporting their products; and (c) relied on cooperation between competitors to success in competition with the large firms populations of Britain and Germany – the two main markets for Nordic paper industry products.
The anatomy and causal structure of a corporate myth: Nokia by the book
2014
In this paper we conceptualise explanations of company-specific commercial performance as corporate myths. To improve our understanding of anatomy and causal structure of corporate myths, we analyse publications that deal with Nokia’s historical transformation from a lossmaking 1980s conglomerate to a focused and successful telecommunications company in the early 1990s. From a corpus of related literature, 89 causal arguments are identified and analysed in terms of the logic of the arguments employed. The analysis shows that (1) most existing analyses offer either a specific or a biased explanation for Nokia’s success; (2) very few explanations are either plausible or logical; (3) it is mos…
Towards debate and open conversation
2016
Maritime Information Networks between Northern and Southern Europe during the Eighteenth century
2019
International trade during the 18th century is a case in point through which to study in-depth the challenges of asymmetric information. The challenges can be divided into three categories: availability, reliability and usability of information. This article discusses the organization of trade and shipping between Northern and Southern Europe. The access, reliability and use of information were problems for merchant-shipowners during the 18th century. The solutions adopted were partly contradictory: the aim to reduce information asymmetry on one determinant, might incur costs on the other.
Evolution of Competitive Strategies in Global Forestry Industries: Introduction
2006
Merimiesten karkaaminen siirtolaisuutena
2019
Research on international trade and transport : a generational shift?
2018
Scandinavian economic historians made a strong presence at the World Economic History Congress (WEHC), Boston, this summer. Around one hundred Nordic scholars featured on the list of participants, ...
The Evolution of the Global Paper Industry: Concluding Remarks
2012
This concluding chapter summarizes the findings of the volume, and combines those findings with a comparative life-cycle perspective. We demonstrate how pulp and paper industry companies have emerged and exited in different countries. We highlight technology, raw materials, markets and products as factors explaining changes in industry structure and dominance. We demonstrate that industrial growth and the accumulation of technological knowledge require a certain maturity of political systems, regulation, and organization of research and development. Likewise, similarities between regions that lose their competitive advantage are characterized by saturation of demand, thereby weakening incen…
Digitaalinen tiedonhallinta : menetetty mahdollisuus?
2018
Towards open access
2019
In accordance with the rotation principle of the Journal, our four-year term for editing the Scandinavian Economic History Review is coming to an end. It is time to pass the Journal on to the capab...
In search of an integrated framework of business longevity
2015
Even if the domain of business longevity has been enriched by the multidisciplinary nature of approaches used to investigate the phenomenon, the lack of a unifying perspective has impeded systematic research and caused definitional ambiguity. The main aim of this special issue is to extend existing knowledge on business longevity by integrating theoretical and empirical studies that adopt different approaches and perspectives. This is essential in order to identify the key factors of long-term success and the effects of longevity on firm performance. The multifaceted nature of business longevity research is mirrored in the five articles included in this special issue, that offer different a…
Defending dissertations on economic history
2016
In most disciplines, the number, quality and topics of doctoral dissertations afford useful information on the state of affairs in research and formal graduate education. Moreover, dissertations ma...