Income inequality and famine mortality: Evidence from the Finnish famine of the 1860s

This article examines whether economic inequality intensified the adverse effects of harvest, price, and income shocks during a famine. Using a parish-level longitudinal dataset from the Finnish famine of the 1860s, it shows that a substantial proportion of the excess mortality experienced during the famine resulted from a decline in agricultural production, a decline in incomes, and a surge in food prices. The findings indicate that the adverse effects of food output fluctuations were intensified by increasing income inequality and decreasing average income, while the market-transmitted shocks were weakened by a contraction of disposable income. The results are corroborated with multiple a…

Epidemiat : taloushistoriallinen katsaus

Epidemioilla on lyhyen ja pitkän aikavälin taloudellisia ja demografisia vaikutuksia sekä yhteiskunnallisia seurauksia. Samankaltaisuuksistaan huolimatta epidemioiden lopputulokset ovat riippuvia tapahtumaympäristöistään – patogeenit saattavat vaatia hyvin erityiset olosuhteet levitäkseen ja tuottaakseen epidemioita. Historiallinen vertailu osoittaa, että yhteiskuntia muuttaneet suuret tartuntatautiepisodit (kuten musta surma) esiintyvät verrokkeina useammin kuin niiden yleistyvyys tai tyypillisyys puoltaisivat. Epidemiat saattavat haitata alue- ja makrotaloutta hyvinkin pitkällä aikavälillä, mutta tämä on riippuvaista sokkien kohdentumisesta ja laajemmasta taloudellisesta ympäristöstä. Kuo…

Multi-currency regime and markets in early nineteenth-century Finland

Pre-industrial money supply typically consisted of multiple, often foreign currencies. Standard economic theory implies that this entails welfare loss due to transaction costs imposed by currency exchange. Through a study of novel data on Finnish nineteenth-century parish-level currency conditions, we show that individual currencies had principal areas of circulation, with extensive co-circulation restricted to the boundary regions in between. We show that trade networks, defined here through the regional co-movement of grain prices, proved crucial in determining the currency used. Market institutions and standard price mechanisms had an apparent role in the spread of different currencies a…

A Evolução Da Indústria De Papel Global

Supõe-se que as indústrias sigam um ciclo de evolução específico, caracterizado pelos estágios de nascimento, crescimento, maturidade e declínio, evidentes em números de empresas, volume de produção e atividade tecnológica. A indústria de papel e celulose não constitui exceção a esta regra. Muito pelo contrário. A história destas linhas de negócio parece seguir uma evolução dependente de uma trajetória semelhante em qualquer país considerado. Condicionada pelo crescimento do mercado, pelos recursos e tecnologia disponíveis, a indústria de papel e celulose passou por estágios de crescimento, maturação e até mesmo declínio em numerosas economias maduras. nonPeerReviewed

Tule jou­lu näl­käi­nen

Suomalaisen teollisuusjärjestelmän rakenne ja vuorovaikutussuhteet 1921-2007

Malthusian checks in pre-industrial Sweden and Finland: a comparative analysis of the demographic regimes

In this article, the existence of the Malthusian preventive and positive checks in pre-industrial Sweden and Finland are studied using demographic and economic data from circa 1750–1860. By applying time series analysis, we are able to identify strong preventive and positive checks for Sweden. The preventive check is considered to work both directly through births and indirectly through marriages. Although the Finnish data also indicate the existence of the preventive check, the positive check is only detected with differenced data. Our findings contradict the initial hypothesis that, due to poverty, Finland would display a higher sensitivity of mortality to living standards than Sweden. In…

A Bayesian spatio‐temporal analysis of markets during the Finnish 1860s famine

We develop a Bayesian spatio-temporal model to study pre-industrial grain market integration during the Finnish famine of the 1860s. Our model takes into account several problematic features often present when analysing multiple spatially interdependent time series. For example, compared with the error correction methodology commonly applied in econometrics, our approach allows simultaneous modelling of multiple interdependent time series avoiding cumbersome statistical testing needed to predetermine the market leader as a point of reference. Furthermore, introducing a flexible spatio-temporal structure enables analysing detailed regional and temporal dynamics of the market mechanisms. Appl…

Amerikka, pelkäätkö pimeää?

The Evolution of Global Paper Indutry

Industries are assumed to follow a specific life cycle characterized by stages of nascence, growth, maturity and decline apparent in firm numbers, production volume and technological activity. Pulp and paper industries not exceptions to this rule. Quite the contrary. The history of these lines of business seems to follow similar path dependent evolution in any given country. Constrained with market growth, available resources and technology, pulp and paper industry has experienced stages of growth, maturation, and even decline in a numerous mature economies. nonPeerReviewed

Poverty and Tax Exemptions in Mid-Nineteenth Century Finland

The topic of this article is the nature and social character of Finnish rural poverty during the early stages of industrialization. Specifically, I analyze households exempted from two separate taxes in order to locate and study the rural poor. Contrary to several previous considerations deeming taxation sources unreliable in poverty studies, it is shown that under controlled settings tax exemption information does display promising features. These include a high exemption percentage of households without adult male members, small average household size of the tax exempted and a clear concentration of the exemptions on the lower rural social classes. My findings also highlight the fact that…

Poverty, inequality and the Finnish 1860s famine

The Evolution of the Global Paper Industry: Concluding Remarks

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…

A Bayesian Reconstruction of a Historical Population in Finland, 1647–1850

This article provides a novel method for estimating historical population development. We review the previous literature on historical population time-series estimates and propose a general outline to address the well-known methodological problems. We use a Bayesian hierarchical time-series model that allows us to integrate the parish-level data set and prior population information in a coherent manner. The procedure provides us with model-based posterior intervals for the final population estimates. We demonstrate its applicability by estimating the long-term development of Finlands population from 1647 onward and simultaneously place the country among the very few to have an annual popula…