Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:13:48.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agricultural growth and institutions: Sweden, 1700–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2010

MATS OLSSON  and
PATRICK SVENSSON
MATS OLSSON
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden, [email protected], [email protected]
PATRICK SVENSSON
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden, [email protected], [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The dating of, and explanation for, the agricultural revolution in Europe remains an elusive research task. When and why did a low-productive pre-industrial agricultural sector turn into a fast-growing, more productive one? Unique data from Sweden, consisting of more than 80,000 observations of farm production output for the period 1700–1860, are used to calculate and explain decisive changes in pre-industrial agricultural production. Our estimations show that crop production more than quadrupled during the period studied, and from the 1780s and onwards production growth by far outstripped population growth. Furthermore, the data allow us to estimate the determinants of change at individual farm level. The results show that enclosures, markets and property rights were of significant importance. Institutional changes, affecting the incentives and the organization of production, made peasants invest in production and productivity. In a general sense this shows the flexibility and awareness of pre-industrial European peasants in exploiting markets and initiating institutional change.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review of Economic History , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 275 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © European Historical Economics Society 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adanir, F. (1998). The Ottoman peasantries, c. 1360 – c. 1860. In Scott, T. (ed.), The Peasantries of Europe from the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Allen, R. C. (1982). The efficiency and distributional consequences of eighteenth century enclosures. Economic Journal 92, pp. 937–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. (1991). The two English agricultural revolutions, 1450–1850. In Campbell, B. M. S. and Overton, M. (eds.), Land, Labour and Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 236–54.Google Scholar
Allen, R. C. (1992). Enclosure and the Yeoman. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. (1999). Tracking the agricultural revolution in England. Economic History Review, new series 52, pp. 209–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2000). Economic structure and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1300–1800. European Review of Economic History 3, pp. 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2009). The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apostolides, A., Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Overton, M. and van Leeuwen, B. (2008). English agricultural output and labour productivity, 1250–1850: some preliminary estimates. Working paper, 26 November 2008. Available online: www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/broadberry/wp/agriclongrun4.pdf.Google Scholar
Askari, H. and Cummings, J. T. (1977). Estimating agricultural supply response with the Nerlove model: a survey. International Economic Review 18 (2).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baack, L. J. (1977). Agrarian Reform in Eighteenth-Century Denmark. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.Google Scholar
Bengtsson, T. and Dribe, M. (1997). Economy and demography in western Scania, Sweden 1650–1900. EAP working paper series, no. 10, Lund.Google Scholar
Berg, B. Å. (2007). Volatility, Integration and Grain Banks: Studies in Harvests, Rye Prices and Institutional Development of the Parish Magazines in Sweden in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Stockholm School of Economics: EFI, the Economic Research Institute.Google Scholar
BiSOS, Bidrag till Sveriges Offentliga Statistik. Serie N: Jordbruk och Boskapsskötsel.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. (1966). French Rural History: An Essay on Its Basic Characteristics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brenner, R. P. (1985). Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe. In Aston, T. H. and Philpin, C. H. E. Aston (eds.), The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 10–63.Google Scholar
Brenner, R. P. (2001). The Low Countries in the transition to capitalism. In Hoppenbrouwers, P. and van Zanden, J. L. (eds.), Peasants into Farmers? The Transformation of Rural Economy and Society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages – 19th Century) in Light of the Brenner Debate. Corn Publication Series, no. 4, Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 275–338.Google Scholar
Clark, G. (1996). The political foundations of modern economic growth: England 1540–1800. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 26, pp. 563–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. (1998). Commons sense: common property rights, efficiency, and institutional change. Journal of Economic History 58, pp. 73–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. (2002). The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution: England, 1500–1912. Working paper, June 2002. Available online: www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/prod2002.pdf.Google Scholar
Clark, G. (2007). A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Federico, G. (2005). Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800 – 2000. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fridlizius, G. (1979). Population, enclosure and property rights. Economy and History 22 (1), pp. 3–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadd, C-J. (1998). Jordbruksteknisk förändring i Sverige under 1700- och 1800-talen – regionala aspekter. In Ett föränderligt agrarsamhälle. Västsverige i jämförande belysning. Göteborg: Humanistiska fakulteten, Göteborgs universitet.Google Scholar
Gadd, C-J. (1999). Präster och landshövdingar rapporterar. Allmän jordbruksstatistik 1802–1864. In Jorner, U. (ed.), Svensk jordbruksstatistik 200 år. Statistiska Centralbyrån, pp. 29–48.Google Scholar
Gadd, C-J. (2000). Den agrara revolutionen 1700–1870. Det svenska jordbrukets historia, vol. 3. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur/LTs förlag.Google Scholar
Goossens, M. (1993). Belgian agricultural output, 1812–1846. Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis – Revue Belgique d'histoire contemporaine 24 (1–2), pp. 227–73.Google Scholar
Grantham, G. (1989). Agricultural supply during the Industrial Revolution: French evidence and European implications. Journal of Economic History 49, pp. 43–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handbok innehållande uppgift af de fläste från äldre tider intill och med år 1825 utkomna Swenska författningar. I alphabetisk ordning författad af Johan Gustaf Branting, andra delen, A. Wiborg förlag, 1825.Google Scholar
Heckscher, E. F. (1949). Sveriges ekonomiska historia från Gustav Vasa, vol. 2:1. Stockholm: Bonniers förlag.Google Scholar
Helmfrid, B. (1949). Tiondelängderna som källa till ett byalags ekonomiska historia 1555–1753. Stockholm.Google Scholar
Hellstenius, J. (1871). Skördarna i Sverige och deras verkningar. Statistisk Tidskrift, pp. 77–119.Google Scholar
Henningsen, P. (2001). Peasant society and the perception of a moral economy. Scandinavian Journal of History 26, pp. 271–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herlitz, L. (1974). Jordegendom och ränta: omfördelningen av jordbrukets merprodukt I Skaraborgs län under frihetstiden. Göteborg: Meddelanden från ekonomisk-historiska institutionen vid Göteborgs universitet 31.Google Scholar
Historisk statistik för Sverige, vol. 1: Befolkning. Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrån 1969.Google Scholar
Hoffman, P. T. (1996). Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside 1450–1815. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johannesson, G. (1971). Skånes historia. Stockholm: BonniersGoogle Scholar
Jörberg, L. (1972). A History of Prices in Sweden 1732–1914. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Kerridge, E. (1973). The Farmers of Old England. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Krantz, O. and Schön, L. (2007). Swedish Historical National Accounts 1800–2000. Lund and Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
Lägnert, F. (1955). Syd- och mellansvenska växtföljder, vol. 1: De äldre brukningssystemens upplösning under 1800-talet. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Lana Berasain, J. M. (forthcoming 2010). Prices and productivity in inland Spain during the nineteenth century: a ‘sleepwalking’ agriculture? In Olsson, M. and Svensson, P. (eds.), Production and Productivity in European Agriculture in a Historical Context. Turnhout: Brepols.Google Scholar
Leijonhufvud, L. (2001). Grain Tithes and Manorial Yields in Early Modern Sweden: Trends and Patterns of Production and Productivity c. 1540–1680. Uppsala: SLU.Google Scholar
Le Roy Ladurie, E. and Goy, J. (1982). Tithe and Agrarian History from the Fourteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries: An Essay in Comparative History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, D. (1975). The persistence of English common fields. In Parker, W. N. and Jones, E. L. (eds.), European Peasants and Their Markets: Essays in Agrarian Economic History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 73–119.Google Scholar
Melton, E. (1998). The Russian peasantries, 1450–1860. In Scott, T. (ed.), The Peasantries of Europe from the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries. London and New York: Longman, 227–66.Google Scholar
North, D. C. and Weingast, B. R. (1989). Constitutions and commitment: the evolution of institutional governing public choice in seventeenth-century England. Journal of Economic History 49, pp. 803–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, M. (1993). Dictatorship, democracy, and development. American Political Science Review 87, pp. 567–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsson, M. (2002). Storgodsdrift. Godsekonomi och arbetsorganisation i Skåne från dansk tid till mitten av 1800-talet. Lund and Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
Olsson, M. (2005). Skatta dig lycklig. Jordränta och jordbruk i Skåne 1660–1900. Hedemora: Gidlunds förlag.Google Scholar
Olsson, M. (2006). Manorial economy and corvée labour in southern Sweden 1650–1850. Economic History Review 49 (3), pp. 481–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsson, M. and Svensson, P. (2009). The commercialisation of the peasant economy – markets and agricultural production in southern Sweden 1711–1860. In Pinilla, V. (ed.), Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe, 13th–19th Centuries. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 75–106.Google Scholar
Overton, M. (1996). Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palm, A. L. (2000). Folkmängden i Sveriges socknar och kommuner 1571–1997. Med särskild hänsyn till perioden 1571–1751. Göteborg: L. Palm, historiska institutionen.Google Scholar
Persson, K. G. (1999). Grain Markets in Europe, 1500–1900: Integration and Deregulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putte, B. van de and Svensson, P. (2009). Measuring social structure in a rural context. Applying the SOCPO-scheme to Scania. Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis – Revue Belgique d'histoire contemporaine. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Schäfer, H-B. (1997). Farm prices and agricultural production – an empirical study in 20 Indian districts. In Bhaduri, A. and Skarstein, R. (eds.), Economic Development and Agricultural Productivity. Cheltenham and Lyme: Edward Elgar, pp. 98–116.Google Scholar
Simpson, J. (1995). Spanish Agriculture: The Long Siesta, 1765–1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slicher van Bath, B. H. (1963). The Agrarian History of Western Europe AD 500–1850. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Smits, J-P., Horlings, E. and van Zanden, J. L. (2000). Dutch GNP and Its Components 1800–1913. Groningen: University of Groningen.Google Scholar
Smits, J-P., Woltjer, J. P. and Ma, D. (2009). A Dataset on Comparative Historical National Accounts, ca. 1870–1950: A Time-Series Perspective. Groningen Growth and Development Centre Research Memorandum GD-107, Groningen: University of Groningen.Google Scholar
Sommarin, E. (1939). Det skånska jordbrukets ekonomiska utveckling 1801–1914 (2). Lund: Skrifter utg. av de skånska hushållningssällskapen.Google Scholar
Svensson, P. (2006). Peasants and entrepreneurship in the nineteenth-century agricultural transformation of Sweden. Social Science History 30 (3), pp. 387–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svensson, P. (2008). Why did enclosures matter in Scandinavia, when they didn't in Britain? Paper for the Social Science History Association conference, Miami, 23–26 October 2008, Session: Changes in Possession: Stratification in Time and Place.Google Scholar
Söderberg, J. (2007). Daily wages of unskilled labourers 1540–1850. Sveriges Riksbank, research. Available online: www.riksbank.com/templates/Page.aspx?id=27406.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1971). The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century, Past and Present 50, pp. 76–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, M. E., Beckett, J. V. and Afton, B. (2001). Farm Production in England 1700–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Utterström, G. (1943). Potatisodlingen i Sverige under frihetstiden. Med en översikt över odlingens utveckling intill omkring 1820. Särtryck ur Historisk Tidskrift, Stockholm, 1943.Google Scholar
Utterström, G. (1957). Jordbrukets arbetare. Levnadsvillkor och arbetsliv på landsbygden från frihetstiden till mitten av 1800-talet. Stockholm: Tiden.Google Scholar
Winberg, C. (1990). Another route to modern society: the advancement of the Swedish peasantry. In Lundahl, M. and Svensson, T. (eds.), Agrarian Society in History: Essays in Honour of Magnus Mörner. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 48–67.Google Scholar
de Vries, J. (1975). Peasant demand patterns and economic development: Friesland, 1550–1750. In Parker, W. N. and Jones, E. L. (eds.), European Peasants and Their Markets: Essays in Agrarian Economic History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 205–66.Google Scholar
de Vries, J. (2001). The transition to capitalism in a land without feudalism. In Hoppenbrouwers, P. and van Zanden, J. L. (eds.), Peasants into Farmers? The Transformation of Rural Economy and Society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages – 19th Century) in Light of the Brenner Debate. Corn Publication Series 4. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 67–84.Google Scholar