| 1. |
- Bengtsson, Erik, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Wages, Income Distribution and Economic Growth: Long-Run Perspectives in Scandinavia, 1900-2010
- 2021
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Ingår i: Review of Political Economy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0953-8259 .- 1465-3982. ; 33:4, s. 725-745
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article views analysis of the influence of capital-labour income distribution on economic growth from a historical perspective, using data from 1900 onwards. We study the three Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where conventional accounts of the postwar growth miracles in these small, open economies have emphasized the role of wage restraint, favouring profits and investment over consumption. Instead, we show that the 1950s and 1960s saw growing wage shares, and use the Bhaduri-Marglin model to econometrically analyse the effects on consumption, investment, exports and imports and the total effects on GDP. Furthermore, we estimate the effects of wage pressure on labour productivity. Growing wage shares have had a small positive effect on GDP growth in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and the positive effect was larger in the postwar period than in other times. However, the positive growth effects of wage pressure were modest as the demand was only weakly wage-led. In contrast, supply side effects were large. Labour productivity was stimulated by vigorous wage increases, as argued by the Swedish Rehn-Meidner model as well as by post-Keynesian economists. The present investigation opens several further avenues for research on the distribution-growth nexus.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Aaberge, Rolf, et al.
(författare)
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Long-run evolution of income inequality in the Nordic countries
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Economic History Review. - 0358-5522.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper surveys Nordic historic studies on the distribution of income to highlight similarities and differences between Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in the evolution of income concentration and income inequality over more than 140 years. Our descriptive analysis allows for a decomposition where we identify the contribution of the income share of the richest 1 per cent and the distribution of income among the other 99 per cent to overall inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient. The results show that the evolution of income concentration and inequality can be characterised by episodes rather than by secular cycles, which means that the evolution can neither be summarised by Kuznets’ inverse U nor by a U. The evidence on the role played by the share of the top 1 per cent for overall income inequality shows to be mixed and to vary across time and countries.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Bengtsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Capital Shares and Income Inequality: Evidence from the Long Run
- 2016
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper investigates the relationship between the capital share in national income and personal income inequality over the long run. Using a new historical cross-country database on capital shares in 19 countries and data from the World Wealth and Income Database, we find strong long-run links between the aggregate role of capital in the economy and the size distribution of income. Over time, this dependence varies; it was strong both before the Second World War and in the early interwar era, but has grown to its highest levels in the period since 1980. The correlation is particularly strong in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries, in the very top of the distribution and when we only consider top capital incomes. Replacing top income shares with a broader measure of inequality (Gini coefficient), the positive relationship remains but becomes somewhat weaker.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Bengtsson, Erik, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Financial effects in historic consumption and investment functions
- 2020
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Ingår i: International Review of Applied Economics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0269-2171 .- 1465-3486. ; 34:3, s. 304-326
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The globalfinancial crisis has highlighted the importance offinan-cial factors on economic performance. Most of the existing research analyses the contemporary experience, and especially the 1980s onwards. This paper investigates the effects of stock prices, realestate prices and debt on consumption and investment expenditures by estimating consumption and investment equations for about 110 years of data for Britain, France, Norway and Sweden. We find positive debt effects on consumption in three of four countries, but no consistent effects of stock prices and house prices. Effects on consumption are stronger in the more market-based economy of Britain than in the more state-oriented economies of France, Norway and Sweden: in Britain but not in the other countries, consumption has increased in response to stock and house prices. We find positive effects of stock prices on investment in all four countries. Credit expansion boosts investment in some of the countries while house prices seem to have become more influential for investment after 1980. The results indicate that there is interesting variation in financial effects over time, and point forward for possible research on the interaction between financial variables and the real economy since the early twentieth century.
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| 8. |
- Bengtsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Incomes and Income Inequality in Stockholm, 1870–1970: Evidence from Micro Data
- 2023
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Ingår i: Explorations in Economic History. - : Elsevier. - 0014-4983 .- 1090-2457.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper analyzes incomes and income inequality in Stockholm from 1870 to 1970. The paper builds on a new dataset of 38,022 randomly sampled Stockholm residents 1870–1950, with information on income, occupation, age, gender, and household composition. This is complemented by the Census of 1930 and a Statistics Sweden sample for 1960 and 1970. Incomes were very unequally distributed between 1870 and 1920, with Gini coefficients of pre-tax income around sixty. After 1920 inequality fell quite steadily. A drop in capital incomes contributed, and when looking at post-tax incomes the growth of progressive taxation after 1930 also contributed, but most of the high inequality up to 1920 and equalization after this date depended on the distribution of labour income. In the early 1900s professional groups had huge income advantages over workers, but this advantage was drastically reduced after 1920 when working-class incomes grew rapidly. An important mechanism of income growth was the upgrading of the jobs structure, highlighting the importance of structural change, beyond the Kuznetsian binary of agriculture–manufacturing, for understanding long-run economic inequality.
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| 9. |
- Bengtsson, Erik
(författare)
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Rika och fattiga: Klassrelationer och historisk ekonomisk ojämlikhet i Stockholm på 1600–1700-talen
- 2020
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Ingår i: Arbetarhistoria: Meddelanden från arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek. - 0281-7446. ; 173-174, s. 78-83
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- English summary”Class Relations and Historical Economic Inequality: Stockholm in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”.Erik BengtssonArbetarhistoria, 2020This article describes and discusses economic inequality in seventeenth and eighteenth century Stockholm. I describe the distribution of wealth, using probate inventories from 1650, 1700 and 1715, and wealth tax data from 1715. The distribution was very unequal: the ten percent wealthiest in the population held around 90 per cent of total wealth. I discuss why inequality was so high, focusing on the class structure of the city with a large working class, with quite poor living standards, and small elites of merchants and noblemen, and on the repressive character of the state. I argue that the high inequality was to a large degree shaped by class power, exercised through the state apparatus. I argue that the class perspective is important for the study of historical economic inequality.
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| 10. |
- Bengtsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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The economic effects of the 1920 eight-hour working day reform in Sweden
- 2017
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Economic History Review. - : Routledge. - 0358-5522 .- 1750-2837. ; 65:2, s. 149-168
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 1920, the working day in Swedish manufacturing and services was cut from 10 to 8 hours without wages being cut correspondingly. Since workers demanded and got the same daily wage working 8 hours as they had with 10, real hourly wages increased dramatically; they were about 50% higher in 1921–1922 than they had been in 1919. This is the largest wage push in Swedish history, and this paper studies the consequences for profits, investments, capital intensity and unemployment. In traded manufacturing employers responded by increasing capital intensity and did not compensate for rising wages by raising prices, which led to a combination of jobless growth and low profit rates in the 1920s. Firms in non-traded manufacturing and services could raise prices and conserve profitability to a higher degree. In total, the effects of the reform were pro-labour. We discuss the implications for our understanding of interwar wages and employment, the literature on the decrease in inequality found in most industrial countries around 1920 and the rise of the ‘Swedish model’ in the 1920s and 1930s.
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