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- Olofsson, Jon, 1986-
(författare)
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An Economic Backbone of Development : Essays in Financial and Political Economy
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis consists of three self-contained essays.Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings BanksHow does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies.The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank MovementWhat is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external financing, experienced the most substantial impact. The second part shows that the savings banks also impacted general economic development, captured by population growth and reduced infant and child mortality. The study provides novel insights into the merits of local banking systems in the early stages of economic development.Lethal Police Violence and the Public Perception of the Police: Evidence from US CountiesThe public perception of the police is significant for the validity of the democratic system. Compared to white citizens, Afro-Americans have low confidence in the police. They are also more likely to fall victim to police violence with lethal outcomes. Therefore, ethnicity and group identity may influence how the public views police violence and, by extension, how police violence affects public perceptions. This essay explores this relationship using the timing of an individual-level survey and the occurrence of local police killings. Survey participants interviewed after a police killing of a black victim obtained worse attitudes toward the police. Mainly black participants and those who are young and have a high income or education level induce the effect. In contrast, events with non-black victims elevate the status of the police among non-black respondents and those with a lower level of education. The results are consistent with group identity theory and provide insight into how controversial events affect confidence in a political institution.
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| 2. |
- Lindgren, Erik, 1981-
(författare)
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One coin - One vote : the rural political power shift that pushed Sweden towards industrialization
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Causal Effect of Political Power on the Provision of Public Education: Evidence from a Weighted Voting SystemWe estimate how political power affects the provision of public education in local governments, using data from a nondemocratic society where voters received votes in proportion to their taxable income. This was the system used in Swedish local governments during the period 1862–1909. We use two different identification strategies, a threshold regression analysis and a generalized event-study design, both of which exploit nonlinearities or discontinuities in the effect of political power between two opposing local elites: agricultural landowners and emerging industrialists. The results suggest that school spending is approximately 90–120% higher if the non-agrarian interest controls all of the votes compared to when landowners have a majority.The Causal Effect of Transport Infrastructure: Evidence from a New Historical DatabaseWe analyze the effect of railroad investments on economic growth and find large effects of having access to railways. For real non-agricultural income, the cumulative treatment effect is approximately 130% after 30 years. We also show that the effect is likely to reflect growth rather than a reorganization of existing economic activity since no spillover effects between treated and untreated regions are found. Our results are consistent with the big push hypothesis that argues that simultaneous and coordinated investment can generate economic growth if there are strong aggregate demand externalities. We corroborate this mechanism by using plant-level data and find that investments in local railways significantly increase local industrial production and employment.The Political Economics of Growth, Labor Control and Coercion: Evidence from a Suffrage Reform Here we analyze the breadth of Sweden’s industrial, economic and social development from the 1860s to the 1910s. By using a novel constructed historical dataset of approximately 2,400 Swedish local governments we find that the change in suffrage affected several outcomes at the local level. These outcomes include factor price manipulation in the form of entry barriers such as investments in local public education and transportation; technology adoption and labor productivity in agriculture and industry; changes in the real wage structure, composition of employment, and the structure of production; organized labor and labor coercion; demographic transition; and persistence in dysfunctional local political institutions. Our results support the idea that political institutions are a key determinant of long-term development and growth. Precipitation and Infant Mortality: Evidence from Sweden 1881–1950I analyze the dynamic effects of precipitation on infant mortality, using a panel dataset containing monthly mortality data from approximately 2,150 Swedish parishes and monthly precipitation levels collected at a number of weather stations around the country. Given that I use data from 1881 to 1950, the size of this novel panel dataset is considerable. Parishes have been matched to the closest weather station for every given month. Given that precipitation, is neither binary nor constant, a binned event-study design is used to estimate the dynamic effects with respect to the precipitation intensity. The results show that increased precipitation decreases infant mortality for both male and female infants. The dynamic effect after 4 months is about 8 percent.
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