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

Voutilainen, Miikka

doi:10.1080/03585522.2015.1081854

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…With a half-life of 220 years, it is clear that technology and demographic shocks will have a very persistent effect on wages. This finding of very slow convergence is, therefore, consistent with the existing literature that also finds significant but small Malthusian effects before the industrial revolution (Bailey and Chambers, 1993;Lee and Anderson, 2002;Nicolini, 2007;Crafts and Mills, 2009;Voutilainen, 2015;Lagerlöf, 2015).…”

Section: Wage and Income Convergencesupporting

confidence: 91%

“…4 Nicolini ( 2007) also finds that only 13.9 percent of the variance in the crude birth rate is explained by variations in the log of the wage rate over his whole sample period, 1541-1840, again suggesting that Malthusian effects were not very important overall. Results of very similar magnitude are found by Voutilainen (2015) for Sweden and Finland. Craft and Mills (2009) also revisit Nicolini's (2007) VAR model and confirm his results, also noting the weakening and breakdown of the Malthusian model by the 1800s.…”

Section: Malthusian Econometrics Literaturesupporting

confidence: 75%

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Malthus was right: Explaining a millennium of stagnation

Madsen

Robertson

2019

European Economic Review

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We develop a simple Malthusian growth model with continuous productivity growth and derive the stationary steady-state equilibrium. We show that linearization around the steady-state gives an empirically tractable model of Malthusian wage and population behaviour using the familiar concept of β -convergence. Our empirical strategy addresses the concern in the literature over model identification and inconsistent parameter estimates. Based on newly constructed population data, we estimate wage and population growth models using panel data for up to 17 countries from 900CE to 1870CE. Our results provide the first timeseries evidence of a strong Malthusian trap that was pervasive across countries and time before the 19 th century industrial revolution.

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Section: Wage and Income Convergencesupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Malthusian Econometrics Literaturesupporting

confidence: 75%

Malthus was right: Explaining a millennium of stagnation

Madsen

Robertson

2019

European Economic Review

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“…It took more than 100 years for Finnish and Swedish population growth rates to converge again. The population shock of 1695-1721 might have provided the Finnish economy with an exogenous push toward a high-level equilibrium (Voigtländer and Voth 2013), where the high population growth could have been an outcome of a high resource per capita ratio (Voutilainen 2015). Finally, as this estimate and existing Swedish population figures show, both Finnish and Swedish populations grew during the latter half of the seventeenth century.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 70%

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

2020

Self Cite

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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 modelbased posterior intervals for the final population estimates. We demonstrate its applicability by estimating the long-term development of Finland's population from 1647 onward and simultaneously place the country among the very few to have an annual population series of such length available.

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“…European silver 12 Schybergson 1973, Kaukiainen 2006. 13 Nikula 1948von Bonsdorff 1956;Voutilainen 2015;Pitkänen 1993;Häkkinen 1991. and real wages started to converge again during the late 19 th century, which is also when Finland's wages began to catch up to them.…”

Section: Measures Of Economic Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modern Finnish Economic History

Eloranta¹,

Ojala²

2022

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance

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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 extent been pivotal respective of this change in the industrial structure and also in the growth of services. The demographic changes underlying these processes have been focal in these development processes, namely, the steady population growth in the 19th and early 20th centuries, followed by migration to urban centers, especially during the latter part of the 20th century; and, from the turn of the millennium, the emerging challenges of the welfare society followed by the aging of the population.

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

Cited by 7 publications

References 49 publications

Malthus was right: Explaining a millennium of stagnation

Malthus was right: Explaining a millennium of stagnation

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

Modern Finnish Economic History

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