No experiments, monumental disasters: Why it took a thousand years to develop a specialized fishing industry in Iceland

Eggertsson, Þráinn

doi:10.1016/s0167-2681(96)00839-6

Cited by 27 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Over the period 1801-1860, when the population level was about 50,000, mean net migration was −17 people/year (Statistics Iceland, 2010). Moreover, Iceland was remarkably insulated from technical progress (Eggertsson, 1994). During the 18th and early 19th century, there was little manufacturing.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to Climate Change in Preindustrial Iceland

Turner

Rosenthal

Chen

et al. 2012

American Economic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We investigate the effect of climate change on population growth in 18th and 19th century Iceland. We find that a year 1• C cooler than average drives down population growth rates by 0.57% in each of the next two years, for a total effect of 1.14%. We also find that 18th and 19th century Icelanders adapt to prolonged changes in climate: these adaptations take about 20 years and reduce the short run effect of an annual change in temperature by about 60%. Finally, we find that a 1• C sustained decrease in temperature decreases the steady state population by 10% to 26%.Our analysis rests primarily on two types of data. The first is annual population data dating back to 1734. The second is imputed annual temperature data dating back to the late 1600's. We construct these data from measured temperature data and annual records of the ratio of the concentration of Oxygen-18 to Oxygen-16 in ice core strata from nearby Greenland.The resulting long time series of population and annual temperature data allow an explicit analysis of short run and long run responses to climate change. These data also allow an analysis of the way Icelanders adapt to climate change.We say that Icelanders 'adapt' to a * Turner: Department of Economics, University of Toronto, 150 Saint George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m5s 3g7. Email: mturner@chass.utoronto.ca. Supported in part by sshrc. Rosenthal: Department of Statistics, University of Toronto, 100 Saint George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m5s 3g3. Email: jeff@math.toronto.edu. Supported in part by nserc. Chen: Department of Statistics, University of Toronto, 100 Saint George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m5s 3g3. Email: jchen@ustat.toronto.edu. Hao: Department of Statistics, University of Toronto, 100 Saint George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m5s 3g3. Email: c.hao@utoronto.edu. We thank Dwayne Benjamin, Gillian Hamilton, John Munro and Gunnar Karlsson, and seminar participants at the University of Toronto for helpful comments and discussions. We also thank Benjamin Schachter and Rebecca Lindstrom for excellent research assistance. change in climate if the same event elicits a different short run response when it follows one history than when it follows another. Our data allow a direct statistical test of this commonsense notion of adaptation. Specifically, we check whether a short run climate shock has a different effect when it follows a cold history than when it follows a warm history. By repeating this test for different definitions of 'shock' and 'history', we trace out the rate of adaptation and the time-frame over which it occurs.

show abstract

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to Climate Change in Preindustrial Iceland

Turner

Rosenthal

Chen

et al. 2012

American Economic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The fact that manors were spread out in the country and domestic travel was very difficult also did not help the small volume of internal trade to develop (Þorsteinsson & Jónsson 1991, 137). Eggertsson (1996) argues that Iceland failed to develop a strong specialized fishing industry and relates this to the peripheral status of the island in the late Middle Ages within the Norwegian kingdom and, later, the Danish kingdom. Also, he links this to the challenge from the crown to cooperation between Icelanders and outsiders (i.e.…”

Section: Stjórnmál and Stjórnsýslamentioning

confidence: 99%

Iceland’s external affairs in the Middle Ages: The shelter of Norwegian sea power

Þórhallsson¹

2012

irpa

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

According to the international relations literature, small countries need to form an alliance with larger neighbours in order to defend themselves and be economically sustainable. This paper applies the assumption that small states need economic and political shelter in order to prosper, economically and politically, to the case of Iceland, in an historical context. It analyses whether or not Iceland, as a small entity/country in the Middle Ages (from the Settlement in the 9th and 10th centuries until the late 14th century) enjoyed political and economic shelter provided by its neighbouring states. Admitting that societies were generally much more self-sufficient in the Middle Ages than in our times, the paper argues that Iceland enjoyed essential economic shelter from Norwegian sea power, particularly as regards its role in securing external market access. On the other hand, the transfer of formal political authority from Iceland to the Norwegian crown was the political price paid for this shelter, though the Icelandic domestic elite, at the time, may have regarded it as a political cover. The country’s peripheral location shielded it both from military attacks from outsiders and the king’s day-to-day interference in domestic affairs. That said, the island was not at all unexposed to political and social developments in the British Isles and on the European continent, e.g. as regards the conversion to Christianity and the formation of dynastic and larger states. This paper claims that the analysis of the need for shelter needs to take into account the political and economical costs that may be involved in a shield. Also, it needs to address how external actors may solve the problem of internal order. Moreover, an analysis from the point of view of the advantages of political or military shelter needs to address the importance of the extent of engagement of a small community, particularly a remote one, with the outside world. The level of engagement and the identity of the entity with which reciprocal transactions take place may have an important bearing on the community. This was the case in Iceland, i.e. communication with the outside world was of immense importance during the Middle Ages. Hence, the paper suggests that an analysis of the means by which shelter was secured must address the importance of communication according to the centre-periphery relations model.

show abstract

“…The underdevelopment of its fishing industry during the premodern period is an interesting aspect of the economic history of Iceland, because expansion of the fisheries was the most obvious escape from the country's abject poverty (Gunnarsson, 1983;Eggertsson, 1996). After centuries of stagnation, it eventually was an efficient, specialized, export-oriented fishing industry that late…”

Section: Ii) Restricting Specializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Danish crown responded to these advances with rules that limited foreign contacts by Icelanders to merchants of a royal monopoly , and only during the summer months. The crown also joined with landed interests in restricting labor mobility and preventing urbanization, and, until the 19th century, these measures together preserved the traditional economy and blocked structural changes in the fisheries (Eggertsson, 1996) Economic historians tend to agree that the Icelandic economy was stagnant and even on a declining path from the end of the Middle Ages till early in the 19th century (Gunnarsson, 1983;Magnusson, 1985;Jonsson, 1991). The main features of the country's decentralized social insurance system, which is the subject of this paper, apparently survived with few changes from the 13th century until the 19th century, although sources are limited for the early years (Gunnlaugsson, 1983).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

No experiments, monumental disasters: Why it took a thousand years to develop a specialized fishing industry in Iceland

Cited by 27 publications

References 5 publications

Adaptation to Climate Change in Preindustrial Iceland

Adaptation to Climate Change in Preindustrial Iceland

Iceland’s external affairs in the Middle Ages: The shelter of Norwegian sea power

Sources of Risk, Institutions for Survival, and a Game against Nature in Premodern Iceland

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About