This article reevaluates the inscription of the Viking-era Forsa Ring, which contains Scandinavia’s oldest extant legal codex. The inscription’s fine reads ‘uksa … auk aura tua’, previously translated as ‘ox … and two öre [silver]’ and interpreted as a payment of both ox and silver, suggesting cumbersome transactions. This study applies a transaction cost perspective and draws on economic, legal and etymological contexts to propose that the fine could be paid with either an ox or two öre silver, not mandatorily both. This reinterpretation positions the Forsa Ring as Scandinavia's earliest documented instance of a value relation. The value of an ox at two öre of silver corresponds to the valuation of an ox at 30 pence in Anglo-Saxon Laws during the same period.

Climate variability and change, as well as extreme weather events, have notable impacts on human health and mortality. In historical times, the effect of climate on health and mortality was stronger than today, owing to factors such as poor housing and healthcare, along with the nutrition status that was meditated through climatic impacts on food production. Despite this, climatic impacts on mortality in the past remain poorly understood. This study aims to improve the understanding of climate effects on mortality using annual mortality records and meteorological data from Sweden between 1749 and 1859. The analysis includes the entire population, as well as subgroups based on sex and age. A statistically significant negative correlation was found between late winter and spring temperatures and mortality (i.e. lower temperatures equal higher mortality, and vice versa). We demonstrate that colder late winter and spring seasons were linked to higher mortality levels, not only for the same year but also for the following year. Conversely, no statistically significant associations were observed between summer or autumn temperatures and mortality, and only weak associations existed with hydroclimate. The impact of late winter and spring season temperature on mortality was most pronounced for the same year in southern Sweden and during the 19th century but stronger for the following year in central Sweden and during the 18th century. These findings call for further research, especially with respect to investigating specific diseases and additional factors contributing to the observed increase in mortality following cold late winter and spring seasons in Sweden during the late pre-industrial period.

In this paper, we add new evidence to a long-debated macroeconomic question, namely, whether money growth has predictive power for inflation or put differently, whether money growth Granger causes inflation. We use a historical dataset—consisting of annual Swedish data on money growth and inflation ranging from 1620 to 2021—and employ state-of-the-art Bayesian estimation methods. Specifically, we employ VAR models with drifting parameters and stochastic volatility which are used to conduct analysis both within- and out-of-sample. Our results indicate that the within-sample analysis—based on marginal likelihoods—provides strong evidence in favour of money growth Granger causing inflation. This strong evidence is, however, not reflected in our out-of-sample analysis, as it does not translate into a corresponding improvement in forecast accuracy.

An Economic Philosophy of Production, Work and Consumption presents a new transhistorical framework of defining production, work and consumption. It shows that they all share the common feature of intentional physical transformation of something external to the agent, at some point in time.

The book opens with a discussion of various theoretical traditions within economics, spanning mainstream and heterodox perspectives, and problems with production definitions in use today. Next, the author outlines various definitions in a more formal manner and provides a discussion on measurement and the production boundary. Unproductive work is redefined as socially reproductive, i.e. such that would not be performed on a Robinson Crusoe Island. Finally, the volume applies the new conceptual framework to various historical cases and discusses the future of production, work and consumption.

This essential volume will be of interest to scholars of economic philosophy and methodology, the history of economic thought, economic history and national accounting.

This chapter presents new, nominal and real price indices for real estate in Stockholm from 1726 up to 1875. The new series presented here can be linked to already existing price indices for real estate in Stockholm: from 1875 up to 1957; from 1957 to1975 3 and; from 1975 up to 2020.

For this, a new database is used that covers registered real estate transactions in the present inner city of Stockholm for the period and the method of repeated sales is applied. The indices are based on information from 22,169 unique transactions. To control for qualitative changes inthe housing stock, a database of 7,915 issued building permits has been used.

This chapter presents an overview of the development of Stockholm’s real estate prices from 1420 to 2021. It summarises the results from the three studies in thepresent volume, which present new price indices for the periods 1420 to 1630, 1630to 1730, and 1730 to 1875. Furthermore, it links together all these indices with already existing ones that cover the periods 1875 to 1957, 1957 to 1975, and 1975 to 2021, respectively. In addition, we have also gathered a few sporadic sources onsales back to 1283, only a few decades after the founding of Stockholm, which can give a very rough idea of the price level before and after the Black Death. Together, they form some of the longest existing real estate price indices in the world.

With this study, we can assess for the first time the trajectory of house prices in Stockholm over almost the full history of the city. This will not only give us insights into Stockholm ́s economic history but will also be an important source for researchers seeking to include historical real estate prices as a variable in any futurestudies.

Earlier research describes the development of real housing prices as a ‘hockey stick’, i.e. of long stagnation followed by a sharp upturn in recent decades. A problem is that there are very few indices of residential property covering longer periods. Using a database of around 10,900 sales, this study presents a historical housing price index for Stockholm 1818–1875, which extend a previous index by 57 years, one of the longest for any city. A so-called repeated sales index is compared to a sales price appraisals ratio index. We show that in real terms there have been two long upswings, in 1855–1887 and 1993–2018. In other periods, real prices were stagnant or even slightly declining. The nineteenth century upturn did not end in a crash, but was followed by stagnation for a century. There are many similarities between the two upturns. For example, both coincided with the demographic expansion and were preceded by deregulations. During both periods, properties became more expensive relative income levels.