Göteborg Papers in Economic History
No 11:
From extreme luxury to everyday commodity Sugar in Sweden, 17th to 20th centuries
Klas Rönnbäck ()
Abstract: This paper will focus upon the Swedish consumption of
sugar, a product that illustrates the shift from being a luxury to being a
mass-consumed commodity. Very little attention has been paid to the
commodity of sugar by Swedish scholars, at least concerning the period
prior to the introduction of the sugar beet in the late 19th century. The
paper will try to answer three questions: - When did sugar experience a
shift from luxury to everyday commodity? - What factors are important to
explain the shift? - What impacts did the increasing sugar consumption
have, at home and abroad? Regarding the last question, the paper most
importantly presents a novel calculation of how large the ‘ghost acreage’
and slave labour population the Swedish consumption during the early modern
era required.
Keywords: Economic History; Price History; Consumption; Sugar; Sweden; Ghost acreage; Slavery; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: N33; N36; N93; (follow links to similar papers)
354 pages, November 12, 2007, Revised January 29, 2008
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