Ratio Working Papers
No 70:
Annual Estimates of Swedish GDP in 1720-1800
Rodney Edvinsson ()
Abstract: For the period 1800 onwards, annual figures over GDP and
GDP per capita for Sweden have been presented in different studies. For the
18th century no such annual series exist. The aim of this paper is to
present annual data on GDP and GDP per capita in volume values for Sweden
for the whole period 1720-1800. Only very rough estimates are provided,
which are not based on any disaggregation of the different components of
GDP. To estimate annual fluctuations, four different indicators are used:
changes in the official accounts of harvests, marriage rates, the price of
rye and import of un-milled grains. When investigating the long-term
trends, the conclusion is that there was only a very modest increase in GDP
per capita over the studied period. The growth of the GDP per capita became
substantial not until the mid 19th century. However, GDP grew significantly
during the studied period, but this growth mainly took the form of
population growth. This in itself constituted a kind of technological
progress, allowing a larger population per unit of land without a
significant decrease in per capita production.
Keywords: GDP; 18th century; Sweden; economic growth; national accounts; economic history; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: E23; E32; J10; N13; N53; O10; O13; O47; O52; Q13; (follow links to similar papers)
31 pages, June 14, 2005
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