![Vinzent Ostermeyer. Foto.](/sites/ehl.lu.se/files/styles/lu_personal_page_desktop/public/2024-05/VinzentOstermeyer-small.jpg.webp?itok=tYImZNSb)
Vinzent Leon Ostermeyer
Forskare
![Vinzent Ostermeyer. Foto.](/sites/ehl.lu.se/files/styles/lu_personal_page_desktop/public/2024-05/VinzentOstermeyer-small.jpg.webp?itok=tYImZNSb)
Why Firms Grow : The Roles of Institutions, Trade, and Technology during Swedish Industrialization
Författare
Summary, in English
How did today’s high-income countries initially manage to start growing and industrializing? While existing explanations focus on the roles of, for example, institutions, trade, and technology, such aspects have generally not been analyzed at the level where economic growth occurred: the industrial firm. Consequently, understanding how (Western) firms managed to increase in size and productivity may also inform current debates.
This thesis analyzes the causes of industrialization at the firm level. It studies how (some) manufacturing establishments managed to start growing, adopted new technologies, and learned to organize themselves more efficiently in late nineteenth-century Sweden. As such, the thesis focuses on the formative years of the Swedish economy when the country developed from being one of the poorest on Europe’s periphery into one of the fastest-growing economies worldwide. To do so, the study leverages newly digitized data that cover in unique detail the yearly performance of Swedish manufacturing firms.
In four papers, the thesis shows how policies that generally have been perceived as key drivers of the industrialization process—e.g., general incorporation laws or tariff protection—enabled marginal establishments to grow, organize as factories, and adopt new technologies, such as steam power. Yet, state policy was no panacea as it (sometimes) negatively affected leading establishments. Using individual census data on the employment of individuals in Sweden, the USA, and Great Britain, the study also documents how industrialization led to further growth dynamics, primarily in the service sector. More broadly, this thesis shows how firm-level growth in manufacturing created an economic dynamism that would ultimately better the lives of people.
Avdelning/ar
- Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen
Publiceringsår
2023-02-03
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Lund Studies in Economic History
Issue
110
Fulltext
Dokumenttyp
Doktorsavhandling
Förlag
Lund University (Media-Tryck)
Ämne
- Economic History
Nyckelord
- Industrialization
- Firms
- 19th Century
- Institutions
- Trade
- Technology
- Growth
- Development
- Factory
- Corporations
- Steam Power
- Tariffs
- Employment Multiplier
- Services
- Causal Inference
- Sweden
- USA
- Great Britain
Aktiv
Published
Handledare
- Thor Berger
- Mats Olsson
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1400-4860
- ISBN: 978-91-87793-95-0
- ISBN: 978-91-87793-94-3
Försvarsdatum
24 februari 2023
Försvarstid
13:15
Försvarsplats
EC3:211
Opponent
- Markus Lampe (Professor)