Living standards project


How did living standards for ordinary Swedes evolve from the 1600s to the 1800s? Can we detect an "industrious revolution" of increasing labour inputs? Do people specialize or are they involved in multiple employments? Is there a "consumer revolution" with increased consumption of for example colonial goods, furniture and textiles?


These are some of the questions that Mats Olsson, Marcus Falk and I tackle in our project "A consumer revolution? Evidence from Sweden 1680–1860", financed by Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser with a grant of 1.8 million SEK. The project is working from September 2020 to 2023 and we aim to produce a doctoral dissertation -- Marcus Falk -- and several journal articles.


The key source of the project are probate inventories from eight rural areas and two towns in the south of Sweden. The top picture of this page is a part of an inventory from Halmstad judicial district (härad) in 1692.


Writings within this project

  1. “Production Goods in Swedish Rural Households, 1680-1860”. By Marcus Falk, Erik Bengtsson and Mats Olsson. Has been presented (by Marcus) at European Historical Economics Society conference, Groningen, 17-18 June 2022, (by Mats) at the World Economic History Congress, Paris, 25-29 July 2022, and (by Marcus) at Nordiska Historikermötet, Göteborg, 10 August 2022.

  2. “Consumption strategies and industriousness in southern Sweden, 1680-1860”. By Marcus Falk. Forthcoming, winter 2022-2023.

  3. “Levnadsstandard i skånska städer ca 1540–1800”. By Marcus Falk, Erik Bengtsson and Mats Olsson. Forthcoming 2023.