Publications

this page lists my research publications. If you can't access one of the articles, e-mail me and I can send you a pdf.

Peer-reviewed journal articles in English

(reverse chronological order)

“The Politics of Profits: Profit Squeeze, Macroeconomic Expertise and Economic Policy, Sweden 1975–1985”. Read previous (much inferior) working version here. Forthcoming in the Journal of Contemporary History; pre-published online 1 December 2025. Read here (open access).

“The Social Origins of Democracy and Authoritarianism Reconsidered: Prussia and Sweden in Comparison”.  With Felix Kersting, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies, pre-published online 10 June 2025. Read here (open access). Replication package -- including large new Swedish municipality level political economy dataset -- available here. Blogpost on Broad Street about the paper here.

“What Happened to the Rich during the Great Levelling? Evidence from Swedish Individual-level Data, 1909–1950”. With Jakob Molinder (Uppsala); part of the Swedish incomes project. Journal of Economic History Volume 82, No. 2, pp. 411-441, July 2025. Read here (open access). The replication package is available via the ICPSR dataverse, here.

“The Changing Meaning of the Wage Bargaining Round in Sweden since the 1960s: A Contextual Approach to Shifts in Industrial Relations”. My first paper in the Neoliberalism in the Nordics project. Lund WP No. 245 (January 2023), read here.  Forthcoming (in a much improved version) in Economic and Industrial Democracy.

“Wealth, work and industriousness 1670–1860: Evidence from rural Swedish probates”. With Marcus Falk and Mats Olsson, both Lund. Rural History, Volume 36, Issue 2 , October 2025, pp. 278-294. Read here.

“Income Inequality in Mexico 1895-1940: Industrialization, Revolution, Institutions”. With Diego Castañeda Garza, Uppsala University. Revista de Historia Económica - Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 42 (3), pp. 415-434, December 2024. Read here.

“The Revitalization of Wage Solidarity: the Politics of Inflation in Scandinavia”. With Kristin Alsos (FAFO, Oslo), Søren Kaj Andersen (FAOS, U of Copenhagen), Christian Lyhne Ibsen (FAOS, U of Copenhagen), and Kristine Neergaard (FAFO, Oslo). Forthcoming in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, published online December 2024. Read here.

“Incomes and Income Inequality in Stockholm, 1870–1970: Evidence from Micro Data”. With Jakob Molinder (Uppsala); part of the Swedish incomes project. Explorations in Economic History, Volume 92, April 2024, 101568 -- read here (open access). Data for 1870-1920 and replication files available via the ICPSR dataverse, here.

“Long-run income inequality in the Nordic countries”. With Rolf Aaberge from Statistics Norway. Scandinavian Economic History Review, vol. 72 nr 3, 2024. Read here, open access.

“The Origins of the Swedish Wage Bargaining Model”. International Labor and Working-Class History, 103: 162-178, Spring 2023. Read here (open access). WP version (March 2019) with longer description of the sources available here.

“The evolution of popular politics in nineteenth century Sweden and the road from oligarchy to democracy”. Journal of Modern European History vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 71-89, February 2023. Read here. (WP version with longer discussion of sources here.)

“Income Inequality in an Industrial City during the Great Leveling: Micro Level Evidence from Malmö, 1900-1950”. With Anton Svensson (Lund). Scandinavian Economic History Review, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 80-95, January 2023. Read here.

“The Social Origins of Democracy in Sweden: The Role of Agrarian Politics”. Social History volume 47 no. 4, October 2022, pp. 419-445. Read here.

“The living standards of the labouring classes in Sweden, 1750–1900: evidence from rural probate inventories”. With Patrick Svensson (SLU). Agricultural History Review, volume 70, no. 1, pp. 49-69, May 2022. Read here (open access). 

“Mercantilist Inequality: Wealth and Poverty in Stockholm, 1650-1750”. With Mats Olsson (Lund) and Patrick Svensson (SLU). The Economic History Review vol. 75 no. 1, pp. 157-180, January 2022. Available here.

“Wages, Distribution and Economic Growth: Long-Run Perspectives in Scandinavia, 1900–2010”. With Engelbert Stockhammer, King's College London. Review of Political Economy, vol. 33 no. 4, pp. 725-745, August 2021. It is open access, read here.

“Peasant Aristocrats? Wealth, Social Status and the Politics of Swedish Farmer Parliamentarians 1769–1895”. With Mats Olsson (Lund). Scandinavian Journal of History vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 573-592, November 2020. Read here (open access). The dataset, the Parliamentarian and farmer wealth database, is freely available from the department website.

“Financial Effects in Historic Investment and Consumption Functions”. With Engelbert Stockhammer, King's College London.  International Review of Applied Economics vol. 34 no. 3, pp. 304–326, spring 2020.  Published paper here (open access).

“The rise of the middle class: the income gap between salaried employees and workers in Sweden, ca. 1830–1940”. With Svante Prado (Gothenburg). Scandinavian Economic History Review, vol. 68 no. 2., pp. 91-111, May 2020. read here. (open access)

“Unequal Poverty and Equal Industrialization: Finnish Wealth, 1750–1900”. With Anna Missiaia and Mats Olsson (Lund) and Ilkka Nummela (Jyväskylä). Scandinavian Economic History Review  vol. 67 no. 3, pp. 229-248, November 2019. Read here.

“The Wealth of the Swedish Peasant Farmer Class, 1750–1900: Composition and Distribution”. With Patrick Svensson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Rural History vol. 30, issue 2, pp. 129-145, September 2019. Read here (open access). WP here. 

“The Swedish Sonderweg in Question: Democratization and Inequality in Comparative Perspective, c. 1750–1920”. Past & Present, August 2019, Vol. 244, No. 1, pp. 123–161. Read here (open access). -- in the media: interview in The Jacobin ; post on the P & P blog; nice article by Maren Toft in Morgenbladet; my essay in Göteborgs-Posten.; my essay in Respons; comment on leader page of Göteborgs-Posten. The paper was also referenced by Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven in his speech at Järvaveckan in Stockholm, June 2019.

“Aristocratic Wealth and Inequality in a Changing Society: Sweden, 1750–1900”.  Scandinavian Journal of History, 2019, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 27-52. With Anna Missiaia, Mats Olsson and Patrick Svensson, all Lund University.  Open access with the journal, read here.

“Capital Shares and Income Inequality: Evidence from the Long Run”.  Journal of Economic History, 2018, Vol. 78 No. 3, pp. 712-743. With Daniel Waldenström, Paris School of Economics. Read article here. Dataset and Appendix available here.

“Wealth Inequality in Sweden, 1750–1900”. With Anna Missiaia, Mats Olsson and Patrick Svensson, all Lund University. The Economic History Review, 2018, vol. 71 no. 3, pp. 772–794. Available here.

“Wages and GDP in Scandinavia 1800 to 1910: Workers' Shares of Growing Incomes”. Investigaciones de Historica Económica, 2017, vol. 13, pp. 180-189. Read here. WP version here.

“The Economic Effects of the 1920 Eight-Hour Working Day Reform in Sweden”. The Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2017, vol. 65 no. 2, pp. 149–168. With Jakob Molinder, Uppsala University. Read here. Read WP version here. 

“Social Dumping Cases in the Swedish Labour Court in the Wake of Laval, 2004–2010”. Economic and Industrial Democracy 2016, vol. 37 no. 1 pp. 23–42 (read here).

“Wage Restraint in Scandinavia: in the Postwar Period or the Neoliberal Age?”. The European Review of Economic History 2015, vol. 19 no. 4, pp. 359-381. (read here.) 

“The International Political Economy of Falling Wage Shares”. New Political Economy 2015, vol. 20 no. 3 pp. 406–430. With Magnus Ryner, King's College London. (read here)

“Labour’s Share in Twentieth Century Sweden: A Reinterpretation”. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2014, vol. 62 no. 3, pp. 290–314. (read here)

“Do Unions Redistribute Income from Capital to Labour? Union Density and Wage Shares since 1960”.  Industrial Relations Journal, 2014, vol 45 pp. 389–409. (read here)

“Swedish Trade Unions and European Union Migrant Workers”. Journal of Industrial Relations, 2013, vol 55 pp. 174–189. (read here)

Book

Världens jämlikaste land? Published 7 September 2020. Lund: Arkiv förlag. Buy the book and read the introduction here.

Media coverage and reviews: Sydsvenskan 2/9; Dagens ETC 2/9; Expressen 4/9, Dagens Nyheter 6/9 (article by Daniel Suhonen and myself); Göteborgs-Posten 7/9; Studio Ett 7/9; Värmlands Folkblad 7/9; Dagens Arena podcast 8/9, Flamman 9/9, SEKO-tidningen 9/9, ETC 11/9, Arbetsvärlden podcast 11/9, Den arga historikern 11/9, Vetenskapsradion Historia 15/9; Aftonbladet 17/9, Internationalen 25/9, Arbetaren 30/9, Smedjan 5/10, Expressen 6/10, Finsk Tidskrift no 6 2020, Sociologisk Forskning December 2020, Västerbottens-Kuriren 9/1 2021, Clarté blog 30/1 2021, Ekonomisk Debatt nr 3 2021, Tidskriften Respons nr 2 2021, Historisk Tidskrift nr 2 2022, Scandinavian Economic History Review, online October 2022.

Edited volumes

Politiskt aktörskap i en omvandlingstid: Sverige 1880–1930. Editors: Anton Jansson (Univ. of Gothenburg), Josefin Hägglund (Södertörn) and Erik Bengtsson. Published by Nordic Academic Press, 24 April 2024 -- see publisher's site here.

Den sänkta löneandelen: Orsaker, konsekvenser och handlingsalternativ. Stockholm: Premiss, 2013. The publisher's info page about the book is here. Reviews: Tidskriften Respons, Offensiv.

Edited issues of journals

Editor, with Carolina Uppenberg, of special issue on "Klassamhället i Sverige, 1500-1900" of Arbetarhistoria, June 2020. See also comment by Benny Andersson on the Clarté blog.

Doctoral dissertation

Essays on Trade Unions and Functional Income Distribution. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History, 9. 2013. Read introduction here.

Peer reviewed journal articles in other languages

“Lohnzurückhaltung und Lohnmilitanz: Belgien, Deutschland und die Niederlande, 1950–2010”. WSI-Mitteilungen #4 2015, pp. 272–279. Read here. A longer version in English is available here.

“Kontinuitet och diskontinuitet i den svenska jämlikhetens historia”. Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 121(1), pp. 97-110, 2019. Read here.

Other articles and book chapters

(reverse chronological order)

“Economic Inequality in the Nordics in Times of Neoliberalism”. A bookchapter forthcoming in Jenny Andersson and Chris Howell (eds.) Nordic Neoliberalisms: Perspectives on Economic, Social and Cultural Change in the Nordics after 1970. London: Routledge, April 2025. The book is available Open Access from the publisher.

“The politics of suffrage and representation in Sweden in  the 'long 1848'”. A book chapter forthcoming in Knut Dørum and Anne Engelst Nørgaard (eds.) Scandinavia and the long 1848.

“Living standards and inequality in Swedish towns, c. 1570–1865”. With Marcus Falk and Mats Olsson. Presented at the University of Antwerp, April 2024 and at the European Social Science History Conference, Leiden, March 2025. Will be published in Marcus's doctoral dissertation, 16 May 2025.

“Power, poverty and plenty: perspectives on economic inequality in early modern Scandinavia”. A book chapter forthcoming in Vivi Lena Andersen, Ágústa Edwald Maxwell, Gavin Lucas, Jonas Monié-Nordin, and Timo Ylimaunu (eds.) Poverty and Plenty in Scandinavia and the North Atlantic: Later historical archaeologies of material excess and scarcity. London: Bloomsbury. The book will be published 12 June 2025; see publisher's website.

“Lönernas bestämmande på arbetsmarknaden: En jämförelse av tidningsbevakningen under efterkrigstiden och på 2000-talet”. Bokkapitel i Marknadens tid: Nya perspektiv på 1970-, 1980-, och 1990-talens historia, redaktörer Jenny Andersson, Orsi Husz, Nikolas Glover, David Larsson Heidenblad. Publicerad december 2023; hela boken är publicerad open access och finns tillgänglig genom Kriterium här.

“Does Democratization Cause Redistribution? Evidence from Sweden and Brazil”. With Marc Morgan, Paris School of Economics. Chapter in Scandinavia and South America—A Tale of Two Capitalisms: Essays on Comparative Developments in Trade, Industrialisation and Inequality since 1850, edited by Jorge Álvarez (Montevideo) and Svante Prado (Gothenburg) and published by Palgrave Macmillan.WP version from University of Geneva available here. The whole book is open access and available here; our chapter is here.

"Politiska möten i Skåne i 1800-talets sista tredjedel". Bokkapitel publicerat i Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund: Årsbok 2021, edited by Daniel Möller. Lund: Vetensskapssocieteten i Lund, pp. 5-18. Boken finns tillgänglig online på Vetenskapssocietens hemsida, här.

"The Swedish Labour Market, c. 1870-1914: A Labour Market Regime without Repression?". Published in Matteo Millan and Alessandro Saluppo (eds.) In Defence of Freedom: Corporate Policing, Yellow Unionism, and Strikebreaking, 1890-1930. Routledge Studies in Modern History. London: Routledge, February 2021. See book site here; the book is open access so all chapters including mine are freely available, here.

"Ekonomisk ojämlikhet". Book chapter with Daniel Waldenström (IFN), in the edited volume Vad är ekonomisk historia?, edited by Lena Andersson-Skog, Oskar Broberg, Rodney Edvinsson, Kerstin Enflo and Kristina Lilja and published by Studentlitteratur, 2020.

"What we know and what we don't know about Swedish labor market history: Reflections on Spelets Regler". With Tobias Karlsson (Lund). In : Essays in Economic & Business History Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 15-36. Read here.

“Why No Wage Solidarity Writ Large? Swedish Trade Unions under Conditions of European Crisis”. Joint work with Magnus Ryner, King's College London. Chapter in Rough Waters: European Trade Unions in a Time of Crises, edited by Heiner Dribbusch, Steffen Lehndorff and Thorsten Schulten. Brussels: ETUI, 2017. The book is available in full-text here and you can read our chapter here (pdf).

“Swedish Trade Unions and the ETUC”. Chapter in National Trade Unions and ETUC: A History of Unity and Diversity, edited by Andrea Campiani and Pierre Tilly. Brussels: ETUI, 2017. The book is available in full-text here and you can read my chapter here (pdf).

“Den heterodoxa nationalekonomins materiella förutsättningar”. In Fronesis #54-55, “Ekonomiskt vetande”, pp. 161–166, November 2016. See more about this issue here.

“Märkets förhistoria: Så började industrins ledande roll i lönebildningen”. Arbetarhistoria Year 40 No. 159-160, pp. 47–54. November 2016. Arbetarhistoria site here; the article will be available there one year after publication.

“Makt, löner och inkomstfördelning: Reflektioner om forskningsläget och vägen framåt”. Published in Makt och inflytande i arbetslivet, edited by Margaretha Holmqvist (Stockholm: Premiss förlag, 2016), pp. 34–59. 

“Löneandelen i Sverige sedan 1850”. [“The Wage Share in Sweden since 1850”] In Erik Bengtsson (ed.) Den sänkta löneandelen: Orsaker, konsekvenser och handlingsalternativ.  Stockholm: Premiss, 2013, pp. 79–98.

“Sjunker löneandelen? Varför?”. [“Is the Wage Share Falling? Why?”] In Erik Bengtsson (ed.) Den sänkta löneandelen: Orsaker, konsekvenser och handlingsalternativ. Stockholm: Premiss, 2013, pp. 25–44.

“Klasskamp uppifrån? Förändrade klassförhållanden och ökad inkomstojämlikhet i USA sedan 1980”. Fronesis #40-41, 2013. (link)

”Den ekonomiska globaliseringens dubbla rörelse”. In Ingemar Lindberg and Anders Neergaard (eds) Bortom horisonten: Fackens vägval i globaliseringens tid. Stockholm: Premiss, 2013, s 375–393. (link to book)

”Konvergens eller divergens?”. Fronesis #32-33, 2010 (with Örjan Nyström). (link)

“'Matchen mot Japan kan bara vinnas med socialistisk taktik': Skildringar av globaliseringen i tidningen Metallarbetaren 1975–1989”. Arbetarhistoria, 2008.

Academic book reviews

Review of Erik Ringmar’s book The Mechanics of Modernity in Europe and East Asia in Scandinavian Economic History Review 59(2): 191–193.

Review of Francesco Boldizzoni’s book The Poverty of Clio: Resurrecting Economic History in Economic Sociology: the European Electronic Newsletter 15(3): 57–58. Read here (pdf).

Review of Mette Burchardt, Pirjo Markkola and Heli Valtonen (eds.) Education, State and Citizenship in the Scandinavian Economic History Review 63(2): 203–205. Read here.

Review of Simms, Holgate and Heery's Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing and  Michael D. Yates (ed.) Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back in Capital & Class 39(2), 2015. Read here.

Review of Eva Bergström's Den blå handen: Om Stockholms färgare 1650-1900  in Historisk Tidskrift No. 1 2016, pp. 113–115. Read here.

Review of Marika Hedin, Håkan Holmberg, Anders Johnson & Svante Nycander, Karl Staaff: Arbetarvän, rösträttskämpe och socialreformator and Hans Lindblad, Karl Staaff: Försvaret och demokratin in Historisk Tidskrift No. 3 2017, pp. 539–542. Läs här.

Review of Erik Nydahl and Jonas Harvard (eds.), Den nya staten: ideologi och samhällsförändring kring sekelskiftet 1900, in Historisk Tidskrift No. 1 2018. Läs här.

Review of John Björkman's doctoral dissertation ”Må de herrskande klasserna darra” – Radikal retorik och reaktion i Stockholms press, 1848–1851 (2020) in Respons no. 5 2020, read here.

Review of Ola Innset's Markedsvendingen: Nyliberalismens historie i Norge (2020) in Historisk Tidskrift no. 1 2022, read here.

Review of Jenny Jansson's Crafting the Movement (2020) at EH.net, May 2022, read here.

Review of Kjell Olav Masdalen's Bondesamfunn og bondeopposisjon på Agder: I overgangen mellom seinmiddelalder og tidlig nytid ca. 1480–1615 (2021) forthcoming in Scandinavian Economic History Review. Pre-published online 20 October 2022, read here.

Review of Per Gunnar Edebalk's Gustav Möller (2021) Historisk Tidskrift nr 4 2022. Läs här.