Defending dissertations on economic history

In most disciplines, the number, quality and topics of doctoral dissertations afford useful information on the state of affairs in research and formal graduate education. Moreover, dissertations may also give an indication of future trends in the field; the emerging scholars will presumably continue with the methods, theories and topics in which they were trained in their postgraduate programmes (e.g. Cleary, 1992; Hansen, 1991). Economic history is no exception. Therefore, the Scandinavian Economic History Review requested the Nordic universities to list the dissertations on topics in economic and business history during the years 2014–2015 in order to ascertain the status of the field in the Nordic countries. The results of this survey are presented in below and the list of dissertations with summaries can be found as an appendix to this editorial.

In quantitative terms, economic history is flourishing in the Nordic countries: our survey located altogether 48 dissertations completed in 2014–2015. We succeeded in obtaining data from all the Nordic countries, although the coverage is better from Sweden, Finland and Norway than from Denmark. Therefore, in the absence of information on all dissertations, their actual number is most certainly higher than this. In many Nordic universities, economic or business history are not separate disciplines as such, and the dissertations on these topics fell into more general categories of history, economics, social sciences or management studies. Therefore, in our survey we used the topics of the dissertations to determine whether to include them in our survey. Subjectivity in categorisation is therefore obvious.

The numbers of dissertations completed per country are as follows:

Sweden: 29

Finland: 11

Norway: 6

Denmark: 2

It is no surprise that Sweden is the leader of the pack in terms of the number of dissertations in our field as the country has a long tradition and numerous institutions dedicated to teaching and researching economic history. Swedish scholars also lead regarding the numbers papers submitted and articles published in the Scandinavian Economic History Review. The number of dissertations in economic history is certainly rising in Finland, and the situation is also fairly good in Norway. In Denmark, however, the number is clearly lower – most probably due to the fact that our survey did not reach Danish scholars well enough. During the survey years there were no dissertations on economic history in Iceland.

After collecting the titles of dissertations from the universities, we contacted the authors to request a brief, one-sentence summary of their dissertations. However, we were unable to reach all the authors as some of them had already left academia, and not even universities could provide their contact addresses or e-mails. The summaries received are included in the Appendix.

Our survey revealed that there is ample room for improvement in the visibility of the dissertations. Although most of them can nowadays be found online in accordance with the open access policies of the respective countries, ¹ there are still a number of cases with not even the abstract in English available online. Moreover, only very few of the young doctors had established open websites to disseminate information about their dissertations. ² Nevertheless, the contribution of the dissertation to the academic debate and its societal impact were usually quite well articulated in the abstracts and introductions we went through. Furthermore, in contrast to the United States, in the Nordic countries it has been a tradition to publish the dissertation in monograph format. Thus there has always been access – although from today’s perspective a slow one – to the unique information provided by the doctoral dissertations (see also Repp & Glaviano, 1987). The majority of the Nordic dissertations are still in monograph format: only 16 were compiled from journal articles.

Today, most of the Nordic dissertations in economic history are written in English, although as a rule they address issues related to the authors’ home countries. However, an increasing number of dissertations do take an international, comparative approach to the themes addressed. The languages of the dissertations were as follows:

English: 29

Swedish: 9

Finnish: 7

Norwegian: 2

German: 1

The time period covered in the dissertations extends from the sixteenth century up to 2007. However, contemporary, late twentieth-century history is emphasised in the dissertations. Over 50% of the dissertations were concerned with the twentieth century, roughly one-fifth with the nineteenth century, and less than 17% with time periods before 1800. A survey conducted over 10 years ago by the Scandinavian Journal of History showed a similar trend: two-thirds of the Nordic history dissertations in 2004 dealt with the modern era from around the mid-nineteenth century up to modern times (Hálfdanarson et al., 2005).

Economic history research is usually assumed to investigate long time periods. To a certain degree this seems to hold good in our survey: one-third of the dissertations covered periods exceeding 50 years. Around half of the cases, however, covered periods from 10 to 50 years. There were altogether six dissertations at both extremes: either covering periods less than ten years or over 100 years.

Following the categories introduced by Whaples (1991, 2002), we further divided the Nordic dissertations into 13 rough categories (Table 1). ³ These categories are to a certain extent overlapping, thus one dissertation might fall into several categories. ⁴ According to Whaples (2002), around the turn of the millennium the articles published in the Journal of Economic History tended to focus on institutions, labour, demography and welfare. Besides these, topics in business history were also extensively addressed in Nordic research published in the Scandinavian Economic History Review at that time (Ojala, 2003). During the 2000s themes related to welfare societies and business organisations have been emphasised in the pages of SEHR. The trends in the dissertations completed in the Nordic countries appear to be similar to those in the economic history journals analysed above: the most popular topics are business history, welfare and institutions – followed by all-time popular themes of growth, demography and economic theories. The research follows the trends of its time – and economic history is no exception. Thus, a number of dissertations address ‘hot’ topics such as innovations and crises, and a number of them do have an environmental perspective.

Table 1. Topics of Nordic dissertations in economic and business history.

	N	Percent share
Methodology, theory	16	9.8
Growth, cycles, industrialisation	17	10.4
Crises (war, recession)	7	4.3
Finance, banking, credit	4	2.5
Public institutions (law, government and economy)	19	11.7
Trade and transport	8	4.9
Business, organisations and industry	23	14.1
Technology, investments	8	4.9
Primary sources of income (agriculture, use of land)	8	4.9
Labour	11	6.7
Population (demography, migration, housing)	16	9.8
Welfare (standard of living, inequality, minorities, education)	18	11.0
Others (social, cultural, etc.)	8	4.9

Source: Appendix table. Note: Topics are categorised mainly according to the abstracts and titles of the dissertations. Thus the figures are only approximate.

Topics listed in the Table 1 are analysed in the dissertations from various perspectives and time-frames. Quite a variety of methods, both qualitative and quantitative, are used as well as various sources. Theoretically, the Nordic dissertations are concerned with current international debates in the field, although this could be further strengthened in order to ensure that the results are also published in the major journals. Moreover, co-authorship with supervisors is somewhat rare among the Nordic dissertations, although co-authorship is argued to ‘enhance the robustness and know-how of emergent scholars as well as their publication output’ (see e.g. Kamler, 2008).

***

With its new layout, the Scandinavian Economic History Review is able to provide its readers with more content. This is also the case with the current issue, which includes not only the attached list of dissertations, but also five research articles and book reviews. Moreover, the opening debate article by Barry R. Weingast discusses with the recent article by Deirdre N. McCloskey (2016) that underlined the importance of ideas rather than capital or institutions in ‘great enrichment’ during the past couple of centuries. Weingast agrees with McCloskey about the importance of ideas, but points out that ideas have to be implemented and in this implementation process institutions play an important role.

The article by Rodney Edvinsson tests the demand approach to reconstruct pre-industrial agricultural output data for Sweden, while Jan Kunnas calculates human capital in the UK from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. Both papers use sophisticated techniques to analyse long-term development trends from scarce data. Edvinsson shows that the demand approach can be modelled with historical data with reliable accuracy, and Kunnas’s calculations shows a 112-fold increase of human capital from 1760 to 2009. John Dove, in turn, studies how state fiscal constraints affected the United States railroad projects during the eighteenth century. He suggests that more binding constraints might have led to an increase in railroad mileage.

The articles by Karolin Sjöö and Lars Fredrik Anderson et al. analyse industry renewal and restructuring in Sweden during the post-war era. Karolin Sjöö explores whether the innovation output at the micro level led to industrial renewal in Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. She concludes that industrial renewal through innovation is more nuanced than has so far been assumed: during the decades analysed the timing and scale of innovations varied between different industries and different sized of firms. Lars Fredrik Anderson, Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Rikard Eriksson explore profit distribution in the restructuring of the Swedish pulp and paper industry. They suggest that an increasing share of profits was distributed to owners rather than re-invested in industrial renewal.

Appendix. Dissertations with economic and business history topics completed in the Nordic countries, 2014–2015 ⁵

Altamura, C. E. (2015). European banks and the rise of international finance after Bretton Woods (1973–1982). Uppsala Studies in Economic History 101. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-251478

Relying on recently declassified material from commercial banks, central banks and international organizations, the book retraces the historical origins of the financialized world we live in by analysing the transformations in world finance occurring in the decade from the first oil crisis of 1973 until the debt crisis of 1982. ⁶

Austnes, M. (2014). Utformingen av det nye Norges bank- og pengevesen: Et historisk perspektiv på reformprosessen og tilknyttede debatter ca. 1814–1816 [The design of the new Norwegian banking and monetary system: A historical perspective on the reform process and associated debates about 1814–1816]. Universitet i Oslo.

Baraibar, M. (2014). Green deserts or new opportunities? Competing and complementary view on the soybean expansion in Uruguay, 2002–2013. Stockholm studies in economic history 64. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-106563

This study identifies, situates and explores the complementary and competing discursive meanings of the recent rapid soybean expansion in Uruguay, including the underlying discordant values and assumptions reflected in these meanings.

Bergenfeldt, F. (2014). Roads to market: Transport and agricultural change – The case of southern Sweden, 1750–1850. Lund Studies in Economic History 66. Lund University. Retrieved from https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/4361140

Boberg-Fazlic, N. (2014). Essays on demography, social mobility, and the development of the welfare state: A historical perspective. University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics. Retrieved from http://www.econ.ku.dk/Forskning/Publikationer/ph.d_serie_2007-/ph.D.163.pdf

Borowiecki, K. J. (2015) ‘Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist’: Some economic history of music composers and their creativity. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5051337

This applied research provides insights on creativity and the lives of famous music composers, and how their creative production was affected by geographical or psychological factors.

Broström, L. (2015). En industriell reservarmé i välfärdsstaten: Arbetslösa socialhjälpstagare i Sverige 1913–2012 [An Industrial Reserve Army of Labor in the Welfare state: Unemployed on means-tested benefits in Sweden 1913 to 2012]. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History 15. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2077/38784

A study on how unemployed people on means tested social allowance can be seen as a reserve army of labour on the Swedish labour market between 1912–2012.

Bruno, L. C. (2014). Essays on technological progress in East Asia. NHH Brage. Retrieved from https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/2392315

This thesis analyses the role of natural resources, economic policies and technology with a special focus on specific East Asian economies.

Dahlström, M. (2015). Konkurrens, samarbete och koncentration: Kalkstens- och cementindustrin i Sverige 1871–1982 [Competition, cooperation and concentration: Limestone and cement industry in Sweden 1871–1982]. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History 16. GUPEA. Retrieved from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/38871

The dissertation compares the establishment of cartels and other forms of collaboration and investigates the function of cartels in two Swedish industries, the limestone and cement industry.

Dickert. E. (2014). Die ‘Nutzbarmachung’ des Produktionspotentials besetzer Gebiete durch Autragsverlagerungen im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Staatliche Regulierung und Verlagerungsverhalten von Maschinenbau und Automobilunternehmen [Auftragsverlagerungen (shifting of orders) during World War II]. NTNU, Det humanistiske fakultet, Institutt for historie og klassiske fag.

In my dissertation I analyse the legal framework of the so-called Auftragsverlagerungen [German companies and public authorities placed orders with companies in the occupied, friendly, and neutral territories for the manufacturing of product components and complete products] and the shifting behaviour of selected companies in the field of mechanical engineering and the automotive sector.

Eriksson, B. (2015). Dynamic decades: A micro perspective on late nineteenth century Sweden. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/7851903

Falender, L. (2014). Social housing in post-war Oslo and Edinburgh: Modernizing, Decentralizing, and renewing the urban housing stock, ca.1945–1985. University of Oslo.

Forsberg, J. (2014). Ruukinpatruuna vastaan kaskitalonpojat: Juantehtaan kolmet k|äräjät 1776, 1789, 1808 ja salamurha 1810 [Ironmaster versus Slash-and-Burn Peasants: Three Court Sessions at Juantehdas in 1776, 1789 and 1808; the Assassination of 1810]. Publications of the University of Eastern Finland, Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, no 87. UEF Electronic Publications. Retrieved from http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1516-0/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1516-0.pdf

Funke, M. (2015). Regulating a controversy: Inside stakeholder strategies and regime transition in the self-regulation of Swedish advertising 1950–1971. Uppsala Studies in Economic History 102. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-260201

The thesis uses an actor perspective and a new theoretical model to improve the analysis of development changes in alternative forms of regulation (self-regulation, co-regulation), using the self-regulation of Swedish advertising 1950–1971 as a case.

Gustafsson, S. (2015). Leverantörer och profitörer: Olika geografiska områdens och sociala gruppers handel med fästningsbygget Sveaborg under den första byggnadsperioden 1748–1756 [Suppliers and profiteers: Different geographical areas and social groups trafficking in Suomenlinna fortress construction during the initial construction period 1748–1756]. Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk. HELDA. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/156112

Sveaborg was an expensive military investment that benefitted large geographical areas and different social groups, despite the institutional constraints and the West European trend of favouring large entrepreneurs.

Gärtner, S. (2014). Wages, inequality and consequences for the economy. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History Nr 11. GUPEA. Retrieved from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/35271

The dissertation comprises four papers analysing different forms of wage inequality, explaining the comparative development of gender wage gaps, and empirically investigating the impact of wage inequality on migration, productivity and the emergence of the welfare state.

Hamark, J. (2014). Ports, dock workers and labour market conflicts. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History 12. GUPEA. Retrieved from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/37421

A compilation thesis comprising four papers that connect with two broad academic research fields: economic growth and labour market conflicts.

Hemminki, T. (2014). Vauraus, luotto, luottamus: Talonpoikien lainasuhteet Pohjanlahden molemmin puolin 1796–1830 [Wealth, credit, trust: The lending relationships of peasants on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia 1796–1830]. Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities 232. JYX Jyväskylä University Digital Archive. Retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/44314

The dissertation shows how the traditional, informal rural credit markets were slowly changing to formal credit markets on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia during the period 1796–1830.

Häggqvist, H. (2015). On the ocean of protectionism: The structure of Swedish tariffs and trade 1780–1830. Uppsala Studies in Economic History 103. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-264482

The thesis puts Swedish trade policy into a new theoretical and empirical perspective by quantifying and analysing the structure of tariffs, where perspectives on both protectionism and fiscal matters are highlighted.

Högberg, T. (2015). Ett stycke på väg: naturaväghållning med lotter i Västmanlands län ca 1750–1850 [The Road Allotment System in Västmanlands län c. 1750–1850]. Studia Historica Upsaliensia 251. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-240632

This dissertation focuses on the Swedish road allotment system, through which costs were distributed, road work was organized and road quality was monitored.

Jansson, O. (2014). Industriell invandring: Utländsk arbetskraft och metall- och verkstadsindustrin, i Västmanlands län och på Bulten i Hallstahammar, 1946–1967 [Industrial immigration: Foreign workers and the metal and engineering industries, in the county of Västmanland and at Bulten in Hallstahammar, 1946–1967]. Uppsala Studies in Economic History 101. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-231189

The thesis analyses the reasons behind the uneven distribution of migrant workers on the Swedish Post-war labour market through a study of the metal and engineering industries in the county of Västmanland during the years 1946–1967.

Kepsu, K. (2014). Den besvärliga provinsen: Reduktion, skattearrendering och bondeoroligheter i det svenska Ingermanland under slutet av 1600-talet [The troublesome province: Reduction, tax farming and peasant resistance in Swedish Ingria at the end of the 17th century]. Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk. HELDA. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/44863

This thesis examines the position of the turbulent province of Ingria in the Kingdom of Sweden in the late 17th century.

Lapidus, J. (2015). Social democracy and the Swedish Welfare model: Ideational analyses of attitudes towards competition, individualization, privatization. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History 13. GUPEA. Retrieved from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/37702

The thesis deals with stability and change among the central elements of the Swedish welfare model, and how social democracy and its affiliated trade unions have interacted with the development.

Levin, M. (2014). Att elda för kråkorna? Hushållens energianvändning inom bostadssektorn i Sverige 1913–2008 [Letting the fire go up the chimney? Household energy consumption in the residential sector in Sweden 1913–2008]. Umeå studies in economic history 46. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-97497

Lind, D. (2014). Value creation and structural change during the third industrial revolution: The Swedish economy from a vertical perspective. Lund Studies in Economic History 64. Lund University. Retrieved from https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/4317401

Lindström, M. (2015). All that’s mine I carry with me: Early life disease and adult health in Sweden during 250 years. Lund Studies in Economic History. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/8168728

This doctoral thesis aims to study early life exposures such as the foetal origins (nutrition) and inflammation hypotheses in relation to adult health in Sweden during a period of 250 years using parish register data for the period 1760–1894 and other register as well as questionnaire data for the modern period. The results from the 18th and 19th centuries suggest that birth cohorts exposed to a high infant mortality rate (IMR) have high mortality at 55–80 years, specifically from airborne infectious diseases, and that a high disease load of airborne infectious diseases in infancy has a major impact on mortality in later life mortality. However, hypotheses concerning food costs (nutrition) and disease burden on mothers during pregnancy are not supported.

López, J. M. (2014). Deltas apart: Factor endowments, colonial extraction and pathways of agricultural development in Vietnam. Lund Studies in Economic History 69. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/4780738

This dissertation provides an explanation for the different pathways of agricultural change and economic development in north and south Vietnam as a consequence of the pre-colonial factor endowments of the two rice delta economies.

Mattila, J. (2015). Explaining variance in market shares in the Finnish grocery trade 1985–2005. Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS, 140/2015. Aaltodoc. Retrieved from https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/18197

Marttila, J. (2014). Työ teollistumisen ja arjen rajapintana: Strömforsin ja Ramnäsin rautaruukkiyhteisöt 1880–1950 [The importance of work in communities and the transference of industrialization into their everyday life: A case study of two Nordic ironworks communities, Ramnäs and Strömfors, 1880–1950]. Työväen historian ja perinteen tutkimuksen seura. JYX Jyväskylä University Digital Archive. Retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/44507

The thesis describes the complex entanglement of work in local social and economic structures and how changes in work led to considerable changes in the communities.

Molitoris, J. (2015). Life and death in the city: Demography and living standards during Stockholm’s industrialization. Lund Studies in Economic History 73. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/8045791

Exploiting the rarely used Roteman Database from the Stockholm City Archives, this dissertation explores the development of socioeconomic inequality in fertility and mortality during Stockholm’s industrialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Nevalainen, P. (2014). Virastosta liikeyritys: Posti- ja telelaitoksen muutosprosessi 1930–1994 [From state department to business enterprise: The Finnish Post and Telecommunications Department and the process of change 1930–1994]. Jyväskylä studies in humanities 234. JYX Jyväskylä University Digital Archive. Retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/44603

This dissertation explains how a former state institution adapted to the extensive wave of deregulation and how it changed itself into a business enterprise. Although the change was caused by external factors, the study underlines the significance of management’s own initiative.

Nilsson, M. (2015). Taking work home: Labour dynamics of women industrial homeworkers in Sweden during the second industrial revolution. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History 14. GUPEA. Retrieved from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/38239

Parpola, A. (2014). ‘Uinuvat metsävaramme käytön piiriin’: Valtionmetsien käytön suuri murros 1939–1970 [The great breakthrough of state’s way to use forest resources 1939–1970]. Politiikan ja talouden tutkimuksen laitoksen julkaisuja 18. HELDA. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/136478

Persson, M. R. (2015). In good times and in bad immigrants, self-employment and social insurance. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/7766914

Rongved, G. F. (2014). The slide from stability: Monetary and fiscal policy in Norway 1914–1920. University of Oslo.

Segnestam, L. (2014). Culture and capacity: Drought and gender differentiated vulnerability of rural poor in Nicaragua, 1970–2010. Stockholm studies in economic history 62. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-99622

This dissertation interprets gender-differentiated vulnerability to drought within a rural community located in the dry zone, la zona seca, of Nicaragua by applying a multidimensional perspective to people’s accounts of their situation over time, how their work strategies and management of resources had varied, and how they perceived changes in capacity and vulnerability in relation to continuity and change in the climate.

Sihvonen, A. (2014). New product development capability: A mechanism perspective. Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS, 116/2014. Aaltodoc. Retrieved from https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/13762

This dissertation examines new product development capability from a mechanism perspective to explain how mechanism-based theorizing can explain new product development on project level and on the organizational level.

Silva, E. (2014). Essays on income and fertility: Sweden 1986–2009. Lund Studies in Economic History 63. Lund University. Retrieved from https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/4276609

Sjöstrand, Y. S. (2014). Stadens spoor: Tillvaratagande, förbränning och tippning i Stockholm 1900–1975 [The garbage of the city: Resource recovery, incineration and dumping in Stockholm 1900–1975]. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-106836

By combining different perspectives, such as the history of ideas, consumption, technology and environmental history the thesis provides an extensive account of how a city attempted to solve a changing refuse problem.

Sjöö, K. (2014). Innovation and transformation in the Swedish manufacturing sector, 1970–2007. Lund Studies in Economic History. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/4332000

The thesis explores how the Swedish manufacturing sector transformed per innovation before, during and after the structural crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Skjold, D. O. (2015). Organisering og samarbeid i norsk elforsyning 1900–1985 [Organization and cooperation in Norwegian electricity supply 1900–1985]. NTNU Open. Retrieved from https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui//handle/11250/2373294

Taalbi, J. (2014). Innovation as creative response: Determinants of innovation in the Swedish manufacturing industry, 1970–2007. Lund Studies in Economic History 67. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/4619156

Uotila, M. (2014). Käsityöläinen kyläyhteisönsä jäsenenä: Prosopografinen analyysi Hollolan käsityöläisistä 1810–1840 [The artisan as a member of his village community: A prosopographical analysis of artisans in Hollola 1810–1840]. Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities 237. JYX Jyväskylä University Digital Archive. Retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/44611

In her dissertation Uotila argues that there were a lot more artisans in the countryside than official statistics can reveal, which changes our impression of rural craft activity and challenges the view of a self-sufficient peasant economy.

Wingender, A. M. (2014). Agriculture and development. University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics. Retrieved from http://static-curis.ku.dk/portal/files/135540397/Wingender_phd_thesis.pdf

Xiao, J. (2014). Entrepreneurial dynamics and acquisitions of new technology-based firms. Lund Studies in Economic History 68. Lund University. Retrieved from http://lup.lub.lu.se/search/record/4698280

The thesis focuses on the evolution of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) and explores how NTBFs exert their economy-wide influences, particularly through acquisitions by incumbent firms.

Yliaska, V. (2014). Tehokkuuden toiveuni: Uuden julkisjohtamisen historia Suomessa 1970-luvulta 1990-luvulle [Daydream of efficiency: The new public management history in Finland in the 1970’s to the 1990 century]. Into. HELDA. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/135954

New Public Management as a tool to centralize power in the Ministry of Finance and to re-allocate public resources.

Zethrin, N.-O. (2015). Mellan masskonsumtion och folkrörelse: Idrottens kommersialisering under mellankrigstiden [Between mass consumption and popular movement: The commercialization of sport in the interwar period]. Örebro Studies in History 17. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-43637

The thesis deals with the commercialization that parts of Swedish sport underwent during the interwar period, it analyses agents both within and outside the sports movement, operating in a context consisting of organizers of high-profile competitions communicated through mass media with the result that marketization was of importance for the institutional development of sport, and helped form the organizational field out of which sport developed.

Öberg, S. (2014). Social bodies: Family and community level influences on height and weight, southern Sweden 1818–1968. Gothenburg Studies in Economic History Nr 10. GUPEA. Retrieved from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/35270

The dissertation analyses long-term changes in social differences in height and weight and the influence of disease exposure around birth on adult height, using a newly constructed dataset based on individual-level data from conscript inspections linked to a longitudinal demographical database.

Notes

5 Summaries of the dissertations listed are included in those cases in which we were able to reach the author. The titles in English, unfortunately, are missing from some of the dissertations. Some tittles are translated by the authors of this editorial.

6 Also published: Altamura, C. E. (2016). European banks and the rise of the international finance: The post-Bretton Woods era. Routledge Explorations in Economic History. London and New York.

1 In both Sweden and Finland there is a good access to dissertations, for example, through HELDA, DiVA, GUPEA or JYX – portals.

2 We did not, however, use Facebook or Linkedin in this survey.

3 We merged the 25 categories introduced by Whaples (2002, p. 524) into 13 as shown in Table 1.

4 Moreover, categorization is always to a certain extent subjective, although in this case all three authors collectively categorized the dissertations.