The growth of aggregate wage earnings in Germany, 1810–1989

Abstract

Aggregate wage earnings are one of the key variables of the German economy. Paradoxically, it is also a little known variable, especially in the long term. Historians have never devoted a synthesis to the subject and, among all the economists who have centred their work on the study of economic growth, Hoffmann (1965) is the only one to have addressed aggregate earnings over a long period. This article follows up his founding work and has two objectives. The first is to measure the movement of wages and wage earners over a long period and use this to make an original estimate of aggregate employment earnings in Germany from 1810 to 1989. Reconstituted sets of statistics are also used to put forward new hypotheses concerning the way is which wages, wage earners and aggregate employment earnings in Germany are linked to the socioeconomic development of the country in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is also sought to detect the temporary and permanent shocks that have affected the German economy since the beginning of the 19th century. Our reflection is in two parts. The first defines the concept of wages, sets out the spatial scope and describes the methodological constraints. The second describes our cliometric results.

Notes

¹Homogeneous information on wages in Germany only appeared in December 1935. ‘Von einer nennenswerten und brauchbaren amtlichen Lohnstatistik kann in Deutschland erst seit Dezember 1935 gesprochen werden.’ Hohls (1992, p. 10).

²See especially the article by K.H. Kaufhold on the state of knowledge (since 1930) in historical research on wages in Germany Kaufhold (1987). Interested readers can also see Schulz (1994).

³See, in particular, Diebolt (1997). We suggest that interested readers should also visit the website http://www.histat.gesis.org. This database (Online-Datenbank Historische Statistik) displays the main statistics produced by Diebolt for Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries.

⁴See in particular Scholliers and Zamagni (1994).

⁵See Hohls and Kaelble (1989).

⁶See Grumbach and König (1957).

⁷Wage earnings (at constant prices) are calculated using the following formula: in which WE = wage earnings; NWE = number of wage-earners; AAW = average annual wage; P = price index.

⁸See Kaiserlich Statistiches Amt, Abteilung für Arbeiterstatistik (1904).

⁹See Desai (1968). Desai's statistical series are considered by the international community as being those most representative of the movement of wages in Germany before 1914. ‘Einzig Desais Lohnreihen aus dem Jahre 1968 […] wurden aber bisher von der Literatur als am repräsentativsten für das kaiserliche Deutschland angesehen”.

¹⁰ See Statisches Bundesamt (1958, 1972, 1985, 1990, 1991).

¹¹Concerning the overestimation question, see also Ritschl and Spoerer (1997).

¹² Readers interested in other cliometric applications or a full mathematical and statistical presentation of outlier methodology should see Darné and Diebolt (2004, 2006) and Diebolt (2007).