Lennart Schön, emeritus professor at the Department of Economic History, Lund University, died on 6 January 2016, after a long illness.
In the early 1970s, Schön came as a student to Lund and soon began studying economic history. The department that he joined was characterised by a major interest in method and theory, drawing its inspiration among others from the so-called New Economic History, also termed Cliometrics. New economic history implied a systematic use of economic theory – mostly neoclassical – and quantitative techniques. However, although not all members of the staff adopted this specific field of research, it nevertheless stimulated other theoretical approaches.
This was a period when radicalism, mostly in the form of Marxism, was at the forefront and many students embraced it, even without really knowing what it was all about. Lennart Schön was not like that. He studied the literature and formed a theoretical view which was not only based on Marxism, but also influenced by Alexander Gerschenkron, Joseph Schumpeter and Simon Kuznets among others. Their views were to a great extent imparted by his supervisor, Carl-Axel Nilsson, associate professor at the department. The result is seen in Schön’s doctoral thesis Från hantverk till fabriksindustri. Svensk textiltillverkning 1820–1870 (From crafts to factories. Swedish textile manufacturing 1820–1870) (1979). There he made a new interpretation of Swedish industrialisation in the nineteenth century, which was to be known as ‘the domestic market model’. The approach was in contrast to an earlier one, ‘the export model’, which emanated from Eli Heckscher and was later elaborated by Lennart Jörberg, then professor at the department in Lund. Schön’s interpretation was widely discussed and in the years to come gained wide acceptance.
Schön’s thesis also included quantitative analyses which were to become decisive for his later work. After defending his thesis he was engaged in a big research project on Swedish historical national accounts (HNA). Work in this field had been initiated earlier at the department by Carl-Axel Nilsson and myself, and we had published revised estimates from 1861 onwards. However, Nilsson left the department in Lund for the University of Copenhagen, and Schön joined the project which was now planned to comprise reconstruction of completely new series from 1800 to 1861 together with revisions and extensions of the series after this first period. This project started in 1979 and there was a division of the labour such that Schön was responsible for the sectors concerning goods production and I myself for the service sectors. Other researchers were also engaged. The project resulted in nine books, together containing all data collected.
Right from the beginning of the HNA research methodological points of departure were adopted inspired by Gershenkron, Kuznets and Schumpeter. Deflation was planned to be made with specifically constructed data for each sub-series and then weighted to form successively higher aggregated series. The intention was to follow a long-time pattern that was characteristic for the Swedish economic performance and the pattern was traced in received knowledge about this performance. Thus, it was empirically founded and methodologically it was also inspired by Johan Åkerman, a Swedish economist beside the mainstream in economics. So-called Kuznets cycles were also considered to be of great importance.
Lennart Schön and I gradually interpreted the long-term pattern in slightly different ways. For him it was theoretical and involved pre-determined structural long cycles and was elaborated into a long-wave theory in the tradition of Kondratieff and Schumpeter. For me the HNA were utilised as a basis to empirically determine cyclical patterns where the cycles were not necessarily of the same length and character. This difference of opinion, however, did not prevent further cooperation.
However, for a number of reasons the planned work, which was to result in series for GDP and its main aggregates both on the production and the expenditure side, was delayed for several years. I got a position at Umeå University, situated in the north of Sweden, a long way from Lund, and this was a long time before computerisation had made co-operation over long distances easy. Together with a great amount of work on other duties, this had a negative effect on the research on HNA. Schön was also appointed to a new position, which meant much work on other commitments.
One of his main tasks in this period was to write a textbook on Swedish economic history, which resulted in En modern svensk ekonomisk historia: tillväxt och omvandling under två sekel (2000), later translated into English as Sweden’s road to modernity: An economic history (2010). This book can now be regarded as a seminal work being theoretically coherent and based on the author’s structural interpretation of the long-term economic performance. The book, which has been widely used in Swedish teaching in economic history, was not Lennart Schön’s only textbook. In 2010, another one, Vår världs ekonomiska historia (An economic history of the world), was published, where his theoretical conception was applied to international economic history. This book is also widely used. Thus, Schön had a major influence on students’ views on the long-term economic performance of the world as well as of Sweden.
In the early twenty-first century our cooperation on HNA was resumed. Then summation of the sub-series constructed earlier was made, resulting in completely new Swedish HNA. One difference from the earlier work was that another kind of deflation was undertaken namely chain indices with annual links. We also carried out double deflation (separate deflation of gross output and inputs). The outcome was published in the book Swedish historical national accounts 1800–2000 (2007). The deflation procedure utilised was, however, criticised for rendering international comparisons difficult. Other countries, lacking such detailed data, could not deflate in this way. Instead they had to use single deflation. This was an important aspect and in subsequent work we changed to single deflation.
A new project with the aim of going back in time was also launched, the new limit being 1560. This was in line with an international practice. For a number of countries very long series had been constructed due, among other things, to a growing interest in studying the Great Divergence, that is, when Europe forged ahead of Asia in terms of living standards. The new series for Sweden were first published in the European Review of Economic History 2012: The Swedish economy in the early modern period: Constructing historical national accounts. Furthermore, the series are available on internet: http://www.ekh.lu.se/en/research/economic-history-data/shna1560–2010. These series have led to a new perspective on Swedish long-term economic growth. Measured by GDP per capita, the seventeenth century stands out as period of economic growth, while the eighteenth is characterised by stagnation, or even a downward tendency. This tendency was broken in a period starting in the 1820s and then, from the 1850s, a long-term growth started implying a thorough industrialisation. In this perspective, the difference made between ‘the domestic market model’ and ‘the export model’ had to give way to a more intricate pattern.
Lennart Schön also had other commitments. For example, he was a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and he accomplished tasks in various research foundations, for example, The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. He was also vice dean of the Lund University School of Economics and Management, and president of the European Historical Economics Society.
Lennart Schön was a highly skilled economic historian regarding both theoretical and empirical work as well as quantitative and qualitative analyses. Thus, his research was of great value and importance for the discipline. The community of economic historians has suffered a great loss.