Explaining agricultural growth. The case of Sweden 1700-1860 (original) (raw)

A recurrent question in economic history concerns the dating and explanation of the agricultural revolution, i.e. when and how did a low-productive pre-industrial agricultural sector turn into a fast-growing, more productive one. Unique data from Sweden, consisting of more than 80,000 observations of production output for the period 1700-1860 is used here to calculate and explain decisive changes in pre-industrial agricultural production. Our estimations show that crop production more than quadrupled during the period studied and from the 1780s and onwards production growth outstripped population growth substantially. Furthermore, the data allows us to estimate the determinants of change in a multivariate regression analysis. The results show that changes in property rights, institutional changes affecting the organisation of production and growing markets made peasants invest in production and productivity. In a general sense this shows the flexibility and awareness of pre-industri...