ARISTOCRATIC WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: SWEDEN, 1750–1900
@article{Bengtsson2018ARISTOCRATICWA, title={ARISTOCRATIC WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: SWEDEN, 1750–1900}, author={Erik Bengtsson and Anna Missiaia and Mats-Olov Olsson and Patrick Svensson}, journal={Scandinavian Journal of History}, year={2018}, volume={44}, pages={27 - 52} }
The role of the European nobility and their ability to retain their political and economic power are part of the debate on the modernization of Europe’s economy. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the wealth of the Swedish nobility as the country evolved from an agrarian to an industrial economy. We use a sample of 200+ probate inventories of nobles for each of the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900. We show that the nobility, less than 0.5 per cent of the population…
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