Real wage trends in urban Europe, 1730–1850: Stockholm in a comparative perspective∗

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This article deals with long-term real wage trends in Stockholm, 17301850, seen against an international background. It is argued that the second half of the eighteenth century exhibits more evident downward real wage trends than does the second quarter of the nineteenth century, which has been the subject of most of the standard of living debate. Some hypotheses are advanced as to the links between real wage decline on the one hand and processes of pauperization and polarization on the other, against a background of redistribution of income favouring the agrarian sector during large parts of the eighteenth century. The first part of the article, based on archival sources, examines the empirical evidence on Stockholm wages. The results are then compared with some twenty other European towns, and the perspective is widened to a discussion of broader European patterns. Research on the economic history of Stockholm would benefit from a European perspective that attempts to take into account similarities as well as dissimilarities. As yet we are a long way from a general picture of the conditions in which urban Europe was transformed during this period. Such a picture will have to combine the analysis of global or general processes with that of local ones, specific to each town. In my opinion most research so far has underestimated the importance of economic processes acting over Europe as a whole during a large part of the eighteenth century, processes tending to produce similar results in terms of trends in real wages and inequality over many urban centres. While this article does not directly address the problem of the impact of capitalism upon real wages, the general argument would be to play down the importance of this factor and explain the variation among towns in other terms. Emphasis is on trends over periods of at least a few decades, not on short-term fluctuations, and the deep trough in real wages and living standards during the French Wars, which would deserve a separate treatment, will only be touched upon lightly. The standard work on real wages in Sweden during the eighteenth century and the