Ascertaining motivations for historical trade policy, Social Stratification in the Making of Modern Argentina, and Trade, regional growth and social conflict in Sweden. These are the three research projects that have received funding of nearly SEK 4.3 million from Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius Stiftelse and Tore Browaldhs Stiftelse.
Researchers in Economic History at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University AvÐÔ°® have received funding towards their respective research projects. Below is a presentation of the three projects.
Social stratification has regained prominence in research, particularly in the Global South, where inequality remains a persistent challenge. However, substantive and methodological limitations constrain this scholarship’s ability to examine the causes and consequences of social stratification, often reducing inequality analyses to aggregate economic indicators that overlook spatiality and multidimensionality. This project addresses these challenges by investigating social stratification in Argentina between 1850 and 1900, a pivotal period of development for a country that was once among the world's wealthiest but is now marked by high inequality and economic instability.
Members: Stefania Galli (project leader), Juan Pablo Juliá and Svante Prado
Amount: SEK 1993 000
Regions can be affected very differently by shocks in international trade and may experience social conflicts as a result. This project examines the case of Sweden, a small open economy on the periphery of Europe, during the first wave of globalization and the interwar period. To this end, we construct a new dataset that matches national trade flows with regional employment statistics to study how trade exposure influenced regional growth, employment, migration, and strike frequency, which we use as a measure of social conflict.
Member: Anna Missiaia (project leader)
Amount: SEK 1 508 750
Protectionism has returned to the global economy. Understanding its motives is key. Yet we often rely on theory or outcomes alone. This project applies a new approach: using historical legislative debates to identify motivations directly. We focus on Britain and the United States during the period 1800–1860, a formative era in trade history. By employing topic modelling on discourse, we pinpoint three key motivations—revenue, restriction, reciprocity—and measure their evolving importance. This uncovers complex political, economic, and ideological interactions underlying trade policy. Our scalable method deepens insight into trade formation and guides future comparative studies.
Members: Christopher Absell (project leader) and Jeremy Land
Amount: SEK 746 000