TY  - JOUR
AU  - O'Rourke,Kevin
AU  - Williamson,Jeffrey G.
TI  - Open Economy Forces and Late 19th Century Scandinavian Catch-Up
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5112
PY  - 1995
Y2  - May 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5112
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5112.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kevin H. O'Rourke
All Souls College
Oxford University
Oxford OX1 4AL, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)1865 279 348
Fax: 353-1-6772503
E-Mail: kevin.orourke@all-souls.ox.ac.uk

Jeffrey G. Williamson
350 South Hamilton Street #1002
Madison, WI 53703
Tel: 608-441-0023
Fax: 608-204-0783
E-Mail: jwilliam@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - Scandinavia recorded very high growth rates between 1870 and 1914, catching up with the leaders.  This paper estimates that about two-thirds of the Scandinavian catching up on Britain was due to the open economy forces of global factor and commodity market integration. All of the Scandinavian catching up on America was due to the same open economy forces.  The question for the economist is: Why does the new growth theory spend so little time dealing with these open economy forces?  The question for the economic historian is: Can the breakdown of global factor and commodity markets after 1914 explain a large share of the cessation of convergence up to 1950? Can the spectacular OECD convergence achieved after 1950 be explained by the resumption of the pre-1914 open economy conditions that contributed so much to Scandinavian catch-up?
ER  -