Abstract

Johan Söderberg Real wage trends in urban Europe, 1730-1850: Stockholm in a comparative perspective* This article deals with long-term real wage trends in Stockholm, 1730-1850, 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