This chapter presents new nominal and real price indices for real estate in Stockholm from 1726 up to 1875. The indices are based on information from more than 20 000 unique transactions in the present inner city of Stockholm. A repeated sales method is applied for index construction. To control for qualitative changes in the housing stock, a database of 7,915 issued building permits has been used. These are the first real estate price indices for Stockholm that covers this period. Internationally, only a handful of similar series exists. It will not only provide unique information about the housing price development in a major European city. The index will also be a resource for future research.

Earlier research describes the development of real housing prices as a ‘hockey stick’, i.e. of long stagnation followed by a sharp upturn in recent decades. A problem is that there are very few indices of residential property covering longer periods. Using a database of around 10,900 sales, this study presents a historical housing price index for Stockholm 1818–1875, which extend a previous index by 57 years, one of the longest for any city. A so-called repeated sales index is compared to a sales price appraisals ratio index. We show that in real terms there have been two long upswings, in 1855–1887 and 1993–2018. In other periods, real prices were stagnant or even slightly declining. The nineteenth century upturn did not end in a crash, but was followed by stagnation for a century. There are many similarities between the two upturns. For example, both coincided with the demographic expansion and were preceded by deregulations. During both periods, properties became more expensive relative income levels. 

The aim of this paper is to examine the regulation of private versus public interests in the planning and building legislation of Sweden between 1874 and 2010. In 1874, Swedish industrialization was emerging and the first modern national planning and building charter was introduced.  This charter is regarded as a precursor to the planning and building law of today – abbreviated PBL – which is the most influential and important law regulating building and planning activity in Sweden today.   

                      From 1874 to 2010, six versions of the PBL and its precursors were launched. This paper examines all law issues[1] in all sections of these laws and codes them as either regulating: 

1) private property interests, or 

2) public property interests, or

3) both private and public interests. 

                      The result of this coding shows that regulation of private interests has increased relative to regulation of public interests over time, and that regulation of both private and public interests has increased relative to the issues regulating either private or public interest. Also, the number of law issues regulating these matters has increased significantly. Together with the qualitative character of the law issues and contextual matters, the results indicate a gradual diminishing of private property rights. This has relevance since property rights are fundamental for functioning markets. 

The paper concludes that the period from 1874 to 1946 was characterized by a public regulation of a market, and that the period from 1947 to 2010 (and onwards until the present time) was characterized by a public steering of a sector. The former period primarily regulated externalities in a relatively free private market, while the latter period to a large extent was, and is, characterized by public control of property and public steering of allocation. The former period is labeled as dynamic, since the fundamentals of the laws developed in line with economic policy as a whole. The latter period is labeled stagnant since the fundamentals of the laws remained the same, regardless of economic policy as a whole.  The public sphere made relatively large inroads into the private sphere during the period examined. The implications of this might be increasing inertia, which is seen as one of the problems of this sector today. 

 [1] A law issue is a part of a law section that regulates one phenomenon.   

This paper examines the level of generality and specificity of the city planning and building law and its predecessors in Sweden (from now on abbreviated PBL[1])  from 1874 to 2010. The aim is to explore whether Jarrick and Bondesson’s theory that laws tend to be more general in formulation the more advanced the society becomes also holds for markets. 

 By coding every law issue[2] in every law section in every PBL (the most important law regulating public and private ownership of real estate and city development) from 1874 to 2010 as either “general”, “specific”, or “middle” in formulation this paper shows an evolution of law formulation in regard to precision and demarcation. The category “general” concerns a formulation that is abstract, holistic, and open to numerous interpretations; the category “specific” refers to a formulation that is concrete, defined and that can only be interpreted in one way. The category “middle” is in between these extremes.

  This method is inspired by Jarrick and Bondesson in their examination of law formulation in constitutions over a period of 4000 years, which suggests that young non-complex societies have a high ratio of specific law formulation and that the laws tend to become more general the more complex and developed a society becomes. 

This study finds that the general and especially the middle category expanded relative to the specific category during the investigated period, which lends some support to Jarrick’s and Bondesson’s hypothesis – while also indicating that this evolution moves faster in markets than in whole societies. The share of law issues belonging to the specific category reached a peak in 1874 and 1907, radically decreased in 1931 and 1947, and increased slightly in 1987 and 2010. The middle category had the opposite trend line. The general category was only represented by 10 percent of law issues in 1874, which more than doubled in 2010. Also, the number of law issues radically increased during the period. 

These results are also related to theories of rationalization and bureaucratization. Less complex societies have more specific rules, which are more straightforward for agents to navigate, and do not require a large bureaucracy. The transformation toward a more complex society generates the adoption of more general rules, but also a growth in the number of rules and a bureaucracy that rises to administer these rules, especially to resolve various uncertainties. This process of rationalization and bureaucratization also entails a suffocation of small-scale initiatives and entrepreneurship, which in turn lays the foundation for future creative destruction of the institutional framework and established organizations. However, in Sweden such a transformation in the area of PBL has not yet occurred. Instead, a type of institutional stagnation can be observed for the period 1947 to 2010, following a period of volatility and dynamics between 1874 and 1947.

 [1] In this paper PBL not only refers to the PBL of 1987 and 2010 but also its predesserssors from 1874, 1907, 1931, 1947 (which was not called PBL at the time of their fomulation and implementation).

[2] A law issue is a part of a law section that regulates one phenomenon.   

In this chapter, we analyse the historical role of community norms and sharing ideas in the Swedish housing market as part of industrial transformation processes. We compare the emergence of a new organizational form, the housing cooperative, from the 1930s and onwards with the rise of the contemporary digital platform-based sharing economy. In the past, housing cooperatives were used to share the burden of risk between individual citizens, whereas contemporary sharing platforms allow for sharing the burden of ownership in cities with soaring housing prices. We ask if and how the role of community norms and sharing practices have changed over the last century and who was involved in transforming the housing market. We draw on rich historical secondary sources on the development of housing cooperatives as part of the Swedish model as well as on contemporary debate about the impact of sharing economy actors, such as Airbnb, on the Swedish housing market. In drawing on a semantic analysis of official government investigations on the housing cooperatives, we show that community norms have played a vital part in the industrial transformation of the Swedish housing market, indicating that informal institutions endured while formal institutions have gone through major transformations.

Digital entrepreneurship may result in institutional turbulence and new initiatives are frequently blocked by vested interest groups who posit superior financial and relational resources. In this paper, we explore the role of cities in facilitating digital entrepreneurship and overcoming institutional resistance to innovation. Drawing upon two historical case studies of digital entrepreneurship in the city of Stockholm along with an extensive material on the sharing economy in Sweden, our results suggest that cities offer an environment that is critical for digital entrepreneurship. The economic and technological diversity of a city may provide the field conditions required for institutional change to take place and to avoid regulatory capture.