ABSTRACT
The overriding economic feature of the period was an increase in growth rates following the depressed years of 1870s and 1880s. The economic growth began to accelerate and continued at a more rapid pace down until the First World War. Accelerating economic growth and few and short recessions suggest a period of prosperity, and the pre-1914 decades were exactly that. In contrast to the difficult years of the late nineteenth century, businesses found the pre-war period a consistently profitable one. Central to this favourable economic environment was the blossoming of two new branches of industry, the manufacture of chemicals and electrical equipment. Sweden and Norway, among the poorer nations at least in western and central Europe during the nineteenth century, were able to use the new industries of the second industrial revolution and a generally well-educated population to elevate themselves over the first half of the twentieth century into the ranks of Europe's and the world's most affluent countries.
