Erik Bengtsson

Erik Bengtsson is Senior Lecturer of Economic History at Lund University in Sweden. His research interests include economic inequality, historical political economy, welfare states and labour markets. He will spend April 2026 in Paris working on new micro data driven approaches to the evolution of economic inequality in the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century.

The project

Title: The Poetics of Resistance: Danish Writers Against Fascism and the Nazi Occupation (1940–1945)

"The project examines Danish literary culture during the German occupation (1940-45) with a special emphasis on exploring the role of literature as an actor of resistance and resilience. Drawing on concepts and theories from the fields of literary sociology and intellectual history, the project aims at developing a new interdisciplinary approach to an important, yet strangely overlooked period in Danish literary history. On this basis, the project addresses important and topical questions concerning the roles of writers and the responsibility of intellectuals in situations of war and occupation. A last but not less essential aim of the project is to unfold the cultural dynamics of the particular situation of Denmark in a international perspective vis-à-vis other occupied countries in Europe using the cases of France and Norway as primary comparative cases."

Hosting institution: Top incomes, inequality and economic change: Sweden, 1911–1950

Selective Bibliography

• "The Politics of Profits: Profit Squeeze, Macroeconomic Expertise and Economic Policy, Sweden 1975–1985". Forthcoming in the Journal of Contemporary History; pre-published online 1 December 2025.
• "The Social Origins of Democracy and Authoritarianism Reconsidered: Prussia and Sweden in Comparison".  With Felix Kersting, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Comparative Political Studies, Volume 59, No. 5, pp. 979–1009, February 2026.
• "Wealth, Work and Industriousness 1670–1860: Evidence from Rural Swedish Probates". With Marcus Falk and Mats Olsson, both Lund. Rural History, Volume 36, Issue 2 , October 2025, pp. 278-294.  
• "What Happened to the Rich during the Great Levelling? Evidence from Swedish Individual-level Data, 1909–1950". With Jakob Molinder, Uppsala University. Journal of Economic History Volume 82, No. 2, pp. 411-441, July 2025.
• "Incomes and Income Inequality in Stockholm, 1870–1970: Evidence from Micro Data". With Jakob Molinder, Uppsala University. Explorations in Economic History, Volume 92, April 2024, article no 101568.