An Early Modern Consumer Revolution in the Baltic?

The European consumer revolution has gained increasing attention in recent years. This paper goes beyond the previous scholarly focus upon western Europe in general, and Britain in particular, by studying the consumer revolution in the Baltic region in general, and Denmark and Sweden in particular. Previous research has underestimated the quantities of 'new luxuries' imported into the Baltic region. Disaggregating the region, the empirical evidence shows that the Danish population consumed approximately as much sugar for example as the British did, already by the late 18th century. The paper argues that this to a large extent can be attributed to the fact that real wages in Denmark were comparatively high at the time, even approaching the levels paid to workers in high-wage countries in north-western Europe. The high wages, together with a number of other factors, thus enabled an early consumer revolution at least in this part of the Baltic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]