The Content of a Danish Real Wage Index

The types of wages that can be found in eighteenth-century Danish sources are primarily daily wages for day-labourers in the larger towns and on some estates, and also some series for building workers in Copenhagen.

This means that unless there had been great changes in the number of days employed from year to year—and we do not know that—then the decisive factor for the development of the standard of living throughout most of the eighteenth century must have been the price fluctuations and the long-term development in prices,

primarily those of the most important foodstuffs, out of which rye was the staple food for most of the population. The most complete price series are the so-called kapitelstakster, that is, the yearly official prices for rye and several other foodstuffs. They exist for each diocese and for a few smaller areas from the early seventeenth century until the late twentieth century. They were determined by the authorities late in each year and used for conversions between payments in kind and payments in money. Later research has shown that they reflect the actual price levels although on the low end and also yearly fluctuations in a satisfactory way (Warming 1913: 115 fi).

An evaluation of the value of a real wage index for measuring changes in the standard of living must therefore be based on an analysis of the effect that changes in the kapitelstakster had on the incomes of various segments of the population.

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