When Knut Wicksell retired from his chair in Lund in 1916, he was succeeded by his student Emil Sommarin, who had a background as a linguist. They differed in their scientific approach but were fairly close ideologically. Politically both were some kind of leftist—Wicksell a radical liberal with sympathies also for social democracy, and Sommarin an active social democrat. While Wicksell made significant contributions to neoclassical economics, Sommarin’s contributions were rather within the historical school, and his doctoral thesis dealt with workers’ conditions in Swedish mining until 1720. They had great respect for each other, and Wicksell’s expert report about the applicants for the chair after himself favoured Sommarin.