In the early postwar years, two trade-union economists, Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner, presented a Swedish alternative to Keynesianism. The so-called Rehn- Meidner model recommends restrictive macroeconomic policies, labor market policy programs and solidarity wages to combine price stability...

The new economic-policy regime in Sweden in the 1990s included deregulation, central-bank independence, inflation targets and fiscal rules but also active labour market policy and voluntary incomes policy. This article describes the content, determinants and performance of the new economic...

In the mid-1990s, a Social Democratic government pursued an ambitious fiscal austerity policy in Sweden in the aftermath of a deep recession and public budget crisis. Economic advisors were guided by the idea that fiscal austerity would have neutral or expansionary effects on output and...

The theory of transformation pressure maintains that central actors in established firms will be more productive when experiencing an actual fall in profits. Actors fearing that the survival of the firm is at stake will then become more alert, calculating and creative favoring a transformation....

The theory of transformation pressure sheds light on the importance of negative driving forces for economic growth and the countercyclical movement in innovations and productivity growth. The theory suggests that firms have a status-quo bias in periods of increasing profits leading to lower...

Johan Åkerman and Erik Dahmén’s structural theory of economic fluctuations is a constructive alternative to traditional macroeconomic approaches and also to modern business-cycle models based on micro economic concepts. There are similarities between Åkerman and Dahmén’s theory and...

In a study of European growth in the interwar period, the Swedish economist Ingvar Svennilson integrated a Keynesian theory of cumulative growth with a Schumpeterian analysis of economic transformation. Svennilson emphasised that innovations and the use of new technologies had been stimulated by...

A Swedish economic policy was developed by two trade union economists shortly after the Second World War. The Rehn-Meidner model recommends the use of selective employment policy measures, a tight macroeconomic policy and a wage policy of solidarity to combine full employment and equity with...

Economists and politicians in Sweden stated in the early 1990s that devaluations of the country's currency had lessened the external pressure on manufacturing and led to a delay in structural change and rationalizations. The theory of transformation pressure generalizes the idea that...

The Swedish economic policy to combine full employment and equity with price stability and economic growth was developed by two trade union economists shortly after World War II. Through the use of extensive employment policy measures, a tight fiscal policy and a wage policy of solidarity, the...