This paper analyses the effects of previous enlargements of the European Union on the regional structure of production. Focusing on regional development five years before and seven years after integration, we find relatively small and heterogeneous effects. For the addition of Greece a robust...

The remarkable success of Sweden over the past 15 years has come after decades of sluggish growth, during which Sweden managed to lose its substantial lead in per-capita income. This substantiates the view that welfare cost and high taxes reduce growth and endanger competitiveness. Since then,...

Following a severe contraction in the early 1990s, the Swedish economy accumulated a strong record of output growth coupled with a disappointing performance in the labor market. As of 2005, hours worked per person 20-64 years of age are 10.5 percent below the 1990 peak and a mere one percent...

Walter Korpi argues in a previous issue of Challenge (March/April 2000) that Swedish economists' claim that Sweden's growth performance has been inferior to that of other industrialized countries is at odds with the facts. Since Sweden has not grown slowly relative to other countries, there is...

Entrepreneurship is largely ignored or treated in a highly simplified way in endogenous growth theory. Still, it is now widely recognized that the supply of entrepreneurial talent is likely to be important for economic growth, innovation and job creation. This study consists of an in-depth...

The development of a well adapted financial system was a main part of the successful Swedish economic modernization in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In this paper it is shown that this development followed the pattern of a financial revolution. Major institutional and organizational...

The report focuses on the relative macroeconomic performance since the global financial crisis of six Northern European countries with a special emphasis on Finland. While fiscal and monetary policies have definitely impacted on macroeconomic outcomes in the six countries examined, as a whole...

Rapid price decreases for ICT-products in the 1990s have been largely attributed to the introduction of hedonic price indexes. Would hedonic price indexing also have large effects on measured price and productivity during other technological breakthroughs? This paper investigates the impact of...