This paper analyses the functioning of the Rehn-Meidner model in Sweden and the validity of the model's underlying theory. Both sceptics and friends of the Swedish model have exaggerated the effects of active labour market policy and solidarity wage policy on employment, inflation and growth....

A theory of transformation pressure was developed in Sweden in the 1990s which suggested that structural changes, rationalisations and innovations are stimulated by profit crises, arising, for example, from negative demand shocks and restrictive economic policies. Firms will then either become...

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...

A wage and economic-policy programme for full employment, price stability, growth and equity was developed by two Swedish trade-union economists in the early post-war period. A restrictive macroeconomic policy, a wages policy of solidarity and an active labour-market policy are the cornerstones...

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...

The Rehn-Meidner model recommends active labor-market policies, tight macroeconomic policies and solidarity wage policies to combine price stability, growth, full employment and equity. The golden age for the model in Sweden began in the late 1950s and ended in the early 1970s. The following...

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....