IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/ratioi/0110.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Resilience through Restructuring: Swedish Policy-Making Style and the Consensus on Liberalizations 1980–2000

Author

Abstract

In 1980, Sweden was a highly regulated economy with several state monopolies and low levels of economic freedom. Less than 20 years later, liberal reforms have turned Sweden into one of the worlds most open economies with a remarkable increase in economic freedom. While taxes and expenditure shares of GDP remain high, there has been a profound restructuring of Sweden’s economy in the 1980s and 1990s. Furthermore, the degree of political consensus is striking, both regarding the policies that characterized Sweden up to 1980, as well as the subsequent liberalizations. Since established theories have difficulties explaining institutional change in heavily institutionalized settings, we seek to understand how the Swedish style of policy-making produced this surprising political consensus on liberal reforms. Building on previous research, we underscore the importance of three complementary factors: (i) Policy-making in Sweden has always been influenced by, and intimately connected to, social science. (ii) Government commissions have functioned as ‘early warning systems’, pointing out future challenges and creating a common way to perceive problems. (iii) As a consequence from social science influence and the role of public investigations, political consensus has evolved as a specific feature of Swedish style of policy-making. The approach to policy-making has been rationalistic, technocratic and pragmatic. Thus, the political consensus in Sweden on substantial liberalizations is no more surprising than the political consensus on the development of the welfare state.

Suggested Citation

  • Bergh, Andreas & Erlingsson, Gissur, 2006. "Resilience through Restructuring: Swedish Policy-Making Style and the Consensus on Liberalizations 1980–2000," Ratio Working Papers 110, The Ratio Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ratio.se/pdf/wp/ab_ge_resilience.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    2. Castles, Francis G., 1976. "Policy Innovation and Institutional Stability in Sweden," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 203-216, April.
    3. Assar Lindbeck, 1997. "The Swedish Experiment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1273-1319, September.
    4. Jakob De Haan & Susanna Lundström & Jan‐Egbert Sturm, 2006. "Market‐oriented institutions and policies and economic growth: A critical survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 157-191, April.
    5. Lindert,Peter H., 2009. "Growing Public," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521529174, October.
    6. Drazen, Allan & Grilli, Vittorio, 1993. "The Benefit of Crises for Economic Reforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 598-607, June.
    7. Freeman, Richard B, 1995. "The Large Welfare State as a System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 16-21, May.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2001. "A Theory of Political Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 938-963, September.
    9. Castles, Francis G., 2004. "The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199273928.
    10. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    11. Axel Dreher, 2002. "Does Globalization Affect Growth?," Development and Comp Systems 0210004, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Jun 2003.
    12. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    13. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    14. Lundberg, Erik, 1985. "The Rise and Fall of the Swedish Model," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 1-36, March.
    15. Doucouliagos, Chris & Ulubasoglu, Mehmet Ali, 2006. "Economic freedom and economic growth: Does specification make a difference?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 60-81, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heyman, Fredrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars & Andersson, Fredrik, 2019. "Has the Swedish business sector become more entrepreneurial than the US business sector?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1809-1822.
    2. Fredrik Heyman & Pehr-Johan Norbäck & Lars Persson, 2019. "The Turnaround of the Swedish Economy: Lessons from Large Business Sector Reforms," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 34(2), pages 274-308.
    3. Heyman, Fredrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars, 2015. "The Turnaround of Swedish Industry: Reforms, Firm Diversity and Job and Productivity Dynamics," Working Paper Series 1079, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Agnello, Luca & Castro, Vitor & Jalles, João Tovar & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2015. "What determines the likelihood of structural reforms?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 129-145.
    2. Andreas Bergh & Magnus Henrekson, 2011. "Government Size And Growth: A Survey And Interpretation Of The Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 872-897, December.
    3. Masuch, Klaus & Anderton, Robert & Setzer, Ralph & Benalal, Nicholai, 2018. "Structural policies in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 210, European Central Bank.
    4. Wunnava, Phanindra V. & Mitra, Aniruddha & Prasch, Robert E., 2012. "Globalization, Institutions, and the Ethnic Divide: Recent Longitudinal Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 6459, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Bergh, Andreas, 2006. "Explaining Welfare State Survival: The Role of Economic Freedom and Globalization," Ratio Working Papers 101, The Ratio Institute.
    6. Dreher, Axel & Lamla, Michael J. & Lein, Sarah M. & Somogyi, Frank, 2009. "The impact of political leaders' profession and education on reforms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 169-193, March.
    7. Andreas Bergh & Martin Karlsson, 2010. "Government size and growth: Accounting for economic freedom and globalization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 195-213, January.
    8. Slesman, Ly & Baharumshah, Ahmad Zubaidi & Ra'ees, Wahabuddin, 2015. "Institutional infrastructure and economic growth in member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 214-226.
    9. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    10. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2020. "Cognitive ability and corruption: rule of law (still) matters," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1723-1743, October.
    11. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    12. Markus Leibrecht & Hans Pitlik, 2014. "Generalised Trust, Institutional and Political Constraints on the Executive and Deregulation of Markets," WIFO Working Papers 481, WIFO.
    13. Danne, Christian, 2009. "Commitment devices, opportunity windows, and institution building in Central Asia," MPRA Paper 16597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Yohei Tenryu, 2017. "The role of the private sector under insecure property rights," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(3), pages 285-311, September.
    15. Michelle Albert Vachris & Justin P. Isaacs, 2017. "The Role of Cultural Values in the Formation and Survival of Pro-Growth Institutions," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 32(Spring 20), pages 89-113.
    16. Gunnar Rietz & Dan Johansson & Mikael Stenkula, 2015. "Swedish Labor Income Taxation (1862–2013)," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Magnus Henrekson & Mikael Stenkula (ed.), Swedish Taxation, chapter 0, pages 35-122, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Andreas Bergh & Christian Bjørnskov, 2021. "Does economic freedom boost growth for everyone?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 170-186, May.
    18. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Sekkat, Khalid, 2022. "A time to throw stones, a time to reap: how long does it take for democratic transitions to improve institutional outcomes?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 429-443, June.
    19. Grivas Chiyaba & Carl Singleton, 2022. "Do natural resources and FDI tend to erode or support the development of national institutions?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2022-02, Department of Economics, University of Reading, revised 30 May 2023.
    20. Kathleen M. Sheehan & Andrew T. Young, 2015. "It'S A Small World After All: Internet Access And Institutional Quality," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(4), pages 649-667, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sweden; Welfare state; institutional change; globalization; policy-making; policy-style;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin Korpi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ratiose.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.