IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sunrpe/2005_0010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Travelling Along the Third Way. A Swedish Model of Stabilisation, Equity and Growth

Author

Listed:

Abstract

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 Rehn-Meidner model represents a unique third way between Keynesianism and monetarism. This essay analyses the application and performance of the Rehn-Meidner model in Sweden. Although never consistently applied, it is possible to distinguish a golden age for the model from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. In the 1970s and the 1980s, governments abandoned the restrictive macroeconomic means of the model and were thus unable to combine low rates of unemployment with low inflation and high economic growth. Since the early 1990s, Sweden has not met the requirement of full employment in the Rehn-Meidner model. Recent declarations by the EU to prioritise full employment once again but without giving up the objectives of price stability and growth legitimise a renewed interest in the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Erixon, Lennart, 2005. "Travelling Along the Third Way. A Swedish Model of Stabilisation, Equity and Growth," Research Papers in Economics 2005:10, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2005_0010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.ne.su.se/paper/wp05_10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbs, Douglas Jr. & Locking, Hakan, 1996. "Wage compression, wage drift and wage inflation in Sweden," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 109-141, September.
    2. Calmfors, Lars, 1993. "Lessons from the macroeconomic experience of Sweden," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 25-72, March.
    3. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr & Locking, Hakan, 2000. "Wage Dispersion and Productive Efficiency: Evidence for Sweden," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(4), pages 755-782, October.
    4. repec:bla:scandj:v:96:y:1994:i:1:p:31-50 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:hhs:iuiwop:533 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Steven J. Davis & Magnus Henrekson, 1997. "Industrial Policy, Employer Size, and Economic Performance in Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 353-398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Calmfors, Lars, 1995. "Labour market policy and unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 583-592, April.
    8. Bertil Holmlund, 2003. "The Rise and Fall of Swedish Unemployment," CESifo Working Paper Series 918, CESifo.
    9. David G. Blanchflower, 2004. "Self-Employment: More may not be better," NBER Working Papers 10286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. repec:fth:iniesr:533 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Calmfors, Lars & Forslund, Anders & Hemström, Maria, 2002. "Does Active Labour Market Policy Work? Lessons from the Swedish Experiences," Seminar Papers 700, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    12. Braconier, Henrik & Holden, Steinar, 1999. "The Public Budget Balance - Fiscal Indicators and Cyclical Sensitivity in the Nordic Countries," Working Papers 67, National Institute of Economic Research.
    13. Dale W. Jorgenson & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2000. "Raising the Speed Limit: U.S. Economic Growth in the Information Age," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(1), pages 125-236.
    14. Richard B. Freeman & Robert Topel & Birgitta Swedenborg, 1997. "The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number free97-1, March.
    15. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    16. Freeman, Richard B. & Topel, Robert H. & Swedenborg, Birgitta (ed.), 1997. "The Welfare State in Transition," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226261782, October.
    17. Bjorklund, Anders & Kjellstrom, Christian, 2002. "Estimating the return to investments in education: how useful is the standard Mincer equation?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 195-210, June.
    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. Vincent Touzé, 2007. "Les performances économiques de la Suède," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03471883, HAL.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3881 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3881 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Davis, Steven J. & Henrekson, Magnus, 2005. "Wage-setting institutions as industrial policy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 345-377, June.
    2. Henrekson, Magnus & Johansson, Dan, 2010. "Firm Growth, Institutions and Structural Transformation," Ratio Working Papers 150, The Ratio Institute.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:2985-3028 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Vartiainen, Juhana, 1998. "Understanding Swedish Social Democracy: Victims of Success?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 14(1), pages 19-39, Spring.
    5. Lindquist, Matthew J., 2005. "The welfare costs of union wage compression," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 639-658, April.
    6. Peter Fredriksson & Robert H. Topel, 2010. "Wage Determination and Employment in Sweden Since the Early 1990s: Wage Formation in a New Setting," NBER Chapters, in: Reforming the Welfare State: Recovery and Beyond in Sweden, pages 83-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Michele Battisti & Joseph Zeira, 2018. "Technology and labor regulations: theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 41-78, March.
    8. Erixon, Lennart, 2000. "A Swedish Economic Policy - The Theory, Application and Validity of the Rehn-Meidner Model," Research Papers in Economics 2000:13, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    9. Backman, Mikaela, 2013. "Banks and New Firm Formation," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 301, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    10. Henrekson, Magnus & Sanandaji, Tino, 2016. "Owner-Level Taxes and Business Activity," Foundations and Trends(R) in Entrepreneurship, now publishers, vol. 12(1), pages 1-94, March.
    11. Gustavsson, Magnus, 2004. "Trends in the Transitory Variance of Earnings: Evidence from Sweden 1960-1990 and a Comparison with the United States," Working Paper Series 2004:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    12. Calmfors, Lars & Forslund, Anders & Hemström, Maria, 2002. "Does active labour market policy work? Lessons from the Swedish experiences," Working Paper Series 2002:4, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    13. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2711-2805 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Henrekson, Magnus & Johansson, Dan, 1999. "Institutional Effects on the Evolution of the Size Distribution of Firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 11-23, February.
    15. Steinar Holden, 1998. "Wage Drift and the Relevance of Centralised Wage Setting," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(4), pages 711-731, December.
    16. Burt S. Barnow & Jeffrey Smith, 2015. "Employment and Training Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 127-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Timothy Smeeding, 2005. "Government Programs and Social Outcomes: The United States in Comparative Perspective," LIS Working papers 426, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. Carsten Ochsen, 2009. "On the measurement of mismatch," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 405-409.
    19. Peter Lindert, 2003. "Why The Welfare State Looks Like a Free Lunch," Working Papers 59, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    20. Francesco Vona & Luca Zamparelli, 2014. "Centralized Wage Setting and Active Labor Market Policies in Frictional Labor Markets: The Nordic Case," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 349-364, June.
    21. Gunnar Rietz & Magnus Henrekson, 2015. "Swedish Wealth Taxation (1911–2007)," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Magnus Henrekson & Mikael Stenkula (ed.), Swedish Taxation, chapter 0, pages 267-302, Palgrave Macmillan.
    22. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2019. "The collaborative innovation bloc: A new mission for Austrian economics," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 295-320, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Swedish model; Rehn-Meidner model; third way; labour market policy; solidarity wage policy; productivity growth; fiscal policy; unemployment; inflation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • O23 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development

    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:sunrpe:2005_0010. 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: Anne Jensen The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Anne Jensen to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/neisuse.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.