IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sunrpe/2018_0004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Stockholm School in a New Age – Erik Lundberg and the Swedish Model

Author

Listed:
  • Erixon, Lennart

    (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University)

Abstract

The Stockholm-school member Erik Lundberg is the economist who devoted most attention to the economic theory and policy of the Swedish postwar model. The established view is that Lundberg was a steadfast opponent of the so-called Rehn- Meidner model, an economic and wage policy program developed by two Swedish trade-union economists in the early postwar years. The model recommends fiscal policies in the medium term, extensive labor market programs and wage policies of solidarity to simultaneously obtain price stability, full employment, income equality and high growth. This article maintains that Lundberg shared many of the premises of the Rehn-Meidner model already at the beginning of his debate with Gösta Rehn in the early 1950s. Furthermore, in their debate, Lundberg approached Rehn’s policy program and underlying theory of the working of the Swedish economy. Despite his ideological qualms, Lundberg’s ambiguous attitude to the Rehn-Meidner model turned into a complete adoption of the model in the 1960s. By highlighting the innovative nature of the Rehn-Meidner theory, Lundberg also correctly downplayed the impact of the Stockholm School.

Suggested Citation

  • Erixon, Lennart, 2018. "The Stockholm School in a New Age – Erik Lundberg and the Swedish Model," Research Papers in Economics 2018:4, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2018_0004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.ne.su.se/paper/wp18_04.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anonymous, 1961. "Economic and Social Council," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 172-183, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Daron Acemoglu, 2010. "When Does Labor Scarcity Encourage Innovation?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1037-1078.
    4. Avner Offer & Gabriel Söderberg, 2016. "The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10841.
    5. Lennart Erixon, 2010. "The Rehn-Meidner Model in Sweden: Its Rise, Challenges and Survival," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 677-715.
    6. Lennart Erixon, 2011. "A social innovation or a product of its time? The Rehn-Meidner model's relation to contemporary economics and the Stockholm school," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 85-123.
    7. Anonymous, 1961. "Economic and Social Council," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 662-670, October.
    8. Anonymous, 1961. "Economic and Social Council," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 280-289, April.
    9. 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.
    10. Lundberg, Erik, 1972. "Productivity and Structural Change-A Policy Issue in Sweden," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 82(325), pages 465-485, Supplemen.
    11. Lennart Erixon, 2018. "Progressive supply-side economics: an explanation and update of the Rehn-Meidner model [Good jobs versus bad jobs]," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 42(3), pages 653-697.
    12. Anonymous, 1961. "Economic and Social Council," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 500-510, July.
    13. Hans-Michael Trautwein, 2011. "From Austrian Economics To The Swedish Welfare State: Wicksellian Views On Money And Income Distribution," Cahiers d’économie politique / Papers in Political Economy, L'Harmattan, issue 61, pages 51-90.
    14. Jonung,Lars (ed.), 1991. "The Stockholm School of Economics Revisited," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521391276, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Sebastian Edwards, 2009. "FORTY YEARS OF LATIN AMERICA'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: From the Alliance for Progress to the Washington Consensus," NBER Working Papers 15190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Tilton, John E., 2013. "The terms of trade debate and the policy implications for primary product producers," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 196-203.
    3. Lise Arena & Rani Jeanne Dang, 2010. "Learning lessons from the past: A historical exploration of a century of business education at Oxford and Cambridge (1900s-2000s)," Post-Print halshs-00721623, HAL.
    4. Erixon, Lennart, 2016. "Building a path of equality to economic progress and macroeconomic stability - the economic theory of the Swedish model," Research Papers in Economics 2016:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    5. 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.
    6. Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove & Robinson, James A., 2010. "Governance and Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4597-4656, Elsevier.
    7. Nicolas Barbaroux & Michel Bellet, 2013. "Monetary policy and value judgments. Did we forget Myrdal's legacy?," Post-Print halshs-00759880, HAL.
    8. Alexopoulos, Michelle & Cohen, Jon, 2004. "What's wrong with forced wage compression? The fair wage hypothesis redux," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 391-398, June.
    9. Bustos, Emil, 2023. "The Effect of Centrally Bargained Wages on Firm Growth," Working Paper Series 1456, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    10. Jakob Molinder, 2022. "How effective are mobility subsidies in targeting the unemployed? Lessons from the Swedish Model, 1965–1975," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(4), pages 1724-1746, November.
    11. Fernandes, Marcelo, 2006. "Financial crashes as endogenous jumps: estimation, testing and forecasting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 111-141, January.
    12. Douglas A. Hibbs, Jr. & Håkan Locking, 1995. "Solidarity Wage Policies and Industrial Productivity in Sweden," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 22, pages 95-108.
    13. Trautwein, Hans-Michael, 1996. "Studies in Economic Instability and Change," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 263-271, June.
    14. Laura Policardo & Lionello F. Punzo & Edgar J. Sanchez Carrera, 2019. "On the wage–productivity causal relationship," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 329-343, July.
    15. Nicolas Barbaroux & Michel Bellet, 2014. "Monetary Policy and Value Judgments : Did we forget Myrdal’s legacy ?," Working Papers 1408, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    16. Francesco Vona & Luca Zamparelli, 2010. "Centralized Wage Setting and Labor Market Policies: the Nordic Model Case," Working Papers 5/10, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    17. Fanfani, Bernardo, 2023. "The employment effects of collective wage bargaining," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Yi Li, 2020. "Internet Development and Structural Transformation: Evidence from China," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 10(1), pages 1-8.
    20. Rowthorn, Bob & Glyn, Andrew, 1990. "The diversity of unemployment experience since 1973," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 57-89, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Swedish model; Rehn-Meidner model; Stockholm School; Economic policy; Wage policy of solidarity; Labor-market policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • 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
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

    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:2018_0004. 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 (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.