| 1. |
- Lundh, Christer, et al.
(author)
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Regional Wages in Sweden 1860-1914
- 2004
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In: Wage Formation, Labour Market Institutions and Economic Transformation in Sweden 1860-2000. ; 32
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)
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| 2. |
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| 4. |
- Karlsson, Lars, 1981-
(author)
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The Incentive to Abate : The Swedish Pulp and Paper Industry and the 1969 Environment Protection Act
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Swedish Environment Protection Act (SEPA) was implemented in 1969 and constituted the first comprehensive Swedish regulation of industry-induced environmental externalities. In keeping with a longstanding corporatist tradition, Swedish policymakers aimed to establish a cooperative climate with industrial producers and instructed the regulatory authorities to strive to reach consensual agreements with affected firms. Despite such accommodations, the environmental adaptation of Swedish industrial production proceeded at a greater pace, during the 1970’s and 1980’s, than in most comparable countries, many of which had implemented seemingly more stringent environmental regulations than had Sweden.This thesis seeks to identify the firm level incentives behind this process, by examining the economic impact of the SEPA upon one of the more pollution-intensive branches of Swedish industrial production, the pulp and paper industry. Guided by previous research, an hypothesis is proposed in which the implementation of the SEPA came to aid the structural rationalization of this industry during the 1970’s and 1980’s, by inducing the exit of marginal, small-scale pulp and paper mills, thereby relaxing the prevailing competition over wood resources and available market space and creating more room for expansion within the surviving mills. As larger firms tend to operate larger mills, the hypothesized effects are suggested to have benefited large-scale producers within the industry, at the expense of their smaller rivals. The findings of the thesis show that the economic effects of the SEPA were more severe for small as compared to large-scale mills and that regulatory requirements for pollution abatement did contribute to the shutdown of several small-scale mills during the 1970’s and 1980’s. No conclusive evidence could, however, be found for the validity of the thesis’ hypothesis as a whole, as these shutdowns were not predominantly administered by small-scale firms, as predicted by the hypothesis. Rather, the vast majority of these shutdowns were accounted for by some of the largest firms within the industry. Some tentative evidence was found, however, that the implementation of the SEPA may have benefitted certain large-scale producers within the industry, by facilitating acquisitions of smaller firms with valuable assets.
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| 5. |
- Palmer, Richard, 1952-
(author)
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Historical patterns of globalization : the growth of outward linkages of Swedish long-standing transnational corporations, 1890s-1990s
- 2001
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The study addresses the outward cross-border linking of the Swedish economy and its most important transnational corporations during the 20th century. It explores the aggregate level of Swedish industry, and most importantly, the firm level of a group of eight long-standing transnational corporations, which during the post-1945 period represented roughly half of Sweden’s foreign industrial activity in terms of employment, e.g., Alfa Laval, ASEA, Ericsson, Sandvik, SKF, AGA, Electrolux and Atlas Copco. Since most of these corporations existed already a century ago it was possible to explore their historical trajectories within the general process of globalization. Hence, the study contributes to the testing of the globalization thesis with a small, open, developed economy as the point of reference. Based on aggregate national data and data on levels of foreign activity of Swedish transnational corporations the study presents a phase model of globalization, identifying first an ‘initial phase’ of globalization from ca 1871 to 1929, second a ‘stagnation phase’ (1930-1949), then a third ‘expansion phase’ (1950-1979) and finally, a ‘highlight of globalization’ phase, beginning in 1980 and continuing into the 21st century. In order to gain deeper insights into the historical process of Sweden’s outward economic linking it then looked in more detail at the eight firms mentioned above. Employing a quantitative formal model of foreign corporate activity, the study focusses on changes in the relative magnitude of foreign employment and sales (‘intensity’) and on the geographical distribution of foreign subsidiaries (‘extensity’). The two former categories are combined into an ‘index of transnationality’, which serves as a principal analytical tool for uncovering long-term change. The study concludes that for Swedish industry and its largest transnational corporations the term globalization represents more of a historical, continuous long-term trend than an exclusively contemporary development. In fact, the only period in time when we see a general stagnation in the positive trends was 1930-1945. Moreover, the study found at least two periods of rapid outward linking on the part of some of the most important Swedish corporations, apart from the current one, that is, the decade and a half preceding World War I and the 1960s. Nevertheless, levels of relative magnitude of activity abroad and of geographical spread attained by Swedish industry and its transnational corporations during the last two decades, were in many respects unprecedented. Findings on the variations in the actual pace of globalization during the whole 20th century demonstrated firstly, that positive change in geographical spread of the group of long-standing transnational corporations proceeded at an increasing pace when calculated in absolute terms. For the 1960-1999 period, the existence of positive long-term trends in the magnitude of both foreign sales and foreign employment were discovered. Also, there was an acceleration of the pace at which foreign sales increased over time, when calculated in absolute terms.
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| 6. |
- Schön, Lennart, et al.
(author)
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The Swedish economy in the early modern period : constructing historical national accounts
- 2012
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In: European Review of Economic History. - : Oxford University Press. - 1361-4916 .- 1474-0044. ; 16:Part 4, s. 529-549
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A new GDP series per capita for Sweden during 15601800 is presented, linked to slightly revised data for 18002000. Long-term stagnation up to the nineteenth century is revealed but with secular changes. Growth characterized much of the seventeenth century with modernization of state administration, industry and trade. In the next century, stagnation and even retrogression followed. Wars in the seventeenth century may have stimulated growth, but also exhausted resources. Despite stagnation, the structure of the economy shifted and created preconditions for the modern economic growth that took off in the nineteenth century.
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| 8. |
- Enflo, Kerstin, et al.
(author)
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Regional convergence and divergence in Sweden, 1860–2010 : Evidence from Swedish historical regional GDP data
- 2018. - 1
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In: The Economic Development of Europe's Regions : A Quantitative History since 1900 - A Quantitative History since 1900. - London : Routledge. - 9780415723381 - 9780429449789 ; , s. 291-309
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Since industrialization, Sweden has experienced an amazing growth trajectory. In 1850, Sweden was a quite poor and peripheral country, with GDP levels close to the world’s average. One and a half centuries later, Sweden ranks among the richest countries in the world with GDP levels more than three times the world’s average (Schön 2013). Yet apart from a few case studies and some industry studies, little is known about the geographical evolution of Sweden’s growth process. This chapter will fill in the gap by presenting estimates of Swedish regional GDPs for 24 counties corresponding to NUTS 3 regions from 1860 to 2010. Using this data set, we will present descriptive evidence on processes of regional convergence and divergence and discuss some tentative explanations for these patterns.
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| 9. |
- Josephson, Camilla
(author)
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Growth and Business Cycles -Swedish Manufacturing Industry 1952-2001
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study shows that the mechanisms behind knowledge accumulation and the sources of productivity growth differ from industry to industry depending on what is produced and what technology is used. Although it is apparent to most researchers in the field that the only way to explain long-run growth in output per capita is through technological progress and accumulation of knowledge that counteract the dampening effect of diminishing returns, we are still in the dark about how such mechanisms operate. By focusing on the importance of separating industrial sectors with different methods of production and thereby including the possibility of TFP reflecting various growth mechanisms for diverse industries, this thesis tries to rethink the history of productivity growth in the Swedish manufacturing industry. A unique dataset, for the period 1952 to 2001, makes it possible to distinguish labour-intensive, capital-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries. Analysing the cointegration VAR model means that the sources of long-run productivity growth and business cycles are treated as separate yet interdependent issues. We show that, by applying relevant economic theory to representative data and using advanced econometric methods, it is feasible to test a variety of theoretical assumptions about endogenous growth on appropriate data. In so doing, we establish the important role of opportunity costs in allocating investments among various ways of accumulating knowledge. Since resources are scarce, investment in one form of knowledge accumulation takes place at the expense of another, which in turn has important implications for business cycles. We obtained the following results: the highest rate of knowledge accumulation was attained in industries using technologically advanced production processes and/or manufacturing technologically advanced goods. Business cycles reflect the sum of simultaneous productivity increases and productivity losses as altering opportunity costs allocated investments among knowledge-accumulating and/or growth-generating mechanisms. The productivity slowdown in 1975 was not as severe in all sectors; nor was the catch-up in the 1990s as strong in all industries. The concept of past-dependent knowledge accumulation giving rise to locked-in expertise, and rapidly falling rates of learning on aged techniques and old products, is put forward as the main explanations for why the severest productivity slowdown and failure to adjust to new economic conditions took place in capital-intensive industry. Rapidly increasing knowledge accumulation and monopoly profits explains why the '1975-crisis' hit knowledge- intensive industry the least, and why this industry showed the greatest catch-up between 1992 and 2001.
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