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Introduction
Lennart Erixon works at the Department of Economics, Stockholm University. Lennart does research in Development Economics, Growth Economics and Labour Economics. His two current research projects are focussing on 'Nordic growth models' and 'The Swedish wage bargaining system'.
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Publications
Publications (59)
The Swedish Rehn-Meidner model is a unique economic- and wage-policy program
for the simultaneous achievement of full employment, price stability, growth
and equality. This article presents, specifies and develops the model’s underlying
macroeconomic theory. The Rehn-Meidner theory is a synthesis between a flexprice
Kaldorian model of profit margin...
Kapitlet belyser tänkbara mekanismer bakom ett positivt samband mellan solidarisk lönepolitik och tillväxt. Det uppmärksammar också kritiken av den solidariska lönepolitiken ur tillväxtsynpunkt. En översikt över empiriska studier fokuserar på frågan om i vilken utsträckning Sveriges arbetskraftsmobilitet, strukturomvandling och produktivitetstillvä...
The established view is that the Stockholm-School economist Erik Lundberg was a tenacious opponent of the so-called Rehn-Meidner model, an economic and wage policy program developed by two Swedish trade-union economists after WW II. But despite his ideological objections, Lundberg shared many of the premises of the model in his debate with Gösta Re...
Over fifty years ago Andrew Shonfeld wrote a book, Modern Capitalism, which initiated a new field of inquiry about ‘comparative capitalism.’ His focus was the politics of the mixed economy and its national variants. At the basis of that politics was not just a concern with ‘who gets what’ in a static sense, but also how the various hybrid forms of...
Since the late 1990s, central wage bargaining in Sweden has been governed by the so-called Industrial Agreement (IA). The trade unions and employer federations in manufacturing take account of the effects of their wage agreements on the cost competitiveness of Swedish companies and the inflation target of the Riksbank. IA is expected to guide the w...
Over fifty years ago Andrew Shonfeld wrote a book, Modern Capitalism, which initiated a new field of inquiry about ‘comparative capitalism.’ His focus was the politics of the mixed economy and its national variants. At the basis of that politics was not just a concern with ‘who gets what’ in a static sense, but also how the various hybrid forms of...
Det ekonomisk-politiska regimskiftet i Sverige under 1990-talet underlättades av att svenska nationalekonomer gav en alltför mörk bild av den ekonomiska utvecklingen i landet under de två föregående decennierna. Faktum är att Sverige då uppvisade full sysselsättning och en låg makroekonomisk volatilitet, en jämn inkomst- och förmögenhetsfördelning,...
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 pos...
The idea that firms are more innovative under difficult external condition has no
prominent place in evolutionary economics. The neo-Schumpeterians agree with
Schumpeter that innovation is stimulated by positive driving forces and associated
with industrial renewal through creative destruction. Also Darwinian economists
shed light on opportunity fa...
In the aftermath of a deep recession and public budget crisis, a Social Democrat government pursued an ambitious fiscal austerity policy in Sweden in the mid 1990s. Economic advisors were guided by the idea that fiscal austerity would have neutral or expansionary effects on output and employment. In order to avoid large public deficits in the futur...
The theory of transformation pressure maintains, by reference to cognitive
and emotional factors, that productivity and innovation are stimulated by a decline in actual profits. In periods of increasing profits, firms governed by historical relativism, the peak-end rule and overconfidence will opt for the status quo. In the following profit recessi...
Gösta Rehn är en av de mest inflytelserika svenska nationalekonomerna under efterkrigstiden. Han var en central aktör i den ekonomisk-politiska debatten i Sverige under främst 1940- och 1950-talen och bidrog i hög grad till genombrottet för den aktiva arbetsmarknadspolitiken och den solidariska lönepolitiken, två hörnpelare i ”den svenska modellen”...
In the early postwar years, two trade-union economists, Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner, presented a Swedish alternative to Keynesianism. The so-called Rehn-Meidner model recommends restrictive macroeconomic policies, active labor market policies and solidarity wages to combine price stability with economic growth, equity and full employment. In the...
In the early postwar years, two trade-union economists, Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner, presented a Swedish alternative to Keynesianism. The so-called Rehn- Meidner model recommends restrictive macroeconomic policies, labor market policy programs and solidarity wages to combine price stability with economic growth, equity and full employment. In the...
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 policy in Sweden in a comparative, mainly Nordic, perspecti...
Johan Åkerman and Erik Dahmén's institutional theory of economic fluctuations is a constructive alternative to traditional macroeconomic approaches and also to modern business-cycle analysis based on microeconomic optimization models. By its integration of a business-cycle and growth perspective, Åkerman and Dahmén's analysis was similar to that of...
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 of the Rehn–Meidner model. The model was influence...
A Swedish economic policy was developed by two trade union economists shortly after the Second World War. The Rehn-Meidner model recommends the use of selective employment policy measures, a tight macroeconomic policy and a wage policy of solidarity to combine full employment and equity with price stability and economic growth. Although never consi...
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 of the Rehn–Meidner model. The model was influenced by...
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. However, these policies have contributed to the reduct...
Kapitlet behandlar frågan om Dahméns metod och teorier är relevanta för vår tids nationalekonomer. Genom sin institutionella och historiska analys fjärmade sig Dahmén från en aggregerad keynesiansk teori, men också från en makroteori som tar sin utgångspunkt i stiliserade mikroekonomiska antaganden om produktionsförhållanden och enskilda aktörers b...
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 more creative or abandon an overconfident, risk-prone a...
In a study of European growth in the interwar period, the Swedish economist Ingvar Svennilson integrated a Keynesian theory of demand-led cumulative growth with a Schumpeterian analysis of transformation. Today, Svennilson is seen, together with the Schumpeterian economists Johan Åkerman and Erik Dahmén, as members of a unique Swedish growth school...
Allmänheten får en ständig ström av uppgifter om Sveriges placering i välståndsligan, tillväxtligan, konkurrenskraftsligan, hederlighetsligan etc. Syftet med indexen är i regel att spegla invånarnas relativa levnadsstandard eller ländernas förutsättningar att uppnå ett högre välstånd jämfört med eller rentav i konkurrens med andra länder. I ivern a...
Revised version of chapter: ´Är nationalekonomin ohistorisk?', in Att förstå och att förändra världen. En festskrift för Jan Otto Andersson, (R. Eriksson, M. Jäntti och J. Willner (eds.), Åbo Akademis Förlag, Åbo.
Svensk nationalekonomi har fått ett för litet tillskott av ”generalister”, dvs av personer med överblick över ämnets delområden och historia samt med förmåga att belysa en specifik frågeställning utifrån
flera infallsvinklar. ”Specialister” favoriseras förmodligen redan vid antagningen till doktorandutbildningen samtidigt som kursprogrammet, genom...
The macroeconomic principles behind the Swedish model were developed by two trade union economists, Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner, shortly after World War II. The model’s economic and wage policy represents a unique third way between keynesianism and monetarism in its approach to combine full employment and growth with price stability and equity. T...
Gosta Rehn is often called 'the father of the Swedish Model'. As a source of ideas, a debater and creator of opinion, Rehn contributed to the development and application in Sweden of a unique model for economic policy in the years following the Second World War. The fact that Sweden had a Social Democratic government at the time, combined with the...
This essay illuminates the development and performance of the Swedish growth engine, i.e. the large transnational companies in engineering and the raw materials industries, in the early postwar period. The impact of Social Democratic economic policies on the development of this growth engine is emphasised, but these policies also contributed to the...
Gösta Rehn kallas ofta för "den svenska modellens fader". Som idégivare, debattör och opinionsbildare bidrog Rehn till att en unik ekonomisk-politisk modell kom att utvecklas och delvis tillämpas i Sverige efter det andra världskriget. Genombrottet för Rehn:s idéer underlättades av socialdemokratiska regeringsinnehav och LO:s pådrivande roll vid ut...
Den höga arbetslösheten i Västeuropa beror på att löner och lönebikostnader är för höga. Tesen drivs av OECD och även, om än inte lika entydigt, av EU. Den socialdemokratiska regeringen i Sverige tycks ha accepterat en teori om att arbetslöshet beror på höga reallöner, en teori som partiet utmanade under 1930-talet. Sänkningen av ersättningen vid a...
Omvandlingstryck blev ett centralt begrepp i den svenska ekonomisk-politiska debatten under 1990-talet. Teorin om omvandlingstryck ger tre förklaringar till att företagens produktivitetstillväxt är högre i dåliga tider. Rationella företag som verkar i en värld med fullständig osäkerhet omvandlas först när de yttre hoten är ett faktum. Människors kr...
In Sweden, the economic policy of the Third Way by the social democratic government in the 1980s has locked in resources in mature industries and weakened the pressure on firms to introduce new products and enter dynamic markets. In the future, the profitability of domestic companies shall be considered as a restriction on economic policy, not as a...
Denna forskningsöversikt behandlar orsakerna till företagskoncentration
i utvecklade kapitalistiska ekonomier. En central frågeställning är i vilken utsträckning
företagskoncentration är en oundviklig process eller något som bara
framträder under vissa förutsättningar. Enligt ett närmast deterministiskt
synsätt i litteraturen är företagskoncentrati...
The aim of this study is to explain empirically the trend in profitability in Swedish manufacturing during the postwar period. A Keynesian tradition emphasizes the importance of aggregate demand. A classical tradition sheds light on surplus and monopoly conditions. A Schumpeterian, 'disequilibrium', tradition focusses on the influence of the rate o...
Rapporten har sitt ursprung i det under åren 1969-73 bedrivna arbetet med det s k Östergårdsprojektet Projektet kombinerade en rad bostads- och socialpolitiska åtgärder för att motverka segregation och förbättra levnadsförhållandena för de boende i Östergård, ett äldre bostadsområde i Malmö kommun. Rapporten uppmärksammar olika definitioner av och...
