CHAPTER XV - Economic and social policy in Sweden, 1850–1939

Summary

Introduction

The ends and means of Swedish economic policy have changed over the years. When analysing this economic policy, however, it is difficult to determine the exact nature of these ends and means. What during one phase was an end could in others become a means. As long as the economy was tied to the gold standard, operations in the open market were a means of changing Bank Rate and controlling the money supply. And these latter can, in turn, be seen as a means of influencing investments and consumption as, for example, during the 1930s. Bank Rate and money supply, too, can be a means of influencing overall demand for commodities, thus influencing production, employment, and prices.

Clearly, too, the goals of Swedish economic policy, after having become increasingly generalized during the laissez-faire period, became steadily more specific. As for the means applied, these can be largely divided into two categories: on the one hand, those, like monetary, currency and financial policy, have a general effect; on the other, such specific means of intervention as regulatory measures, for example, as applied to prices and imports. During the period under consideration economic growth was not a goal of policy; nor did it become so until the 1950s. As long as Sweden was on the gold standard, the aim of policy was a fixed rate of exchange, which was regarded as means of supporting industry and the economy, and therefore as beneficial to the population as a whole.