Comment

Summary

Wadensjö's paper is an important contribution to our understanding of how the notions of the Stockholm School arose with special regard to the interplay between economic theory and politics. His findings seem to reinforce the conclusions previously reached by Karl-Gustav Landgren in his book on the rise of the new economics in Sweden from 1927 to 1939 published in 1960, namely, that the chief architect of the new economic policy and, in fact, the most consistent advocate of the new theoretical insights was Ernst Wigforss; and that the only academic economist who at an early stage succeeded in liberating himself from the preconceptions of the old theory was Bertil Ohlin. Ohlin was actually the only member of the Stockholm economists who came close to a theory of output as a whole. One point of considerable interest in Wadensjö's paper is his discovery that Ohlin, under pressure from Hammarskjöld and others, published a somewhat emasculated version of his theory in his supplement to the report from the Committee on Unemployment. Wadensjö's concluding reflections on the considerable dependence of the Stockholm economists upon governmental assignment (e.g., the Committee on Unemployment) for developing their theoretical work raises interesting questions that are worthy of further consideration.