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The Swedish Model on the labor market has been celebrated as a way to combine mobility with low unemployment and small wage gaps. As part of the model, relocation allowances were pioneered from the late 1950s. The program expanded thereafter and as much as 1% of the population in the high-unemployment north moved with assistance in the 1960s. Today, migration incentives are discussed to address pressing unemployment problems in Europe and the United States. What can Sweden's experience tell us about the prospects of such programs? This article studies the usage of relocation allowances through a case study of Västernorrland County from 1965 to 1975. The analysis shows that there was a strong selection into the program by younger persons, recent graduates and from sectors with good employment prospects. The experience from Sweden highlights the difficulty of implementing programs to induce migration for those with the highest risk of unemployment.

Sweden is often cited as one of the starkest examples of a country where corporatist policy structures and centralized wage bargaining produced remarkable economic and social outcomes in the postwar golden years. Not surprisingly, previous explanations for Sweden's full employment period have emphasized this set of labor market institutions which was in place from the 1950s. Alternatively, temporary demand-factors in connection with the Second World War have been stressed as a cause. In this paper, I examine the development of unemployment in Sweden in the 1930s and 1940s and establish two facts: i) unemployment fell continuously from the mid-1930s until immediately after the end of the Second World War, resulting in the low levels of unemployment that would characterize the postwar period, and ii) inflation did not spiral as a result, suggesting restraint in wages over the same period. The fact that unemployment fell before the establishment of Sweden's postwar labor market institutions suggest that they were not the cause for the full employment economy. The absence of escalating inflation likewise rules out temporary demand-factors such as Keynesian economic stimulus and military conscription. The failure of these factors to explain the change suggests instead that exogenous forces shifted the relationship between wages and unemployment during this period, lining up with similar observations for the UK. The results have implications for the literature on the determinants of unemployment, indicating that neither corporatist institutions nor expansionary fiscal policy played a role in the shift to full employment in Sweden - one of the marking examples of postwar economic success.

The Swedish model is perceived as a successful framework for combining rapid labor market adjustment with low inequality. Formulated by Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner and implemented from the 1950s, it has been associated with the peak in economic restructuring and interregional migration during the 1960s. However, there is little empirical evidence for this. This thesis consists of an introduction and four essays. It explores three aspects of the model from a long-run perspective: interregional migration, wage dispersion and labor market policy. Essay I uses new data to track interregional migration rates in the postwar period (1945-1985). The results show that the responsiveness of interregional migration to local labor market conditions remained stable over time; it was neither higher during the 1960s nor lower when migration declined after 1970. Essay II employs a regression-decomposition framework to analyze the evolution of wage dispersion. The results suggest that wage dispersion was stable from centralized bargaining's introduction in 1956 to the late 1960s. Afterwards, there was a rapid decline, likely because of solidaristic bargaining. Essay III contrasts the implementation of the active labor market policy to regional policy. Following a decisive shift around 1970, the focus on north to south mobility was replaced with policies to stimulate northern employment. Declining rural support for the Social Democrats and electoral competition from the Center Party caused this shift. Finally, Essay IV is a case study about mobility subsidy usage in Västernorrland County using sources on relocation allowances from 1965, 1970 and 1975. The results indicate that in the 1960s there was strong selection into the program by young persons with good labor market prospects. However, the program's use did not change after the regional policy shift in the early 1970s. The collective results suggest that the policies associated with the Swedish model were minor for economic restructuring patterns. The migrations of the 1960s and the decline in regional disruptions after 1970 should instead be explained by studying the consequences of structural changes, how regions were progressively affected differently and the possible role that government policies played in directing demand for labor across space.

AbstractIn this paper we present the first estimate of the full income distribution in pre‐industrial Sweden (including present‐day Finland). We draw on the schedule and the individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the 1613 Älvsborg ransom taxation to estimate income inequality, as well as the income shares of the top quantiles and of various social groups. We find that Sweden was relatively equal compared with other early modern European societies, for two main reasons: first, because the nobility, the clergy, the burghers, and other middle‐rank social groups all held relatively small shares of the total income, and second, because the landless groups were less numerous in Sweden than in other societies. This resulted in a large share of the total income going to the relatively homogeneous group of landed peasants, who made up the majority of the population. Our study thus speaks to the political historiography of early modern Sweden, within which negotiation and collaboration between the landed peasantry and the state has been seen as pivotal to the state formation process.

AbstractWe use a unique source from the Swedish royal demesnes to examine the work and relative wages of women in sixteenth‐century Sweden, an economic laggard in the early modern period. The source pertains to workers hired on yearly contracts, a type more representative of historical labour markets than day labour on large construction sites, and this allows us to observe directly the food consumed by workers. We speak to the debate on the 'little divergence' within Europe, as women's work and gender differentials in pay is a key indicator of women's relative autonomy and seen as a cause for the economic ascendency of the North Sea region during the period. We find small gender differentials among both unskilled and skilled workers, indicating that Sweden was a part of the 'golden age' for women. We argue that despite superficial equality, women's economic outlooks were restrained in many other ways – including their access to higher‐skilled work and jobs in the expanding parts of the economy – adding important nuance to the discussion about the relationship between women's social position and economic growth in the early modern period.

There is a widespread perception that present-day Nordic egalitarianism is the outcome of a long historical continuity, where the strong political position of peasant farmers and weak feudalism were marking characteristics of pre-industrial society. However, little empirical evidence so far exists on the distribution of income for the early modern period. In this paper, we draw on the schedule and individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the tax-burden associated with the Älvsborg ransom to estimate income inequality and the share of income accruing to top income earners and to different social groups in the Swedish realm (present-day Sweden and Finland) in 1613. Using this information, we are able to speak to several debates on pre-industrial distribution of income and historical inequality in the Nordic countries. We find that the income share of the richest one percent was 13 percent while the share of the top 0.01 percent stood at 2 percent. Sweden was characterized by a twopronged social structure where a large share of income was held by the absolute top as well as by the peasants who made up the majority of the population, while the nobility, clergy, burghers and other middle-rank groups held relatively small income shares not least due to their small population numbers. This finding helps explain the relatively strong position of peasants as a fourth estate within the early modern Swedish parliament. While Sweden in the early seventeenth century was relatively equal compared to other contemporary societies, the egalitarian social structure was upended over the subsequent centuries resulting in vast economic and political inequality by the late nineteenth century. Thus, there is no apparent continuity between early modern equality and post-WW2 egalitarianism.

There is a widespread perception that present-day Nordic egalitarianism is the outcome of a long historical continuity, where the strong political position of peasant farmers and weak feudalism were marking characteristics of pre-industrial society. However, little empirical evidence so far exists on the distribution of income for the early modern period. In this paper, we draw on the schedule and individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the tax-burden associated with the Älvsborg ransom to estimate income inequality and the share of income accruing to top income earners and to different social groups in the Swedish realm (present-day Sweden and Finland) in 1613. Using this information, we are able to speak to several debates on pre-industrial distribution of income and historical inequality in the Nordic countries. We find that the income share of the richest one percent was 13 percent while the share of the top 0.01 percent stood at 2 percent. Sweden was characterized by a two- pronged social structure where a large share of income was held by the absolute top as well as by the peasants who made up the majority of the population, while the nobility, clergy, burghers and other middle-rank groups held relatively small income shares not least due to their small population numbers. This finding helps explain the relatively strong position of peasants as a fourth estate within the early modern Swedish parliament. While Sweden in the early seventeenth century was relatively equal compared to other contemporary societies, the egalitarian social structure was upended over the subsequent centuries resulting in vast economic and political inequality by the late nineteenth century. Thus, there is no apparent continuity between early modern equality and post-WW2 egalitarianism.

Using new and uniquely detailed data, we examine how construction workers' wages in Sweden developed between 1831 and 1900. Wages grew rapidly from the 1850s, and comparisons with Northwestern Europe show that Swedish workers benefited more from growth than workers elsewhere. Globalization forces, most notably overseas migration, in combination with flexible and well-integrated labor markets—signified by strong regional convergence, falling skill differentials, and small urban-rural wage gaps—pushed up wages in Sweden.

Will technical change spur conflicts in the labor market? In this study, we examine electricity adoption in Sweden during the first decades of the twentieth century. Exploiting that proximity to hydropowered plants shaped the electricity network independently of previous local conditions, we estimate the impact of electricity on labor strikes. Our results indicate that electricity adoption preceded an increase in conflicts, but strikes were of an offensive nature and most common in sectors with increasing labor demand. This suggests that electrification provided workers with a stronger bargaining position from which they could voice their claims.