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영어

The financial crisis of Sweden in early 1990s was caused mainly by the policy mistakes of ‘the third way’ policy pursued by social democratic government in 1980s. The economic boom caused by the financial liberalization and the aggressive depreciation of the third way policy formed bubble economy in real estate sector. As the bubble burst out in early 1990s, the finance companies and banks which had given much loan to the real estate sector were caught in crisis, and the crisis spread out into whole economy. The bourgeois coalition governmen intervened promptly and wisely and thereby succeeded in rescuing the Swedish economy from the crisis soon. At the last stage of the financial crisis, the Swedish crown was caught in the currency speculation by the international financial capital. To solve the currency crisis, the Swedish government gave up the fixed exchange rate system and introduced the floating exchange rate
system. After transition into the floating exchange rate system, the Swedish government introduced the inflation targeting as the main principle for managing macro economy. And in 1998, the social democratic government amended the law concerning the legal state of the central bank. The new law enhanced the independency of the central bank and made it the sole task of the central bank to check inflation. And in late 1990s, the social democratic government
introduced new rule for budget process for checking budget increase. By these policy reforms, the transition into the monetarist macroeconomic policy regime was completed. And the industrial policies and labor market policies were much liberalized, but the universal welfare state based on high tax is still maintained. I would call the current state of the Swedish Model as ‘the monetarist social democratic model’. The sustainability of the new Swedish Model would be tested by the current global economic crisis.