Erik Bengtsson
Senior lecturer
The Origins of the Swedish Wage Bargaining Model
Author
Summary, in English
This paper revisits the development of the canonical Swedish wage bargaining model, from the 1930s to the 1950s. The question at the core of the debate is: how did Sweden achieve “good” wage bargaining institutions -- good, in the sense of facilitating investment, employment, and controlled inflation? The conventional account focuses on the actions of employers and trade unions in export industry, and a cross-class alliance between the two. This paper questions this account. The paper builds on archival sources in the Swedish Labour Movement's Archives and Library in Stockholm: the minutes from the main trade union confederation's yearly wage policy discussions, in preparation for bargaining rounds. In total, some 1,500 pages of wage policy discussion. I find that the export sector cross-class alliance played a very small role, and that macro-corporatist concerns, that the labour movement had to take responsibility of all of society and pursue a planned wage policy, was much more important. This has theoretical implications for the analysis of wage bargaining institutions in general and the Swedish model in particular.
Department/s
- Department of Economic History
- Growth, technological change, and inequality
Publishing year
2023
Language
English
Pages
162-178
Publication/Series
International Labor and Working-Class History
Volume
103
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Topic
- Economic History
- Work Sciences
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0147-5479