Erik Bengtsson

Senior lecturer

The politics of profits: Profit squeeze and political-economic change in Sweden, 1975–1985

Author

Erik Bengtsson

Summary, in English

In the late 1970s, the Swedish economy faced a profit squeeze which threatened to hamper investments and hence the creation of jobs. This engendered a massive debate in the media and among economists and policymakers. This paper investigates the discussion of “the politics of profits”, the policy measures directed towards manipulating the distribution between capital income and labour income in the Swedish economy from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. The paper indicates that the capital-labour distribution varied significantly over time and that this became a major issue of debate, and shows the relevance of “the politics of profits” for analyses of economic policy change in the 1970s and 1980s.

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