A Drawn-Out Retreat from Corporatism: The Reluctant Restructuring of the Swedish Capital Market

Abstract

An important case of economical internationalisation is the deregulation of the formerly nationally organised credit markets. Governments performed this process of deregulation all over the industrialised world during the period 1970-1990. In a comparison between the OECD-countries the differences in timing and sequence between countries are quite large. Comparatively Sweden was a late comer to deregulation. As regards its structures for allocation of credits and venture capital in the economic system, the aim of this paper is to contribute a historical and institutional understanding of the Swedish political economy, an understanding from which the late deregulation seems both rational and plausible. Generalising from the Swedish case, the paper also suggest a possible pattern of post-war institutional change, where nationally and historically embedded institutions were replaced by international and market based institutions.