Sweden in 2004
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Case Code: ECOA120 Case Length: 15 Pages Period: 2004 Pub Date: 2004 Teaching Note: Not Available |
Price: Rs.300 Organization : - Industry : - Countries : Sweden Themes: - |
Abstract Case Intro 1 Excerpts
Excerpts
Background Note
Early History
In the early decades of the 20th century, agriculture dominated the Swedish economy. Consolidation of farmlands forced many to emigrate, mainly to North America. More than one million out of a population of five million left the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
Recent Developments
In the early 1990s, global recession hit Sweden especially hard. Between 1990 and 1993 GDP dropped by 5 percent, and the number of jobs fell by almost 10 percent...
The Economy
Economic growth in Sweden slowed to an estimated 1.5% in 2003, down from 1.8% in 2002. The impact of the global economic downturn continued to weigh on capital spending and foreign demand. The Swedish economy was expected to remain fairly sluggish in 2004-05, due to the impact of a stronger krona, a tighter fiscal policy, and the weak state of the economies in the Euro Zone...
Industry
One of the most industrialized countries, Sweden was ranked relatively high in business rankings. Its main strengths were a stable macroeconomic environment, a high degree of political stability, a welcoming environment for foreign investment and excellent infrastructure...
Foreign Trade
Export earnings accounted for about 30 per cent of Sweden's GDP. Major exports included engineering products, (typically 48.8 per cent of total), forest products (18.2 per cent), minerals (10.1 per cent), chemicals (9.2 per cent), oil and petroleum products (2.9 per cent), foodstuffs (2.1 per cent) and textiles and footwear (2 per cent. Main destinations were the US (10.9 per cent of 2001 total), Germany (9.8 per cent), the UK (7.4 per cent), Norway (6 per cent) and Denmark (5.8 per cent)...
Social Policies
The Swedish model, essentially represented a high level of state provision of welfare and pension security financed by a high degree of economic liberalization that aimed at increasing output, employment and tax revenues. But, the model was not built to take into account the pressures of globalization and shifting demographics. A low post war birth rate, attributed by some to Sweden's famous sexual liberation of the 1960s and a higher than normal percentage of older males, a consequence of the country's Second World War neutrality had left Sweden with a shortage of young people willing to do low to middle level jobs and a large proportion of fit, elderly folk entitled to retire on very generous pensions when they reached 60...
Politics and Government
The Swedish constitution was based on three fundamental principles: the sovereignty of the people, representative democracy and parliamentary government. The parliament (Riksdag) exercised its democratic power through the government. In 1970, the bicameral system of parliament was replaced with a directly elected single chamber, which had 349 members...
Future Outlook
The sustainability of the Swedish model was critically dependent upon the ability of the government to maintain high levels of public spending using tax receipts from high earning businesses, which employed 80 per cent of the population...
Exhibits
Exhibit I: Fact Sheet
Exhibit II: Economic Data
Exhibit III: Exports & Imports
Exhibit IV: General Elections Results
Exhibit V: Social Indicators and Living Standards - 2003
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