The Rise and the Fall of the Restricted Swedish Model

In English Abstract
The paper offers an interpretation of institutional change in the Swedish labour market 1920-2000 within a rational choice model, where . Institu-tional change is understood as an endogenous process linked to the long-term pattern of growth and transformation of the Swedish economy. The paper follows the rise and the fall of a set of rules, norms and beliefs labelled ‘The Restricted Swedish Model’ and demonstrates that its construction as well as its dismantling may be interpreted as the rational response by employers and trade unions to conditions formed by prevailing institutions and two exogenous parameters, the nature of technological change and the level of foreign competition.