Pay Policy in Sweden — Problems and Trends

Background There are several factors behind the current economic crisis in Sweden that started in the mid‐Seventies and which will certainly remain a feature of the economic landscape for the greater part of the 1980s. We import more oil per capita than any other country. For a few years in the Seventies we gave ourselves pay rises that were substantially higher than in the rest of the world. To these causes should be added the rapidly rising cost of our swelling public sector.