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In this chapter, we will study how the shift from a fixed exchange rate regime to a floating exchange rate regime and an independent Riksbank working toward an explicit inflation target took place in Sweden in the early and mid-1990s. Until the beginning of the 1990s, the overriding view among economists and politicians but also in the business community and partly in the trade unions was that a fixed exchange rate was the norm around which economic policy should be based. But in November 1992 it was impossible to maintain the exchange rate and the fixed exchange rate was abandoned, and the shift from the deeply rooted idea of a fixed exchange rate to the new system took place during a very short period. A central theme of the chapter will be the importance of ideas and their role in changing economic regulations and institutional conditions. The central role the Riksbank itself played in reformulating its policy will, therefore, be under scrutiny. The chapter concludes by discussing how the current regime can be seen in relation to general economic developments from 1993 to 2023.

Denna text är tillägnad professor Lena Andersson-Skog och fokus för denna skrift är jubilarens födelseår 1959. I detta kapitel ska förutsättningar för långsiktig ekonomisk tillväxt diskuteras med utgångspunkt i den amerikanska ekonomen Robert J. Gordons forskning.

Gordon har framfört den något provocerande tesen att den moderna tillväxten är över. Gordon går till och med så långt att han menar att världen upplevde en topp i den teknologiska utvecklingen i brytpunkten mellan 1950-och 1960-talet. Frågan man kan ställa sig är om 1959 i nån mening kan symbolisera en brytpunkt i den ekonomiska historien.

Resten av texten är upplagd på följande sätt. Först ges en översiktlig presentation av Gordons argument och kritik mot dessa. Därefter sätts Gordons resonemang in i ett mer komparativt perspektiv där särskilt fokus läggs på den svenska utvecklingen.

This article constitutes a first attempt to systematically map the presence of women in the greatly changing Swedish advertising industry since 1930. The overarching aim of the study is to analyse how the gendered divisions of labour and business changed in relation to both business structure and the overall labour market in Sweden. While we conclude that women constituted around 40–50% of the workforce over time, we see an increase in the shares of women in higher positions and in women who were self-employed and managers. This upturn, however, stabilised during the 1990s. We argue that the changes in gendered divisions of labour and business coincided with a fast-changing business structure. First, the old cartel broke down in the mid-1960s. Then, the number of firms increased quickly during the 1970s and 1980s, and the market share for the largest firms declined. This, in turn, meant new business opportunities for women at the same time as their overall labour market participation increased. The article stresses the importance of both acknowledging women’s presence in the industry development as well as the structures constituting gender divisions.