A new GDP series per capita for Sweden during 15601800 is presented, linked to slightly revised data for 18002000. Long-term stagnation up to the nineteenth century is revealed but with secular changes. Growth characterized much of the seventeenth century with modernization of state administration, industry and trade. In the next century, stagnation and even retrogression followed. Wars in the seventeenth century may have stimulated growth, but also exhausted resources. Despite stagnation, the structure of the economy shifted and created preconditions for the modern economic growth that took off in the nineteenth century.