25/05/2005 10:27:35 am
In WSJ: Searching for a Swedish Model. Today, Jacob Arfwedsson and I have an op-ed in Wall Street Journal Europe. Our message is that the current positive reputation of Sweden in terms of prosperity is not only wrong; the truth is the opposite. Sweden is said to combine high taxes with high growth and a high social protection with a high employment. The reality is the opposite:

"The government insists that Sweden can maintain high taxes with high growth. In fact, Swedish growth has been decreasing for 50 years. Currently, Swedish growth is well below that of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, but also lower than that of, for example, Britain, France, Spain and Denmark. In terms of annual private consumption, Sweden is number 19 among the 30 OECD countries. ...

Big government advocates also claim that Sweden has some 75 % of the population of working age in employment. Unemployment referred to as being low; about 6 %, not far from US levels and lower than the EU average. The real picture is totally different, however. The largest trade union, LO, strong supporter of the Social Democrats for more than 100 years, recently admitted that real Swedish unemployment is closer to 20-25 %.

Of the Swedish population of working age (5,8 million), 2,2 million belong to the category ?not at work?, of which 1,4 million live off various government handouts. In 2004, this amounted to 39 % of the population of ?working age?, i.e. almost 4 out of 10 people of working age don?t go to work."

Read the entire article here (Word) - >