Economics in Sweden

While research evaluation has achieved particular significance in the United kingdom, there is growing interest and activity in this area among Scandinavian countries. Funded by the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences this book is a product of the increasing recognition of the importance of evaluations. The principal aim of Economics of Sweden is to locate Swedish economic research in an international setting and from there, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Swedish economics. Throughout, an effort has been made to relate to recent work on evaluation by developing a theoretical foundation for assesing the future of Swedish economic research. The authors have achieved this by maintaining close two-way contact with the profession and by combining different emperical methods. This has taken the form of continuous interaction with the economics profession in seminars and on site visits to various economics departments. Although the study is focused on Sweden the analysis should also be relevent to several other countries, particularly the other Nordic countries, Canada, Australia and Israel. The book is written in a straight-forward style and points and issues raised are reinforced by the use of diagrams and figures. The work divides into two clearly defined parts. Part 1 examines a number of background studies on work organization and input and output. Part 2. comprises the views of the international evaluation commitee, who elaborate on the information presented in Part 1 and make some recommendations for the future. The result is a valuable examination of Swedish economic research in the 1980's and suggestions to improve it in the nineties.