The entrepreneur in the Swedish model

Throughout the postwar period, the Swedish industrial sector has been domin ated by a limited number of very large, capital intensive firms. One import ant explanation to this fact is that the economic policies pursued have bee n highly favorable for such firms. In addition to this explanation, it is i mportant to evaluate how the general climate in society may affect the moti vation of potential small firms or firms considering expanding. If nothing else, the social and political climate might offer clues about the future b usiness climate, which could reasonably be expected to affect; decisions ab out starting a new business, expansion of incumbent firms, ct cetera. In th is study I convey a broad picture of the thinking about entrepreneurship an d business formation that lay behind the political decisions from the mid 1 950s to the early 1980s, which resulted in the rules of the game that benef ited large, well-established, capital intensive firms and disfavored small, new, labor intensive and human capital intensive firms.. The key aspects t hat are dealt with are: the conviction that large firms offered a sufficien t vehicle for industrial renewal and private sector growth, the view that i t was possible to achieve a favorable business climate without reasonably s trong individual incentives, the emphasis on physical capital formation as the key to economic growth, the treatment of private property rights, and t he evolution of attitudes towards entrepreneurship and business activity in the electorate.