Re: Sweden -- A few reactions on the N.Y. Times article

[larson@xxxxxx (S R Larsson)]

>Sven and Per,
>     Obviously both of you have already made your judgments
>and decisions regarding what is best for you in terms of
>your own academic activities.  But is it not the case that
>there remain outposts "in the provinces" of Sweden where
>one can find support for a more traditional Swedish view,
>e.g. Umea, Lulea, Jonkoping, Uppsala, Lund?  Is it not the
>case that this neoclassical takeover has been mainly
>concentrated in Stockholm?  Of course, I understand that
>Sweden is one of those countries where there is a "Primate
>City" that runs nearly everything, and it is Stockholm.
>So, for influencing policy, that may be all that matters.
>Barkley Rosser

Barkley,

I appreciate your interest in Sweden and the development both of its
national economy and its academic institutions. Let me try to answer your
questions. My apologies for a long post.

It is true that Sweden is one of those small countries with one major,
dominant city. Stockholm with its 1,5 million inhab's (including suburbs)
is more than twice as big as the second largest city, Gothenburg. Other
than that there are few major attraction points, so all the fun is
concentrated to Stockholm. This is so not only politically, commercially
and in terms of labor market opportunities, but also academically. Although
there are five universities and eight major colleges outside Stockholm, it
is nevertheless the case that few regional poles can counterweigh the power
and influence of Stockholm. In economics the influence of Stockholm is
striking. A few years ago Assar Lindbeck and his colleagues at IIES tried
to erect one national graduate program in economics, which would (of
course) be conducted from IIES. The universities offering graduate programs
in economics - Umea, Uppsala, Gothenburg and Lund - would be linked to the
program and each department would be hooked on with a special profile. This
never happened, but it would have been a formal institutionalization of
what is a fact today: there is no paradigmatic difference between the
graduate programs in economics offered throughout the country.

But are there really no keynesians in sight, anywhere?

Umea, the northernmost university, has a professor who is well skilled in
mainstream macroeconomics: Karl Gustaf Lovgren. He has a solid (and
well-deserved) reputation as a macroeconomist, but his profile is, again,
mainstream and his participation in public debate is rudimentary. Thus he
does in no way counterweigh the Stockholm push for more neo-classicism, nor
does he attempt to build any alternative to the public perception of what
is a desirable fiscal policy.

Another professor at Umea, Soren Wibe, is currently a Member of the
European Parliament for the social democratic party. I've met him a few
times. He's a 1970s standard keynesian with ambition to change economic
policy from the inside. He made one push at the social democratic party's
national congress last fall, calling for the problem of unemployment to be
ranked higher on the government's agenda than a balanced budget. He won the
congress' approval. The social democratic government has publicly declared
it has no intention to recognize the congress' decision on this matter.
Soren Wibe has done absolutely nothing to enforce the congress's keynesian
ruling - he has been absolutely absent from public debate. Hence the only
keynesian on that scene has vanished.

Uppsala is closely tied in with Stockholm in the sense that they share the
same graduate program of economics. Research is either devoted to high
mathematics (game theory) or applied research within particular fields
(financial economics, labor economics). Uppsala used to have several active
keynesians, but over the past decade-and-a-half those have been pushed
aside by more technically interested economists. (There is a chair in
economics at Uppsala which is defined in the economics of taxation. This
chair is paid for by the finance ministry - guess if the incumbent
professor is a keynesian...) When I aksed one of the top-ranked graduate
students at Uppsala a few years ago why he thought keynesian and classical
unemployment were the same kind of unemployment, he refused to discuss the
matter because it was "history of economic thought". His attitude is widely
shared by other faculty members and grad students at Uppsala.

Gothenburg has concentrated some of its departmental resources on financial
economics. A year-and-half ago I contacted the department to ask if there
was any research there based on Minsky's FIH. I got two kinds of answers:
"Who's that?"; and "He's not rigorous enough." The latter statement is
often used to dismiss Keynes, by the way. No keynesians here.

Lund is at the moment in a bit of a turmoil for reasons I won't discuss
here. There is a graduate program in economics, but several faculty members
in Lund have declared that macroeconomics no longer exists as a field of
research. Consequently there is - to the best of my knowledge - no
macroeconomics taught at higher levels in Lund. Dominant faculty members at
Lund are so libertarian they make Chicago look like a bunch of boyscouts.
(Not kidding!)

Lulea is a college concentrated on engineering, physics and other applied
sciences. There is basically only one economist there, and his political
position competes successfully with that of major Lund economists about
being the most anti-government.

Jonkoping used to be a small college of education and very little else. Now
they have a so called business school headed by a former professor from
Lund, Bo Sodersten. In the 1960s he was a highly cherished socialist
economist. 20 years later he led the crusade against keynesian and marxist
grad students in Lund (a process from which there are several accounts of
witnesses). Jonkoping is no safe haven for a keynesian...

Karlstad, Orebro and Vaxjo are three rather big colleges soon to be
upgraded to universities. There are a couple of economists at either of
these colleges, but not one is a keynesian. They are educated at major
universities and have brought whatever attitudes they gained there with
them to their new places. As new positions are opened at these colleges the
appointments will be governed or supervised by people from the major
universities - people who think keynesian economics is unscientific. (Not
kidding!)

Ostersund, a college where I've taught occasionally, is rather OK in the
sense that people at the major universities leave them alone up there. That
could have become a keynesian safe haven, but there is only one economist
up there with insight in keynesian theory. Moreover, there is no longer a
pure economics department: people over at sociology and government science
persuaded the college to merge three departments into one, so that
economics more or less vanished as a distinct research alternative (meaning
intra-department research funds are directed elsewhere, not to economics -
with all the administrative problems that causes). The only economist there
with some insight in keynesian theory knows that the minute he goes public
about being a keynesian his external research funds will be withdrawn as
though pulled away by an invisible hand. So he prefers to stay mainstream.

I hope this illuminates the matter a bit. I wish in no way to cast any
shadow over Swedish economists working at departments outside the major
centers of power - they are only trying to survive in a system with a power
to draw blood from a stone if that's what it takes to keep keynesians out.
All I want to say is that when I say there is no academic room for
keynesians, I'm not exaggerating. There is no resort, no place to go to.
Zip. Nil. Nothing. (Do keep in mind that the intellectual coup d'état took
place in 1979, and that those who then seized power over academic economics
in Sweden have had 19 years to relentlessly consolidate their position.)

Intellectual monocultures eventually degenerate into intellectual
monocults. Opposition becomes the enemy. Anyone who diverts is punished
("You don't wanna be on the rocks, do ya?") and the monothinking
perpetuates itself. Sad but true.



/srl

-----
Sven Robert Larsson
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