Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Assar Lindbeck: an appreciation

Thorvaldur Gylfason 21st September 2020

The Swedish economist’s life of rich activity straddled theory and policy—and painting.

Assar Lindbeck
Thorvaldur Gylfason

Assar Lindbeck was a towering figure in Swedish economics and in Swedish political life. An uncommonly impressive public intellectual, he was also a singularly successful academic entrepreneur and leader.

From 1971 onwards, he built up the Institute for International Economic Studies at the University of Stockholm, founded by his predecessor and Nobel laureate, Gunnar Myrdal. He turned it into an economic research centre of international renown, attracting younger generations of Swedish researchers as well as visiting scholars, including myself (1978-96). 

Assar was unusual in that his own research attracted international attention mainly after he reached middle age, when many other economists peak. His world-class activity continued apace, without interruptions, until his death at age 90 on August 28th. Shortly before, the European Economic Review, one of Europe’s most prestigious economics journals, accepted yet another paper of his for publication.

Firmly anchored

Assar was also unusual in that his research work was, virtually without exception, firmly anchored in practical policy considerations. His insistence on policy relevance in his academic work, on economic systems, labour markets, the Swedish economy, the welfare state and so on, constituted a firm foundation and framework for his active participation in public debate at home and abroad. 

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

An avid reader of and contributor to newspapers, he had both feet firmly on the ground. Always balanced, considerate and polite in his popular writings, he did not seek controversy, nor did he avoid controversy when required. 

Perhaps his biggest public fight was against the Social Democrats’ proposal in the 1970s for wage-earner funds. The proposal originated from LO, the Swedish trade union confederation. Its aim was to grant union representatives direct influence on business investment and thus to create a counterweight to the owners of capital and promote economic democracy. Assar however saw the proposal as a prescription for the collectivisation of corporate ownership and thereby a threat to the pluralism of Swedish society. 

In operation from 1983 to 1991, the funds proved short-lived and inconsequential. The episode led Assar to leave the party after 35 years of membership and ended his close friendship with the prime minister, Olof Palme, a collaborator since their student days in Uppsala in the 1950s.

Clear-eyed candour

Another important contribution Assar made to his country was the Lindbeck commission report of 1993. A collection of 113 concrete and daring proposals, this sought to chart Sweden’s recovery from a relative economic decline exacerbated by the financial crisis which struck the region in 1991. The report identified fundamental, systemic problems in Swedish society which had built up over a long time. With clear-eyed candour, it recommended comprehensive economic, political and civic reforms under four headings: stability, efficiency, growth and democracy. 

To their credit, the Swedish government and opposition took the criticism directed at them seriously. A significant part of the advice offered in the report was implemented. 


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Assar was also instrumental in the establishment of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also known as the Nobel prize in economics. He served on the prize committee from the outset (1969-94) and as its chair from 1980. It has now been awarded 51 times to 84 laureates.

Exceptionally versatile 

Unlike some of his world-renowned Swedish predecessors, such as Myrdal, who for many years served as a high official at the United Nations, and Bertil Ohlin, also a Nobel laureate, who sat in parliament for 32 years, Assar devoted his long and distinguished career exclusively to economics, with unfailing enthusiasm and energy. An exceptionally versatile economist, he applied his varied talents across a wide range of topics, from pure theory to applied policy-oriented and empirical studies. True to his social-democratic upbringing in the far north of Sweden in the 1930s and 1940s, his research work as well as his journalism was driven by a predominant interest in boosting economic and social efficiency through better economic policies and better organisation, thereby elevating ordinary people’s standard of life. He never veered from that goal. 

Among Assar´s 26 published books, one became a bestseller and was translated into more than 20 languages. This was The Political Economy of the New Left (1971). He wrote it during 1968-69, when he was visiting professor at Columbia University in New York and then at the University of California at Berkeley as the US expanded its war in Vietnam. 

Essentially sympathetic to many of the demands made by the students in revolt, Assar spotted an inconsistency in their arguments: they expressed opposition to both free markets and central planning. Thus, the short book became a study of comparative economic systems, a good social democrat’s defense of a mixed market economy, given the abject failure of central planning in communist countries, clearly visible already then to Assar. Paul Samuelson at MIT, having heard Assar present his case at a seminar, insisted on gaining his permission to send the manuscript to a publisher (Harper and Row), writing a long foreword full of praise.

‘A kind of complementarity’

In my interview with Assar published in Macroeconomic Dynamics in 2005, my final question to him was: ‘Assar, you paint. You have exhibited your paintings in Stockholm on three occasions since 1997. … Is there a connection between your painting and your work as an economist? Or do you inhabit two separate worlds that do not speak to one another?’

Assar answered:

The main connection is a kind of complementarity. Research is a highly specialised activity. Many researchers, as well as other specialists, have a need to broaden their lives by also doing something quite different. In my case, this happens to be painting and music. Otherwise, I do not see much of a relation, or even similarity, between economic research and painting. Visual art operates via suggestion, while research operates via analysis. Some paintings, though not mine, may influence people’s attitudes to various societal phenomena, for instance, by showing the horrors of war (such as in Goya) or misery due to poverty (such as in Kollwitz). But I have never seen any painting that has helped me understand how economic, political or social systems function. To provide such understanding is the task of scientific research, although artistic activities other than visual art occasionally may help us understand how a society functions. Literature is, perhaps, the most obvious example—from the time of the ancient dramas to Dickens and Solzhenitsyn.

Assar was like that. His whole professional life he was an inspiration to younger colleagues and admirers as well as a loyal friend. To ordinary Swedes from all walks of life, his was a voice of reason. He was full of warmth, wisdom and wit, to which his fine autobiography—unfortunately only in Swedish, Ekonomi är att välja (2012)—bears witness. 

His voice is now silent but his work—his papers, his books, his paintings—will live on and remind us of him and who he was: ein guter Mensch, as the Germans say, a great economist and good man whom many of us will miss deeply.

Thorvaldur Gylfason

Thorvaldur Gylfason is professor of economics at the University of Iceland and Research Fellow at CESifo (Center for Economic Studies) at the University of Munich. A Princeton PhD, he has worked at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, taught at Princeton and edited the European Economic Review.

Home ・ Economy ・ Assar Lindbeck: an appreciation

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Sakharov,nuclear,Khrushchev Unhappy birthday, Andrei SakharovNina L Khrushcheva
Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube