Finance and the Welfare State

This book explores the Swedish experience of banking development, regulation and financial crisis from 1900 to 2015. It puts the experiences of the past in the context of today's debate on the future of banking, and argues that the experiences of the Global Financial Crisis that started in 2007 warrants new understandings of the role of bank regulation. The book also analyses how shifts in bank regulations are usually part of more general policy shifts in society, which are in turn connected to both pragmatic and ideological considerations. In the case of Sweden the shift towards more  extensive bank regulations after World War II was closely related to the development of the welfare state. Such shifts in policy and regulations are generally international, and the book also explores how the Swedish national policy has interacted with international developments. 

Mats Larsson is Professor of Economic History at Uppsala University, and Head of Uppsala Centre for Business History, Sweden. His research focuses on business and financial history, and he has published extensively in both of these fields. He is a member of the editorial board of the Business History journal, and one of the leaders of the internationally coordinated project Uses of the Past in International Economic Relations, which studies the use of history in dealing with present financial crisis.

Gabriel Söderberg is a researcher in the Department of Economic History at Uppsala University, Sweden. He combines research in economic history with a position as an economist at the Swedish central bank (The Riksbank), where he works in banking regulation and financial stability. He is the co-author of The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn.