Studies in Economic Instability and Change

This selection of Lundberg’s writings from a career comprising more than five decades begins with his first work, the licentiate thesis of 1930, and ends with his last publication written shortly before his death in 1987. 37 essays, reviews and other texts are included. A prime objective of the volume is to illuminate Lundberg’s renowned dissertation of 1937, Studies in the Theory af Economic Expansion. To this end the anthology offers hitherto unpublished manuscripts documenting Lundberg’s early work and studies at Stockholm University during the 1920s and as a Rockefeller fellow in the US during the Depression in the 1930s. It also contains selections intended to counter misunderstandings concerning how his work was related to Keynes’s General Theory.

Other selections serve to illuminate Lundberg’s later more empirical contributions to macroeconomics, such as his analyses of inflationary gaps and wage -(tax)-multipliers, his discovery and exploration of the Horndal effect related to his research on ex ante and ex post returns on investment, and his comparative research on the stabilization records of various countries with important findings about the causes of policy failures. However, the major objective of the volume is to show that Lundberg’s claim to posthumous fame derives not only from his pioneering work on scientific frontier issues but also from his performance in applied economics as a critic and advisor on policy problems. In the anthology Lundberg emerges as both a prudent and provocative commentator on the paradoxes and policy dilemmas relating to the “rise and fall” of the Swedish Model.

The book abounds with judicious assessments of central works by important Swedish and non-Swedish economists including thoughtful reminiscences and perceptive portraits of them as teachers and colleagues.

An obituary by W. J. Baumol and a bio-biographical postscript by the editor complete the volume.