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Social Democracy and the Decline of Strikes

Jakob Molinder, Tobias Karlsson and Kerstin Enflo
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Tobias Karlsson: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden

No 222, Lund Papers in Economic History from Lund University, Department of Economic History

Abstract: This paper tests if a strong labor movement leads to fewer industrial conflicts. The focus is on Sweden between the first general election in 1919 and the famous Saltsjöbaden Agreement in 1938, a formative period when the country transitioned from fierce labor conflicts to a state of industrial peace. Using panel data techniques to analyze more than 2,000 strikes in 103 Swedish towns, we find that a shift of municipal political majority towards the Social Democrats led to a significant decline in local strike activity, but only in towns where union presence was strong. The strike-reducing mechanism is related to corporatist explanations rather than increased social spending in municipal budgets.

Keywords: power resource theory; industrial conflicts; strikes; labor markets; local politics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H53 J51 N34 N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2021-05-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his, nep-lab and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0222

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