How is the Swedish economy affected by crisis and war? An explorative approach.

Authors:

  • Andreas Johnson
  • Jens Lusua
  • Karl Lallerstedt
  • Maria Hultqvist

Publish date: 2024-04-05

Report number: FOI-R--5556--SE

Pages: 59

Written in: Swedish

Keywords:

  • War
  • crisis
  • gray zone
  • Sweden
  • macroeconomics

Abstract

The aim of the report is to analyse how the Swedish economy can be affected by crisis and war. The report uses macroeconomics as a theoretical framework to enable a systematic analysis of the research objective. Three scenarios for crisis and war have been developed. The scenarios are assumed to occur in the near future and represent an extended course of events in order to allow economic effects to have an impact over time. The scenarios are combined with economic theory as well as historic experiences of how war affects the economy in order to generate an expected economic outcome in each scenario. The large amount of uncertainty surrounding the economic impact of crisis and war implies that the scenarios primarily illustrate possible effects rather than provide detailed forecasts. The impact on the Swedish economy differs between the scenarios. However, private consumption is expected to fall markedly while government expenditure increases driven by rising costs caused by the war effort. Sweden is a small, open economy having a minor currency and a substantial amount of international trade. This is expected to result in the currency weakening, rising interest rates, as well as trade distortion - all having a substantially negative economic impact.