Effects on Swedish Investment and Growth of Membership in the European Union

The first part of the present paper summarizes the Swedish government's official assessment of the economic effects of membership in the European Union (SOU 1994:6, Sverige och Europa: En samhallsekonomisk konsekvensanalys.) The summary is intended as an objective review of the Swedish impact assessment, and focuses on the assessment's analysis of the effects of integration on investment and growth. The assessment concludes that membership will allow increases in Swedish investment ratios and growth rates, and these effects are identified as the most important positive consequences of membership in the EU. The second part of the paper provides a critical discussion of the assessment's analysis of the investment and growth effects. It is argued that some of the assessment's conclusions regarding increases in investment ratios and growth rates are disputable from the point of view of academic economics. More specifically, we lack both the theoretical understanding and the empirical data to make precise predictions about the effects of EU membership on Swedish investment and growth.