Reform bank

“Public Wealth of Nations” praised by the Economist

15 June, 2015
Democracy and justice system The weekly magazine Economist recommends our latest book ”The Public Wealth of Nations – how management of public assets can boost or bust economic growth”. Palgrave/Macmillan publishes the book on the 22. of june. Read all about it and the debate it is stirring on our dedicated home page. Read more...

“The Public Wealth of Nations” in Foreign Affairs

27 November, 2014
Business environment Democracy and justice system Regulation   Foreign Affairs published an article about the forthcoming book, The Public Wealth of Nations: How Management of Public Assets Can Boost or Bust Economic Growth (Palgrave Macmillan). Most countries’ public wealth is larger than their public debt. While managing debt has become a matter of great concern during the financial crisis, public wealth remains […] Read more...

Renaissance for Reforms

11 March, 2014
Business environment Democracy and justice system Okategoriserade @en Publications The new book Renaissance for Reforms has met wide international interest. It is currently being reviewed in 37 different countries and translations in several languages are planned. Renaissance of Reforms is based on an analysis of 109 governments that completed their term of power in OECD countries between the mid-1990s and 2012. The authors show that governments that introduce market […] Read more...

Twenty five years of Swedish Reforms

7 March, 2014
Okategoriserade @en A new report published by the Reform Institute describes the growth-oriented reforms implemented in Sweden from the early nineties onwards. In the 1990s, the entire tax system was reformed, a public expenditure ceiling was put in place, collective wage bargaining found an entire new form, Sweden entered the EU, state owned monopolies became subject to competition and the fixed […] Read more...

How indebted nations can unlock hidden riches

28 January, 2014
Business environment Innovation @en Regulation In a forthcoming book Dag Detter, Stefan Fölster and additional authors analyze countries´  hidden public wealth, and how it can be converted into a source of growth. Dag Detter is Managing Director of Whetstone and former President of Stattum, the Swedish government holding company, and a Director at the Ministry of Industry. Stefan Fölster, D.phil. […] Read more...

The Life Account – toward a new nordic social security model

8 January, 2014
Health and welfare Labour market Increasingly countries around the world struggle to provide welfare and social security in a world where high unemployment, an aging population and increasing expectations erode public finances. Over the past decades some of the most accomplished economists in the world, such as Josef Stiglitz and Martin Feldstein have identified a method for combining a safety […] Read more...

Now there’s evidence – fewer accidents with less traffic regulation

8 June, 2013
Regulation Transport Many might understand that governmental regulatory authorities have difficulty coming to terms with ideas that less regulation result in better outcomes. But, in road traffic regulation, supporting evidence for this idea is almost irrefutable. Among the first to implement this idea is Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, who radically challenged criteria used in evaluating road […] Read more...

Smart healthcare reform in one of the world’s poorest nations

4 June, 2013
Health and welfare Burundi is known as one of the world’s most poverty stricken nations in absolute terms – plagued by war, corruption, and disease. But still, the country can serve as a good example for a specific reform, at least in healthcare. There, the national healthcare system has implemented quality based reimbursements for care providers. The Burundian […] Read more...

Aid conditioned on reforms

25 March, 2013
Business environment Democracy and justice system Health and welfare Conditional aid was the idea behind the heavily criticised World Bank and IMF strategy that came under the designation ‘Washington Consensus’. The concept involved poor aid recipient countries were required to promise governmental reforms before they could receive aid. But, it didn’t work. Pressure to provide aid resulted in recipient countries getting the aid without […] Read more...

Bureaucracy blocks access to prestige university courses

13 March, 2013
Health and welfare Labour market Regulation The government’s efforts to improve quality in Swedish higher education are overshadowed by dramatic changes in access to prestigious courses from globally ranked universities. But, many Swedish students are still forced to refrain from these internationally respected courses, writes Stefan Fölster, Managing Director for the Reform Institute in Stockholm.  The Swedish National Audit Office found […] Read more...

Index of human development for Swedens’s municipalities

9 March, 2013
Publications The Reform Institute of Stockholm has developed an index that starts with the UN index for human development (HDI – Human Development Indicator). Sweden though, keeps a wider range of statistics, so the number of indicative factors for such an index can be broadened. The Reform Institute has weighed eighteen factors together to compare outcomes […] Read more...

Open the roads for autonomous cars

19 January, 2013
Innovation @en Transport This has long been considered futuristic, but is here today – the US state of Nevada now formally permits ‘driver-less’ automobiles. Autonomous, or driverless, cars are defined as vehicles that use artificial intelligence, sensors and GPS to operate independently without active human intervention. The state legislature passed a law in June 2011, by a large […] Read more...
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How Australia became global leader in entrepreneurship

19 January, 2013
Business environment Australia has the highest share of entrepreneurs per population of all wealthy countries, over 20%. This proportion has climbed steadily for many years and continued even after 2000. Until the financial crisis, Australia had experienced an unbroken 17 year period of economic growth. The main characters in this dynamic economic performance are the country’s entrepreneurs. […] Read more...

Regulatory guillotine helps business climate

19 January, 2013
Business environment Entrepreneurs often run into regulations that are more obstacles to their operations rather than help. Many problematic regulations have passed their best-by-date, implemented long ago under circumstances that no longer exist. Many others were simply designed by a well-meaning bureaucrats who simply had limited understanding of practical entrepreneurial issues. Swedish policy makers are certainly not […] Read more...

Internet helps Azerbaijanis circumvent corruption

19 January, 2013
Business environment A modern tax system is an important reason why Azerbaijan, despite is authoritarian regime and widespread corruption, is one of the world’s most successful reform nations. Since independence in 1991, the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan has been marked by a series of problems. The country still has authoritarian government, and wide-spread corruption. But in […] Read more...

Individual unemployment accounts in Chile

15 January, 2013
Labour market The best part of the Chilean unemployment insurance system is how its individual-linked personal accounts clearly highlights the incentive to work for all, and it does so in a way that those who earn least still find advantageous. Reforms to the system in 2002 increased coverage from barely a third of all those in work, […] Read more...

How indebted nations can unlock hidden riches

Business environment Innovation @en Regulation In a forthcoming book Dag Detter, Stefan Fölster and additional authors analyze countries´  hidden public wealth, and how it can be converted into a source of growth. In the aftermath of the latest financial crisis many countries remain heavily indebted and fettered by fiscal austerity in order to restore budget balance and regain economic growth. […] Read more...

The Life Account – a new nordic social security model

Health and welfare Labour market Increasingly countries around the world struggle to provide welfare and social security in a world where high unemployment, an aging population and increasing expectations erode public finances. Over the past decades some of the most accomplished economists in the world, such as Josef Stiglitz and Martin Feldstein have identified a method for combining a safety […] Read more...