The Third Industrial Revolution Revisited: Sweden Between Three Crises 1990–2020

A discussion point since at least three decades has been the Third Industrial Revolution, its origin and long-term effects. This chapter discusses to what extent this concept has been useful in order to understand the upsurge of structural growth and development and to which degree it still can be used also now some decades into the twenty-first century. The case here is Sweden from the early 1990s up to the beginning of the 2020s and how this revolution has shaped the economic development in relation to the three crises occurring during this period, the 1990s, 2009 and after 2020. It is argued here that the Swedish case cannot be treated as a mere implementation of ICT technology and as a digital revolution. Also, its wider implication of division of labour, skill requirements, cultural and institutional change must be acknowledged. Here two distinct periods of economic growth and transformation are noted: the almost Schumpeterian-like growth jump in the latter half of the 1990s up to 2008 and the period of sluggish growth and productivity after the financial crash of 2009 and the Euro-crisis shortly thereafter. Thus, the Swedish case fits well to the recognition of an upsurge of economic growth that we can call a Third Industrial Revolution up to 2008, but also to raise doubts to which extent this transformation has been seriously halted during the 2010s up to now with a regime of slower growth, lack of structural change and low productivity.