Guest Post by Dan Klein
My wife and daughter are Swedish and live in
The local schools recently had a fair at the shopping mall. Here is a dance routine by some of the children.
[UPDATE: The family of one of the children has requested that their child not appear on the internet, so the video has been removed.]
My daughter Rebecca is the blond in the gray and purple Hello Kitty. Her boyfriend Yosef is in black Star Wars.
At the fair, 48 schools and pre-schools in the
Research published in the Journal of Public Economics, too, finds Swedish vouchers a success. (Ungated here.)
It was implement the last time (1991-1994)
The reform was opposed by the more statist parties, the Social Democrat and Left Parties.
The more liberal parties are in power again. Recently they authorized privatization of about half of the government pharmacies. Again the statists opposed the reform. The next election is this September, and the more statist coalition is ahead in the polls.
You want community? Give people choice.
I’ve written a bit on the theme here.
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Dan,
I'm in Sweden at the moment (I was born here although I emigrated 15 years ago). I'm totally mystified by the Swedish electorate. The choice in Sweden seems to be between an extremely moderate (perhaps even center-left by international standards) coalition and a hard left opposition coalition than includes a good number of Marxists. The government is a mixed bag, but they seem reasonably competent and have actually achieved some consumer-friendly things while in power (school vouchers, privatization of pharmacies, liberalization of opening hours, minor tax cuts which still leaves Sweden as the 3rd nost heavily taxed country in the world) And yet the opposition is ahead by 10 percentage points. I really don't get it (in Sweden the word "liberal" is considered dangerously right wing, and "socialist" seems to be considered mainstream).
Posted by: David EA | January 26, 2010 at 01:29 AM
David: Yeah, neither do I.
Posted by: Daniel Klein | January 26, 2010 at 05:09 PM
My sister is a student in Finland and the culture there is pretty similar to Sweeden from what I heard (no school voucher system however). One thing strikes you : the people are very individualistic and self-reliant, too individualistic maybe for someone from the further South for instantce, and yet community and "community welfare schmes" are the words on everyone's lips - it's always a very big issue. It's something quite puzzling, isn't it?
Posted by: Bogdan Enache | January 27, 2010 at 12:56 PM