The economy of Sweden is a developed diverse economy, aided by timber, hydropower and iron ore. These constitute the resource base of an economy oriented toward foreign trade. The main industries include motor vehicles, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, industrial machines, precision equipments, chemical goods, home goods and appliances, forestry, iron and steel.
Sweden is a highly competitive capitalist economy with a generous and universal welfare state that distributes income across the entire society, a model sometimes called the Nordic model. Approximately 90% of resources and firms are privately-owned, with 5% owned by the state and another 5% operating as consumer or producer cooperatives.
Because Sweden, as a neutral country, did not actively participate in World War II, it did not have to rebuild its economic base, banking system, and country as a whole, as many other European countries did. Sweden has achieved a high standard of living under a mixed system of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits. Sweden has the second highest total tax revenue behind Denmark, as a share of the country's income. As of 2011, total tax revenue was 44.4% of GDP, down from 48.3% in 2006.
Read more about Economy Of Sweden: History, Contemporary Economy, Economic and Monetary Union, Unemployment, Trade Unions, Labour Force, Ongoing Privatisations
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“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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