The Role of Local Banks in Sweden's Growth

Microcredit and local financing are often highlighted as success factors for growth in agrarian environments. However, the evidence for this is weak. This project aims to determine the significance of the local banks', savings banks', and agricultural funds for the Swedish growth miracle by studying the Swedish rural municipalities. The savings banks and agricultural funds were gradually opened, starting during the first part of the 19th century, for a period of about a hundred years, in the Swedish countryside and replaced informal lenders. The successive expansion enables a causal evaluation.