ABSTRACT
Full employment and basic service provision have for a long time been prioritized in Swedish regional policy, mainly oriented towards sparsely populated regions with a lagging industrial structure. It seems that equal stress is now put on stimulating economic growth in all regions. The central government has through its Ministry of Industry invited all regions (counties) to design programs for regional economic growth, which will be negotiated for co-financing at the central level (Prop. 1997/98:62). The idea behind these growth accords was to obtain better co-operation between various actors that are instrumental in creating growth. An important point in this new policy is to increase the region’s influence over how resources are used.
