ABSTRACT
Restrictive business practices were a widespread phenomenon during the interwar years. Cartels and other forms of business collusion were understood as a means to stabilise the economy and received wide support from the business community, interest groups and the political establishment. However, a new conception of competition issues emerged after the Second World War. This was, in many respects, a response to demands for increased international cross-border competition. Changes in competition policies took place in most European market economies and beyond, but with substantial differences in aim and scope. Sweden, a neutral country during the war, was surely influenced by these new conceptions.
