Economic crime report 2004 - Ekobrottsmyndigheten

14. Research on Economic Crime 15
Swedish research on economic crime has long been neglected. In 1998-
2002, BRÅ provided SEK 26 million in grants to promote such research.
The source of the initiative was the Government’s 1995 strategy for combating
economic crime, a cornerstone of which was the need for greater
knowledge in the area.
In White-Collar Crime Research. Old Views and Future Potentials – Lectures
and Papers from a Scandinavian Seminar, published by BRÅ in 2001,
Sven-Åke Lindgren, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of
Sociology at Göteborg University, talks about how white collar crime has
interested researchers ever since the 19th century.
Martin Bergquist’s licentiate dissertation Ekonomisk brottslighet – Något
att räkna med (Economic Crime – Something to Consider) (2002) for the
Department of Criminology at Stockholm University thoroughly examines
the concept as it appears in international literature.
Fiffelstrategier vid ekonomisk brottslighet (Strategies in the Commission of
Economic Crime) (2003) by Tage Alalehto at Umeå University’s Department
of Sociology reviews international research and provides an overview
of the various types of offences involved. He focuses entirely on the
methods employed by offenders.
An essay by Alalehto and Jan Sjödin in Förebyggande metoder mot ekobrott
(Methods of Preventing Economic Crime), published by BRÅ in 2003
at the initiative of the Swedish Economic Crimes Council’s cooperating
agencies, describes a Swedish case in which a spurious contractor cheated
both the county administrative board and the municipality out of millions
of kronor. The investments that were to attract employment and
wealth to the community never arrived.
Kartin S. Thornton, Associate Director of the Tuck School of Business
at Dartmouth College, examined 263 Swedish companies that declared
bankruptcy in 1988-91. In 2002, she posed the question as to how shareholders
can be sure that the company’s executives are not using the money
for private gain. They can divest the company’s assets at a loss to busi-
15.
This section is an abridged version of a brochure published by BRÅ in 2004.
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