Urban–rural population changes and spatial inequalities in Sweden

Abstract This paper documents regional population changes in Sweden since 1860 and investigates how these link to economic development (regional GDP). We combine long‐term decade data for the historical counties (1860–2020) with detailed annual observations municipalities (1968–2021). As industrialization picked up speed, this benefited regions all around country terms of production, at same time as patterns started diverge. After a slowdown GDP convergence processes during low‐growth period 1980s, ‘double divergence,’ both per capita, has characterized Swedish growth 1990s.