The Euro – What´s in it for me? An Economic Analysis of the Swedish Euro Referendum 2003

The Swedish referendum on the euro in 2003 is an exceptional event for researchers of monetary unions and of European economic integration. Voters chose between maintaining the domestic currency, the krona, and replacing it with the euro, the common currency of the European Union. The referendum revealed significant dividing lines between Yes- and No-voters in areas such as income, education, sex, employment, geographical location and industrial structure.

The authors explain these differences using the optimum currency area theory – the standard framework for analyzing the costs and benefits of joining a monetary union. These costs and benefits are distributed unevenly across Swedish society.

The authors found that the individual voter’s expected costs and benefits had a strong predictive power for the differences in voting behaviour found within the electorate. The voters asked themselves: The euro – what's in it for me? Then they voted accordingly.