Sture Eskilsson, Swedish economist, Died at 85

  Reseacher

Sture Birger Eskilsson was born March 18, 1930, in Kristinehamn, and died on March 5, 2016.

He was a Swedish economist.

He was the Director of Information of the Swedish Employers’ Association (Swedish: Svenska arbetsgivareförening, SAF) and chairman of the think tank Timbro.

He was an employee at SAF as an economist in 1957.

Sture was transferred to SAF:s Department of Public Relations, in 1968.

There he was commissioned to set up a new strategy in order to create a counterweight against the increasing influence of the New Left movement.

During 1970, he was appointed as Director of Information of SAF and the following year he outlined his strategic thoughts in an internal memo on what needed to be done in order to influence the public opinion and create a stronger support for free market capitalism, enterprise and individual liberty.

Eskilsson suggested a serious, long-term work focusing on ideological and philosophical debate.

However, the result of this new strategy was the creation of the think tank Timbro in 1978, where Eskilsson served as chairman from its founding until 1998.

During 2003, he was one of the founding members of the organization Medborgare mot EMU (“Citizens Against the EMU”), which battle against Swedish adoption of the euro in the 2003 referendum.

Sture Eskilsson passed away at 85 yrs old.