Monthly Archives: March 2013

Reservation against the Riksbank Account of Monetary Policy in 2012

I enter a reservation against the Account of monetary policy in 2012, because I consider the account to be incomplete and in several respects misleading and thus it does not offer an adequate basis for an assessment of the Riksbank’s monetary policyRead more (English Swedish)

Target attainment is currently poor, since inflation is way below the inflation target and unemployment is way above a reasonable long-run sustainable rate. An important issue is whether target attainment could have been better with a more expansionary monetary policy, but a thorough analysis of this issue is missing in the account. That monetary policy has not been more expansionary is, as far as can be judged, because it has to a great extent been conducted for the purpose of limiting household debt. However, extensive research and several inquiries show quite unequivocally that the policy rate has little effect on the household debt ratio. The fact that this is the case is not indicated in the account. A more expansionary monetary policy with an unchanged low policy rate since 2010 would according to a preliminary calculation have held CPIF inflation close to the target, led to much lower unemployment and led to an insignificantly higher debt ratio in the short term, while not affecting the debt ratio in the long term. Read more (English Swedish)
Reservation (English) Reservation (Swedish)   Account of monetary policy 2012 (English)  Redogörelse för penningpolitiken 2012 (Swedish)