This is an English translation of an Ekonomistas post.

The current Riksbank monetary policy is inconsistent. This creates uncertainty, which in turn weakens the efficiency of monetary policy. The detailed minutes of the monetary policy meetings are an important part of the Riksbank’s communication policy. Oddly enough, such minutes are missing from the Riksbank’s latest monetary policy decision, creating additional uncertainty about monetary policy. It is important that monetary policy is clear and credible. This increases the Riksbank’s power to create consensus among economic decision makers about the economic outlook and thereby reduce uncertainty, which is good for the economy.

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This is an English translation of a Swedish Ekonomistas guest post  by Stefan Palmqvist, PhD, who works as an advisor at Finansinspektionen (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority). The opinions expressed are his own and not necessarily those of anyone else at Finansinspektionen.

In a post on Ekonomistas (in Swedish), Mats Persson discusses if the Riksbank should use more weapons than the repo rate. Mats argues that such actions would not do any harm at present, but that they also would not do much good. I mean that they certainly can do harm. The Riksbank’s current interest rate path indicates that the repo rate will be increased, while the Riksbank at the same time buys government bonds to bring down interest rates in general and to weaken the krona. With such a contradictory monetary policy the Riksbank’s possibility to influence expectations is reduced, which in turn can make it difficult to achieve the inflation target.  Continue reading →