Henry Ohlsson: The distributional effects of monetary policy

Speech by Mr Henry Ohlsson, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, to the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, Stockholm, 7 April 2017.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

I would like to thank in particular Björn Andersson, who has helped me produce this speech. Carl Andreas Claussen, Charlotta Edler, Cecilia Roos-Isaksson, Stefan Laséen, Tomas Lundberg, Marianne Sterner, Ulf Söderström and Anders Vredin have contributed with valuable comments.

"Price stability is a prerequisitefor sustained economic growth as well as full employment and it prevents an arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth." This is how the Riksbank concluded its press release on 15 January 1993, when the inflation target was announced. The link between monetary policy, growth and employment has been very much in focus over the almost 25 years that have passed since then. The distributionaleffects of monetary policy, on the other hand, have been more or less overlooked, until the question came into the spotlight again in recent years.