Per Jansson: Monetary policy in less favourable times - what are the options?

Speech by Mr Per Jansson, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Insurance Sweden, Stockholm, 4 December 2018.

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

Accompanying slides of the speech.

To say the past decade has been transformative for monetary policy is scarcely an exaggeration. Many central banks have cut their policy rates to exceptionally low levels and found other ways of conducting monetary policy than adjusting interest rates. In some countries, including Sweden, the policy rate has also passed the zero bound that was considered to be the absolute minimum level not very long ago, and has entered negative territory. Despite this policy, the recovery has on the whole been slow and, above all, inflation has been low for a long time. This has led to the policy rate in many countries remaining at record low levels for sev-eral years.