It seems that strong competition between various producers within the food industry and the construction industry has had a dampening impact on inflation. In addition, productivity growth in retail trade has been high in the past few years. Intensified competition may also have contributed to curbing the rise in prices for banking and insurance services. Several factors point to higher inflation in the period ahead. Capacity utilisation in the Norwegian economy is picking up. This will contribute to a higher rise in prices for domestically produced goods and services. A tighter labour market will probably lead to higher wage growth in the coming years. High energy prices are feeding through to producer input prices. Outlook for the years ahead Growth in disposable income has been high in recent years. Lower interest expenses and relatively high real wage growth have resulted in an increase in household purchasing power. The rise in house prices may also have fuelled growth in private consumption. With high growth in employment and falling unemployment, consumption growth is expected to be high again this year. Since the publication of the June Inflation Report, electricity prices have increased to a further extent than expected. Forward prices for next winter have also increased. Higher electricity prices may in isolation reduce household purchasing power somewhat. On the other hand, growth in household income is high and market expectations indicate a fall in electricity prices later next year. A continued rise in house prices may contribute to holding up consumption growth.

The Basel Committee may therefore need to review the standards for the LCR and the NSFR. 12  See EU Commission (2023), https://finance.ec.europa.eu/publications/reform-bank-crisis-management-anddeposit-insurance-framework_en. 10 [30]  Another lesson is that Silicon Valley Bank did not take sufficient account of its interest rate risks. Here I would like to emphasise the importance of all banks – including in Sweden – having a good margin for the risks that interest rate changes can entail. 30 years of low interest rates have contributed to increasing the risks in the financial system. Households and businesses in many countries have large debts while prices of homes, commercial properties and financial assets are high. The sharp and rapid rise in global interest rates experienced over the past year has brought interest rate risks into sharper focus. Current global standards require supervisors to take interest rate risk into account as part of the supervisory process, known as Pillar 2. The consequence is that these risks are managed very differently in different countries, and potentially even between different banks. Finansinspektionen has a well-developed model for estimating these risks for the Swedish banks, but, as I said, the rules vary from country to country. In my view, there is reason to harmonise some of these rules. A third lesson is that accounting rules play an important role. When macroeconomic variables change significantly, the difference between the valuation of assets at fair value and at amortised cost can be large. Silicon Valley Bank had invested heavily in US long-term bonds.