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Barbro Wickman-Parak: Independence, inflation targeting and the importance of not being dead certain Speech by Ms Barbro Wickman-Parak, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at a breakfast meeting at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), Stockholm, 14 May 2013. *  *  *  I would like to thank Mikael Apel, Advisor in the Monetary Policy Department for his help with this speech. An important lesson When one is, as I am, at the end of one’s professional career, it is natural to reflect on what is the most important lesson one has learnt. If one were to try to pass on one important insight to someone who is just beginning their career, what would it be? Of course, it is difficult to give a simple answer to this question, but one insight that would probably come pretty high up on my list is that it is so easy to fasten in what one might scientifically term the “prevailing paradigm”. By this I mean that it is so easy to believe that the means of regarding the world that is currently dominant is the best one and will apply, if not for ever, at least for the foreseeable future. I have come across this phenomenon numerous times during my professional life – and have of course been part of it myself. What is perceived as true and correct has varied from one time to another and sometimes the pendulum has swung violently.