Climate-resilient infrastructure assets are well suited to life insurers that need reliable returns over long-term investment horizons. This is even more compelling in a low-for-long interest rate world. However, as the IDF has flagged at present only 2.5% of insurance assets managed are allocated to infrastructure17. So the world needs much more investment in infrastructure, and greater risk sharing of climate risks. Insurers have a unique ability to meet both needs. 15  See https://oasislmf.org/. Global Commission on the Economy and Climate (2016), The Sustainable Infrastructure Imperative. See: https://newclimateeconomy.report/2016/. 17 World Bank (2017), Risk and Capital Requirements for Infrastructure Investment in Emerging Market and Developing Economies. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/12/22/risk-and-capital-requirements-for-infrastructure-investment-in-emerging-market-anddeveloping-economies. 16  6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  6  In this context, the impact of regulation on the provision and cost of infrastructure finance must be carefully considered. As World Bank studies have shown, there is evidence that infrastructure debt can be lower risk as it has more predictable and stable long-term cash flows and has low correlation to other assets. The historical default experience of infrastructure debt suggests a ‘hump-shaped’ credit risk profile, which converges to investment grade quality within a few years after financing has closed. However, such robustness is not reflected in the standardised approaches for credit risk in most regulatory frameworks. The World Bank study suggests that capital charges could decline significantly for a differentiated regulatory treatment of infrastructure debt as a separate asset class.

In this respect, our committee can be compared to the Governing Council of the ECB. Our external members are part-time members, and are employed in posts outside the Bank while serving as Board members. If we were to publish voting records, the members would have to be individually accountable for their votes and assessments. This would place a workload on the external members that would not be consistent with being part-timers. The Eijffinger-Geraats index does not take into account how different types of committees can communicate. Alan Blinder and Charles Wyplosz emphasize that “the appropriate volume and methods of central bank communication depend crucially on the nature of the monetary policy committee.” 8 To get the highest score on the Eijffinger-Geraats index, one needs to have an individualistic committee. However, one should not forget that the rationale for being transparent is to provide relevant information to the public. Communication is about providing the information as clearly as possible. To my knowledge, the research on committees and communication does not show that communication is necessarily better with individualistic committees than with collegial committees. Even if individualistic committees can go further in publishing the individual views of the members than collegial committees, it entails a certain risk. To quote Alan Blinder 9 : “A central bank that speaks with a cacophony of voices may, in effect, have no voice at all”. Although Norges Bank does not publish voting records or minutes that report the views of the individual members, we publish the Executive Board’s monetary policy statement.