, blinder, a. s., ( 2007 ), " central banking by committee : why and how? ” european journal of political economy 23, 106 - 123. are often concealed from the outside world and once a decision has been taken, all of the members officially support it. the combination of making interest rate decisions in a group and signalling between the monetary policy meetings is not entirely problem - free. if we assume, for instance, that an individual member is to hold a speech a few weeks prior to a monetary policy meeting where he or she gives signals that the interest rate should be changed. regardless of whether or not the executive board is an individualistic committee, i believe that sometimes there may be uncertainty as to who is actually sending the signal. is it merely the individual member who is describing his or her view, or is he or she expressing the majority's opinion? if different members were to send out different signals as to what should happen at the next meeting, it may also cause uncertainty as to which of them one should believe in the most. this is also a problem raised in academic research as one of the dangers of individualistic committees – the communication risks becoming a “ cacophony of voices ”, without any clear message 9. a decision following the correct procedure here a potential conflict might arise with regard to the demands made of the riksbank as an independent authority. the responsibility as an authority means that interest rate decisions must follow the correct procedure. it is important that our principals – ultimately the general public – have insight into the decision - making process. one expression for this is that minutes are taken at the monetary policy meetings, which are then published soon afterwards. another is that the chairman and vice chairman of the general council have the right, according to the sveriges riksbank act, to attend the executive board ’ s meetings, which they usually do 10. one might say that they are monitoring, on behalf of the general public, that everything is done properly, that the decision - making process follows the correct procedures. this means, for instance, that interest rate decisions may not be “ mortgaged ” in advance, as i described earlier. this shows that at least in theory there are some problems in signalling prior to the monetary policy meetings. there is a risk of confusing the market or of " tying up ” both the discussion at the monetary policy meeting and the actual interest rate decision. as the need for signalling has also declined with the changes made

. in brief, the riksbank ’ s practice can be described as follows. between the monetary policy meetings the individual members of the executive board have often held speeches on the theme of " the current situation " or similar. in these speeches we have given our views on economic developments and sometimes also indicated, with varying degrees of explicitness, how we consider the interest rate should be set at the next meeting. it has on these occasions been clearly understood that the executive board members are expressing their own personal opinions. one could call this a sort of “ signalling by degrees ”. that is, when the interest rate see, for example, giavazzi, f. and f. mishkin ( 2006 ), “ an evaluation of swedish monetary policy between 1995 and 2005 ”, reports from the riksdag 2006 / 07 : rfr 1, committee on finance. decision has been taken at the monetary policy meeting enough information should have already been signalled by degrees so that economic agents are not taken by surprise. and on the whole, our signalling policy appears to have worked quite well. but, like many other things, the demands made of our signalling have changed over time. things look quite different today from when the inflation target was new and confidence in monetary policy was low. this is partly linked to the fact that for some years we have been an independent authority, with the demands for insight that this entails. it is also, as i have just implied, connected to the important changes we have recently made in our communication. moreover, there may be some potential problems in the way we have signalled previously, although as i said it has worked fairly well. i intend to mainly focus on the time aspect of the signalling, that is, when or how often we signal or should do so. i would like to point out that what i say here is my own personal reflection after just over one year as governor of the riksbank. it is not an expression of the general view of the executive board. at present we are discussing the issues i am taking up here. and it is quite natural that we should discuss this. since the inflation target was introduced we have been constantly working on refining and developing our methods of conducting monetary policy in general. there is hardly any reason to believe that signalling should have reached its final form and it is therefore not something that should remain outside of the general change process. reduced need for signalling the changes we have made in our communication recently have significance for