that the repo rate would remain unchanged throughout the forecast period. the biggest advantage in using our own forecasts for the development of the repo rate is that it will then be clear what monetary policy the riksbank considers reasonable in the future. this change is above all a further step towards increased clarity in monetary policy. i don ’ t believe it is possible to be clearer than this with regard to our intentions for the repo rate. i also believe that the monetary policy discussion gains by the riksbank publishing its own forecast for the interest rate. it will enrich the debate, which will concern more the future development of the interest rate and not merely its current level. this has been clear over the past week. our current decision to raise the interest rate by a further 0. 25 percentage points came under the shadow of a discussion on the level of the repo rate in the longer term. since the long - term development of the repo rate is much more important to most households and companies than an individual interest rate adjustment, this is a positive sign. one thing it is important to emphasise is that we are talking about a forecast for the repo rate. this is the repo rate development that currently appears most likely given the information available. we are not making any promises. the fact that the riksbank is presenting its own interest rate path does not mean that we are laying down a policy that we will commit ourselves to following. previously, we did not commit ourselves to following the interest rate path based on market expectations. the reason is that the conditions are constantly changing. various shocks occur that mean we have to regularly reconsider what would be an appropriate monetary policy. adhering to one and the same interest rate path, despite conditions changing, is about as bad as always driving a car at the same speed, regardless of whether the road is dry or treacherously icy. it is not particularly strange that the appropriate path for the repo rate should vary over time, but it is still worth emphasising this. it is sometimes raised as a potential problem that when a central bank presents its own policy rate forecast, it can be seen as a failure if the central bank does not later follow the path that it had forecast. however, i am quite convinced that the swedish monetary policy discussion has now reached such a stage that this will not be a problem. there is currently widespread understanding that the assessments are uncertain and that new information may change the conditions for the monetary policy

cases lag behind and in other cases have large gaps. those of you who have read piketty's best - seller capital in the twenty - first century also know that one can give the question of distributional effects much greater room than i have scope for today. what i want to say with these reservations is that those of you who are expecting to hear exactly how great the distributional effects of monetary policy have been will 1 see, for instance, the bank of england ( 2012 ), oecd ( 2015 ), bindseil et al. ( 2015 ), deutsche bundesbank ( 2016 ), european parliament ( 2016 ), domanski et al. ( 2016 ) and amaral ( 2017 ). 2 dir. 2016 : 114 2 unfortunately be disappointed. my somewhat more modest aim is to make a contribution to the discussion by examining the distributional effects of the policy and adding shades of meaning to these effects. what i hope to convince you of today is that monetary policy also affects household income and wealth in ways that are more indirect, but probably more meaningful, than via asset prices. while an expansionary monetary policy entails rising asset prices in the short term, this is compensated by lower unemployment, higher employment and stronger growth. a monetary policy that succeeds in the task of attaining price stability also counteracts the negative distributional effects of inflation. an expansionary monetary policy to defend the inflation target but, as i said, rising asset prices have been an element of the economic upturn in recent years. and during periods when stock prices are rising, the income distribution is more uneven between households – this can be seen from standard measures of dispersion of the income distribution, such as the so - called gini coefficient ( see figure 1 ). figure 1. gini coefficient for disposable income and stock market movements 0. 32 stock index ( right scale ) gini, excl. capital gains ( left scale ) 0. 30 gini, incl. capital gains ( left scale ) 0. 28 0. 26 0. 24 0. 22 0. 20 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 note. the gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion of, for instance, incomes. the gini coefficient can be between 0 and 1, where a higher value entails greater inequality. the figures are from statistics sweden ’ s surveys household finances 1995 - 2011