growth at the end of last year was temporary, and we revised up our assessment of growth in the first quarter of this year. since the monetary policy meeting we have received quite a lot of new information. for example we now know that swedish exports of goods increased slightly during the first quarter after the steep fall in the fourth quarter of last year. according to statistics sweden ’ s figures, employment was higher and unemployment lower than in our most recent forecast. the national institute of economic research ’ s economic tendency survey also showed a large increase during the first quarter and the retail trade index, which rose strongly in february, continued to rise in march. all in all, new information received since the most recent monetary policy meeting shows no tendency to revise the forecast for swedish growth during the first quarter. still, i will wait to make an overall assessment of the new statistics until our next monetary policy meeting in july. monetary policy in uncertain times i have described my views of the situation in sweden and abroad. i have also pointed to a number of risks that could lead to a different development than the one we forecast in the monetary policy update. we try to determine the probability of the risks on the basis of incoming statistics. this gives us a picture of what can be regarded as a main scenario and what can be regarded as an alternative scenario. how should a monetary policymaker weigh up new and often contradictory information about the economy that indicates different paths of development? i shall conclude with a few reflections on this. as an economic forecaster, one is confronted by a constant flow of new statistics that often point in different directions. let me illustrate this by describing the circumstances of our most recent monetary policy decision in april. statistics sweden had scarcely published a gdp figure for the fourth quarter that was weaker than expected, when the national institute of economic research published a very strong economic tendency survey for march. nor is it unusual for statistics to be revised in a way that changes history and throws new light on the initial situation in the economy. as i mentioned earlier, statistics sweden revised up the figures for the number of hours worked in connection with the publication of the gdp statistics for the fourth quarter of 2011. this revision entails lower productivity growth for 2010 and 2011 than was reported earlier, and thus a new outlook on the future productivity growth trend, which has significance for monetary policy. bis central bankers ’ speeches new and contradictory statistics and revisions of this type create uncertainty regarding the current economic climate. personally, i am one of those people

measured in this way. during the years the interest rate has gradually been cut, expectations according to implied forward rates have substantially overestimated the level of the repo rate. after we began to raise the interest rate one and a half years ago, there has rather been a tendency for the repo rate path to be slightly underestimated. it can thus be noted that market agents have had difficulty in forecasting interest rate developments. the fact that forecasters revise their assessments is not at all strange, as new information is received all the time. this indicates that as the conditions for the real economy change and new information is received the forecasts for the repo rate path need to be adjusted. there is nothing particularly dramatic about this. it applies to all market agents, to the major banks, to the ministry of finance and also to us at the riksbank. the great uncertainty factor means that all forecasters should be humble, but this should not prevent them from making forecasts. i would therefore like to emphasise once again that the repo rate path we present in the monetary policy report is a forecast and not a promise. the riksbank cannot undertake, regardless of what happens in the economy, to follow the path published. the interest rate path is quite simply the best assessment we can make at a given point in time, given the information that is then available. new information may change the picture of the economy and then the executive board will have to rethink how we set the repo rate. the reason why we have chosen to publish our interest rate forecast despite the uncertainty over the future is largely because we believe this is the best way of explaining our thoughts on monetary policy. it also makes it easier for us to justify forecasts and interest rate decisions and to outline alternative scenarios for the repo rate. it will also be easier to evaluate monetary policy. the debate has not been slow in coming. analyses and discussions on monetary policy are now being conducted outside of the riksbank in a way that would not have been possible if we had not presented our own interest rate path. it is not, as before, primarily the current interest rate decision that is discussed, but more a question of the monetary policy fluctuations throughout the entire forecast period. the fact that the interest rate forecast may later be changed is a different, and quite natural, matter. withholding information on how we view the future development of the interest rate merely because this view may need to be revised