##d, among other things, whether the level of the inflation target was the most appropriate. 18 it is possible that the interval between the reviews could also be slightly longer, as monetary policy objectives probably have quite a long “ durability ” and perhaps do not need to be reviewed quite so often. such regular reviews would probably not lead to substantial changes over time, which has not been the case in canada either. but now and then, the conclusion may be that a change to the monetary policy objective would be preferable, which would of course be entirely appropriate. the important thing is that the remit is formulated via objective and scientific examination and scrutiny and not determined by short - term political motives or subjective opinion moulding in the media. before any system of regular reviews is introduced, legal aspects must of course be considered. as far as sweden is concerned, this means, for example, that both the remit and its terms must be compatible with eu law, which states, among other things, that the central bank shall maintain price stability. although this puts restrictions on the possible remits of central banks, there are nevertheless some degrees of freedom as regards the exact policy formulation. that the central bank should aim at maintaining price stability defined in one way or another is of course only natural. the terms of the reviews must also consider that the central bank shall perform its remit without influence from the member state ’ s parliament, government or any other body. if sweden had had a system of recurrent reviews of the policy objective, the at times almost surprisingly heated debate over recent years would probably have been more balanced. the issues raised in the debate had then been publicly examined in these reviews in an objective and scientific way, and it would have been clear that the riksbank is not “ running its own race ”, decoupled from its remit. to motivate the policy conducted by a central bank, it is of course significantly easier to rely on a review of the remit from at most just a few years ago than, as in sweden ’ s case, on a system that was determined more than 25 years ago and whose status and meaning today seem unclear to many. i think that a procedure of regular reviews of the remit could also be a way of counteracting the forces in many parts of the world looking to make central banks 16 giavazzi and mishkin ( 2006 ), goodhart and rochet ( 2011 ) and goodfriend and

of internationally - traded goods. however, a monetary policy that leans against the wind also has effects on inflation in that it dampens domestic demand. such effects probably leave a mark on the development of service prices, as services are not traded internationally to the same extent as goods. increases in services prices have been small in sweden since the end of 2012 – both compared with normal developments and compared with other countries ( see figure 2b ). a further explanation for the abnormally low price increases could be expectations of an abnormally low future inflation rate. in monetary policy analysis one usually assumes that there is a forward - looking element in the pricing, as it may be perceived as costly to change prices. if one is expecting weak demand and thus low price increases in the future, one will not want to increase one ’ s prices very much today. expectations of a low future inflation rate can thus become self - fulfilling and this is something we would prefer to avoid, as it makes it more difficult to attain the inflation target in the future. according to surveys of inflation expectations among money market participants, employers ’ and employees ’ organisations as well as purchasing managers, expectations for 1 and 2 years ahead have declined recently, which may have significance for pricing behaviour. inflation expectations 5 years ahead are fairly well anchored around 2 per cent, but it is important that the development of the past couple of years does not continue so that the longer - term expectations also end up far from the target ( see figure 3 ). figure 3. expected inflation per cent 5 years ahead 2 years ahead 1 year ahead note. average for all survey respondents. source : tns sifo prospera bis central bankers ’ speeches resource utilisation remains lower than normal resource utilisation has been lower than normal for in principle the entire period since the end of 2008, when demand for swedish exports fell heavily in connection with the global financial crisis. at the same time, developments on the labour market have been better than expected in some aspects. although unemployment has remained around 8 per cent since the middle of 2012, employment has increased and the employment rate has risen around half a percentage point since then. one question that sometimes arises is whether it is actually possible to bring down the current unemployment rate of 8 per cent with the aid of monetary policy. matching on the labour market appears to have deteriorated and a larger percentage of the unemployed consist of groups that are on the periphery of the labour market. this could mean that structural unemployment is higher than before, and