have seen the strongest wage growth relative to other quartiles over the past two years. those workers have benefitted from the availability of jobs and, in many cases, the ability to move to better, higher - paying jobs in the current strong labor market. nonetheless, there are some signs that this strong labor market is softening at the margin. wage growth has moderated somewhat from the rates reached about a year ago. indicators of hiring have slowed. job openings, while still elevated, have declined in recent months. and the quits rate has retraced more than half of its pandemic - era rise, falling from a 3 percent peak in late 2021 to 2. 6 percent in february. that could be significant, as much of the surge in wage growth a year ago may have been driven by outsized wage gains of those changing jobs and by employers raising wages to retain existing workers. supply the wage moderation may partly reflect some improvement in labor supply. one factor is that new estimates show higher population growth over the past year amid a rebound in immigration from its reduced levels during the pandemic. labor force participation also has edged up to 62. 5 percent in the most recent data. prime - age participation ( for workers aged 25 to 54 ) is now back to pre - pandemic levels. in our series of fed listens events in 2019, when we talked with a wide range of people and community organizations, we heard that a strong labor market can pull in people from the sidelines who have skills that can be developed if given a chance. that appears to be happening now. the fed cannot directly act to increase supply in the economy, but supply is a key input to our economic outlook. one important source of increased supply is productivity growth, which comes through both capital investment and innovation. my hope is that we will see increased innovation and productivity associated with the spurt of new businesses that have opened since the onset of the pandemic. 3 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches supply - side issues, especially innovation and productivity, have been a theme of my own academic research, including papers on patents and on the growth and funding of small businesses. so i am so pleased to see many of your topics touching on these issues, often using novel data sets from a wide range of countries. international international issues are also an important area of research - - and open questions - - and have been another theme of my career. much of the recent inflation episode

euro becomes our own currency. it is interesting to note the rapid increase in swedish corporate bonds issued in euro during the autumn. the supply of government bonds has decreased which has led investors to look for other alternatives, but they have clearly become increasingly interested in assuming additional risk in exchange for some additional interest rate percentage points in the return. eriksson, volvo and now most recently birka energi are making company presentations at places in europe where few investors have previously shown interest. and birka can hardly be said to be a familiar name in the market outside sweden. this development should also include opportunities for the housing loan institutions. gilt - edged bonds if we wish to see how emu can affect housing finance, it is close to hand to study conditions in germany since these, together with the danish model of housing finance will be given special treatment in the ec directives in the area. in germany, housing loans are traditionally financed via so - called pfandbriefen, which are essentially housing bonds with a clearly specified body of collateral. as has been pointed out, the swedish housing companies finance the whole of their balance sheets without linking particular collateral to each loan issued. with regard to pfandbriefen, legal regulation moreover plays an important role for the nature of collateral and checks on the parts of the authorities. the government has had a committee of inquiry investigate how the so - called “ gilt - edged bonds ” could be designed in sweden and the legislation and supervision that should be required. in brief, this proposal means that the right of priority would apply to this type of bond, that clear limits would be introduced for the extent of borrowing against them ( at most 75 % for housing properties ) and that collateral would be identified in a special register controlled by finansinspektionen. the ministry of finance is at present considering its standpoint on these proposals. when the discussion on gilt - edged bonds was initiated in sweden at the beginning of the 90s, the background was concern that the new investment rules planned for the insurance companies would make it more difficult for the housing institutions to obtain finance. the requirements for diversification of assets would introduce stringent restrictions on the ability of the insurance companies to hold housing bonds. representatives of the industry claimed that considerable volumes of housing bonds would be sold by the insurance companies for this reason and that this would affect the market and increase costs for borrowers sharply. the gilt - edged bonds could at least partly solve the problem since, according