create greater stability and sustainability in economic policy. one of the more comprehensive reforms was that monetary policy was more directly focused on keeping inflation low and stable, instead of, as previously, indirectly by maintaining a fixed exchange rate. sweden thereby became one of the first countries to adopt inflation targeting. the price stability target was later written into the law and the interest rate decisions were delegated to an independent executive board. another very important change was the creation of a fiscal policy framework with an amended budget process. this framework and the new process aimed to get a grip on the evolution of public expenditures while also leading the economic commission ( 1993 ). a debate about this had been taking place for a while at that point. the swedish centre for business and policy studies ( sns ) had been advocating a so - called norm - based stabilisation policy since 1985, see heikensten and vredin ( 2012 ) for an overview. bis central bankers ’ speeches to an average surplus in terms of net lending. the overall aim was to ensure that fiscal policy would have the desired long - term orientation. flexible inflation targeting preferable – but improvements not ruled out but even though these and other changes have made the swedish economy more reliable and resilient to shocks, we too have been affected by the events of the past few years. the global financial crisis and surprisingly low inflation have meant that a number of previously accepted truths have begun to be called into question, and led to a debate about whether the economic policy framework developed prior to the financial crisis should be modified or potentially even replaced. my view here is completely clear : it is important for us to think very carefully before we make any comprehensive changes to the swedish economic policy frameworks. we know little about what the world will look like in the future, and we should be careful not to casually abandon something which has essentially worked well. it is easy to forget previous problems as time passes, and to take for granted that certain things are simply working. this is a dangerous approach, however, which can lead to setbacks. dismantling a framework can be done quickly, but building one up takes a long time and often involves major adjustment costs. in terms of the monetary policy framework, i am convinced that the flexible inflation targeting pursued by the riksbank and most other central banks today will continue to be the most effective approach for the foreseeable future. this does not mean, however, that i oppose all forms of change and necessarily think that everything

2 so what determines the individual swedish person's share of funded collective pension wealth? several factors are significant. the factor i would like to highlight here is labour income. let me give a few examples : 2. 5 per cent of labour income is transferred to the premium pension system up to an annual ceiling. 3 the system is mandatory for all those that have labour income. for a person who starts to withdraw their premium pension and has never hit the ceiling, their premium pension wealth will depend on their labour income during their working life and on how the individual has chosen to invest their premium pension wealth. my point here is that we know that labour income is more evenly distributed than capital income. the conclusion will then be that premium pension wealth is more evenly distributed than other wealth. the pension agreement between the swedish employers ’ confederation ( saf ) and the swedish trade union confederation ( lo ) is an example of an agreement between parties that applies to privately employed blue - collar workers. the system is mandatory for all workers at companies that are part of the agreement. in this system, 4. 5 per cent of labour income is allocated up to a cut - off point. if a worker earns more than the cut - off amount, 30 per cent of the difference is added to the original allocation. 4 the individual also has a number of investment options to choose from in this system. once again, the conclusion here is that pension wealth among those included in this pension scheme agreement is more evenly distributed than other wealth. another way of expressing this is that many people in sweden do not own their own home and have no financial assets but as a result of their labour income, they benefit from elevated asset prices as they have a share in funded collective pension systems. so how many of them are there? we don ’ t know at present, as no wealth statistics on the individual level have been recorded since 2007. a government inquiry has recently started to look at whether sweden shall once again compile wealth statistics on the individual level. 5 the riksbank has been stressing for a long time the importance of reintroducing these statistics as soon as possible. an important reason is that household indebtedness has shown a rising trend in recent years and we now know more about households ’ debt than about their assets. new wealth statistics may also help to tackle our shortage of knowledge about other types of wealth that resemble the funded collective pension wealth that i 2 nilsson et al. ( 2014 ) discuss the significance of