7 the countries in the figure that have mandatory systems are denmark, the netherlands, australia, sweden, finland and norway. but as far as norway is concerned, the wealth is negligible compared to the wealth in the oil fund. i do not have access to information showing how funded pension wealth is distributed in those countries that do not have mandatory systems based on labour income. neither is it possible to say whether funded pension wealth mitigates the negative effects of expansionary monetary policy and elevated asset prices on wealth distribution. however, it is clear that no such mitigating effect can reasonably exist in most euro countries, as there is no funded pension wealth in these countries. negative effects alleviated in sweden the reasoning in this speech is not about three things. first, the introduction of the national supplementary pension system with associated national pension funds was controversial at the time. 8 however, the national pension funds are now with us. second, opinion is divided as to whether funded pension systems are to be preferred to paying pensions from day - to - day tax revenue. but, as i said, the pension funds are now with us. third, the global downward trend in real interest rates has made it more difficult to receive return on wealth, especially if investors want to hold safe financial assets like government securities. the assets whose prices have increased are riskier. but this is not what the reasoning in this speech is about. this is what the speech is about : in sweden, there is a comparatively large share of wealth in collective pension funds that has been built up with the help of mandatory contributions based on the labour income of individuals. this wealth is therefore more evenly distributed than other wealth. when asset prices rise, more people therefore benefit from the increase in wealth than if there had been no collective pension funds. when inflation in sweden is expected to be below target, the riksbank conducts expansionary monetary policy. the aim is to push inflation up towards the target. at the same time, output and employment will also rise. but expansionary monetary policy also has other consequences. for example, rising asset prices lead to more uneven wealth distribution. in sweden, however, this effect is mitigated by the fact that a comparatively large share of the wealth is oecd ( 2019 ), table 9. 1, see also oecd ( 2020 ). 8 ylva hasselberg and i have written about this, see hasselberg and ohlsson ( 2016 ). 5 in collective pension

in early may. my assessment was then that the new information received indicated that the repo rate should be raised more during the forecast period than was implied by the forecast in the february monetary policy report. this is to ensure an inflation rate in line with the target and a balanced development in the real economy. but at the same time i considered that the changes in the economic picture were not so great that the interest rate needed to be raised immediately. let me explain why. in february we believed that growth would continue to be good, although it was expected to be slightly lower than last year. we estimated that cost pressures would rise during the forecast period as employment was expected to increase and wages were expected to rise faster. higher cost pressures could also lead to inflation rising, but we estimated that the favourable supply conditions would contribute to a relatively modest rate of increase. at the same time, we pointed out that the assessment of wage developments was uncertain. for instance, the rapid upturn in employment and the increased labour shortage implied more rapid wage increases, while the increase in labour supply and continued price pressures from abroad indicated slower wage growth. the assessment in the main scenario was that the repo rate should be raised at a fairly slow pace. we also presented a number of alternative scenarios and the consequences they would have for monetary policy. in one such scenario we investigated the consequences of more rapid wage increases than calculated. at our monetary policy meeting in may we were able to observe that the new information received since the publication of the monetary policy report in february indicated higher inflationary pressures than we had predicted. one reason was that the result of the spring wage bargaining rounds indicated that wages could increase more quickly during the forecast period than we had estimated in the main alternative in the report published in february. the motive for high wage increases not being part of our main scenario was that we considered that the spare capacity in the labour market still appeared substantial, which would slow down the rate of wage increase. how high wage increases will be in total will depend not only on the collective wage agreements, but also on how much wages rise outside of the agreements. as i mentioned in may, it is reasonable in the currently strong labour market situation to count on wage increases outside of the agreements being higher than they have been in recent years. how high will depend on how well the labour market functions. i pointed to a number of important questions then. will the labour supply increase to the extent expected? will the matching of demand for and supply of