My lessons from six years of practical policy-making include (1) being clear about and not deviating from the mandate of flexible inflation targeting (price stability and the highest sustainable employment), including keeping average inflation over a longer period on target; (2) not adding...

The Paper studies the implications of the zero lower bound on the short nominal rate of interest for the conduct of monetary policy in a small open economy with a floating exchange rate and perfect international capital mobility. Monetary policy affects aggregate demand through the real exchange...

In recent years the theory of rules and discretion in monetary policy has fascinated academic economists and policy-makers alike. This paper asks whether it can be applied to an understanding of the history of the world monetary system, by focusing on the establishment and the operation of the...

In a simple macromodel with forward-looking expectations, this Paper looks into disclosure policy when a central bank has private information on future shocks. The main result is that advance disclosure of forecasts of future shocks does not improve welfare, and in some cases is not desirable as...

I report some personal views and reflections on transparency experiences and transparency challenges following my first year and a half as Deputy Governor at Sveriges Riksbank regarding (1) flexible inflation targeting, (2) the role of transparency in inflation targeting and committee decisions...

The paper establishes that sovereigns, like banks, need a lender of last resort (LoLR). In the euro area the ECB, with its estimated €3.4 trillion non-inflationary loss absorption capacity, is the only credible sovereign LoLR. The ECB/Eurosystem has been acting as sovereign LoLR through its...

Financial globalization has seen the emergence of a new monetary standard based on inflation targeting. At the same time the most financially advanced economies moved away from exchange rate targeting which also characterized the previous era of globalization - the era of the Classical Gold...

This paper examines the validity of the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates by means of a previously unexploited dataset of market expectations that covers a broad range of EMS versus non-EMS foreign currency deposits. Although we find strong evidence in favour of...

This paper discusses several determinants of the differential between yields on Italian government securities and yields on foreign government securities. We concentrate on expectations of (at least partial) insolvency, tax factors and exchange rate expectations. The evidence suggests that most...