Kerstin af Jochnick: Cautious steps towards higher interest rates

Speech by Ms Kerstin af Jochnick, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Swedish Property Federation, Stockholm, 28 January 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
29 January 2019
by Kerstin af Jochnick
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  |  13 pages

Thank you for the invitation to come and talk about current monetary policy here at the Swedish Property Federation.

In December, we increased the repo rate for the first time in over seven years. I can imagine many people asking themselves why we have started to increase the rate now and how we foresee monetary policy further ahead. And households, who are more indebted than ever before - can they cope with higher interest rates?

These are questions that I will try to respond to today, based on our latest fore-casts and assessments. As I see it, there is good reason to take cautious steps to-wards higher interest rates, in part because historically speaking, we find our-selves in a special environment.