Cecilia Skingsley: The effects of digitalisation on the economy

Speech by Ms Cecilia Skingsley, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Entreprenörskapsforum, Stockholm, 26 March 2019.

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

Accompanying slides of the speech.

Thank you for the invitation to come here and speak at Entreprenörskapsforum. I cannot imagine a better place to talk about digitalisation and its potential effects on the economy.

One example of technological advances and the effects of digitalisation is right here - in our mobile phones. Four out of five Swedes in the age range 16-85 had access to the internet via a mobile phone in 2018.1 It is difficult to imagine, but to-day's smart phones actually have greater processing power than the computers that enabled the Apollo moon landing in 1969!2 Smart phones also give us access to inconceivable amounts of information and entertainment that did not even ex-ist in 1969. The answer to a question is only a few clicks away.

As a consumer it is easy to see the value of these technological advances, alt-hough we do not in our daily lives use the capacity for anything comparable to the giant leap for mankind the moon landing entailed-