The Riksbank's quarterly journal Economic Review contains articles on subjects related to central banking. This year's third issue is published today and contains six articles.
The first two articles, The road to price stability in the 1990s by Urban Bäckström, former Governor of the Riksbank, and Behind the Riksbank's massive walls - establishing the inflation targeting policy 1995-2003 by Lars Heikensten, Governor of the Riksbank, were presented earlier this year in Swedish in På jakt efter ett nytt ankare (Hunting for a new anchor), edited by Lars Jonung, SNS Förlag.
The first article The road to price stability in the 1990s by Urban Bäckström contains the author's version of how the new stabilisation policy regime emerged and was administered in the 1990s, including the problems and difficulties the Riksbank encountered.
The second article Behind the Riksbank's massive walls - establishing the inflation targeting policy 1995-2003 by Lars Heikensten focuses on the current formation of monetary policy: the analytical framework and how decisions are prepared, made and communicated. Much of the author's work at the Riksbank since joining the bank in autumn 1995 has centred on these matters, that is, on developing the way in which monetary policy is conducted.
On central bank efficiency. The authors, Governor Lars Heikensten, Sonja Daltung of the Research Dept. and Mårten Blix of the Monetary Policy Dept., discuss the issues that make central bank efficiency more difficult to define and analyse, as opposed to economists' standard notions of firm efficiency. Much of the material draws on a recent workshop on this topic organised by the Riksbank, although the focus here is primarily on what the authors perceive to be the conclusions for policy.
An Inflation Reports Report. Mr. Eric M. Leeper from Indiana University, USA, was asked by Sveriges Riksbank to evaluate the Riksbank's Inflation Reports. The assignment included drawing comparisons between the Reports issued by the Riksbank, the Bank of England, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. In his report, the author lists a number of steps Banks can take to communicate more clearly their view of the economy and how they reach policy decisions.
What approach should a central bank take to asset prices that exhibit periods of bubble behaviour, i.e. an apparently over-optimistic rise in prices followed by a crash? Should the bank attempt to identify and prevent the bubble at an early stage or should it wait until the bubble has burst and then take measures to limit its detrimental effects? Hans Dillén and Peter Sellin, both economists at the Riksbank's Monetary Policy Department, discuss these and other questions in their article Financial bubbles and monetary policy.
How is the IMF responding to the new environment of vastly greater capital flows? Is the criticism that is being levelled at the IMF justified? What are the main issues today and what are the challenges faced by the IMF? In his article IMF - development, criticisms and future tasks David Farelius, of the IMF's Nordic-Baltic constitutency office, sheds light upon these issues.
The journal is available as a PDF file on the Riksbank's website under the heading Publications/Economic Review. It can also be collected from the main entrance to the Riksbank at Brunkebergstorg 11 or ordered by e-mail, forradet@riksbank.se,
fax +46-8-7870526 or telephone +46-8-7870100.
