Svensson: Flexible Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the Financial Crisis
The financial crisis has raised some questions regarding monetary policy and how it should be conducted in relation to financial conditions such as credit growth, asset prices, imbalances, the risk of creating bubbles and so on. I will discuss two particular questions: Has monetary policy contributed to the conditions for the crisis? Do the lessons from the crisis justify any changes in the way best-practice monetary policy should be conducted?
I will lay out my pre-crisis view of best-practice monetary policy – flexible inflation targeting – and its relation to financial stability and asset prices, discuss the role of monetary policy in possibly contributing to the current financial crisis and, finally, present my conclusions on whether flexible inflation targeting needs to be modified in the light of the crisis.
You will find the whole speech in the pdf-file below.