“The pass-through of higher natural gas prices to inflation in the euro area and in Spain”, Box 4, “Quarterly report on the Spanish economy”, Economic Bulletin 3/2022, Banco de España. 4  instance, the presence of global supply chain bottlenecks, the rapid intensification of demand once restrictions were lifted or the impact of changes in work and living habits, which led to increased consumption of housing-related goods and services. According to our estimates, demand factors were of minor importance at the beginning of 2022, but their contribution increased until the summer, stabilising at high levels thereafter. Supply-side factors – which were predominant at the beginning of 2022 – now explain around half of the deviation of euro area core inflation from its historical average. All in all, some core inflation components are beginning to show a certain degree of stabilisation, but the data suggest that inflationary pressures continue to broaden. By way of illustration, during most of 2022, pressures on core inflation were highly concentrated on specific expenditure items, such as household equipment and maintenance, transport, and activities involving more social contact.10 The aggregate price index of these items indicates some stabilisation in its year-on-year growth rate at the beginning of this year, albeit at high levels, over 7%.11 Excluding these expenditure components, the remaining basket of core items, which has a weight of over 30% in the HICP, has shown a very contained inflation rate throughout the inflationary episode.
In addition, banks are being offered the opportunity to borrow an unlimited amount of money each week against collateral at three months’ maturity at an interest rate of 0.20 percentage points above the repo rate, which is at zero per cent. In addition to this, the Executive Board has decided that the Riksbank will extend its purchases of securities by up to SEK 300 billion up until December. The Riksbank normally buys government bonds. In these exceptional circumstances, however, it is important to ensure that all major markets continue to function. For this reason, the Riksbank has now also begun to purchase mortgage bonds and will purchase municipal bonds. In the last few days, corporate bonds and commercial paper issued by Swedish non-financial corporations have also been included in the asset-buying programme. These bond purchases increase the access to credit in the economy in general and future purchases of corporate bonds and commercial paper will provide additional support to Swedish companies in particular. Just like the Riksbank’s previous purchases of government bonds, the new purchases will also help to keep monetary policy expansionary and to stimulate activity in the economy. Given the global nature of the crisis, it is also important to ensure that there is access to US dollars (USD) in the Swedish financial system. To strengthen access to one of the most important currencies for Swedish companies, the Riksbank has announced that we will lend up to USD 60 billion.