For a small, open economy like Sweden the natural starting-point for the forecasting work is how economic activity and inflation develop in the world around us. The forecasting work therefore begins with an international outlook meeting, which has the purpose of reaching a preliminary forecast for international events. Soon after this a financial market meeting is held. At this meeting there is a discussion of market participants’ expectations of the repo rate and how these have changed since the previous monetary policy meeting. These are then compared with the model forecasts for the repo rate and how these have changed. In addition, there are analyses and discussions of what has happened in the financial markets since the previous assessment. House prices, credits, stock market rates, exchange rates, money supply, international rates and so on are also discussed at this meeting. After this a current status meeting is held, where the focus is on the current situation in the Swedish economy. One particularly important aspect is to assess how much of the Swedish economy’s total resources in the form of labour and machinery are currently being used to a normal extent. Apart from new information on the current economic situation, there are also discussions of other new information that may be important for the forecasts in the slightly longer term. The first monetary policy group meeting with the Executive Board summarises new information After this it is time for the first large monetary policy group meeting.
This is the case when a Monetary Policy Report is going to be published; otherwise the process is slightly shorter. In total, around 30  4  BIS Review 77/2008  economists are involved in some phase of the forecasting work, together with the Executive Board members. The material for the monetary policy meetings is mainly produced in the Monetary Policy Department in close cooperation with the Executive Board. The process begins with a risk meeting. The participants at this meeting are the Executive Board, employees of the Monetary Policy Department, some employees from other departments and some advisers to the Executive Board. The purpose of the meeting is to capture at an early stage various types of risk and alternative sequences of events for the economy that we envisage in the future. The discussions at this meeting are relatively unbiased and take a broad perspective. It is at this meeting that the alternative scenarios begin to take shape, those that are later described in Chapter 2 of the Monetary Policy Report and that show how the economy might develop if particular events occur. The scenarios can be used as a kind of counter-example to explain why the Executive Board considers that the main scenario is the one that at present gives the most well-balanced monetary policy. It can also illustrate different risks that an individual member wishes to illustrate or perhaps even a scenario that one person prefers instead of the main scenario.