Over the next two days, we will cover subjects in the area of financial inclusion, Small and Medium Enterprises financing, climate-related risks and their implications for financial stability. These topics are relatively new. They were not on the agenda of macroprudential policymakers a decade ago. Nowadays, these subjects, along with fintech, aging or inequality are high on the agenda of policy discussions, not only in the financial stability fora, but also in monetary policy meetings. Therefore, we consider it worthwhile to dwell more on some of these topics during the seminar. I am confident the discussions will be very interesting, just by looking at the diversity of panelists: central bankers, representatives of the Bank for International Settlements, the European Commission, Bruegel or the Council for Economic and Policy Research. Not to mention our partners from the International Monetary Fund who will also provide their perspective. Lower financial inclusion is an increasing concern across countries, especially in emerging economies. The topic is linked with another concern represented by income inequality. The financial system can play an important role in amplifying or cutting down both. However, macroprudential authorities might not be among the best-suited institutions to deal with such phenomena. The evidence we have so far shows that, in the short term, macroprudential policies may reduce financial inclusion when implementing credit constraints, especially for borrowers that are more vulnerable to possible income or interest rate shocks (generally, lower-income individuals).
Should the repo rate be used to slow down this development to try to prevent prices becoming so high that the fall, when it actually  BIS Review 37/2005  3  comes, will be too fast and too far? There are many examples of how the air has gone out of asset markets and thereby triggered or aggravated a downswing in economic activity. Or is it more reasonable to wait until the “bubble” has burst and then try to counteract the effects the best one can? This question is neither a simple one nor a new one. It is discussed by central banks around the world, whether or not they have specific inflation targets. And there is hardly a clear-cut answer. As I see it, the seriousness we in Sweden should attach to households' increased debt burden is closely connected with how we assess price trends in the housing market. Although there has so far been a large rise in prices, particularly in metropolitan areas, we have not seen the clearly speculative tendencies apparent in other markets, for instance Australia and the United Kingdom. In Sweden we still usually buy housing to live in it ourselves. In some other countries, where the tax legislation and housing loan markets are different from in Sweden, people buy one or more additional properties in the hope that they will rise in value, rather like buying equity or other financial assets.