Rapid developments in technology gradually lead to higher productivity and increase our welfare, but they are also a source of concern for many people. Will my job still exist in the future, or will it be done by a robot or an algorithm? How can my company compete in these days of rapid technological advances? * I would like to thank Erik Frohm for helping prepare this speech, Elizabeth Nilsson for translating and Meredith  Beechey-Österholm, Charlotta Edler, Rebecka Hallerby, Jesper Hansson, Åsa Olli Segendorf, Marianne Sterner and Ulf Söderström for valuable comments. 1 Refers to Statistics Sweden's figures on private individuals’ access to and use of IT. 82% of all Swedes in the age range 16-85 years had access to the internet via a mobile phone in 2018. http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/sv/ssd/START__LE__LE0108__LE0108D/LE0108T14/?rxid=8f4a0041-1be9-4ed3-b6fb182251a2b5cd 2 https://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/smartphone-power-compared-to-apollo-432/  1 [12]  My speech today will not provide all the answers. Instead, I intend to discuss my thoughts on how digitalisation can affect various parts of the economy and what role it plays for monetary policy. Can the Riksbank attain its target of 2 per cent even in a world of digitalisation? Is it still desirable to aim for this target? My reply to both of these questions is yes, but I will return to that later. Focus on digitalisation – where are we now? What is digitalisation and how does it differ from the concepts of automation and technological advances?
The use of internet and online shopping have increased in Sweden and are at a high level compared with other European countries. We now have access to more information than before and can compare prices of various products and various sellers very quickly. Previously, if you wanted to buy a new pair of shoes you had to go into several shops to compare prices. First you needed to have an idea of where to find a specific model of shoe, say a pair of Converse all-stars in size 39, and then you needed to travel round to find the best price. Now you can quite simply visit a price comparison site online and enter the name of the model and get price information, stocks status and suggested sales points that are online. This has reduced the search costs enormously.21  Companies’ pricing At the same time, e-commerce is changing the playing field for many trading companies and changing their pricing. Why should customers pay more for something in a shop when they can buy it cheaper online? 19 Heyman et al (2016). 20 Sveriges Riksbank (2018c). 21  The Swedish Competition Authority commissioned researchers Niklas Rudholm and Charlie Lindgren to analyse how price transparency through price comparison sites affects prices and price spread between companies. They used information from the comparison site Prisjakt to compare how prices of games differ between various online traders. They saw that the development of prices for a particular product was highly correlated among the largest companies.