They indicate that Swedish companies can compete in the global marketplace, but their operations are such that they do not require very much labour, at least not in Sweden. Different assessments have been made of how large a percentage of total unemployment is cyclical and in turn how much of this cyclical unemployment can be affected by monetary policy. The serious assessment attempts that I have seen usually end up with only a small fraction, according to some estimates only one or a few tenths of a percentage points, of total unemployment being affected by monetary policy. Those are calculations that are highly uncertain and should be taken with a large pinch of salt. However my point is that it is a gross exaggeration when, in the present debate, the Riksbank’s decision to lower or not lower the interest rate is presented as having momentous consequences for unemployment in Sweden. This kind of claim is not compatible with any serious assessments or forecasts. 2  BIS Review 41/2005  On the whole, the reason for the problems in the labour market is not poor demand – on the contrary, lending is growing at a rapid pace and companies have ample liquidity – but these problems are rather related to structural factors.
This line of reasoning applies when demand grows rapidly, as now, and when capacity utilisation rises. In my opinion, the interest rate effects would be different if the growth in demand slowed down, the labour market weakened and capacity utilisation ceased rising. Then there would be less upward pressure on house prices and I believe that an interest rate cut would be less risky in these terms. International developments could also be so weak that insufficient export market demand would curb the recovery. The weak developments in our most important trading partner countries, the euro area, are particularly worrying. Like Sweden and the United States, Germany, France and Italy are affected by globalisation, but in these countries the labour market seems to be finding it particularly difficult to cope with change. Germany is at the same time undergoing extensive structural reforms, such as the reduction of compensation levels for unemployment benefits and other transfers, and also longer working hours without full compensation. In the long term, these measures are aimed at increasing the labour supply and competitiveness of the German economy. However, in the short term they lead to uncertainty for many individuals and thereby curb consumer confidence and demand. At the same time, fiscal policy is tied by weak government finances due to a lack of fiscal consolidation during the good times at the end of the 1990s which has made the obligations under the Stability Pact more or less binding, while monetary policy is common to the entire euro area.