Last observation refers to December 2010 in the case of the US, China and the euro area and to November 2010 in the case of EMEs and World. Sources: IMF IFS, PBoC, Haver Analytics and ECB staff calculations. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  Chart 8: Real ex-post short-term interest rates and real GDP growth – US and EA  Note: Last observation refers to January 2011 for the US and December 2010 for the euro area. Sources: National sources, Haver Analytics and ECB staff calculations. Chart 9: Real ex-post short-term interest rates and real GDP growth – China and EMEs  Note: Last observation refers to January 2011 for China and November 2010 for EME aggregate. Aggregate created on the basis of GDP PPP weights from IMF October 2010 WEO (2009 fixed weights). Sources: National Sources, Haver Analytics and ECB staff calculations. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Chart 10: Monetary policy accommodation and lending standards  Note: Monetary policy accommodation is proxied by the residual of an estimated monetary policy reaction function (with inverted sign). For the US it is based on G. Rudebusch (2009), “The Fed’s Monetary Policy Response to the Current Crisis”, San Francisco Fed Economic Letter. For the euro area it is based on an update of the reaction function estimated in L. Christiano, R. Motto and M. Rostagno (2010), “Financial Factors in Economic Fluctuations”, ECB WP No. 1192. The lending standards are the net percentage of respondents tightening lending standards to enterprises.
As a euro participant, however, Sweden would be in the same boat as other member states as regards many of what appear to be likely supply shocks, for instance oil price fluctuations. As regards the lack of knowledge, there are clearly no simple institutional solutions. But this does not mean that the institutional frameworks for conducting policy do not affect the accumulation of knowledge. As I mentioned earlier, the Stability and Growth Pact has led to a rapid development of EU work to arrive at a better understanding of the interaction of public budgets and capacity utilisation. In Sweden, the acquisition of knowledge about potential growth, the output gap and so on has been stimulated in that the Riksbank has been made accountable for safeguarding the value of money and we have placed this mandate in a clear intellectual framework that calls for deeper analyses. This in turn has had consequences for how both the Ministry of Finance and the National Institute of  4  BIS Review 6/2002  Economic Research are now working on these matters. Another reason why Swedish authorities have reason to be more involved in a broad discussion and analysis of questions such as these is perhaps that euro participation could lead to the financial markets becoming less interested in analysing specifically Swedish conditions. I consider that the importance of a high level of competence in such institutions as the Finance Ministry, the Riksbank and the National Institute should be emphasised.