Therefore, we must make sure that financial firms address these risks. In particular, we should contribute to identifying climate-risk drivers and their transmission channels, to the adequate measurement of the economic and financial impact of the different risks, and to the definition and development of the potential mitigation and riskreduction measures. If we succeed in incorporating these risks into the decisions of the financial sector, this will translate into a change in the relative prices of financial instruments. And, in turn, that will help to internalise those consequences originating from both transition and physical risks that affect directly providers and users of funds. This will be a powerful and much-needed complement to the use of the fiscal and environmental instruments that are needed to fight against climate change. In practical terms, climate risk can probably be captured in the traditional financial risk categories (credit, market, liquidity or reputational risks). However, several crucial limitations and challenges are coming to light when trying to measure these risks. In particular, there are few sufficiently deep and harmonised databases to analyse and understand the potential effects of physical and transition risks. Data granularity is particularly important given the high heterogeneity of the potential impacts. And, while we are working hard to improve available information, we lack sufficient historical depth to be able to use the past as a guide to estimate future developments.
Such assessments are further complicated by the fact that there have been a number of important structural changes in the mortgage markets. Without going into detail, weighing the available evidence together, we do not think that residential property in Sweden is significantly overpriced in general. Nor do we believe that households in general are overly indebted. However, this does not preclude the possibility that there are other countries where house prices and household indebtedness have risen to levels beyond what can be fundamentally motivated. Yet, even if we don’t believe that house prices and household indebtedness have been disconnected from their fundamental drivers, there are still reasons for us to be concerned by the rise in property prices and household indebtedness. In the last years, in Sweden as elsewhere, household debt has grown much faster than disposable income. Obviously, this is not sustainable in the long run, as households then ultimately would be unable to service their debts. In the long run it is likely that indebtedness and house prices will increase roughly at the same rate as the nominal growth of the economy. This type of adjustment, to more restrained growth rates, will normally occur smoothly, as households begin to feel that their finances cannot tolerate a higher level of indebtedness. However, if there is an overly sharp correction or “hard landing” if you like, it could lead to weak growth in the economy for a long period of time. In this case, it would also have effects on inflation.