One often sees forecasts as mean forecasts. This means in principle that the risk that the economy will develop less well is as great as the chance that it will develop better. A mean forecast for GDP growth abroad, for instance, balances everything that could give rise to lower growth against everything that could give rise to higher growth. Another way of expressing the same thing is that the forecast is a form of middle way of all the different roads the economy could take in the coming period. This way of working with forecasts means that one acts as though one has succeeded in quantifying the possibilities and effects of all of the different potential courses of events. A year or so ago there were frequent discussions of the risk of a split or disintegration of the euro system – what was the probability that this would happen and what effects would it have for Sweden? Today there may be reason to ask these questions with regard to an escalation of the Ukraine conflict or to a substantial fall in housing prices in Sweden. If one considers these difficulties in quantifying various possible sequences of events and probabilities that they will occur, it may not be as simple a matter to make decisions on monetary policy and make forecasts for future interest rates as it is sometimes made out to be.
From a practical perspective, for the BNB this means reorganising the management, administrative, IT, and budget processes in these two areas, as well as an increase in the number of employees involved in these activities. So far the banking supervision and bank resolution activities have been funded by the BNB’s monetary income. From 2021 the BNB will move on to the principle of the ECB and SRB to fund the relevant activities by collecting fees from credit institutions. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches