During the crisis 2008–2009, GDP fell from a peak prior to the crisis in the fourth quarter of 2007 to a trough in the first quarter of 2009 by around 7.5 per cent. These falls are thus in the same magnitude as the insurance premium. If the premium and the damage are about the same size, is it a sensible insurance policy? It is actually possible that in certain special situations effects may arise from relatively small increases in the interest rate, when combined with words of warning from the central bank and financial supervisory authorities. As Charles Bean, deputy governor of the Bank of England, said in his paper presented at the Jackson Hole conference in 2010: ”[T]here may be times when a mixture of words and modest interest rate action can be effective in cooling excessive market exuberance[. ]”7 However, as far as I know, no such effect from limited interest rate increases has been actually proved. Moreover, there is hardly anyone who would claim that the Swedish housing and mortgage market is characterised by “excessive market exuberance”. As far as I know, no one has referred to any indicators of exaggerated and unrealistic optimism regarding current developments in housing prices. In his paper, Bean reaches the same conclusion that is supported today by extensive research and practical experience: “[G]enerally speaking, monetary policy seems too weak an instrument reliably to moderate a credit/asset–price boom without inflicting unacceptable collateral damage on activity.
25  By the long-run sustainable rate of unemployment, also known as the long-run equilibrium rate of unemployment, I refer to the rate of unemployment in steady state, where the economy is in a state of what is known as balanced growth, the effect of all shocks has waned and expectations are fulfilled. This should not be confused with other more short-run equilibrium concepts. According to Rogerson (1997), this is the only equilibrium concept for unemployment that is well-defined. The Ministry of Finance’s (2011) assessment from April 2011 entails a long-run sustainable rate of unemployment of 5 per cent. The National Institute of Economic Research’s (2011) assessment from December 2011 entails a long-run sustainable rate of unemployment of 5.8 per cent. The Riksbank's (2012b) assessment from July 2012 lies in an interval with a midpoint of 6.25 per cent. My own assessment is that the Riksbank’s midpoint is an overestimate of around 0.75 percentage points and that long-run sustainable rate of unemployment is thus around 5.5 per cent (Sveriges Riksbank 2012a, appendix). 26  In Svensson (2011b) I note that the forecasts for inflation and unemployment looked similar for Sweden and the United States in summer 2010 and that in this situation the Federal Reserve held its policy rate close to zero and began to prepare QE2, the second round of its quantitative easing, while the Riksbank began to raise its policy rate. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches  How high is the cost of the current policy?