The age dependency ratio, that is the ratio between people of pensionable age and people of working age, is expected to increase in Sweden from the current level of 30 per cent to 45 per cent by 2050. For Europe as a whole, however, the age dependency ratio is expected to increase from 25 per cent to 52 per cent. At the same time, of all the countries in the OECD only Norway, which is an oil exporter and Switzerland have larger current account surpluses as a percentage of GDP than Sweden. 17 The crisis of the 1990s perhaps meant that the Swedish public accepted the demand for a consolidation of public finances in a different way than in other countries. In many cases, these countries are being forced to conduct similar budget consolidation processes now  16  This is a somewhat controversial claim, however, as future generations can be expected to have higher real incomes due to the growth of productivity in the economy. 17  The National Institute of Economic Research “Sparsamma hushåll har skapat ett stort överskott i den svenska bytesbalansen” (“Thrifty households have created a large surplus in Sweden’s current account”). Article, 2011. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  instead. If so, this suggests that the differences in saving compared to other countries will decline in the long term, and thus also the Swedish current account surplus.
In order to cope with this new situation, we have slightly modified our existing framework of inflation targeting by explicitly highlighting the increasing role of financial stability in our objective function. Accordingly, first we have announced the details of our exit strategy from crisis measures in April 2010. As a first step, we have normalized the liquidity support facilities and brought back the TRY reserve requirement ratios to pre-crisis levels of 6 percent. Second, we started to highlight the macro financial risks and contingent policy responses. For example, we have stated through our policy documents that, if divergence in growth rates between domestic and external demand continues in the forthcoming period, and if this pattern of growth coexists with rapid credit expansion and deterioration in the current account balance, it would be necessary to utilize other policy instruments such as reserve requirement ratios and liquidity management facilities more effectively. The primary objective of the CBT is to achieve and maintain price stability. However, the recent crisis has taught us that this single objective may not be enough for attaining macroeconomic and financial stability. In this respect, we reminded the public that financial stability is one of the fundamental duties of the CBT as stipulated in our Law, and we approach financial stability from a macroeconomic perspective. From an emerging market point of view, the concept of “macroprudential” measures may not be the same as it is perceived in advanced economies.