Today, I intend to discuss my view of monetary policy and explain in more detail why I entered a reservation at the latest monetary policy meeting. Much of the reasoning is the same as when I advocated a lower repo-rate path. 2 The new points that I want to make here today relate to the reasons why I entered a reservation in favour of the extended repo-rate path rather than a lower repo-rate path with a reduced repo rate. Let me begin by presenting my general view of monetary policy. 1  One may ask why the focus should be on the CPIF and not the CPI. In a situation in which significant reporate changes have very large direct effects on the CPI, I consider it to be more appropriate to focus on stabilising the CPIF around the inflation target, instead of the CPI. 2  See also the speech “Why a lower repo rate?” that I made at Umeå University on 24 February this year for a detailed account of that reasoning. BIS Review 60/2010  1  Flexible inflation targeting stabilises both inflation and resource utilisation When discussing what repo-rate path one should choose it is natural to take the Riksbank’s monetary policy objectives as a starting point. The Sveriges Riksbank Act and its preparatory work stipulate that monetary policy focuses on stabilising inflation around the inflation target and resource utilisation around a normal level. This is what is referred to as flexible inflation targeting.
That would afford us better knowledge of the relations between subsidiaries and their parent companies, which are so important for understanding the effects of globalisation. Moreover, the ESCB has contributed to the creation of a worldwide network to set up a global identifier for legal entities, the Legal Entity Identifier (or LEI). In Spain, some institutions, including INE and the Banco de España, are promoting the use of the LEI and facilitating its implementation in our country. I think there is a broad consensus that the widespread use of the LEI among institutions and firms globally would greatly favour the monitoring of financial stability and the compilation of statistics. Globalisation also poses significant challenges for the compilation of macroeconomic statistics, on which our institutions cooperate very closely. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) organise their activity and finances globally and the complexity of allocating them correctly across countries can only be afforded by data-sharing –nationally and internationally- and perhaps even by resorting to centralised data reporting and quality checking. Obtaining information from MNEs as groups would allow reporting to be simplified, while at the same time ensuring a consistent cross-country recording of transactions, assets and liabilities. I have mentioned before how important it is for official statistics to offer a complete and consistent picture of the whole economic situation. In this regard, it is crucial that users know the links between the different products, even when they are produced by different institutions. And this is something which should hold not only for aggregates but also for micro data.