According to Lars Jonung, the Swedish Riksbank's negative interest rate has led to increased income and wealth gaps. Those who own properties and shares have benefited. Another problem is that the Riksbank has pursued an “extremely expansive” monetary policy during a severe economic boom when a strict monetary policy should have been implemented. In addition, the minus interest rate has contributed to the Swedish currency falling in value, which in principle has made “all Swedes poorer”, according to Jonung.

- Minus interest rates are a way to mask the problems we have in the Swedish economy. While creating new problems. The minus interest rate was a failed experiment, says Jonung and continues:

- The Riksbank has not significantly succeeded in reaching our 2 per cent target. There have been many negative effects but hardly anything positive as a result of the large negative interest rate experiment.

Inflation targets would produce growth

During the 1990s, the Riksdag decided that the Riksbank should have price stability as the main target and in 1993 the Riksbank specified the target at two per cent inflation. By raising and lowering the Riksbank interest rate, the bank would affect inflation. According to the economic models of the 1980s, an independent national bank with an inflation target would create long-term growth without crises. That seemed to be going well until the financial crisis came in 2008. Which caused the central banks around the world to cut interest rates sharply. Sweden's Riksbank was among the most downtrodden.

According to Lars Jonung, the expected effect of the extremely low interest rates has not been realized. Instead, they have brought new problems.

- The risk with the low interest rates is increased risks of financial imbalances and thus also increased risk of a new financial crisis. When it comes, it will be a high price for the Swedish economy in the form of very low growth. The big problem we have in modern economies with large financial markets is to avoid financial crises because they are the ones that create unemployment and political instability, ”says Lars Jonung.