Macroeconomic Outlook with Jens Magnusson, Chief Economist at SEB

On Thursday 12 May, the BSCC had the pleasure of hosting a macroeconomic outlook briefing together with SEB at their office in Stockholm. The briefing was given by Jens Magnusson, Chief Economist at SEB, who has the overall responsibility of SEB’s Swedish and global analysis of macroeconomics and economic policy. He joined SEB in 2005 from a position as Head of Department at the Ministry of Finance and has been working with economic analysis at various departments of the bank.

At the event, Jens presented SEB’s Nordic Outlook Report (May 2022) and highlighted the key points from it. Currently, the world is dominated by uncertainties due to numerous factors:

• The Ukrainian war
• Soaring commodity prices and surging inflation
• Tightened monetary policies and the practice of quantitative tightening
• COVID-19 pandemic

Consequently, we can observe a global drop in the household real incomes, purchasing power and consumer confidence. Despite some gloom aspects, SEB would still believe in a soft landing after the crises. With a large buffer and small debt burdens, the households seem to be resilient to the downturn. For the fiscal authorities, there is also some room for manoeuvring.