This chapter assesses how the management of the nation’s long-term savings in what is now the Government Pension Fund Global brought Norges Bank a brand new responsibility from the mid-1990s, and an unusual one for a central bank. While many central banks have historically played an important part in contributing to government financing and investing government debt in liquid securities, this had never been one of Norges Bank’s main roles. Indeed, one of the key aims of the acts of 1816 and 1891 was to prevent the government from funding itself through the central bank. From the mid-1990s, however, Norges Bank was in a way given the opposite task: a separate mandate to manage the country’s financial wealth on behalf of the government by investing it abroad in long-term bonds, shares, and eventually real estate. Within twenty years, thanks to high oil prices and substantial inflows from the government, the fund’s market value soared from nothing to around NOK 7 trillion. In recent years, the fund’s rapid expansion and financial importance have brought Norges Bank—and Norway—at least as much international attention as the bank’s more traditional roles in monetary policy and financial stability.
