samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Nevertheless, we are aware that within this reality, there is room for a more positive approach to consumption and investments, and more lending. Uncertainties and reluctance are the main problems standing in the way of the Albanian economy. The purpose of this forum is to identify, together, ways to overcome this situation. In this context, I would like to quote President Roosevelt: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. 2. Decision-making on banking supervision and financial stability  Recently, non-performing loans have been mentioned frequently. I will take this opportunity to make the following necessary clarification: First, I would like to underline that we have identified this problem at an early stage and have been very scrupulous with the banking system to evidence every penny of a loan that is not being repaid duly. This is why non-performing loans increased rapidly in the first period, and have stayed at the current levels for a long time. In contrast to other countries in our region, we have persisted not to conceal the non-performing loans, but evidence them accurately and comply with our rules to make provisions for every loss penny. Second, we have adopted a rather conservative approach to non-performing loans classification. In our case, when we calculate the value of non-performing loans, we do not take into account the value of collateral, as is the practice in many countries. If we deducted this value from that of the non-performing loans, the NPLs’ value would be significantly down.

The Bank of Albania will support this process by cooperating with the banking industry and improving the regulatory and supervisory framework. For the supervisory authorities of the financial system, the recommendations relate to strengthening the preventive and management framework of risks and, in this regard, improvement of the legal, operational and inter-institutional cooperation infrastructure is recommended. Concluding, I would like to reiterate our message: the prospects for Albania’s development remain positive. The economic and financial stability, geographical position and natural resources, and integration with the European Union make us optimistic about Albania’s future development. I invite you all to share in this vision and work together to make it a reality. I assure you that the Bank of Albania, as the supervisory authority, will undertake all the necessary actions, under its scope of activity, to support the industry to successfully overcome these challenges and ensure that the sector remains well capitalised and liquid. Thank you! BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
Answering this question will require an extensive period over which to analyse job creation and destruction dynamics. In any event, some studies for other countries that have previously enacted similar reforms suggest that they have had a certain cost in terms of lower net job creation. Also, insofar as the labour market reform has been conducive to contractual stability in temporary employment agencies, the type of professional development of those workers who start their career at such agencies will need to be analysed. Another issue that will need to be determined is whether the reform prompts an increase or decrease in labour turnover and, therefore, its impact on the accumulation of human capital by workers and their working lives. Furthermore, labour market regulation can also affect the type of jobs available and, in sum, the type and productivity of the firms that are created. In particular, some of the literature suggests that greater constraints on temporary contracts increase business productivity, but at the cost of higher unemployment. All of these overwhelmingly relevant questions should be subject to rigorous analysis in the years ahead. Having a diagnosis on these issues is essential to recalibrating the characteristics of contracts, should it be necessary.17 The labour market reform has also brought about changes in collective bargaining.

•  As we have discussed in our publications, such as our Monetary Policy Report, the current events will have dramatic effects on financial and economic activity. A contraction in the economy and a rise in unemployment are expected. •  Financial institutions and the banking sector are exposed to the shocks in liquidity and credit risk. At the same time, the banking sector is an important pillar channeling liquidity and credit support to firms and households. •  The CBC has been providing liquidity facilities to the markets since the Covid-19 first hit our country. •  Nevertheless, we have also stated that although this crisis will last longer than we originally expected, it is a temporary crisis. Moreover, the banking sector is in good shape and solvent to weather the storm. •  When crises hit our countries, systems like CLS acquire one of their most important roles. It is during these times that counterparty, and credit risks increase and a system that allows payments without any settlement risk is of extreme value for financial markets and the economy. Page 3 of 4  Central Bank of Chile July 2020  •  This crisis has created an important challenge to policymakers everywhere. In many countries, we hear that an extraordinary crisis should generate extraordinary responses. In Chile, we have indeed produced such extraordinary responses, both in size and shape.
People have more important things to do in their lives than think about interest rates and bank regulation, about price and financial stability. Or at least I hope they have. Indeed, central banks would be failing in their job if people were spending too much of their lives thinking or worrying about these issues. Nonetheless, the actions of central banks are important for most people at key decision points in their lives. At those points, a trusting and understanding relationship between the central bank and the public matters. It matters for people when making good decisions. It matters for the economy when following a good course. It matters for policymakers when setting good policy. That is why everyday economics, terrible title and all, matters to the Bank of England. 16  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  16  Annex  Figure 1 – Study of Mathematics  Per cent of total population at each age  1%  Undergraduate level  12%  A-level  75%  GCSE  100%  Pre-GCSE  Sources: HESA, Joint Council For Qualifications, ONS and Bank Calculations Notes: As mathematics is compulsory at younger ages, we assume that the percentage of students studying it pre-GCSE is 100%. Undergraduate level includes of the professional graduate certificate in education, foundation degrees, HND/DipHE and other undergraduate qualifications. This chart does not include Scottish qualifications.

43  If one feature of more effective communication with the general public is simplification, a second is story-telling. For most people, stories stick in a way facts and figures simply cannot. Recent experimental evidence has explored whether media narratives are able to stick in a way that can reshape public discourse, public opinion and public behaviour. 44  It finds compelling evidence that stories do just that. Some stories are, of course, more adhesive than others. I recently attended a conference on the merits of “Odyssean” and “Delphic” forward guidance. The use of Greek mythology is an example of story-telling. But are these stories sticky with the public? For most people, fictional goings-on in Ancient Greece several millennia ago are not especially sticky. Even modern-day citizens of Delphi might find them a stretch. The trick is in creating not just narratives but “popular narratives”, to use the language of George Akerlof and Robert Shiller. 45  One effective way of doing so is draw on stories that link to people’s personal, local or  recent experience. This helps people to visualise the story which, in turn, helps make it stick, in much the same way visualising a list of random items helps them stick in your memory. 42  The MPC’s decision to raise Bank Rate in November may also of course have had a role to play in generating extra hits. MuLuhan (1964). King, Schneer and White (2017). 45 See Shiller (2017).
This level is 1 pp of GDP higher than the average volume of this type of investment during the crisis. In any event, foreign direct investment in Spain was impacted to a lesser extent than portfolio investment during the recession, with no divestment recorded in any year, in contrast to what occurred with portfolio investment. That reveals its greater stability compared with other forms of international investment. Another notable characteristic of the recent trend of this item is the decline in the relative weight of these capital inflows in the form of debt liabilities – which comprise intra-group loans and have scarcely accounted for 12% of the total since 2013, compared with over 30% during the pre-crisis years (average between 1999 and 2007) – and the increase in investment in the form of equity. Thus, while in recent years the volume of foreign direct investment has, in terms of GDP, been around 1.5 pp below that observed during the pre-crisis expansion, its composition is sounder, since it is less vulnerable to adverse shocks. Challenges The future outlook for the foreign sector will be influenced by protectionist tensions and by the uncertainty still surrounding the final shape of EU-United Kingdom relations in the wake of Brexit. On the evidence available, the protectionist tensions between the United States and China may be expected to affect global trade flows in two ways: on one hand, a notable direct impact via the global value chains; and on the other, indirect adverse repercussions via their effects on global confidence and investment.

Temporary price level target Yellen's predecessor as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has proposed a solution that can be regarded as a special application of a makeup strategy. 24 This is based on the central bank under certain circumstances not having a target for inflation, but instead for the development of the price level. The difference may appear subtle, as inflation is the change in the price level, but it is potentially quite important. Let us assume that both the inflation target and the target increase for the price level is 2 per cent. If, in an inflation-targeting regime, one has an inflation rate that undershoots the 2 per cent target for a period of time, it is the central bank's task to bring it back on target. The fact that inflation has deviated from the target before is not important – “bygones are bygones”. But if it is instead the development of the price level that is the target and inflation deviates from 2 per cent, then this must be “made up for”. The principle is thus the same as Yellen's makeup strategy, but here one has clarified in advance that the target refers to the price level rather than inflation. The differences between a price level target and an inflation target is illustrated in Figure 7. 25 If something unexpected occurs in an inflation-targeting regime that causes inflation to be lower than the target, it is enough to bring inflation back to 2 per cent again (the bottom right figure).
3  Dooley M., Folkerts-Landau D., Garber P. (2003) “An Essay on the Revived Bretton Woods System“, NBER Working Paper 9971; Dooley M., Folkerts-Landau D., Garber P. (2004) “The Revived Bretton Woods System: The Effects of Periphery Intervention and Reserve Management on Interest Rates and Exchange Rates in Center Countries”, NBER Working Paper 10332; Dooley M., Folkerts-Landau D., Garber P. (2004) “Direct Investment, Rising Real Wages and the Absorption of Excess Labor in the Periphery“, NBER Working Paper 10626; Dooley M., Folkerts-Landau D., Garber P. (2004) “The US Current Account Deficit and Economic Development: Collateral for a Total Return Equity Swap“, NBER Working Paper 10727; Dooley M., Folkerts-Landau D., Garber P. (2005) “Savings Glut and Interest Rates: the Missing Link to Europe“, NBER Working Paper 11520. 4  Bernanke B. (2005) “The Global Saving Glut and the U.S. Current Account Deficit”, Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke At the Homer Jones Lecture, St. Louis, Missouri Updates speech given on March 10, 2005, at the Sandridge Lecture, Virginia Association of Economists, Richmond, Virginia.

Despite the series of shocks from the foreign and domestic environment which the Macedonian economy has faced in recent years, we maintain the average inflation rate at the level of 1.5%, which is very close to the average inflation of the Euro area countries and confirms the adequacy of the monetary setup in this period. The nominal exchange rate of the denar against the euro has been maintained at a stable level, contributing to stable expectations and maintaining the confidence of economic agents. We have maintained the foreign reserves at a comfortable level by guarantying currency stability and dealing with shocks. The banking system is set on a completely market basis, with the presence of renowned international banking groups – stable, liquid and capitalized. Our permanent investment in observing the international standards in the banking regulation and the modern supervisory standards has made a great contribution. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  No central banking institution can be set on firm grounds without dedicated and responsible people who have a vision, follow the direction of the modern central banks and at the same time work very hard to follow that path. In recent years, we have been continuously investing in the human capital. The support that we receive from international financial institutions, along with our dedication enables us to have a high quality core of professionals.
We have learned the lessons, and our challenge now is to restore prosperity with more resilient financial systems. Central banks have an important role in this endeavor. BIS Review 76/2010  7  References Bernanke, B. and M. Gertler (1999), “Monetary Policy and Asset Price Volatility”, in New Challenges for Monetary Policy, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 26–28 August, pp. 77–128. Bernanke, B. and V. Reinhart (2007), “Conducting Monetary Policy at Very Low Short-Term Interest Rates”, American Economic Review, 94(2), pp. 85–90. Bernanke, B. (2009), “The Crises and the Policy Response”, Stamp lecture at the London School of Economics, 13 January 2009, London, England. Cúrdia, V. and M. Woodford (2010), “The Central-Bank Balance Sheet as an Instrument of Monetary Policy”, mimeo, Columbia University. De Gregorio, J. (2008), “La Gran Moderación y el Riesgo Inflacionario: Una Mirada desde las Economías Emergentes”, Estudios Públicos, N° 110, pp. 5–20, otoño. English version, Banco Central de Chile, Documento de Política económica No. 24. De Gregorio, J. (2010), “Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: An Emerging Markets Perspective”, International Finance, 13(1), pp. 141–156. Galí, J. and L. Gambetti (2009), “On the Sources of the Great Moderation”, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, vol. 1 nº1, pp. 26–57. Goodfriend, M. (2010), “Central Banking in the Credit Turmoil: An Assessment of Federal Reserve Practice”, mimeo, Carnegie Mellon University. Murray, J. (2009), “When the Unconventional Becomes Conventional – Monetary Policy in Extraordinary Times”, Remarks to the Global Interdependence Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 8  BIS Review 76/2010

A credible inflation target with a flexible exchange rate regime should help to avoid the problems we faced during the 1990s. Indeed, during the period of large capital inflows, no monetary policy in Latin America operated under a full-fledge inflation targeting regime, and most countries had some form of exchange rate rigidity. Despite having a flexible exchange rate and an inflation target in place, the effects on the exchange rate could reflect that domestic asset prices could be forming a bubble. In this case, sterilized intervention, without an explicit objective on the level of exchange rate, can also help. I already discussed some principles to guide sterilized intervention within an inflation targeting framework. A much debated proposal is the use of capital controls. The  5  In addition, a traditional concern is that with the same speed as capital flows in, capital may flow out, generating costly adjustment processes. See Cowan et al. (2007) for a review of sudden starts and sudden stops around the world. Sudden stops of inflows are as common in developed as in emerging countries, but in the former, the sudden stop tends to be offset by a return of domestic capital invested abroad, while in the latter it results in a severe squeeze in the capital account. Accumulation of reserves or another form of insurance should help to avoid large swings. BIS Review 113/2009  5  evidence on their effectiveness is elusive.
I only allow for a partial offset relative to what the Modigliani Miller theorem implies – in fact I assume the offset is only 30% as great, which means that the weighted average cost of cost of capital rises by 70% of the baseline 10. Making this adjustment reduces the estimated present value of the cost of permanently higher bank capital by about 1% of annual GDP – from just over 4% to 3%. The major part of this remaining cost reflects that fact that we assume that all interest paid by banks on debt they raise is tax deductible at the corporation tax rate (of 28%) while equity capital has to earn the required rate of return out of post tax profits. But in thinking about the wider economic impact of a switch to less tax sheltered funding for banks we need to take account of the extra revenue generated for the government. The government could use the extra tax revenue it gets from banks to shelter the users of bank loans from any knock on impact on their cost of raising finance. This seems a natural assumption to make. And it would mean that we should reduce the estimated negative impact on economic activity.

Reacting to today’s inflation rate (which reflects where the level of prices is now relative to 12 months ago), rather than where inflation will be looking ahead, is not the right thing to do. The inflation rate can move a lot in a short period. Inflation was barely 1% less than a year ago. But this is a difficult situation to have to deal with. I dislike clichés so will resist the temptation to talk about the ship having being blown near to the rocks and now having to steer a difficult course in treacherous waters with rather out of date maps that have not been updated since noone expected we would be in such a place. But it is a temptation since it is not a bad analogy. How we came to be in this difficult situation is something on which many books have already been written. At the heart of the problems has been a banking system which proved catastrophically fragile. That fragility reflected the fact that many banks had come to have very high leverage – a lot of debt relative to capital – which made them vulnerable to concerns about losses on their assets. This poses a big and obvious question: how do we reduce the fragility of the banking system in a way that does not come at too high price – a price may come in the form of a lower level of overall economic activity?
At the beginning of 1998 it was assumed that a weaker international trend could be offset by other factors, of which one was the good domestic demand. At an early stage, actually when the Riksbank raised the interest rate in the late autumn of 1997, it was pointed out, however, that the international trend could be weaker than assumed in our main scenario and that the crisis could lead to a slowdown in Sweden as well. The signals of an international slowdown that would also affect growth in Sweden became increasingly clear. The Riksbank therefore successively revised its forecasts in a downward direction and eased the monetary stance in June. This follows from our policy framework, which calls for a lower repo rate when inflation in the forecast period is expected to be below the target and vice versa. The repo rate was cut in two more steps in November, from 4.10 to 3.60 per cent, followed by a further reduction to 3.40 per cent in December when the forecast was revised downwards again. Even after the series of downward revisions during the autumn, the December assessment still carried a downside risk of the international slowdown being even more pronounced and prolonged than expected. The uncertainty about international economic prospects has been accentuated somewhat by the economic problems in Brazil and the real’s depreciation since the turn of the year. The world economy may be affected contagiously, either via real mechanisms or via increased financial market turbulence.

With assets managed by SWFs estimated at 3,000 billion dollars, this category of investors represents twice the value of assets managed by hedge funds. 1 It is estimated that they will continue to grow in the future, to reach from 12,000 to 15,000 billion dollars, depending on estimates, in 2015. Consequently, they play and will continue to play an increasing role in the global financial system. As SWFs have long-term and diversified investment strategies and are not subject to sudden fund withdrawals by customers, they are usually considered to have a stabilising effect on the global financial system, despite their lack of transparency. Consequently, developed countries have an interest in attracting their investments. During the crisis, the behaviour of SWFs has differed according to the country of origin, but in general, it appears that their tendency to invest more than before in domestic and regionally close markets during the first stage of the crisis has come to an end, and that they have now resumed investing principally in OECD economies. 2 This is particularly true for Gulf sovereign funds, where diversified domestic investment opportunities are scarcer than for Asian sovereign funds, for example. In the first quarter of this year, Europe was by far the leading destination for Middle-Eastern and North African SWF investment. 3 Muslim countries, in particular oil-exporting ones, represent as much as 51% of total sovereign wealth funds’ assets.