samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This reflects lower international commodity and producer prices, a slower increase in global consumer prices and a stronger krone exchange rate. As these effects wane, and if global economic growth picks up in line with expectations, import price inflation may reach a more normal level. If growth in the global economy picks up again as we have assumed, we expect consumer price inflation to be about 2½ per cent in two years. Meanwhile, consumer price inflation may be somewhat lower due to the downturn abroad and the decline in prices for imported goods. Norges Bank presented its most recent Inflation Report in October 2001. In the light of international developments, and other factors, we considered the probability that inflation two years ahead would be lower than 2½ per cent to be greater than the probability that it would be higher. This was the basis for Norges Bank’s decision to reduce its key rate by 0.5 percentage point to 6.5 per cent in December. Norges Bank’s assessment of the outlook for inflation remained unchanged following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 23 January this year. BIS Review 8/2002  3  4  BIS Review 8/2002  BIS Review 8/2002  5  6  BIS Review 8/2002  BIS Review 8/2002  7  8  BIS Review 8/2002  BIS Review 8/2002  9  10  BIS Review 8/2002  BIS Review 8/2002  11  12  BIS Review 8/2002

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
For example, the elimination of ceilings on the contribution base would significantly raise revenues, but it would also mean a substantial increase in labour costs, and if there is no parallel increase in maximum pensions the relationship between contributions and benefits which, in my opinion, should be preserved, would be considerably weakened. Another option would be to confine the concept of contributory pensions exclusively to retirement pensions, which would continue to be funded from social contributions, while other pensions would be funded from general taxes. Clearly, this would require increasing general taxes, or reducing other public expenditure in order to be able to pay for the pensions transferred from the social security fund to central government. As regards raising general taxes to pay for pensions, it is crucial that the resulting tax basket has the mildest possible distortionary effects on growth, bearing in mind the point of departure. 5/6  To conclude, I would like to share three considerations with you. Firstly, I would like to highlight that the recent reforms have built in an automatic mechanism for the financial equilibrium of the pension system (sustainability factor and revaluation index), bringing it closer to other European public pension systems. This automatic mechanism, as it is currently defined or under alternative definitions in the future, should be preserved. Secondly, current regulations or any additional reforms should be implemented as transparently as possible in order to give the public the necessary information about the sufficiency of future pensions and allow individuals to make optimal saving decisions.

W A Wijewardena: Microfinance – issues in the current context Keynote address by Mr W A Wijewardena, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Seminar on Microfinance Services in Sri Lanka, Colombo, 29 June 2009. *  *  *  A new word that has been added to Sri Lanka’s vernacular usage recently has been “sakvithi”. This word has so far not got into lexicographers’ lexicon in its new sense. Literarily, it means the “Chief God of Heavens”. But, the contemporary media have used it in a different sense, drawing on a recent episode of fraud that had ended up pauperising many investors who were ambitious of high gains. Hence, its contemporary meaning has been clear even to its first-time spotters. The picture created in the mind when one hears the word is not that of a god but a man: a man bent on deceiving others with false promises of unusually high gains, but at the end, finishes up by appropriating to him their wealth. It is also the picture of a man who has played with the psychological frailties of people with crafty marketing and propaganda by projecting himself as a saint, friend and saviour. Those who fall for his artful schemes will get one thing for sure: complete loss of their life-time savings. It, therefore, foretells of shattering of hopes which they may have cherished about a better future as well. Sakvithi’s lessons for microfinance Sakvithi episode is not an isolated incident of breach of trust.
The need to address such gaps prompted important decisions in the EU with the objective of establishing a new framework for macro-prudential oversight at EU level. Following last week’s approval by the European Parliament of the relevant legislative proposals, this institutional lacuna will be filled at the beginning of 2011 with the establishment of the European Systemic Risk Board as a new EU body responsible for conducting macro-prudential oversight at the European level, with the conferral of specific supporting tasks on the ECB. This is part of a broad comprehensive review of the EU institutional framework for supervision, which includes also the enhancement of micro-prudential supervision through the establishment of three European Supervisory Authorities – ESAs for the banking, securities and insurance sector respectively. The ESRB will be chaired by the ECB President. The membership with voting rights (37) will include all the Governors of the EU central banks (27). This will ensure that the financial stability analysis of the ESRB will benefit from the macro-economic, financial and monetary expertise of the EU central banks. The ESRB will be responsible for the macroprudential oversight of the EU financial system and will have the following main tasks: (i) the identification and prioritisation of systemic risk: (ii) the issuance of risk warning and where appropriate recommendations for remedial action; (iii) the issuance of a warning to the Council of Ministers on the existence of an emergency situation, to trigger further action from national and EU authorities.

In this context, the ECB and the 3 Level 3 Committees, predecessors of the ESAs, are proceeding in a dialogue on issues of common interest. V.  Concluding remarks  Let me conclude. The ESRB will have a challenging task considering the high level of expectations about its impact as well as the difficulties surrounding the area of financial stability which I mentioned earlier. The success of the ESRB will also depend on the commitment of all stakeholders to contribute effectively to its mission. The ECB, on its part, is fully committed to ensure all the necessary support to allow the ESRB to fulfil the important responsibilities assigned to it by the Member States. The ECB is committed to continue to invest on its analytical capabilities so as to enhance risk surveillance processes and produce high quality risk assessments with a view to inform ESRB decisions. It is also committed to devote efforts to develop a coherent macroprudential policy framework, thereby contributing to the efforts being done at the global level in this domain, also well reflected in this conference. Having said this, let me recall that the most important contribution that a central bank can provide to the maintenance of financial stability is to preserve price stability. Maintaining price stability has been, and will continue to be, the primary mandate of the European Central Bank, and it will not be affected at all by the assignment of new responsibilities in the macroprudential area. BIS Review 125/2010  5
In addition, to strengthen supervisory framework in line with financial and risk structures of financial groups, consolidated supervision will be phased-in in two steps: first is to introduce qualitative measures this year which have already been done, and the second is the implementation of the quantitative measures by 2010. To conclude, conditions in the global economy and global financial markets have become more challenging. So, this calls for a time of greater caution as we move forward. Also, this means the ability of the banking sector to withstand shocks will be an important prerequisite for any economy in managing the spillovers from the slowing global economy and volatile  2  BIS Review 111/2008  financial markets. In the Thai case, the strength and the resiliency of the banking sector is with us, and thus they should be well placed to weather the turmoil, without adverse effects on their roles in supporting the economy and in maintaining financial stability. Thank you for your attention. BIS Review 111/2008  3

In this respect, the concept of financial stability was seen as a by product of monetary stability. Economists believed that by stabilizing consumer prices, financial assets would also behave in a stable and predictable way. The crisis painfully reminds us that: this is not necessarily true. Behaviour in financial markets is not always rational and lack of confidence in the markets can spiral out of control, sending shockwaves throughout the economy. Fortunately, the Bank of Albania adopted a more conservative approach considering monetary policy and financial stability issues simultaneously, conditioning either decisionmaking process by the other one. Due to this behaviour, the crisis had a direct but trivial impact on the financial system. Despite this, the banking system faced immediate difficulties in the form of deposit withdrawals, emerging as indirect effects of fear contagion and irrational expectations. The liquidity problems that emerged spilled over to the credit market and later to the real economy and foreign sector. The Bank of Albania reacted quickly to this changing economic climate. Liquidity was abundantly injected to our banks and more stringent regulations were applied in regard to the transfer of funds. However, unlike in most other countries where monetary policy was used initially to boost aggregate demand, in Albania, monetary policy stayed in its course giving way to expansionary fiscal policy. Due to a relatively long period of consolidation, fiscal policy at the outburst of crises had abundant room for manoeuvre and has a more direct impact on the economy.
It will also give us the most important public platform to explain and defend our decisions, which sooner or later will prove unpopular. Unlikely as it may now seem, there will come a day when much of the public, businesses and banks find themselves on the same side, united in their opposition to the FPC taking away the Punchbowl before the party gets totally out of control. But the FPC will not be like the MPC in all respects. In contrast to monetary policy decisions, at least as practiced in the UK where we decide via individual votes, we will aim to reach decisions by consensus (although there will be provision for voting). That is essentially because of the wide range of issues the FPC will consider and the range of instruments potentially under our control. Another contrast with monetary policy is that, in some respects, we are entering unchartered territory for a developed economy. We will all – policymakers, bankers, investors, commentators, politicians – be learning about how, for example, varying capital, liquidity or collateral requirements is transmitted into the credit markets and the economy more widely. I therefore expect us to publish papers on how we approach our task and on the underlying economics. And, through the Remit process I described earlier, the government will be able to adapt the regime at the edges as we all learn. And we will need to learn, sometimes from mistakes or missed opportunities.

See also the Bank’s paper: “The role of macroprudential policy: A discussion paper”, November 2009. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The benchmark instrument, in the sense that it will definitely exist, will be the countercyclical buffer (CCB) in the Basel 3 Capital Accord. In the UK, it will be the FPC that decides whether to switch off the semi-automatic application of the CCB when triggered by the ratio of credit to GDP and other indicators exceeding certain thresholds. (It is not altogether clear, by the way, who will have that responsibility in other countries; the function requires a system-wide perspective and a macroeconomic capability and so is not exclusively in the domain of microprudential regulators.) Beyond the one instrument agreed internationally so far, the UK government is also considering whether to give the FPC a variety of other instruments. These include varying liquidity requirements; and varying capital requirements against specific types of exposure (“risk weights”) and/or minimum haircuts for specific types of secured lending, whether financing hedge funds etc or Loan-To-Value ratios for property-related lending. The availability of such targeted instruments might be especially useful where the FPC wished to mitigate risks from overexuberance and collective imprudence in lending to a particular sector without necessarily affecting credit conditions more generally. Targeting a specific area of business might also sometimes help to resolve a collective action problem sustaining a bubble if enough lenders themselves thought risk was being underpriced.
Thank you, because the allocation of funds from the pre-accession funds for the implementation of this Project, means a trust that we are ready to work on strengthening the institutional capacity and on the mutual cooperation in order to implement the recommendations that will arise from the project activities. I am sure that we will justify the trust. Not only with the level of our commitment to the Project in the next eight months, but also with the willingness to implement all necessary activities for establishing a strong and efficient system for fight against counterfeiting of euro in the country. These activities are already outlined in the strategic commitments of our institutions, because our ultimate goal is to provide a system that, in all aspects, will be at the level of the system of a European Union member state. Only with full dedication, readiness and professionalism, the trust will be fully justified and we will prove that the Project was indeed successful – that the 250,000 Euros intended for its implementation were channeled in the right direction. I am firmly convinced that the Ministry of Interior and the National Bank, as beneficiaries of this Project, will jointly succeed in doing so.

Emilija Nacevska: Strengthening the capacities of the system for fight against counterfeiting of the euro Speech by Ms Emilija Nacevska, Vice Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the opening conference of the Twinning Light Project "Strengthening the capacities of the system for fight against counterfeiting of the euro", Skopje, 15 January 2019. * * * Dear Minister Oliver Spasovski, Your Excellencies Samuel Zbogar and Thomas Gerberich, dear Project Leaders Biljana Celeska Anevska and Peter Spicka, dear Mr Damir Bichanic, distinguished representatives of the Delegation of the European Union in the country and representatives of the Ministry of Interior, distinguished colleagues, dear guests, It is my honor and pleasure to greet you on the behalf of the National Bank and to welcome you to today’s event held in our institution, marking together the beginning of this very important Twinning Light Project aimed at strengthening the capacities of the institutions involved in the system for fight against counterfeiting of euro. At the very beginning of my speech, I would like to express the gratitude of the National Bank to the European Union, because it has recognized the determination of our key institutions responsible for fighting money counterfeit to put their maximum in establishing a strong and efficient system for protection of the national, as well as the financial interests of the Union.
Reference wage values, social preferences, jobs’ characteristics, skills’ endowments and even Central Banks’ targets, they all change over time – hence, the impact of cumulative wage gaps on inflation cannot be the same in different time periods. In fact, even Phillips (1958) mentioned that he ignored years in which import prices rise rapidly enough to initiate a wage-price spiral. He stated that his hypothesis that the rate of change of money wage rates can be explained by the level of unemployment is supported except in or immediately after such years. In doing that, he effectively acknowledged the non-stationarity of his curve. He referred to those years as events that occur very rarely except as a result of a war. Our approach embraces these events, except that in modern times it is not war that makes the difference, but recessions; and recessions happen more often than wars. We try to explain what happens during and after recessions – which is exactly what is omitted by the original Phillips curve. Wages, as the most important source of income for most households around the globe, stand at the basis of any consumption theory. The main problem with the prevailing consumption theories (Keynes’ consumption function (1936), Modigliani’s life-cycle hypothesis (1966) and 2  Friedman’s permanent income hypothesis (1957)) is their long-term approach. This puts them at odds with our rather short and medium-term perspective on inflation, especially in times of crisis.

The new National Bank was expected to gradually take over the activities of the former noteissuing institutions and to bring some welcome order to the payment system. At the time, the value of the Swiss franc was defined in gold and silver, the precious metal content of the coins was fixed accordingly and banknotes could be exchanged for gold. Nowadays, the SNB’s responsibility in matters of monetary stability is uncontested. In fact, it is explicitly mandated by law to preserve price stability while taking economic developments into account. Moreover, economic theory stresses the special responsibility of central banks in this area. The goals, methods and instruments of monetary policy have thus undergone profound changes. Nevertheless, the principles that have guided our activity over the past century have been remarkably enduring, and this is exemplified by the history of the National Bank. Pursuit of stability From the outset, the National Bank recognised that its role as the national note-issuing institution would extend far beyond the harmonisation of payment systems. The first steps were difficult. During the First World War, the SNB actively participated in financing military expenditures through its loans. This undisciplined lending policy pushed up inflation, thereby contributing to the social unrest of 1918. This sparked a broad debate on the SNB’s responsibility for the massive price rise. These events, along with the subsequent tragedy of German hyperinflation, left a strong mark on the National Bank. It must have been at that time that the SNB fully realised the complexity of its task.
If inflation looks likely to exceed the Bank’s target limits in a long-term perspective, the Bank will raise its policy interest rate, or cut this rate if inflation is heading below the target limit. In preparing its inflation forecasts and regular assessment of the economic situation and outlook, the Central Bank examines a wide variety of indicators. These include both statistical data and information  BIS Review 12/2003  1  obtained from interviews with representatives of industry, special interest groups, credit institutions and others. Much of this statistical data is available on the Bank’s website. Decisions by the Central Bank’s Board of Governors are made following in-depth examination of these indicators, based on the Bank’s evaluation of the situation and prospects, the premises behind the inflation forecast and the inflation forecast itself. In accordance with the provisions of the Act which entered into force in the spring of 2001, the Board adopted internal rules on the preparation of, arguments for and presentation of its monetary policy decisions. The rules were formally approved at the beginning of 2002 and published in the quarterly Monetary Bulletin. The inflation target adopted in March 2001 removed the earlier fluctuation bands set for the ISK exchange rate and the exchange rate was floated. The new monetary policy framework was introduced under rather difficult conditions, with a sliding exchange rate and mounting inflation. It is fair to say that the tight monetary stance is the main reason that inflation receded as sharply as it did in 2002.

After the introduction of inflation targeting in 2001, the Central Bank has no specific objective as far as the exchange rate is concerned. This is in accordance with its policy of targeting inflation and a floating exchange rate. This has been interpreted to mean that the Bank is completely disinterested in developments in the exchange rate. This is not true. The exchange rate for the króna is very important, the events of the past year or two are more than sufficient indication of that. As the Bank has previously pointed out, the real exchange rate at present is not far from average over the past 20 years, nor much above the average of the past 10 years. The nominal exchange rate since the beginning of this year is in fact slightly lower than it was during the same months two years ago. The exchange rate for the króna is determined by the situation and strength of the national economy, external equilibrium and market expectations. The present exchange rate thus reflects to a considerable extent factors which the Central Bank can do little to influence. The large exchange rate fluctuation from 2000 to 2002 can be attributed to specific circumstances, and the exchange rate is unlikely to fluctuate as substantially in the immediate future as it did during this period. It should be borne in mind, however, that the nature of the Icelandic economy and its small size does mean that currency fluctuations as a rule will be greater than between the currencies of larger economies.