samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
However, at the latest monetary policy meeting in April 2010 I chose not to advocate a lower repo-rate path but instead an “extended” repo-rate path. In this extended path, the period in which the repo-rate is 0.25 per cent is extended to the end of the fourth quarter of 2010 instead of to the end of the second quarter as the majority decided. I thus supported the decision to leave the repo rate unchanged at 0.25 per cent, but entered a reservation in favour of the extended repo-rate path. My reason for this was that such a repo-rate path has the same effects as the lower repo-rate path; that is a higher level of resource utilisation and a level of CPIF inflation closer to the target. 1 An expansionary monetary policy can thus be achieved either with a lower repo-rate path in which the repo rate is reduced now or with an extended repo-rate path in which the repo rate is maintained at a low level for a longer period of time. Some of my colleagues have had certain doubts about a repo-rate level below 0.25 per cent. As you know, I do not share these doubts. In this context, the extended repo-rate path has the advantage that these doubts are no longer relevant. It also has the advantage that it reduces the monetary policy decision to the question of when the repo-rate should be increased.

This data constraint could also become an issue for some developed markets, given a structural break in data due to the financial crisis and market dislocation. On top of these, there is the issue of level playing-field, as the structure of bank asset and liability in emerging and developed countries may be significantly different. We have found several policies that may have impact on level playing-field, between countries and business models of banks. An example is the application of a simple leverage ratio, which does not take into account inherent risk, because this would tend to penalise banks in developing countries that generally hold less risky assets compared to developed countries. In addition, macro-prudential measures, such as leverage ratio, could likely have a macroeconomic impact, possibly similar to use of liquidity reserve requirement as per classic monetary policy tool, and thus coordination with macroeconomic policy is vital. For central banks with dual role, this is less of a challenge, but for separated regulators, the issue of organisation structure once again comes into play. Turning to the Bank of Thailand’s involvement on these regulatory debates through various international forums – such as the bi-monthly BIS Governor Meetings, the Standard Implementation Group of BCBS, of which we are a member – we have proposed that developing countries be invited to participate in the formulation of new standards right at the beginning, rather than to be included at the later stage of implementation.
Suffice it to mention large-scale investment in power-intensive industries and other sectors during the first half of the period in question, a major increase in real disposable income in the past few years and credit expansion which has been funded by foreign borrowing. The Central Bank's monetary policy has therefore played a minor role in this development and its impact has primarily been of a short-term nature and will eventually be levelled out. Of course, the Central Bank is also aware that open access to foreign capital softens the impact of its monetary policy. However, it should be borne in mind that access to foreign capital is not unlimited in the final analysis, and is neither risk-free nor available to all Icelandic companies. Household and corporate sensitivity to interest rate changes may be low at present, but in the long term the impact of higher interest rates cannot be avoided. The Central Bank is convinced of the impact that its interest rate instruments have, and recent discussions about high interest rates can be cited as precisely such evidence that their impact is being felt in full. Furthermore, the Central Bank has been accused of basing its assessments of economic developments on somewhat outdated data. Undoubtedly there is always scope for improvement, but the Central Bank does compile extensive data about financial market developments on a monthly basis, and various other data even more frequently. Its data on the exchange rate of the króna, for example, cannot be more up-to-date.

The International Monetary Fund has adapted to these changes, seeking to respond in its capacity as the guardian of international monetary stability to the new problems that have arisen. It has evolved from focusing essentially on monetary stability and on countries’ external transactions and the management of their exchange rates, to areas more related to the overall quality of macroeconomic policies and to the design of structural policies and sound institutions. More recently, the Fund has devoted particular attention to financial stability. To a certain extent, central banks have also undergone changes similar to those at the Fund. Developments in macroeconomic theory and the experience built up over the years have forged an increasingly broad consensus on the need to apply stability-oriented macroeconomic policies and, in particular, to conduct an independent monetary policy with the primary objective of achieving and maintaining price stability, which is vital for sustained economic growth. Central banks have also focused increasingly on financial stability issues, both in countries where the central bank is the supervisor of the banking system and in those where such functions are entrusted to a different supervisory agency. In the case of the Banco de España, these transformations have also been induced by far-reaching changes in our environment and in the role of the central bank, including most notably the adoption of the euro as the single currency for an ample group of European Union countries.
1  A detailed progress report is contained in the FSB Chair’s letter to G20 Leaders ahead of the Brisbane Summit. See FSB (2014b). 2  Table 1 shows that the tightening in definitions of risk-weighted assets and capital under Basel III itself doubled effective capital requirements. The numerical requirements themselves have also more than tripled. Caruana (2012) describes these changes in some detail. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Now, for the first time, global standards have been agreed to place requirements on the liquid asset buffers banks must hold and on the extent of maturity transformation in which they can engage. The rapid contagion during the crisis showed how the system magnified shocks. Two particular fault lines made the system procyclical. First, banks were heavily exposed to movements in market prices and volatility around them, creating a cycle in which falls in prices caused banks to retrench and reduce their positions, leading to further falls in asset prices. That issue has been addressed through strengthening regulatory requirements on trading books – a move that has contributed to the share of banks’ assets accounted for by trading assets almost halving.3 Second, banks and shadow banks were entwined in a dangerous funding spiral. Incredibly low initial margins on repo transactions facilitated the build-up of excessive leverage and maturity mismatches in shadow banks.

Gazi Erçel: Focus on inflation targeting  Opening remarks by Mr Gazi Erçel, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, made at the Conference on Inflation Targeting which was organized by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey in Ankara on 19 October 2000. *  *  *  I am very honored to present the opening remarks at this conference on Inflation Targeting (IT) Framework. First I would like to extend our appreciation to the lecturers of the Conference who came a long way geographically, and considering the state of the economy they reach. The issues that are going to be addressed will be of great interest, particularly for developing and dis-inflating countries. The attendance of so many speakers from the Central Banks and international institutions is particularly motivating. This Conference will review the country experiences on inflation targeting, particularly touching on the best ways to design policy objectives, responses, and implementation issues. Some papers will consider not only inflation targeting framework, but also the case of economies during the shift to low inflation. Let me begin my remarks by focusing on a framework that has been widely validated among academics and policymakers during the last 10 years. Inflation targeting is an innovative approach to monetary policy being applied by a growing number of central banks of not only industrial but also emerging market countries of the world. Now, more than ever, businesses are operating in a rapidly changing world. Even the marginal uncertainties have become important.
The integration of new emerging economies such as China and India into world trade, in conjunction with lower tariffs and reduced trade barriers, has contributed to a decline in prices for imported finished goods. This development has probably been most noticeable for clothing and footwear and audiovisual equipment. New producer countries with very low cost levels and increasingly more efficient production have contributed to a low rise in prices for other goods as well. Global competition has intensified and productivity growth has been high both in Norway and abroad. Competition has also increased in Norway in a number of industries. The airline industry has perhaps been in particular focus, where the entry of the airline Norwegian in the Norwegian market has resulted in substantially lower air fares. In the retail trade we have also witnessed the impact of more efficient purchasing schemes, a larger number of chains and intensified competition. Margins and prices are falling in the financial industry. The rise in prices, for example in the hotel and restaurant industry, is surprisingly low. In the labour market, we see traces of increased competition and a more flexible supply of labour as a result of the accession of new countries to the EU and greater mobility in the international labour force. These developments may have contributed to keeping wage growth at a lower level than would otherwise have been the case.

The experience of the financial crisis has prompted governments and others to put liquidity risk higher on the agenda. In June, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published Principles for Sound Liquidity Risk Management and Supervision. 3  3  See Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Bank for International Settlements, June 2008. BIS Review 110/2008  3  Norges Bank has a role as lender of last resort. This means that Norges Bank can provide an individual bank or the banking system with extraordinary liquidity when demand for liquidity cannot be satisfied by other sources. 4 Our view is that the provision of extraordinary liquidity should be restricted to situations when financial stability may be threatened without such support. Experience shows that the seeds of financial instability are sown during periods of rapidly rising debt and asset prices, including house prices. Over the past 15 years, house prices have surged, and particularly in 2006, even though Norges Bank had at that time already raised the interest rate on several occasions. High household income growth and bank competition for lending and market shares are contributing factors. Nor can we disregard the possibility that in periods developments have been driven by the conviction that prices would only continue to rise. Unusually low long-term interest rates have probably also fuelled house price inflation in recent years. Norwegian households primarily finance home purchases with adjustable-rate mortgages. Nonetheless, long-term interest rates are important because they provide information about developments in short-term rates that borrowers can expect over time.
Twelve joint missions were conducted in entities distributing life insurance contracts and financial products; the common actions also concerned operators offering leveraged transactions on the Forex market and the processing of complaints throughout the financial sector. In 2012, joint missions will continue to focus on the different players involved in the marketing of insurance contracts, particularly among portfolio management companies, banks and distribution platforms. This joint work proves, if proof is needed, the shared determination of the two authorities to place consumer interests at the heart of the regulatory framework governing different financial products. Indeed, by their very nature, certain subject areas automatically imply collaboration between the two bodies. This is the case for example of household savings. While the financial markets are a natural target for these savings, in the vast majority of cases, retail investors can only access these markets via the services offered by financial institutions and insurance entities. The crisis we have experienced these last four years has had a profound impact on the economy of our country and of the world, affecting as much the financial markets, banks and insurance companies as the savings behaviour of households. To understand the changes that the crisis has induced and to take appropriate action in the best conditions, the ACP and the AMF need to work together and be attentive to the views of experts and practitioners.

This will be the theme of the round table in the third session that will close this symposium. *** I thank you for your attention and hand the floor to Antoine Frachot who will assume the role of moderator for the first session. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
10  Guild et al (2014). 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  •  The private value of volunteering activities, in particular the benefits felt by volunteers themselves; and  •  The social value of volunteering activities, as societal gains may be a multiple of economic and private benefits. I want to build up a quantitative picture of these various layers. They take us from a conventional, GDP-centric measure of economic value through to a more fashionable, wellbeing-centric measure of social welfare. In other words, this approach combines elements of both the old and the new when determining the value of volunteering. Before diving into methodology, let me just highlight a few general caveats: •  First, these value layers – economic, private and social – may not be entirely distinct. For example, the private benefits from volunteering may be the very reason people volunteer in the first place and create economic value. So we should hesitate before simply adding these benefits together. I will try to resist doing so, but will probably fail. •  Second, value measurement becomes harder the further out you go from the centre of the onion. We can make reasonably informed guesses about the economic value of volunteering, by adapting national income accounting techniques. And we can construct some reasonable proxies for private benefits from various surveys. But we have only piecemeal evidence on measuring the social value of volunteering. This, in short, is a fledgling science.

This has facilitated the growth of entrepreneurs by providing finance to about 1.3 million crowdfunding projects. Crowdfunding platforms also allow entrepreneurs to closely engage with their customers – themselves investors – to shape and refine product ideas. A good example is the role played by crowdfunding in the rise of virtual reality (VR), which was largely ignored by traditional funders after its disappointing performance in the 1990s. Oculus Rift or the VR technology as we know would never have happened without crowdfunding. Such success stories can be an inspiration for our SMEs. With SMEs in Malaysia facing difficulty in obtaining capital and mezzanine financing, crowdfunding and P2P platforms can be further explored to meet such funding needs. Third, the matching of funds enabled by fintech also has great application within the social financing space. In particular, we see the potential of digitising the collection and utilisation of zakat, waqaf and sadaqah as holding great promise. The efficiency and transparency enabled by technology not only provides greater convenience to customers, but more importantly, builds public trust and confidence in the system. In turn, this will see wider participation and greater contributions towards social impact initiatives such as those to improve education, widen access to healthcare and extend humanitarian relief. We are already seeing encouraging developments in this space. For example, SkolaFund raised over RM200,000 in 2016 to fund 25 students from less-privileged families studying in universities and colleges in Malaysia.
(iii) For its part, the Governing Council completed the list of committees which will assist in the work of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). In addition to the eleven ESCB Committees agreed upon at the meeting in July, the Governing Council decided to establish an International Relations Committee and a Budget Committee. The latter was set up in order to provide transparency to the shareholders of the ECB - the national central banks - on matters relating to the budget of the ECB. (iv) Finally, the Governing Council endorsed the draft Headquarters Agreement between the German Federal Government and the ECB, which will be signed here in Frankfurt on 18 September 1998. A number of decisions were also taken with regard to various aspects of the preparatory work for Stage Three. (a) Exchange rate policy co-operation between the euro area and other EU countries The General Council endorsed the text of an Agreement between the ECB and the non-euro area national central banks, laying down the operating procedures for an exchange rate mechanism in Stage Three (the so-called ERM II). You will recall that the European Council in Amsterdam in June last year agreed to set up an exchange rate mechanism in Stage Three to replace the present European Monetary System (EMS). For this reason, the EMI had, on behalf of the ECB, prepared a draft Central Bank Agreement to replace the current exchange rate mechanism (ERM I, if you like) by a new one in Stage Three.

An important external factor underlying the favourable prospects for inflation is the sharp decline in oil and commodity prices, which is partly associated with developments in Asia. Moreover, domestic sources of inflation, such as those arising from the labour market situation and capacity utilisation, are also relatively moderate at the present juncture. In my opinion, taking a euro area wide perspective, these views are also broadly compatible with current monetary and financial developments. In this connection, please take note that we should soon have new information on monetary developments on the basis of the new statistical reporting framework for money and banking. The environment of significant volatility in international financial markets, particularly stock markets, appears to account for much of the recent decline in long-term interest rates in the euro area to historically low levels, as investors have sought to protect themselves against heightened global risk. Nonetheless, it is notable that the euro area yield curve shifted downwards at all maturities, which to some extent would tend to indicate a further decline in long-term inflation expectations for the euro area as a whole. As we approach the start of Stage Three, we shall need to continue to monitor closely economic, monetary and financial developments within the euro area and in the world economy. This will allow us eventually to set the interest rate for the euro area as a whole.
The remarkable success of the Central and Eastern European countries of achieving EU membership after a thorough transformation and rapid growth of living standards undoubtedly holds a lot of recommendations and lessons for the South Eastern European countries. These countries had similar, maybe even more advanced starting positions than the other transition countries, but South Eastern Europe is now lagging far more behind in terms of progress towards the EU. However, we should bear in mind that the main reason for this is definitively the political instability and war conflicts in the region, which understandably prevented faster economic transformation and reforms. Luckily, it appears that political support for EU accession and the determination to pursue EU membership, including all the necessary economic and political reforms, are strengthening. In analyzing the economic developments in the region of South Eastern Europe, some notable differences with the CEE countries appear. South Eastern Europe has much lower pace of reforms and lower growth rates. Related to this, capital inflows in the region have been much smaller and have shown a much bigger dispersion among countries, ranging from 834 USD per capita in Albania to 3,932 USD per capita in Croatia, cumulatively in the period 1989-2007. 12 Credit expansion has been high, but has still to reach rates and length of the one seen in more advanced transition countries. Consequently, there have been less demand pressures as well as comparatively lower inflation than in the other countries, although inflation has been rising recently.

Thus in the period 19942006, the cumulative appreciation of the real effective exchange rate ranged from 8% in Slovenia to 105.9% in Lithuania. 8 Economic theory offers arguments that real exchange rate appreciation is not dangerous as long as it reflects changes in the equilibrium real exchange rate. However, policy makers in these countries, especially in the recent years, are not really comforted by these theoretical discussions which consider that real appreciation is only movement to equilibrium. What they are seeing in their countries are common signs of overheating of the economy and loss of competitiveness, which deepens the external imbalances. In the beginning of transition, current account deficits were understandable and not too much cause for concern, as these countries were importing technology and previously unavailable goods. However, the size of the deficits in the last several years exceeds the level that is usually deemed sustainable. Thus, the current account deficit in the new member states in the period 1996-2005 ranged from 5% to 7.7% of GDP, but in the last two years it has been reaching 10.1% and 11.3% of GDP. The average current account deficit in the SEEU countries in the same period is even higher, and it is estimated that in 2007 it will reach 16.3%. 9 Even though deficits are projected to fall in some of the countries, in general they remain a cause for concern in most of them. Besides the trade deficit which,  7  Source: IMF World Economic Outlook Database, April 2008. 8  Source: Eurostat.