samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Real GDP growth in Cyprus expanded by about 6 percent over 2022H1, mainly driven by a faster than expected recovery in tourismrelated activities and, to a lesser extent, by growth in information and communication activities and in professional services. At the same time, weakness in the Cyprus GDP performance could be expected to become visible over 2022H2 and 2023, primarily owing to the anticipated worsening in the international environment outlook. More specifically, the impact of the war is expected to be channelled directly, via the disruption in trade of services and the rise in commodity prices, in particular oil and wheat, as well as indirectly, via the impact on business and consumer confidence. Our exposure to Russia via the export of services side is the most significant vulnerability, with the most important exposure relating to financial and other business services and, to a lesser extent, tourism, transport as well as telecommunications, computer and information services. At the same time, it is important to mention significant adaptation effects for example in the area of tourism, losses from the Russian market have been covered to a large extent by other markets such as the UK, Poland, Germany, Israel and Scandinavian countries. The labour market has also been exhibiting continued resilience. Over 2022H1, the unemployment rate reached 6,7 percent, well below the 7,5 percent rate recorded in 2021. The resilience of the Cyprus labour market is in line with business views about expecting a relatively small impact from the war.

This situation, combined with pre-existing challenges, such as the climate change and the new protectionism trend, requires a new approach in Monetary Policy and constitutes a major test for policymakers in the euro area and around the world. In Cyprus, the consequences of the adverse geopolitical events to the economy and the banking sector are so far contained, but the second round effects have not yet materialised and uncertainty in an environment with high inflation and weakened growth prospects might lead to unpredictable new challenges. Therefore, close monitoring is of utmost importance for a timely and decisive reaction. Thank you for your attention. 6/6  BIS - Central bankers' speeches
The Ministry of Finance now assesses the value of the government’s share of the remaining petroleum wealth at NOK 3.6 trillion, which is about NOK 550 billion lower than the Ministry’s estimate one year earlier. Chart: Ownership interests In summer 2007, the Ministry of Finance decided to increase the allocation to equity from 40 per cent to 60 per cent and reduce the allocation to bonds correspondingly. Surging oil and gas prices, high oil production and favourable economic conditions for the Norwegian economy led to high transfers to the Fund in the course of 2007 and 2008. Equity prices fell sharply through 2008. It was against this background that the Fund purchased equities for more than NOK 1 trillion between summer 2007 and summer 2009. With a fall in value of 23 per cent or NOK 630 billion, it is understandable that the results in 2008 attracted considerable attention. The most important development for the Fund was perhaps a doubling of its global equity holdings. After earning high returns in the past year and a half, the Fund has also recovered the losses. Chart: Nominal interest rate level and cost of equity capital  7  See “Future management of the Government Petroleum Fund”, Norges Bank’s letter to the Ministry of Finance of 10 April 1997 and “An analysis of the Government Petroleum Fund’s equity allocation”, Norges Bank’s letter to the Ministry of Finance of 15 March 2001. 8  If 1997 is included, the figure is somewhat higher. The money-weighted average return is somewhat lower.

Although such a euro area stance is prevailing, the contribution of individual Member States to the aggregate outcome is suboptimal. Some of them need to take additional measures to ensure compliance with the fiscal rules, while others have scope to use available fiscal space. In addition, all euro area countries should strive for a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies by prioritising public investment and reducing the tax burden on labour. The current political and economic momentum in Europe also provides an opportunity to strengthen our Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Further integration needs to be achieved 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  above all by implementing what has been agreed and by completing the common projects we have started. This includes completing the banking union and building a capital markets union. A more complete EMU, with further steps towards a deeper financial, fiscal and economic union, will be the foundation for a stable, flourishing and resilient euro area economy. That is the best contribution which Europe can make to global economic growth and financial stability. By delivering on its mandate, the ECB will continue to play its part in this endeavour. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
Depending on factors such as the severity of the problems and the responsiveness of management,  BIS Review 76/2006  3  the Federal Reserve uses the range of methods at its discretion - from offering recommendations in an exam report, to entering into confidential supervisory actions, to the taking of formal public enforcement actions. Third, we need to continue to increase coordination among regulators, both internationally and within the U.S. This will lead to a greater consistency in the overall supervisory approach that is followed, as well as more consistency in the messages conveyed to individual firms. •  Coordination in development of policy is important. As an example, in 2005, the Basel Committee published a high-level paper on compliance risk and the compliance function in banks that supervisors around the world are making use of. •  On a more firm-specific level, we, as a host supervisor, look to have effective coordination and communication with the home country supervisor - particularly when we find a serious problem, such as a significant compliance issue. It is our policy to share our concerns with home country supervisors, so that they will not be surprised and, even more importantly, will be able to make judgments on the implications of our US findings for the global organization. In certain circumstances, this could lead to very explicit and public coordination of enforcement actions with home country supervisors.

Joseph Yam: One country, two financial systems Speech by Mr Joseph Yam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the luncheon of the British Chamber of Commerce, Hong Kong, 20 October 2006. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today on the subject of "One Country, Two Financial Systems". The continuing strong British presence in Hong Kong since 1997 - in all areas of business and society – has been one of the many positive features of the "one country, two systems" policy: it is also a measure of the success of this policy. The British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has played a leading role not only in representing the interests of British companies in Hong Kong, but also in promoting Hong Kong to the world. The British commercial presence in Hong Kong is a rich and diverse one, covering a vast range of economic activities. These include, of course, the everexpanding financial services sector, which benefits both from Hong Kong’s dense economic connections with the Mainland of China, as well as from the "one country, two systems" policy. It is this subject that I now wish to explore with you. I believe it was Deng Xiaoping who first coined the phrase "one country, two systems".
The total amount of our loans more than tripled, climbing from CHF 31 billion at the end of 2007 to CHF 101 billion at the end of 2008. In parallel, as a way of enabling banks to place their liquid means with the SNB in a form other than sight deposits, and of introducing a tool which would allow us to absorb large amounts of liquidity if need be, we issued SNB Bills for the first time on 20 October 2008. By the end of the year, the sum of SNB Bills issued had reached CHF 24.4 billion. Active Swiss franc liquidity management enabled us to hold the three-month Swiss franc Libor at the level targeted by our monetary policy. I shall return to this point later. Consolidating UBS In autumn 2007, the National Bank realised that Switzerland’s two big banks would be particularly badly affected by the financial market turbulence. At that point, we intensified our contacts with the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) (now the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA) in order to ensure ongoing monitoring of the situation at these two institutions. From spring 2008 on, in view of UBS’s growing vulnerability, we drew up a number of solutions to protect it from the consequences of a large volume of illiquid assets on its balance sheet. In autumn, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US led to liquidity drying up completely on the interbank market, UBS encountered increasing refinancing difficulties and was facing a substantial loss of funds.

Taking these in turn, data form the core of all AI models and good data management and data governance are essential in controlling issues with, for example, biases that may be embedded in the data. At the model level, we need to think about issues such as ensuring that models continue to perform under a wide range of different conditions and being able to explain the outputs of complex AI systems. Moving to the firm level, some of the key issues will revolve around risk management and governance structures; around accountability and appropriate controls. And finally, for the financial system as a whole, AI may amplify network effects such as unexpected changes in the scale and direction of market moves. In terms of the regulatory challenges, it’s clear that policy thinking in this arena is also evolving rapidly. But the existing regulatory landscape is somewhat fragmented when it comes to AI, with different pieces of regulation applying to different aspects of the AI pipeline, from data through model risk to governance. Policy must strike a balance between high-level principles and a more rules-based approach. We also need to future-proof our policy initiatives in a fast-changing field. With all that in mind, and in order to further our objective of promoting the safe adoption of AI in financial services, the Bank of England, along with the Financial Conduct Authority, is today launching the Artificial Intelligence Public-Private Forum.
Second, I’m guessing you are looking for some insight into what the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is going to do next, insight Chairman Bernanke, as leader of our pack, wisely avoided imparting in his recent comments. The Texas economy On the Texas front, my colleagues and I at the Dallas Fed have lately been deluged with requests for data on all aspects of the Texas economy – which accounts for 95 percent of the Eleventh District’s output and the economic activity of some 25 million of the 27 million people living in our district. If you are interested, you can go to our website (www.dallasfed.org) to receive a factual, nonpoliticized brief on the Texas economy, including the job creation figures that get bandied about in debates among presidential  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  aspirants. We update these numbers monthly – the data for the August employment figures will be tabulated on our website on Sept. 19 – and we will keep updating them so that analysts can parse the data. At a minimum, I am hopeful our web postings will help you separate spin from reality and fact from fiction, as well as dispel some of the stereotypes of Texas. For example, we are blessed with abundant natural resources here, and we most definitely do benefit on net from high commodity prices; oil and gas extraction contributes about 9.5 percent to state output.

Admittedly, we are seeing a sharp rise in the doubtful assets ratio; however, this is not linked to this type of complex product, rather it is linked to developments in the real economy and therefore what may be called a classic banking cycle problem. Accordingly, on the left-hand side of the balance sheet there is still a lot right in Spain. BIS Review 133/2008  5  Spanish banks’ assets, even taking into account the rise in doubtful assets, are largely of good quality. The fact that Spanish banks’ assets are mostly high-quality and that they have a liabilities structure in line with the activity they finance, in terms of maturities and the degree of permanence, is related to their business model. In contrast to the originate-to-distribute model, the activity of Spanish banks is based mainly on attracting savings to lend to businesses and households and, in the process, maintaining close and lasting links with their customers. This business model has normally been known as "traditional" banking, and many analysts prior to the summer of 2007 equated the concept of traditional with “antiquated”. True, just as the originate-to-distribute model has limitations, which have been laid bare, so too does traditional banking, insofar as it may indeed be antiquated in its management strategies and risk and cost control procedures.
If the Swedish payment system were to become dominated by private crypto-currencies or by something other than Swedish kronor, domestic monetary policy would be marginalised. The ongoing Riksbank Inquiry has examined the matter of cash in a so-called fast track and a few proposals on access to cash services have been produced. This could contribute to slowing down the trend of decreasing cash usage. However, there are indications that that the latter is mainly a consequence of reduced demand for cash. 30 I hope that the Riksbank Inquiry, in its final report, will put forward further proposals for the long term protection of Swedish kronor issued by the Riksbank, whichever form these may take, physical or digital. New legislation,  30 For an analysis of this development, see “Times are changing and so are payment patterns”. Guibourg, G. and Erlandsson, F. Economic Commentary No. 6 2018. Sveriges Riksbank. 12 [15]  strengthening the protection for Swedish kronor, should be technologically neutral to allow for a future totally dominated by electronic money. I would like to be clear that, as yet, we are only at the start of the analysis of the e-krona. Last autumn, we presented a few preliminary conclusions and, at the end of this year, we will decide whether and, if so, how we will proceed with the next stage of the project. Neither are we alone in the central banking world in considering this.

SPEECH DATE:  4 June 2018  SPEAKER:  Stefan Ingves  VENUE:  Stockholm School of Economics  SVERIGES RIKSBANK SE-103 37 Stockholm (Brunkebergstorg 11) Tel +46 8 787 00 00 Fax +46 8 21 05 31 registratorn@riksbank.se www.riksbank.se  Money and payments – where are we heading? Today, I am going to talk about money. This is a subject that concerns us all – most of us use money practically every day. But we probably don’t give much thought to how important it is that our daily purchases can be carried out smoothly. It's more or less the same as not giving so much thought to your health as long as you’re healthy. But once you get sick, it becomes almost the only thing you can think about. Our system for payments is similar; as long as it works securely and efficiently, we don’t think about it. And, to continue the analogy: It is the Riksbank's task to ensure that the payment system remains healthy and contributes to a well-functioning society. Right now, we, at the Riksbank, are devoting a lot of time to issues regarding payments and the payment system. The background to this is formed by the rapid changes on the payment market and the rapid decrease in cash usage in Sweden – a development that we are practically alone in, worldwide. Only a few other countries are undergoing a similar, albeit less dramatic, development.
I hope banks will come to appreciate, just as the New Zealanders at Headingley in 1958, the Yorkshire virtues of patience and sound defence when batting on a sticky wicket. I have said many times that successful monetary policy would appear rather boring. So let me extend an invitation to the banking industry to join me in promoting the idea that a little more boredom would be no bad thing. The long march back to boredom and stability starts tonight in Leeds. BIS Review 128/2008  5

This not only applies to the less regulated players in the financial system, such as hedge funds, but also to a certain extent to banks. For instance, the rating agency Moody’s came to the conclusion in a report 1 published last year that banks generally do not disclose their risks sufficiently. In our Financial Stability Report, we also point out that it would be beneficial if Swiss banks were to provide more data in this regard. By providing more comprehensive data, banks would be helping investors and authorities to better assess the risks banks take. Banks should, for example, publish more results from their stress tests. Similar to crash tests, stress tests examine how severely the bank would be affected by a major crisis. Secondly, it is difficult to assess how the traffic would react in poor weather conditions. Even though the braking distance is relatively short on a dry surface, this is by no means a guarantee that the car will react in the same way on a wet or even icy road. A number of instruments currently in use in the financial system have not yet had to prove their worth in extreme stress situations. It is therefore not clear whether the risks for these new and complex products have been adequately assessed. These products are typically not assessed in a central market, but by using complex models. In other words, the analysis is not a mark-to-market one, but a mark-to-model one.
But the uncertainty surrounding supply and demand dynamics requires us to remain prudent as regards how far the adjustment needs to go. And we should not ignore the fact that the tightening, which has followed from our decisions since the end of 2021 and from expectations of further adjustments in our stance, is already working its way through the economy – with the usual transmission lags. Estimates suggest that this tightening will on average subtract more than one percentage point from annual real GDP growth each year until 2024 compared to a counterfactual where interest rates and balance sheet expectations would have remained unchanged since December 2021. [26]  Conclusion Let me conclude. Inflation is high at the moment and the risks associated with this situation should not be underestimated. Monetary policy has to tighten to ensure that inflation does not become entrenched. But the impact of the current shocks on the output gap is clearly unclear. It would be misguided to base an aggressive tightening on assumptions which cannot be conclusively substantiated. The consequences of possible errors may not be perceptible today, but they would become evident over time. It may then be too late to fully reverse them. Annexes 14 November 2022 Slides    ENGLISH  1. Potential output can be defined as the highest level of economic activity that can be sustained by means of the available technology and factors of production, in particular labour and capital, without creating inflationary pressure.

The second explanation is that the pandemic and the war could have triggered or accelerated structural changes – such as deglobalisation or a more costly energy mix – which have permanently lowered potential output. In these circumstances, the economy could be overheating even though real GDP remains well below its pre-pandemic path (Chart 7). In other words, by lowering potential output the supply shocks could have created excess demand and hence a positive output gap, which would justify a more restrictive policy stance. Chart 7 Euro area real GDP (index 2014 = 100)  Sources: ECB staff macroeconomic projections and calculations. Distinguishing between these two possible explanations in real time is no easy task. Just as for the origins of the shocks, it requires a close look at the evidence. One way of doing this is by looking at output gap estimates. Estimates from major forecasting institutions show some dispersion, but point in a similar direction: they all foresee a negative output gap in 2023 that does not fully close in 2024 (Chart 8). [13] With regard to the current situation, estimating revisions of potential output in real time is tricky[14] but the latest European Commission estimates foresee potential growth at 1.2% in 2023 and 1.3 % in 2024, with the level of potential output in 2024 being 5.6% higher than in 2019.
See Michael Joyce, Ana Lasaosa, Ibrahim Stevens and Matthew Tong, “The Financial Market Impact of Quantitative Easing,” Bank of England Working Paper No.393, 2010, and Joseph Gagnon, Matthew Raskin, Julie Remache, and Brian Sack, “Large-scale Asset Purchases by the Federal Reserve: Did They Work?” Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Staff Report No.441, 2010. BIS Review 169/2010  3  Sharp fiscal consolidation and very slow growth in the periphery countries would, of course, have some adverse impact on the demand for our exports. But the more significant links are potentially through the financial system. Fortunately, UK banks have done much to improve their resilience over the past couple of years and, even under a very adverse scenario, they should be able to absorb the likely losses on their direct exposures to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain without too much difficulty. There is, though, the possibility of further indirect effects arising through the interconnectedness and cross-border operations of European banks which could amplify the impact. So some adverse effect on the funding costs of UK banks and the supply of credit remains a possibility. Harder to gauge is the potential effect on household and, especially, business confidence. In the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, this was arguably the most significant transmission channel to the real economy. An intensification of the sovereign debt problems in the euro area could therefore administer a blow to the recovery here.

Most colourfully was the observation, again made by Mervyn King, that an inflation target does not compel policymakers to behave like “inflation nutters”: there is scope to care about stabilising output and employment as well as controlling inflation.3 That monetary policymakers should be concerned with the implications of their actions for the real economy – for the growth of output and for the strength of employment – must surely seem right to all of us. The late Eddie George – who, together with Mervyn King, perhaps did more than anyone to cement the importance at the Bank of England of low and stable inflation – stressed repeatedly that low inflation “is not an end in itself .... [it is] a necessary means to the end of sustainable growth of output and higher living standards”.4 It’s important that we don’t lose sight of this overriding aim. Eddie was equally clear that, in the long run, the best contribution that monetary policy could make to achieving a prosperous and vibrant economy was to deliver enduring price stability. He had seen at first hand the pernicious costs of the high and variable inflation of the 70s and 80s: companies and households unable to budget and plan efficiently; resources misallocated; long-term contracts avoided for fear that large swings in inflation would end up biting one party or the other. The value of hard-earned savings eroded.