samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Given that wage costs make up a large portion of the food sector’s costs, this difference in itself could explain the difference in prices. Detailed studies show that taxes, labour costs and other economic factors (e.g. GDP per capita and population density) may account for around half of the differences in food prices in Sweden and the EU.6 The other half appears to be largely attributable to lower competition pressures in Sweden than in other countries. That the price differences in relation to EU countries are due in large measure to the relative price competition is reinforced by the fact that there are also large price differences within Sweden, where the differences in wages and other costs between regions are small and the taxes the same. Studies7 show that the prices in the south-east and west of Sweden are around 8 and 5 per cent lower, respectively, than in the eastern part of the country. The prices in Greater Stockholm are some 6 per cent higher than those in the Greater Gothenburg area. This reflects the differences in shop structure in various parts of the country, with a much larger market share for low-price chains and other chain stores than for the three major players in southern and western Sweden than in eastern Sweden.

The ATC has also been supported by the work of several working and expert groups. The ESRB’s work so far I hardly need to point out that the ESRB started in a very difficult period when systemic risks in Europe seemed to be greater than ever and when political and economic issues were tightly interconnected. Obviously, the work of the ESRB has largely focused on the immediate challenges of the current situation. But work is also taking place on more longterm structural challenges to the EU financial system. The vicious financial triangle At its June meeting, the ESRB concluded that the most serious threat to financial stability in the EU stems from the interplay between the vulnerabilities of public finances in certain EU member states and the banking system, with potential contagion effects across the Union and beyond. At the last meeting on September 21, the ESRB stated that the risk to stability has increased considerably. I think we can all agree with this conclusion. Over the summer, the weakening prospects for economic growth have further added to the difficulties. We now face a dangerous interplay between fragile public finances, weak banking sectors and low economic activity both at global and EU levels – the vicious financial triangle. It was right of the ESRB to put this issue at the very top of its agenda, in spite of its highly political content. Anything else would have  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  seriously hurt the credibility of the ESRB.
The government issued a general guarantee for the banks’ liabilities and set up a special Bank Support Authority to cope with the banks that were in serious difficulties. The government, explicitly supported by the opposition, acted just as vigorously and promptly as the situation required. But this did entail making a decision on the basis of insufficient information about the causes and depth of the crisis - that could have burdened the government budget with at least 10 billion US dollars. Having to take such important decisions at short notice and without adequate information about the financial system is an experience we do not wish to repeat. The Riksbank is accountable to the Swedish parliament with regard to keeping a stable price level our inflation target - but also with regard to promoting financial stability and a safe and efficient payment system. After the crises there was room for some self-criticism in this respect. In practice, we had not supported our stability target with any systematic analytical work on overall stability. To address this, we started to build up knowledge and analytical capability in the field of stability. By publishing a Financial Stability Report in 1997, we were among the first central banks to issue a periodic public account of our appraisal of financial system stability. Its example has been followed to date by about thirty other countries, including Indonesia. Today, interest in financial stability is well established.

Central banks need to acquire a better understanding of how the banks manage their liquidity, how they select their sources of funding and the effects this has on their resilience to disturbances. The analysis of stability also needs to be supplemented with methods for stress tests, that is, ways of analysing the sensitivity of banks to shocks. Another area that will prove challenging for both stability analysis and risk management preparedness in the future is the ongoing integration in Europe and, more generally, banks’ tendency to set up cross-border establishments in many countries. I see great scope for close international cooperation on these issues, both in terms of developing methods for analysis and for other aspects of stability surveillance and crisis management. I would like to thank the Bank of Indonesia once again for devoting an international conference to these important topics. Thank you! 4  BIS Review 58/2003
(2011), Does the Swiss National Bank need equity?, speech at the Statistisch-Volkswirtschaftliche Gesellschaft, Basel, 28 September. Page 4/7  entirety, its equity capital would automatically fall below the targeted level in the event of a loss. The SNB would then have to operate with too little equity. We implement this desired smoothing by creating a profit/loss carry forward, known as the distribution reserve. In ‘good years’, any undistributed profit is transferred to this reserve. In ‘bad years’, i.e. when there is a small profit or a loss, the reserve can then be used to make up the shortfall in the allocation to the provisions, as well as for the payment of the dividend and the distribution to the Confederation and the cantons. The distribution reserve contains the amount of equity capital that exceeds the provisions for currency reserves – in other words, the portion deemed to be distributable. If the equity capital falls below the level of the provisions as a result of a loss, the distribution reserve is negative. The distributions will then be stopped until the equity capital is sufficiently stocked again from future earnings. This clearly demonstrates that the robustness of the balance sheet takes precedence over profit distributions at all times. A well-stocked distribution reserve also helps smooth the distributions, serving as a buffer and ensuring that the Confederation and the cantons are seldom faced with years in which we cannot make any distribution.

The increased international integration of both capital and goods markets has brought a huge increase in the scale of cross-border financial activity. The largest global financial institutions now play significant roles in a large number of financial systems outside of their home market. These changes are likely to affect the manner in which financial shocks in one region are propagated to other regions. Finally, we have witnessed an increase in the degree of concentration in some markets, a development that has the potential to make the system more vulnerable to the deterioration in conditions at one of the major bank or nonbank financial intermediaries. The degree of systemic risk presented by these changes depends importantly on two things. It depends on the robustness of the infrastructure that supports these markets. And it depends on the level of reserves, capital, margin and collateral that the major financial institutions hold against risk, which is in part a function of the strength of risk management systems. In both of these areas, market practice has made significant progress over the past decade, and further improvements are underway. A few quick points about two areas in which we believe further progress offers the highest possible return in terms of improving the overall resilience of the financial system. In the broad area of market infrastructure, we think the greatest near-term imperative is to strengthen the post-trade processing systems that underpin the rapidly growing over-the-counter derivatives market.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  implemented various restrictions to the use of wholesale funding and foreign exchange derivatives. Despite their prevalence, it must be said that the effectiveness of many of these policies, as well as their unintended costs, are still to be determined. Further research is needed here to eventually establish best practices in their conduct.4 Today we will see two examples of such research. The first is a paper by Guido Lorenzoni that looks at capital controls from a different perspective and studies the role they have in the dynamic manipulation of terms of trade. The second is a paper by Marcos Chamon that studies the desirability of sterilized interventions under inflation targeting. The worries about potential reversals in capital flows have been partially borne out by the events of this year. After the Federal Reserve hinted earlier this year the possibility of starting tapering the purchases of long‐term bonds and MBS, financial markets quickly reacted with declines in the prices of US government bonds and increases in mortgage interest rates. At the same time, the spreads of emerging market debt increased importantly, their currencies depreciated against the dollar, and capital flows into these countries declined, albeit with some heterogeneity across countries that seems related to fundamentals. While more moderate than in previous occasions, this pattern is still reminiscent of the sudden stop episodes I previously mentioned. The simultaneous increase in the yields of sovereign bonds of many countries, issued in different currencies, has captured the attention of researchers and policymakers alike.

According to one possible interpretation, this trend is a reflection of two consecutive shocks: from 2000 to 2004, a temporary "demand" shock, mainly reflecting portfolio shifts; and, since 2004, a "supply" shock i.e. an increase in liquid assets triggered by the fall in the opportunity cost of holding money in a context of historically low interest rates. But the fact that this situation has now lasted since 2001 may suggest another explanation: that the apparent break in trend velocity that took place at that time is of a structural nature. On-going econometric research carried out at the Banque de France confirms this intuition. The sharp decrease in interest rates, of course has played a role. Nevertheless, econometrics seems to show that this only accounts for a very small part in the break in the trend visible since 2001. So we might be facing a permanent increase in the demand for money. Consistent with this hypothesis is the fact that money holdings by corporates and financial institutions have grown much faster, in recent years, than those of households. Money and credit growth could then be related to a common cause: financial development and the increasing weight of financial assets in our economies. A lot of work, however, remains to be done to fully understand the changes we are facing. This, in my view, is the beauty of our monetary analysis. It invites us - indeed it forces us – to face the complexity of our world and the ever changing nature of our environment and our behaviour.
After it became clear that Russia would not, in practice, be servicing its foreign debt, market participants became highly risk-averse. The unrest spread to European BIS Review 10/1999  –6–  financial markets and Norway. Investors fled to safe-haven countries such as Germany, the US and Switzerland, and the currencies of countries with less liquid and more volatile financial markets depreciated. This included countries such as Norway and Sweden. The Norwegian krone depreciated sharply from around 101 against the ECU index at the beginning of the year to 115 in October, or the weakest rate since the objective of exchange rate stability against the ECU was adopted. 6) Monetary policy in 1998 Norges Bank responded to the sharp depreciation of the krone by raising its key rates in several steps in 1998. These rates were first raised in March, after the krone weakened in the first three months of the year from 101 to about 103.5 against the ECU index. The krone then appreciated slightly and stabilised for a period. Pressure on the krone increased during the summer. Norges Bank responded by raising its key rates on six further occasions. Following the last increase on 25 August, the deposit rate and the overnight lending rate were 8 and 10 per cent, respectively, i.e. 4.5 percentage points higher than at the beginning of 1998. It is difficult to predict the direct short-term effect of changes in interest rates on the exchange rate.

9) Formulation of monetary policy Norges Bank reduced its key rates by 0.5 percentage points effective from today. This decision came in response to developments in money and foreign exchange markets and the prospect of reduced pressures in the real economy. The outlook for the Norwegian economy has changed since Norges Bank raised its key rates in August. The forecasts for growth in the world economy have been revised downwards and persistently low oil prices have reduced demand in the oil sector. In addition, a tight government budget for 1999 and the high interest rate level are having a restraining effect on growth. At the same time, the krone has appreciated recently. This lays the foundation for slower price and wage inflation in the years ahead, as estimated by Norges Bank in its December Inflation Report. Developments in recent weeks have confirmed this picture, providing room for a slight reduction in interest rates. According to the Exchange Rate Regulation, “... in the event of significant changes in the exchange rate, monetary policy instruments shall be oriented with a view to returning the exchange rate over time to its initial range”. The guidelines provide considerable scope for discretion in the conduct of monetary policy. It is Norges Bank’s task to exercise this discretion. Interest rates are set with a view to returning the krone exchange rate over time to its initial range. Even with this interest rate reduction, the interest rate differential against European countries is substantial.
This has improved with the various initiatives that we have undertaken in creating awareness and working with the industry, government and agencies to expand the offerings and the use of Islamic trade finance facilitation with the share growing to 31.4% in 2020. However, we have to acknowledge that we may still have much to do and we look forward to the report which I have been informed also shares a host of ideas and recommendations for us to take forward. Before that, please allow me to share some thoughts on some of the important thrusts that we see for us to take into consideration as we continue our work in this. Firstly, we critically need trade-based solutions to ease liquidity constraints. The pandemic, which led to subdued domestic demand and stringent COVID-19 containment measures, has resulted in a liquidity squeeze among Malaysian businesses, particularly the SMEs. To stay afloat, some companies have had to resort to increased debt to meet their payment obligations. 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  While measures have been introduced to lessen the burden of SMEs in the form of wage assistance programmes, support grants and deferment of financing instalments, these are merely a temporary backstop akin to a band-aid. Prolonged assistance of this form may not be sustainable. The over dependence on debt-based instruments also reduces the financial flexibility of businesses in supporting their recovery. Trade-based solutions can offer a viable option where funding is tailored to the lifecycle of production.

It also takes into account Malaysia’s aspirations to become a high valueadded, high income economy. Within the global economic landscape, emerging economies will assume a more significant role. While emerging economies will continue to be affected by global developments, most are able to demonstrate resilience and are expected to remain on a growth trajectory. By 2030, emerging economies are projected to account for 60% of total world output, from the current 40%. At the same time, the economies and financial markets in the global economy and international financial system have become more interconnected as a result of greater crossborder trade and financial flows. The continued development and deepening of our financial markets and increased financial liberalisation in emerging economies will reinforce this trend towards greater interconnectivity. More recently, the financial sector has been the target of a renewed focus and priority by the international community. Wide ranging financial reform measures have been introduced in the aftermath of the global financial crisis to address the weaknesses that have surfaced during the crisis. Several changes are also transforming the domestic environment. New domestic sources of growth, the greater role of the private sector in the economy, demographic changes, rising incomes and a growing middle class, and the accelerated pace of urbanisation cumulatively will significantly change the demands on the financial sector.
An important aspect of successful job applications and interviews is being able to demonstrate personal development. For too long at the Bank, the opportunities to broaden skills and experience were granted on an informal basis to those who either knew about the opportunity or were recommended by a colleague. This tended to further reinforce homogeneity in senior leadership. In 2017, to level the playing field we launched an internal “opportunities” board. This connects people who need help with a short-term project to those able to offer it. Since we launched the site two years ago, 700 opportunities, from speech research to short-term holiday cover have been advertised across the organisation. The Bank has also created a ‘high potential’ talent pipeline, which has 50% female representation, and coupled this with new approaches to development support. Our new sponsorship programme connects a high potential candidate and senior colleague to help sponsees identify assignments and opportunities to hone their skills and increase their experience. The pilot consisted of 19 colleagues, 84% of whom were female at the scale just below senior management. Building on this success, we have extended the programme and 80% of colleagues in the second phase are female. As well as sponsorship the Bank recognises that mentoring (both formal and informal) can have a positive impact on an individual’s confidence to progress their careers. That’s why we launched our One Bank Mentoring Scheme in 2017 and ensured it is open to all staff.

In the light of the trajectory of recent decades, what can we say about the future of the Spanish economy in the medium and long term? To tackle the future from a useful perspective, I shall follow Epictetus’s recommendation for gaining knowledge of the world. The stoic philosopher divided worldly matters into two: those that depend on us and those that do not. This classification is useful because, when talking about the future of the economy, it is worth focusing on those things that depend on the behaviour of economic agents and all those who intervene in framing economic, regulatory or supervisory policies, without wasting time regretting what we cannot change or influence. Among the things beyond our control is, for example, the external environment, including the European economy which is so important for Spain, since our influence on developments in the rest of the world is very limited. It is also important to realise that the starting position of the Spanish economy with its strengths and weaknesses, which is the basis for predicting its short-term trajectory, is a given and we can do nothing to change it. As indicated at the start of my address, I do not wish today to dedicate my time or yours to analysing the economic situation or predicting the course of the economy in the coming months. Rather, I shall focus on those determinants of the future of the Spanish economy in the medium and long run that really depend on the behaviour of all economic agents.
8  BIS Review 73/2006

While this process is not easy, Rochester possesses a unique set of assets that will help it succeed, and in many ways is on the cutting edge of adapting to these changes. Rochester is, in fact, becoming a leader in workforce development. Reinvention like reform can be difficult, and requires a degree of boldness. This sentiment was expressed by Rochester’s social reformer, Susan B. Anthony, who said that “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, can never bring about a reform.” Rochester is doing Susan B. Anthony proud, showing spirit and determination. Thank you for your attention, I would be happy to take a few questions. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5
Those in power nevertheless managed to exploit the system. Roman emperors were in the habit of financing their wars by reducing the precious metal content of their coins. This resulted in higher seignorage revenues from each coin issued. For a period, these revenues  2  BIS Review 136/2008  were sufficient to finance an army, a long war or several monuments. This is the number one temptation facing money issuers. Henry VIII of England was one of the most renowned exponents of this kind of behaviour. 6 In the 1500s, he reduced the silver content in coins to 1/3 of the original to finance wars against France and his own expensive lifestyle. In addition to coins, a system gradually developed involving paper money. Banknotes were a receipt for a money issuer’s claims on silver or gold. Instead of using coins as a means of payment, the receipt was used. This was more practical, but with the introduction of banknotes the authorities also introduced a new promise. They promised the bearer that they would redeem the nominal value of the notes in silver or gold. The value of the notes was entirely dependent on confidence in the issuer’s promise. The authorities’ ability to fulfil their promise depended on government finances. Brutal tax collectors, abundant tax coffers and peace with neighbouring countries inspired confidence in the authorities’ ability to redeem the notes in a precious metal then or at some time in the future.

Another example is the construction and engineering firm Odebrecht SA using its subsidiaries and shell companies in the British Virgin Islands and Belize to facilitate at least $ million in kickbacks to government officials and political parties. The schemes involved paying consulting and agency fees to shell companies who then facilitated payments to government officials. The most prominent scheme involved Petrobras, the energy company majority owned by the government of Brazil. The U.S. government worked with law enforcement in Brazil and brought criminal charges against Odebrecht and was able to recover billions from Odebrecht and related entities to help offset the theft of national resources. And the FIFA Scandal put a spotlight on corruption in sports – there was a global cabal of FIFA officials directing corrupt payments to executives around the globe controlling “futbol” clubs, or media companies with broadcasting rights to futbol events. Although these payments did not steal government funds, they did impact nonprofit schools and futbol clubs that were supposed to be the recipient of much of these funds. Multiple officials from clubs around the globe were prosecuted in the U.S. for those violations. One common theme in cases like these is that they tend to occur in countries where the powerful can easily take advantage of limited or immature internal controls. As is typical with most classic fraud triangle schemes, these people had the motivation (greed or perceived financial pressure), opportunity (powerful positions with weak internal controls), and rationalization (they deserved the kickback for years of hard work).