samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
I regret to say that the present Governor neither has the power to command a private railway station nor would he know where to put it if he did. My Lord Mayor, you will see that there are indeed many challenges for economic policy. We have to pass through turbulent waters. But we have set the right course. There is an appropriate policy mix to rebalance the UK economy and reach a new equilibrium. With the Financial Policy Committee there is a new body responsible for monitoring and, more importantly, responding to risks to the financial system as a whole. And a new approach to prudential supervision will be implemented by the Prudential Regulation Authority. If we stick to this course, adjusting the tiller in response to changing conditions, I am confident that we shall return to both price and financial stability. Lord Mayor, all of us here tonight would like to pay tribute to your charitable work since you became Lord Mayor. Your personal involvement in the regeneration of Spitalfields, and the Lord Mayor’s Appeal in support of disaster relief and to help children and young people in need, are a demonstration of the charitable instincts of the City of London. We salute you for that leadership, and I am sure that everyone here tonight thanks both you and the Lady Mayoress for the splendid hospitality which you have extended to us all this evening.

There are no guaranties that levels of income in the CESEE countries are going to converge towards those of the developed Western economies. No guarantees that these countries are not going to form one, or more, of the so-called convergence clubs at a lower level of per capita income compared to their developed peers. However, it is our job to dare to introduce reforms even if we are not a 100 percent sure about the timing and the scale of the effects, as these are often not under our direct control. But if history teaches us anything, and if we follow the best practices from around the world, not only the EU, then the path we have to follow becomes much clearer. And the closest thing to a recipe for reducing the probability of being caught in the middle income trap (of low growth and slow or no convergence) would be to dare to reform. Be it the education system with an aim to increase the quality of human capital, be it liberalising product and labour markets controls, be it the reform of justice or public administrations systems, or anything else that is proven to enhance the business environment in the country. It is as simple or as difficult as that. But, and this is my final thought – we have to keep in mind the political economy dimension of the process, and there things do not look encouraging.
The policy debate – inside and outside the Bank – has recently refocused on the possibility of some other changes in the way our economy functions. Less than 18 months ago, the Bank’s interest rate was just 3.5%, essentially because the MPC wanted to stimulate private sector domestic spending to offset the effects on aggregate demand of weak net trade, given adverse developments in the world economy. As global conditions recovered, and with a pick up in public sector spending, we were able gradually to withdraw much of that stimulus during 2004 in a series of steps which were widely anticipated and understood across the financial and real economy (Chart 2). With the slack in the economy being absorbed, attention shifted to gauging the degree of demand pressures and their implications for the inflation outlook. In particular, on the basis of some simple statistical relationships, a question has been posed about whether there has been some change in the extent to which demand pressures feed through into wages and prices. Most notably, as discussed in the Bank’s February Inflation Report, the steady falls in unemployment over recent years have not been accompanied by a rising rate of earnings growth (Chart 3). These issues obtained some prominence towards the end of last year when, despite apparently buoyant demand, inflation on the CPI measure fell to 1.1%.

Chart 8: Proportion of part-time workers  Percentage of total employed 30 25 20 15 10 1985  1988  1991  1994  1997  2000  2003  Source: ONS and Bank calculations  BIS Review 16/2005  11  Chart 9: Real household disposable income growth and terms of trade  Percentage change on a year earlier 8.0  1990 = 100 112  Real household income growth  6.0 108  4.0 2.0  104  0.0 100  -2.0  Terms of trade  -4.0  96  -6.0 -8.0 1990  92 1992  1994  1996  1998  2000  2002  2004  Chart 10: Margins on personal loans to households  Per cent 10.0 8.0 6.0 4.0 2.0 0.0 1993  1995  1997  1999  2001  2003  Source: Bank calculat ions.
In our reform proposals issued in June 1999, we noted that: "The process of improving allocation of resources, reducing cross-subsidisation and introducing more transparent pricing is one of the objectives of deregulation and should not be resisted. However, it needs to be understood that there will be both winners and losers among bank customers." In practical terms, as experience in other centres has shown, removal of interest controls tends to be accompanied by moves such as the imposition of fees and charges and the tiering of interest rates. Banks will also review their existing cost structures and streamline unprofitable services and branches. They will attempt to maximise customer use of cheaper delivery channels such as ATMs, telephone banking and the internet. These are inevitable trends that would happen with or without deregulation. The competitive changes that are already taking place in the market would in any case oblige banks to try to reduce costs and to increase fee income to make up for the slower growth in net interest income. What deregulation will do is to act as a catalyst for change and to focus the banks’ minds on the need to react sooner rather than later. This process is not without controversy, as we have seen in the reaction to the recent announcements by some of the major banks of revisions to their fees and charges.

Unlike most other banking systems in the region, we have had the luxury of being able to look ahead without being distracted by the need to cope with a banking crisis. Of course, the banking sector here has had its ups and downs over the last few years. But the results of the banks for the year 2000 showed that they have consolidated their recovery from the Asian Crisis. Pre-tax operating profits of the local banks rose in aggregate by 38% in 2000. Admittedly, this largely reflected the decline in bad debt provisions. But even if we strip this out, profits still rose by a reasonable 10%. This recovery should however not disguise the fact that a banker’s job is not an easy one at present. This is shown in two main features of current market conditions. The first is that domestic loan demand has not yet shown a sustained recovery. This reflects continued sluggishness in private sector investment, recourse by the corporate sector to other forms of financing such as the equity and bond markets and the lack of revival in the residential property market which has reduced the demand for mortgage loans. Related to this is the fact that the banks are flush with liquidity. A recent study by Goldman Sachs concluded that the surplus deposits in the banking system had tripled since 1997 to reach $ trillion. According to the study, this represents 124% of GDP, the highest percentage in the world.
Risk Management During the Pandemic Crisis Now, I'd like to share how our risk management practices and culture have helped us manage challenges throughout the pandemic crisis at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In mid-March of 2020, the health crisis was especially severe in the New York City area, where our main office is located and where most of our employees live. To protect the health and safety of all employees and to continue our critical activities, we had to adapt to a situation none of us had ever seen before. That started with changing how we worked. To reduce the health risks to our employees, we only allowed staff who had to be onsite to remain in the office, while everyone else worked remotely. For example, some open market operations, cash services, and technology support activities could only be conducted on location. To protect onsite staff, we implemented a range of protective measures including masking, social distancing, quarantine requirements, and staggered work schedules. Another priority was helping employees cope with added responsibilities like lack of childcare and elder care, so we provided as much flexibility as possible to staff to manage their time. On the technology side, we had an immediate need for teleconferencing bandwidth to support remote work. While not all technology worked perfectly right away, our technology providers quickly adjusted. With most staff working from home, a new risk we identified and addressed was the failure of home internet connectivity.

Notwithstanding some more encouraging recent signs, there is still a possibility that continuing imbalance between domestic and external demand will need additional sedation or that it will eventually precipitate a sharp fall in the dollar and US asset prices. But the dollar has come off its recent peak and some of the exuberance may now have gone from equity prices - including some of the froth from the “new economy” sector, so the risks of sharp correction may be less than they were. Elsewhere, in Japan, after a long convalescence, there may now at last be some better prospect of a gradual but self-sustaining recovery in private sector demand. And there has been more substantial evidence in recent months of strengthening domestic demand and output growth across the Eurozone. That fully justified the European Central Bank’s gradual shift away from its earlier accommodating monetary policy stance; it may also have contributed to the beginnings of a recovery of the euro exchange rate towards a more comprehensible level. We are certainly not yet out of the woods - there is a long way to go before anyone can feel confident that we are in fact in sight of a more sustainable balance between the major industrial economies. But I am more hopeful that we are now at least moving in the right direction. And that is encouraging news for the UK. On a macro-economic overview, our own economy remains in pretty good shape.
Hence, macroprudential policies need to play a very important role. But what a central bank can or cannot do is and will remain an interesting topic of debate. It now seems beyond all doubt that the “inflation first” approach may become counterproductive in an environment of financial instability, which would rather call for preserving a certain tactical flexibility in conducting the monetary policy. Over the medium and long term, failure to maintain financial stability may only lead to a renewed flare-up in inflation. This reminds me of standard aircraft safety instructions, according to which, in case of cabin depressurization, the parent should put the oxygen mask on his own face and only afterwards tend to the child (who, in most cases, is the parent’s reason to live). While looking at long-term price stability as its fundamental objective, the central bank needs to keep a close eye on financial stability and, I would add, on the overall developments in macroeconomic indicators. Otherwise, disinflationary gains – however spectacular they might seem at a given point in time – would become utterly unsustainable. 6. The adequate level of inflation: “low and stable” vs. “moderate and stable”  The present crisis brought forward for discussion not only the primary objectives of the monetary policy I have already referred to, but also the adequate level of such objectives. Apart from semi-accepting the idea that financial stability must be a monetary policy objective, economists have also called into question the inflation level that must be targeted. Recently, Blanchard et al.

The last three topics are especially relevant in the context of the financial crisis, referring to the consequences of having a majority foreign-owned banking system, the rethinking of central bank objectives with special attention paid to financial stability and, finally, the choice of the optimal inflation target. 1. From monetary anchors to inflation targeting  During the nineties, giving up the intermediate objective as an anti-inflationary anchor in favor of direct inflation targeting marked a major change in the way of thinking the monetary policy framework around the world. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Monetary strategies based on a nominal anchor, be it the exchange rate or a monetary aggregate, still prevailed in the early nineties. While exchange rate pegs are currently still in place in some countries (and I will come back to this later), monetary targeting slid into oblivion. But, at the time when the National Bank of Romania had to choose a strategy for conducting its monetary policy, monetary targeting was not yet out of fashion. Moreover, this strategy was adopted and implemented in the context of the stand-by arrangements signed by the Romanian authorities with the IMF, which stipulated the monitoring of monetary aggregates developments. The same as with fiscal and income policies and with structural reforms, the programs agreed upon with the IMF were a strong anchor for coherent policies in the nineties. Another reason for choosing monetary targeting was that the alternative strategy, i.e.
I have been talking a lot about our efforts to promote diversity and innovation through a level playing field. That reflects our supervisory role. Equally important is our role in fintech market development. This market development mandate is the context for our new data strategy. Let me give you some background. Data and the next era 17. Hong Kong businesses and people are embracing technology. They’re ready for the future. With more data and more analytical tools at our disposal, we should ensure that our data infrastructure continues to improve. Let’s consider where we are today. 18. To begin with, valuable and rich data are scattered across different sectors and entities. It’s often hard to access these data – and it’s hard to verify their validity. 19. What is more, information moves between data providers and banks via a whole host of bilateral, one-to-one connections. Those connections lack compatible protocols and standards. That makes data sharing inefficient and difficult to scale. 20. All of this makes it hard for bankers to collect holistic information from customers about their business or financial activities when they want to provide credit or related services. And that creates real impediments to banks’ ability to better serve their customers. 21. Impediments for banks often mean painful consequences for customers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. When banks can’t perform credit assessments based on up-to-date business data, they may instead require collateral such as property before making a loan. This is a longstanding problem with SME financing. 22.

Eddie Yue: What’s next in our fintech journey Keynote speech by Mr Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority at the Hong Kong FinTech Week 2020, Hong Kong, 2 November 2020. * * * Good morning everyone. Welcome to Hong Kong FinTech Week. 1. I’ve always wanted to speak to you from a virtual stage, especially given the nature of this event. 2. This year, thousands of you are joining virtually from around the world. This surely reflects the extraordinary energy in Hong Kong’s fintech sector. 3. The rise of fintech has led some people to ask whether it will replace banks one day. I tend to think about it a bit differently: I’d like to know how technology can make banking better. Technology won’t replace banking; it will make it better. 4. There are three core principles that will always be the bedrock of good banking. These hold true for tech companies coming into finance and for traditional banks embracing technology. I’m talking about good service, customer trust, and efficient capital management. These principles have endured through the eras of the abacus, the ledger, and the first computers. They are timeless. 5. We can compare this to food – one of our favourite subjects in Hong Kong. You can eat in a Michelin-starred restaurant or a dai pai dong. You can buy food in the market and cook it yourself. You can order a take-out and have it delivered. You can eat a thousand different ways.
A study of Swedish data shows that such changes have raised productivity growth by 0.2 percentage points a year during the second half of the 1990s. 6  2  ITPS (2007). 3  Conway, Nicoletti, de Rosa and Steiner (2006). 4  See, for instance, Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse (1998). 5  Esser, Villalba and Tarantola (2007). 6  Forsling & Lindström (2004). BIS Review 12/2008  3  Organisation important for productivity growth IT is available all around the world at roughly the same price, but the differences are substantial with regard to how different countries and sectors use this technology to make their production more efficient (see Figure 5). The United States and Europe have experienced a similar productivity growth in the IT-producing sectors, but the Americans have had stronger growth in sectors with intensive use of IT. This includes, for instance, the wholesale and retail trade sectors and financial services. Studies indicate that one of the explanations for the United States’ relative productivity advantage over Europe is that the US companies have been quicker and better at adapting their organisations to the new technology. 7 One factor that might contribute to this difference is that the stricter regulations in the labour market in Europe mean that it takes longer time and costs more money to reorganise. Sweden is an exception in this context. We have seen a strong growth in productivity in the sectors using IT at the same time as we have a relatively regulated labour market.

In the long term there are the opportunities that the free movement of goods, capital and not least people provide for economic growth in both the “old” and “new” parts of the EU. Finally, I intend to touch upon how the discussions in the EU have changed now that the 10 new member states have joined the debate. I will deliberately try to avoid using the words “west” and “east”. Partly because it is quite simply geographically misleading; we say “eastern Europe” even though Prague and Ljubljana are situated west of Stockholm, not to mention Vienna or Athens. We forget that Riga and Tallinn are closer to Stockholm than Gothenburg is. But partly also because it is historically misleading since the new member states do not constitute a cultural or political bloc. Besides their fifty years of oppression, Hungary, Latvia and Slovenia have less in common with each other historically than with Austria, Sweden and Italian, respectively, and belong moreover to three completely different language groups. I prefer instead “new” and “old” as a way of referring to the situation that the 10 new member states find themselves in. The short term: the path to EMU In connection with the EU enlargement there has been an intense discussion in recent years, both in the old and new EU countries, about what requirements should be imposed on the new member states’ economic policy.
Gent Sejko: Transparency, communication and the importance of the media partnership Address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the end-of-year meeting with the media and the Governor’s Award ceremony, Tirana, 13 December 2019. * * * Dear ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Bank of Albania, to spend some time together as the year end approaches. Sadly, the atmosphere at the end of this year is different from previous ones, following the devastating earthquake, which hit Albania in late November. In the aftermath, we are all heartbroken by the tragic loss of 51 lives, with hundreds of others injured and many buildings, which have collapsed or have been heavily affected by the strongest quake in decades. Yet, beyond the material consequences and psychological shock, this tragic event foregrounded another – somewhat dormant – dimension of our society: solidarity and unconditional support for each other. We all witnessed an impressive demonstration of voluntary support from fellow citizens to those affected by the devastating earthquake. In this extraordinary situation, the media played a key role in promoting solidarity and alleviating the human pain caused by this natural disaster. In light of this event, and in retrospection of 2019, let me express my sincere thanks and heartfelt gratitude to the media, to those who are present here tonight, and those that were unable to attend, for their invaluable work, reporting news truthfully and in real time.

I want to underline today that you are an important partner in our efforts and when we join forces guaranteeing the welfare of future generations becomes an easier task. Dear guests, We have constantly emphasised that financial education and research are an integral and significant part of the activity of the Bank of Albania. They are a precondition and source for the social-economic development and welfare of the citizens of Albania. In this regard, I would like now to turn your attention to what has now become a tradition, the ceremony for the Governor’s Award for the Best Diploma. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  This is the 13th year that the Bank of Albania has selected and awarded three diploma theses. Over the years, we have found that the quality of research work has been improving, to the point that it has become actually difficult to distinguish the work presented by a recently graduated student from that of a researcher at the Bank of Albania. The selected topics present great interest, as they focus on critical issues related to the economic and financial reality in Albania and beyond. As in previous years, Albanian students from domestic or foreign universities have applied and presented their best research work. We are happy to note that participation and interest from students and universities has been significantly on the rise, revealing the recognition, reliability and reputation this Award has achieved.
The idea of considering financial stability as a possible constraint on monetary policy rather than a target is consistent with the general idea of seeing financial stability, from a monetarypolicy point of view, as an aspect of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, where a reduction in financial stability typically changes the transmission mechanism and makes it less efficient. Asset prices and bubbles The previous discussion has focused on what the central bank should do when it faces an ongoing crisis, or receives signals that a crisis is underway. A related issue is to what extent the central bank should take account of asset prices and, in particular, potential asset-price bubbles. In the forecast targeting framework described above, asset prices will affect policy to the extent they are deemed to affect the forecasts of the central bank's target variables, that is, inflation and resource utilization. Suppose, however, that a large asset-price increase is deemed to be fragile and a possible bubble, with a significant risk for a future collapse. Suppose further that a future collapse is deemed to have undesirable consequences for future inflation and resource utilization. Then the bank faces a delicate situation.

Chart 10: Bank and hedge fund concentration  35  T op 5 as % of sample assets  T op 5 assets % of top 1000  30  18 16  Global banks (RHS)  14 25 12 20  10 8  15 Hedge funds (LHS)  6  10 4 5  2 2009  2008  2007  2006  2005  2004  2003  2002  2001  2000  1999  0 1998  0  Source: TASS and The Banker  18  BIS Review 139/2009  Figure 1: Payoff profile for bank equity  β=1  Return on Bank Equity  Return on Market Portfolio  Socialised losses  Figure 2: Payoff profiles for bank equity  β=2 Return on Bank Equity β=1  Return on Market Portfolio  Leverage-induced social losses  BIS Review 139/2009  19  Figure 3: Payoff profile for bank equity  Return on Bank Equity  β=1  Return on Market Portfolio  Risky-bet induced social losses  20  BIS Review 139/2009