samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We will need a flexible economy that allows to redirect resources rapidly and efficiently from those sectors that are losing appeal to those that are gaining it; a financial system able to weigh the risks and help new ventures thrive; and we must double our efforts to improve our productivity, and so on. The good news is, as I just mentioned, we have an appropriate macroeconomic policy framework to confront changes in the external environment and an economy that, having made significant adjustments, is now free of significant imbalances. This is why I believe that, never forgetting that we are a small and very open economy and therefore ever exposed to external shocks, we can look into the future with confidence. Thank you. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches

High prices for oil and gas and other export goods also contributed to an appreciation of the krone last year. Partly due to very high growth in demand for oil, the average oil price rose to almost 40 US dollars per barrel in 2004. Lately, the price has risen to more than 50 US dollars. Oil futures prices have also risen. Strong demand growth, particularly in the US and China, has resulted in high energy consumption. As a result of strong demand growth in 2004, excess global production capacity, which is largely controlled by OPEC, has now fallen to a low level. Consequently, small disturbances in supply or demand could have a relatively strong impact on oil prices. The Norwegian economy experienced a moderate recession in 2002 and the beginning of 2003. Since the first half of 2003, growth has again been high. It may appear that growth in the Norwegian economy has become more self-driven. In the early phase of the recovery, private consumption, traditional exports and fixed investment in the petroleum sector were the most important driving forces. In the last few years, household demand has been underpinned by low interest rates, high real wage growth and higher asset prices. Real wage growth was relatively high in 2004, although nominal wage growth was lower than it has been in several years. Higher imports from low-cost countries and intensified competition in a number of industries have kept inflation at a low level. These factors have led to brisk growth in household purchasing power.
And this supply of services is a necessary condition for a healthy and  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  successful economy, as demonstrated by the costs imposed by the financial crisis on the public and society at large. For insurance companies, the PRA will have the second objective of contributing to securing an appropriate degree of protection for those policyholders. Why do we need a second objective for insurance? For me, it rightly emphasises that in taking out some forms of insurance policies, the public can become locked into very long-term contracts, much longer often than is the case in banking with deposit contracts. Bearing this in mind, the public interest I think justifies a second objective for insurance, which is more directly targeted at the situation of individual policyholders. In contrast as bank deposits are redeemable on demand at par value, and as banks lend the deposits at longer maturities, so they are inherently fragile and vulnerable to contagion, so protecting the system protects depositors. There are a number of important points in this description of the PRA’s objectives. First, the emphasis on economic well-being as an ultimate goal aligns the supervision of banks and insurers more closely to the field of macroeconomic policy. This is in line with the definition of “financial stability” as the continuity of supply of critical financial services which are important to the functioning of the economy. Three services stand out here: the provision of payment services including access to funds; credit extension; and, risk transfer.

We will get a much clearer focus from splitting prudential and conduct regulation for banks and insurers, from introducing macro-prudential regulation to help to protect the financial system as a whole, and from  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  focusing our regulation on applying judgement in a transparent way. Firms that mess up should, and will, be allowed to fail, but it must not be at the cost of damaging the financial system and economy. Ringfencing commercial and investment banking will help to achieve that objective. And, out of these reforms I hope we can encourage a banking system that is more open to competition and serves the public more effectively and, more broadly, a financial system that delivers the public policy objective of financial stability. Thank you. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5
The investment to GDP ratio will fall from its nearly 30% level of 2008, to 26% in 2010, both figures in prices of 2003. Private consumption has been the component of domestic demand least affected by the crisis, and is expected to close 2009 with a slight increase driven by non-durable consumption. Consumer expectations have turned optimistic in the latest data, after two and a half years in the pessimistic zone. The not so restrictive financial conditions have also helped consumption and, most specially, its prospects. The Banking Credit Survey of the third quarter showed that more banks have eased their lending conditions, while at the same time demand for banking credit has increased from the previous quarter. The increase of household debt recovered slightly, particularly for consumer borrowing. The ratio between total household debt and disposable income fell in the last two quarters, as did the ratio between the financial burden (principal and interests) and disposable income. This latter decline obeys to both a fall in borrowed amounts and lower interest rates (figure 10). As underscored in our Financial Stability Report, these BIS Review 9/2010  3  adjustments are welcome from a financial stability perspective, because of the higher risk of redundancy faced by households this year. Given the lags between the recovery of output and employment, both households and lenders must continue to be cautious for some time. The performance of the labor market also supports the prospects for consumption. Latest data show that the decline has stopped.

Latin America: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru; Emerging Europe: Bulgary, Czeck Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine; Emerging Asia: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam; Commodity exporters: Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Source: Central Bank of Chile based on CEIC Data. 16  BIS Review 9/2010
Nonperforming loans rose moderately in the second quarter of this year (to 11.9% of total private sector credits), but the growth is continuously slowing, and they are fully covered by loan loss provisions (RM is within the group of countries with largest LL provision coverage ratio). Profitability is lower but positive, and profits are being used largely to strengthen capital buffers. The euroization of deposits continues to decrease gradually to below pre-crisis levels (44% of total deposit are FX deposits or with FX clause). Even though the banking sector is in overall sound shape, the credits developments are not favorable and supportive to companies. The reasons for deceleration of the credits growth are on both sides, but mostly relay on supply side. Banks are likely to remain risk averse in an environment of low interest rate margin and the group strategies limit the credits’ growth potential. Thus, although the banking system mainly relies on domestic sources of funding, the consolidation of the Euro zone banking system and the EC pressure on troubled European banks that have received international bailout to sell their subsidiaries in the region, are the potential source of risks. The slow realization of this process could cause confidence shocks in our economies, thus endangering financial stability. The latest Deleveraging and Credit Monitor well notes this process, it says -while past efforts were focused on raising capital on the market, future efforts are expected to emphasize the sales of assets and affiliates.

Lim Hng Kiang: The Singapore financial services sector Address by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Minister for Trade and Industry, at the ABS Annual Dinner, Singapore, 29 June 2007. *  *  *  Chairman, ABS Council Members of ABS Ladies and gentlemen It is good to be here tonight. The ABS Dinner is an excellent opportunity for the Singapore financial services community to get together, catch up and look ahead. State of the Singapore financial sector 2006 has been a good year for Singapore. The financial services sector has done particularly well. All in, financial services grew 9.2% in 2006, outperforming Singapore’s overall GDP growth of 7.9%. This momentum has carried into this year. 2007 first quarter growth for the financial services sector came in at 13% on a year-on-year basis. Growth has been broad-based, with brokerage, treasury and advisory-related services being the largest contributors. Volumes in the Singapore foreign exchange market have also grown steadily. The equity markets have been hot. Volume of securities traded has gone up sharply. The local debt market has also registered good growth in 2006. In the latest Annual Corporate Debt Review for 2006 which MAS released today, the total market capitalization of the Singapore bond market has reached $ billion. Indeed, the Government’s efforts to grow the Singapore Government Securities (SGS) market have produced results. Since 1996, outstanding SGS has grown from $ billion to $ billion in December 2006. This year we issued the first 20-year SGS.
But the possibility of a systemic problem of global dimensions involving the world's most important currency was a serious concern at the time. And the events in New York quite naturally prompted us to look at our own contingency plans, especially for crucial operations, such as our payment and settlement systems. These plans had already been greatly expanded and rigorously tested in advance of the Y2K transition. They cannot specifically address every possible disaster whether at home or elsewhere - but we are pretty confident that they are robust and flexible enough to enable us to maintain our core operations in all but the most unmanageable situations. More broadly, the events on 11 September have also prompted us to reflect on the nature and structure of global clearing systems. Last year, as you know, Hong Kong launched its own US dollar clearing system, to provide real-time settlement for the full range of US dollar transactions in the Asian time zone. The aim is to cut down Herstatt risk - that is the foreign exchange settlement risk relating to the delivery of different currencies in different time zones - and to provide a fast, efficient and cheap service for our own region. September 11th brought home to us the risk of serious disruptions to the global settlement system and underlined the importance of our US dollar clearing system as a risk  2  BIS Review 88/2001  management service.

In essence, all policy actions by the Fed, the ECB, the banks of Japan, England, Canada, and of many small open economies in the last 6 years have been about affecting long-term rates by influencing one, and often times more, of these interest rate components. Take the case of forward guidance. When nominal rates reached the ZLB, and particularly due to the low inflation environments, traditional monetary policy became very constrained –fully constrained by definition, one might say, given the impossibility of lowering short term rates any further. However, to the extent that one can credibly influence the expected path of future monetary policy actions, risk-neutral rates at different horizons can be lowered, perhaps even significantly so. However, as pointed out by Mike Woodford in an influential paper presented at Jackson Hole a few years ago, to truly make a dent on rates with this strategy, central bankers were likely to run into a temporal-inconsistency problem. This problem is basically that in the event that long-term rates can be reduced enough to jump-start the economy, the expost optimal policy stance would be inconsistent with the one promised in the midst of stagnation.
Regarding the first wave of crypto-assets which have been brought to the market, they are not a claim on any natural or legal entity, they do not have a guaranteed fixed exchange rate with the currency issued by the central bank and they rely extensively for their circulation on blockchain, a distributed ledger technology system using cryptographic techniques. A second wave might develop in the form of « stablecoin » with a potentially global reach, some of which sponsored by large technology or financial firms, whose distinctive feature, beyond their potentially large size and reach, is that they seek to stabilize their value by linking it to an asset or a pool of assets. What are the specific benefits of such blockchain-based initiatives? First, the blockchain technology and more broadly the DLT could help answer market’s needs and demands. There is in particular a strong demand for quick and safe cross-border payment solutions, available 24h/24, enabling smooth exchanges. There are a number of local instant payment solutions already in place in a number of countries in particular in Europe, available 24/7, settling retail payment orders up to 15 000 euros in less than 15 seconds. A i ns t 2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  certain number of initiatives follow the European Payment Council SCTi ns t scheme. The Eurosystem has even launched its own service, under the name of TIPS to help ensure a panEuropean reach.

This improvement in the functioning of payment systems represents a huge step for liquidity circulation. Third, a broader range of participants: the payments market has expanded to include competition from big techs and major retailers, which are following a wide range of strategies in this respect. The flipside of this trend is that the increasingly global nature of the market is raising sovereignty issues, including those relating to the control of data when the providers are located outside the region or jurisdiction where they offer their services. Last, the crave for blockchain technology: all around the world, market participants and big techs have launched or are preparing to launch new projects for tokens designed to serve as means of payment or settlement using the blockchain technology. We all have in mind firstgeneration crypto-assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are now many others coming or foreseen, like the JP Morgan Coin, the UBS’ Utility Settlement Coin or The Facebook’ Libra. 2- The development of crypto-assets are part of the innovations fueled by these underlying trends affecting payment instruments and systems, combining the search for anonymity, management of non-intermediated peer-to-peer payments and the use of entirely web-based technologies. But they also have their specificities. Actually, they have unique financial, monetary and  technical features which set them apart from the currencies and payment instruments issued by financial institutions and central banks.
11  th  In the second half of the 18 century in the UK, ideas began sprouting like morning mushrooms. These ideas emerged seemingly spontaneously and roughly contemporaneously. They were also relatively closely clustered geographically. They included James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny in 1764, Richard Arkwright’s water frame in 1769 and James Watt’s steam engine in 1775. In the fullness of time, these ideas began to revolutionise both industry and work. After a lengthy adoption lag, they spread across sectors and across regions. They migrated from being mere ideas to becoming “GPTs” or General Purpose Technologies. 12  In the process, they generated waves of investment in new  factories, machines, processes and infrastructures. There was, in the jargon, capital-deepening. Neo-Classical theories of economic growth are very clear what would be expected to happen next. 13  When  an outward shift in the economy’s technological frontier is combined with higher levels of physical capital, the fuse is lit on higher productivity among companies, higher wages among workers and, ultimately, higher living standards among societies. So it was during the Golden Era. Chart 2 plots productivity, wages and GDP per head in the UK since the Industrial Revolution. All three plateaued prior to 1750. Since then, all three have moved up in lockstep. Ideas and innovation have borne continuous fruit in higher productivity, pay and living standards. This fruit has been shared roughly equally between owners of companies (profits) and workers in companies (wages).

Since at th  least the middle of the 19 century, the Bank of England has become one of the key institutional safeguards against recession risk and financial crisis. 41  Indeed, today, those roles are defined in statute. Non-state institutions have also played an important role in protecting those facing the adverse side-effects of economic change. This included many religious, philanthropic and charitable organisations and citizen th  movements that emerged from the 18 century onwards, often as a direct response to hardship brought about by technological change. These institutions offered, and many continue to offer, a combination of financial, housing, training and emotional support to those in need. 39  Clark (2009). Figures refer to government command of output as a percentage of GNP in England. Other 19th century legal changes that supported individuals from adverse side-effects of economic change included recognition of limited liability companies and constraints on the ability of courts to sentence debtors to prison. 41 Anson et al (2017), for example, discuss the emergence of the Bank of England as lender of last resort. 40  11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  11  To mention one, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in 1844, at around the time of Engels’ pause. It was established explicitly to meet the housing and social needs of young men who had moved from rural towns and villages to find work in factories in the cities.
While the assessment is unable to incorporate the unique characteristics of individual countries, the US Treasury has indeed acknowledged in its Report the uniqueness of Singapore’s exchange-rate based monetary policy system. Singapore’s inclusion in the US Treasury Report has no direct consequences for the economy or the conduct of MAS’ monetary policy. MAS will continue to manage the $ as we assess to be appropriate, for price stability. We will also continue to engage in constructive dialogue with the US Treasury to explain the underlying structural factors which impinge on our current account and MAS’ FX interventions. The sustained accumulation of OFR over the years meant that MAS’ stock of OFR was in excess of what was needed to conduct our exchange rate-centred monetary policy. MAS has assessed that OFR equivalent to at least 65% of GDP would provide a sufficiently strong buffer against stresses in the global economy and financial markets. Our OFR, at the end of Q1 2019, was more than 80% of GDP. We therefore decided to transfer $ billion from OFR to the Government for investment on a longer-term basis with expected higher returns. In return, the Government will reduce its deposits with MAS by the same amount. This means that MAS’ balance sheet will show a reduction in foreign assets of $ billion and an equivalent reduction in its domestic liabilities to the Government. MAS made a net profit of $ billion in FY2018/19. The investment return from the OFR was $ billion.

The transition to a netzero economy can only be achieved with a committed and concerted effort across the public and private sector. I wish all of you a fruitful discussion ahead. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
The Creative Economy Speech given by Andrew G Haldane Chief Economist Bank of England The Inaugural Glasgow School of Art Creative Engagement Lecture The Glasgow School of Art 22 November 2018  The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee. I would like to thank Marilena Angeli and Shiv Chowla for their help in preparing the text. I would like to thank Philip Bond, Clare Macallan and Mette Nielson for their comments and contributions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  It is a great pleasure to be at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA). For over 170 years, the GSA has been one of the leading educational institutions in the creative arts in Europe. Today, the School continues to provide a conveyor belt of talent that is fuelling the rise in the creative industries, a sector growing rapidly and one where the UK can genuinely be said to be a world-leader. It is creativity, and its role in improving incomes in the economy and well-being in society, that I will discuss this evening. Now, there is a certain irony in me (a middle-aged career public servant) giving a lecture to you (staff and students at one of Europe’s creative hot-spots) about the determinants and benefits of creativity. Don’t worry, that irony is not lost on me. Nonetheless, I hope that by analysing creativity through an economic and historical lens we can learn something about its key ingredients.

What is often left out of the euro area storyline is the fact that the monetary union came on top of diverging trends in total factor productivity (TFP) as the catching-up process in the EU came to a stall during the early 1990s 9. A reversal in the catching-up process came regardless of high investments in some peripheral countries and high capital output ratios – rather than a sign of success, high investments were an indication of deeper-rooted problems. 10 Many peripheral countries did not need more investments per se to restart convergence – what they needed was a more efficient allocation of investments. The efficiency of investments fell victim to poor economic governance, rigid labour and product markets, low investments in information and communication technologies, defunct educational systems and the poor quality of corporate management. What the monetary union accomplished against such a background was to create an illusion of continuing convergence on the back of increasing foreign borrowing and investment in non-tradables, rather than to enact discipline in the economic governance of peripheral countries. The adoption of the single currency, followed by the consistent private sector interest spread, elimination of exchange rate risk and implied fiscal bail-out clause, cemented the duality in the quality of economic governance and boosted the suboptimal reallocation of resources in the periphery. So, we have observed financing low-productivity sectors (via real estate or government spending) with debt inflows, instead of capital flows fuelling further “catching-up”.