samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Jean-Pierre Roth: Switzerland - an island in Euroland? Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Bank of Greece, Athens, 21 May 2004. *  *  *  It is a great pleasure for me to talk to you today about Swiss monetary policy. Athens is the place to go to this summer. For sure, it will soon become, once again, a symbol of sport and peace, competition and fairness. Switzerland too will follow the Games with passion. But for many Swiss, your country is not just associated with sport, it is part of our culture and part of our history. In fact, Greece and Switzerland have enjoyed continuing cultural and economic ties over the centuries. Your great statesman, Ioannis Capodistrias, had retired to Geneva when he was elected Head of State of the newly created Greek Republic in 1827, and he was named honorary citizen of Lausanne and of Geneva. His friendship with the banker Eynar contributed also to the foundation of the National Bank of Greece. Later, the relationship between Greece and Switzerland strengthened further when both countries became members of the Latin Monetary Union. The Union, which led to the setting of a fixed exchange rate between Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, France, and Italy, was the first attempt in continental Europe to create an extended area where gold and silver coins could circulate freely.

The programme will (i) create a one-stop knowledge hub, (ii) forge a community of practice and innovation, (iii) deploy advisory support for green transformation, and (iv) promote green investment and financing activities. 10. As a first step, we are pleased to formally launch the Alliance’s membership programme by inviting five leading banks in Asia with demonstrated achievements in green finance to join as Cornerstone Members. 11. They are, in alphabetical order, Bank of China (Hong Kong), Citi, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, and Standard Chartered. 12. The Cornerstone Members are committed to making further progress in mainstreaming green finance, achieving carbon neutrality, and having an environmental, social and climate risk management system. 13. They will also support the Alliance’s strategy and outreach plans to expand the membership network, promote green finance market and product development, and spearhead knowledge sharing and thought leadership activities. 14. The Alliance also seeks to amplify the synergy by bringing in institutions that are engaged in cutting-edge research, capacity building, and standard-setting related to green finance. 15. We are delighted to announce that Carbon Trust, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the Resource and Environment Branch of China National Institute of Standardization have joined the Alliance as Global Partners. 16. We are also honoured to have the University of Chicago joining the Alliance as a Knowledge Partner to assist the Asia Chapter’s training and thought leadership efforts. 17.
(A side remark: output growth in the Nordic countries has also been robust in the past 10 to 15 years. Swedish GDP, for example, has doubled. Such pace of development is likely to have contributed to the growth in the Baltic countries.) Coming back to the Baltics, 1997 and 1998 were the years of the Asian and Russian crises. In the Baltic states, these crises led to the collapse of the stock markets, bankruptcies of many companies, including banks, and a surge in interest rates and unemployment. Thus it was a good time to make cheap acquisitions in many industries, including Baltic banks. That said, strategic entry of Nordic banks was at the time of critical importance to restore market confidence. SEB and Swedbank acquired minority shares in two largest Estonian banks, and started to increase their control. In the year 2000, Sampo Bank followed. BIS Review 81/2006  1  Indeed, the presence of foreign banks in emerging markets has generally been found to increase stability, efficiency, and governance. Combined with improved regulation, strong Nordic banks have brought a qualitative change in the Baltic financial sector. As a result, we can proudly say that the Estonian financial system stands out in the EU for integration, e-banking, and credit conditions, to name a few. Nordic investment in Estonian banking sector has proven profitable: ROE has been around 20 percent. Furthermore, local know-how helped the Nordic parent banks to enter the Latvian and Lithuanian as well as the Russian markets.

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However, there remain two causes for concern: -  one is the natural difficulty in moving to an entirely new set of price references – and it may take a number of years before this switch is fully made by the public at large. -  and the second, probably related to the first one, is the feeling in the public that there have been excessive price increases linked to the cash changeover. Indeed, the public’s attention has focused on a small number of goods and services in which abnormal increases occurred at the time of this event, leading to a misperception of the real rate of inflation. This gap between perceived inflation and real inflation has however been narrowing progressively and should hopefully disappear in the near future. Concluding remarks To conclude, let me emphasise that eight years after its adoption, the euro has lived up to all of our expectations. After the unprecedented challenge of a continent-wide cash changeover, the euro almost instantly replaced the legacy currencies without any disruptions. It has fostered both price and macroeconomic stability through its credibility and has shielded many euro area countries from significant exchange rate volatility and financial market  1  On average, central banks of industrialised countries changed their policy rates every 5 months both in the 1980s and the 1990s (Source Clerc et Yates (1999): “Interest rate stepping: some puzzles and facts”, mimeo Bank of England), which is close to the frequency of the ECB interest rate changes (4.7 months).

The deepest red, for example, means the indicator is beyond the 90th percentile of its historic distribution. Chart 4 Selected indicators of underlying vulnerabilities  Series and sources: 12-month mortgage credit growth (Bank of England); share of households with mortgage LTIs above 4.5 (UK Finance); corporate debt growth (annual) – Bank staff measure (Bank of England, Association of British Insurers, Cass Commercial Real Estate Lending Survey, Datastream from Refinitiv, Deals Business Intelligence from Refinitiv, Deloitte, LCD, an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence, London Stock Exchange, ONS, Preqin and Bank calculations); UK current account balance (% GDP) (ONS and Bank calculations). Notes: Each data series included in the heatmap has been rescaled into a percentile by using a kernel density estimate of its cumulative distribution function using all available data back to 1987. The Bank staff estimate for corporate debt adjusts the official ONS measure by adding sources of market-based finance not captured by the ONS and by removing other sources of market-based finance that have been misallocated to corporate debt. The net effect of these adjustments is predominantly to decrease the level of debt pre-crisis. Stocks of PNFC debt at 2018 Q3 split: 43% bank loans, 39% corporate bonds, with residual being money market instruments and other forms of non-bank finance. The temperature overall doesn’t look elevated. The only warm colour on this heat map stems from the UK’s continued reliance on the kindness of strangers – its persistent current account deficit, running currently at 4.4% of annual GDP (Chart 3).
The Governing Council’s wide-ranging decisions of last week are geared towards this aim. They were based on the assessment that, in the current fragile market environment, the PEPP remains the best, and most effective, instrument to respond to the dual risks of a shortfall of inflation from our medium-term aim and of fragmentation in the euro area, which threatens the singleness of our monetary policy. The PEPP’s anatomy provides the flexibility – across time, jurisdictions and market segments – that is needed to effectively counter the specific challenges that COVID-19 poses. This flexibility is a key element of PEPP and will be maintained throughout its lifetime. Thank you. 1 See, for example, Autor, D. et al. (2017), “The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms”, NBER  Working Paper Series, National Bureau of Economic Research, No 23396, May; and Gutiérrez, G. and Philippon, T. (2017), “Declining Competition and Investment in the U.S.”, NBER Working Paper Series, No 23583, National Bureau of Economic Research, July. 2 See Ari, A., Chen, S. and Ratnovski, L. (2020), “The dynamics of non-performing loans during banking crises: a  new database”, Working Paper Series, No. 2395, ECB. 3 See, for example, Vayanos, D. and J.-Luc Vila (2009), “A Preferred-Habitat Model of the Term Structure of Interest  Rates”, NBER Working Paper No. 15487. See also Krishnamurthy and Vissing-Jorgensen (2011, 2013) and D’Amico and King (2013). 4 Announcement effects are event-specific and may change over time.

Second, declines in the market value of government bonds led to liquidity strains, insofar as these bonds are widely used as collateral in interbank markets. And third, in some instances, governments had to step in to recapitalise vulnerable domestic banks, thereby increasing their own debt in turn. This “tale of two debt overhangs”, as some have called this twin crisis of banks and sovereigns, had uneven effects across euro area countries.4 Some countries were markedly more affected than others, which contributed to increased financial fragmentation in the euro area. This also laid bare further fragilities that had been accumulated in the past, including the fact that some euro area countries had neglected structural reforms and as a result faced competitiveness losses and the built-up of external deficits. While these fragilities had not gone completely unnoticed, and had been pointed out early on by the ECB, they had not received the attention they deserved until the crisis struck. This bears similarities with the Asian financial crisis, which is well remembered in this part of the world. Some experts saw it coming and warned at an early stage against the causes that led to it, such as short-term  1  See e.g. Berkmen, P., G. Gelos, R. Rennhack and J. Walsh (2009), “The global financial crisis: Explaining cross-country differences in the output impact”, IMF Working Paper, No. 280; Berglöf, E., Y. Korniyenko, A. Plekhanov and J. Zettelmeyer (2009), “Understanding the crisis in emerging Europe”, EBRD Working Paper, No. 108; Lane, P.R. and G.M.
It is important that bankers including board members remain current on all these developments and understand their implications on our domestic and regional financial landscape. In the insurance and takaful industry, there have been continued improvements in corporate governance practices and further strengthening of the capital positions of individual institutions. These improvements have however, been uneven between institutions and overall progress can be further accelerated. We will monitor closely the implementation plans by insurers to meet and maintain internal capital targets that are above the regulatory minimum level. Given the increasingly more complex and competitive environment going forward, smaller insurers, particularly in the general insurance industry, need to strengthen their ability to comply with the higher prudential standards. The option for mergers to form stronger and more resilient institutions would accelerate this process. In the critical area of corporate governance, we are well advanced in our concerted efforts to strengthen the Boards of Financial Institutions through the Financial Institutions Directors’ Education (FIDE) programme which is now managed by the ICLIF Leadership and Governance Centre. More than 200 directors have completed the programme. Bank Negara Malaysia is also reviewing the need for boards of insurance companies to be served by a dedicated head of risk to provide assurance to the board on the quality of risk management within the firm. This is to promote better risk management systems and  BIS Review 146/2010  5  processes among insurers and a more integrated approach to risk management and oversight within insurers.

MR Chatu Mongol Sonakul: Inflation targeting - a new monetary policy approach for Thailand  Speech by Mr MR Chatu Mongol Sonakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Bank of Thailand’s International Economic Conference “Practical Experiences on Inflation Targeting” held in Bangkok on 20 October 2000. *  *  *  Distinguished panelists, Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the second seminar on inflation targeting organized by the Bank of Thailand. But this is the first seminar at international level, with highly distinguished speakers from many famous central banks. To set the right tone for the seminar, I want to start with a question: what does the general public expect from the central bank? People invariably want the good life: a high standard of living, abundant goods and services to consume. They also want political freedom, a clean environment, and many other things, but let us concentrate on the economic aspects in order to keep it relevant to central banking. To give people the good life, the economy has to be generating output at a high level, the highest level in relation to its capacity. The economy will also have to generate enough jobs to accommodate the new workers entering the labor force yearly. For many Asian countries where the demographic slant is heavily towards the younger ages, the number of new workers entering the labor force each year is substantial. Therefore, the level of output has to grow to provide adequate employment.
We must therefore first do our utmost to stop the slow erosion of basic skills observed in the various international surveys (PISA, TIMSS). We must then ramp up the recent takeoff, since the 2018 Avenir Pro law and the 2020 1 jeune 1 solution plan, of apprenticeships, a fantastic tool for training and professional integration. The record number of close to 700,000 new contracts signed in 2021 must be just a starting point, from which to rethink the financing of work-study programmes. Page 11 sur 15 As regards seniors, France lags behind in terms of the employment rate and this gap widens as people approach retirement. This is another economic reason – in addition to ensuring the smooth financing of the old age insurance scheme – why it is necessary to reform our pension system. This reform must be fair, and companies will have to make more room for older workers. There remain three measures in order to raise the supply of labour for all workers: - beyond apprenticeships for young people, vocational training for all. The Personal Training Account, resulting from the 2018 reform, has proved a great success (demands for training have increased by 40% compared to 2019)xv. However, it will have to be optimised, in order to control its costs and above all to better steer it towards skill needs, in particular in the digital and industrial professions of the future. I have noted that, on the key issue of skill enhancement, France is still among the European laggards.

i The past growth path is calculated here using the December 2019 macroeconomic GDP projection, extrapolated from 2023 onwards using the potential GDP forecast at that time. ii F. Villeroy de Galhau, Europe’s growth gap reconciling Keynes and Schumpeter, Speech, March 2021. iii European Commission, Impact assessment, Stepping up Europe’s 2030 climate ambition, Commission staff working document, 2020. iv J. Pisani-Ferry, Climate policy is macroeconomic policy, and the implications will be significant, PIIE Policy Brief No.2120, August 2021. v T. Allen, J. Boissinot, L. Clerc, S. Dees, Developing climate transition scenarios to manage financial risks, Bulletin de la Banque de France No.237/9, by T. Allen, S. Dees, C. M. Caicedo Graciano, V. Chouard, L. Clerc, A. de Gaye, ... & L. Vernet, Climate-related scenarios for financial stability assessment: An application to France, 2020. Page 16 sur 15 vi  Spain and Italy have the lowest scores in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), 252 and 250, respectively, in adult literacy, just behind France (262), compared to 284 for the Netherlands, 278 for Norway and 279 for Sweden. In France, 22% of workers are low-skilled, in Spain and Italy around 27%, in Sweden and Norway around 13%. Shares of high-skilled workers: France 8%, Spain 5%, Italy 3%, Sweden 16%, Norway 14% Based on PEICA 2012 and OECD 2013, qualifications in terms of skills.
Admittedly, since the publication of our latest projections more details have become known on the use that could be made of the NGEU programme in Spain in the short term (many of which are included in the Draft Budget we are addressing here today). But notable uncertainty persists over the ultimate level of actual execution of this programme in Spain, and over the capacity of the potential projects finally selected and implemented to increase the Spanish economy’s growth potential. I shall refer again to this matter when discussing the macroeconomic forecasts of the Draft Budget. But first, allow me to mention one final factor which, undoubtedly, has critically influenced recent Spanish and global dynamics. It is a factor that will continue to play a key role in the coming quarters and years in managing and overcoming this crisis. I refer here to the economic policy response. To date, the measures taken by economic policymakers (in the fiscal, monetary, labour market and financial areas) in response to the outbreak of the pandemic have most significantly mitigated its impact. They have eased the downturn in real activity and in economic agents’ income and liquidity, and they have headed off the materialisation of systemic risks to the functioning of the financial markets and banks’ financial stability. From the outset of the health crisis, fiscal policy, both in Spain and in most developed countries, has reacted resolutely.

•  Second, maintaining price stability does not guarantee financial stability. In the euro area, the inflation mandate has always been fulfilled, but has not prevented the emergence of crises in the region. These crises have forced central banks to broaden their mandates to include financial stability in order to ensure the functioning of the monetary policy transmission channel as well as to guarantee the smooth financing of the economy. Stable inflation and financial stability are therefore two objectives that monetary and macroprudential policies respectively seek to achieve. •  Third, the Lehman episode and the euro area crisis have confirmed that financial crises do not stop at borders. Consequently, financial system regulation must be the fruit of international cooperation. These lessons, in the post-crisis world, are at the heart of policy-makers’ actions. Financial crises have led us to renew our approach to financial system regulation, and notably to supplement it with a macroprudential perspective. But what is a macroprudential policy? How can we define clear objectives? What are the policy instruments? How can we organise it? What imbalances need to be redressed? These are only some of the numerous issues that contributors address in this Review. In particular, the broad scope of policy action is a major challenge. We especially need to anticipate all possible conflicts with other economic policies, such as microprudential, monetary or fiscal policy. I will now identify at least two prerequisites to ensure that macroprudential policy is effective: First, if conflicts arise between macroprudential policy should prevail.
Whether we choose to bolster the tools for CCP resilience, CCP recovery or CCP resolution, we will need to be aware of potential trade-offs in the way losses are allocated, and remember that there may be no ideal approach. I have provided an overview of the pros and cons of these various approaches. It will be crucial not to lose sight of the systemic view when discussing CCP loss absorption, and to pay close attention to the interconnections between CCP exposures and bank exposures, and to the impact of CCP risk-management on pro-cyclicality in the global financial system. I look forward to learning from our discussions today and I hope they will shed new light on some of the trade-offs I have identified. Thank you for your attention. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches

BIS Review 40/2007  5  instance, the members may disagree as to how quickly inflation should be returned to target after a shock. This type of situation may be complicated. But after all, we have managed to agree earlier on interest rate messages that have contained information on our future intentions. Other arguments have also been put forward against publishing one’s own forecast for the development of the policy rate. One is that it could damage our credibility and make communication with the general public and the financial markets more difficult. Let us assume that the central bank first notifies a particular interest rate path but that new information is received afterwards, which leads to a policy rate decision that differs from the path published earlier. According to this argument, the deviation could be perceived as a failure by the central bank and could impair the bank’s credibility 7 . However, I am fairly convinced that it is the other way around – that communication will now be clearer and more efficient. I believe that there is currently widespread understanding among households, companies and market participants that monetary policy must be adjusted when the prevailing conditions change. A forecast is by nature uncertain and this applies even more the further ahead it stretches. We have also been clear on this point. Our assessment of the development of the repo rate, as presented in the Monetary Policy Report, is a forecast. It is not a promise!