samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
I have also pointed to a number of risks that could lead to a different development than the one we forecast in the Monetary Policy Update. We try to determine the probability of the risks on the basis of incoming statistics. This gives us a picture of what can be regarded as a main scenario and what can be regarded as an alternative scenario. How should a monetary policymaker weigh up new and often contradictory information about the economy that indicates different paths of development? I shall conclude with a few reflections on this. As an economic forecaster, one is confronted by a constant flow of new statistics that often point in different directions. Let me illustrate this by describing the circumstances of our most recent monetary policy decision in April. Statistics Sweden had scarcely published a GDP figure for the fourth quarter that was weaker than expected, when the National Institute of Economic Research published a very strong Economic Tendency Survey for March. Nor is it unusual for statistics to be revised in a way that changes history and throws new light on the initial situation in the economy. As I mentioned earlier, Statistics Sweden revised up the figures for the number of hours worked in connection with the publication of the GDP statistics for the fourth quarter of 2011. This revision entails lower productivity growth for 2010 and 2011 than was reported earlier, and thus a new outlook on the future productivity growth trend, which has significance for monetary policy.

Although the most recent labour market statistics for April point to weaker growth in jobs, at the same time the statistics on job growth were revised upwards for the previous months. In Japan, fiscal policy investments in rebuilding after the tsunami last year will contribute to growth in Japan being slightly higher than we thought in February. In China, the economy is expected to grow by more than 8 per cent in 2012. The overall picture we saw ahead of us in April looked fairly good. Personally, I emphasised the improved prospects for the United States as a possible reason for feeling slightly greater confidence in our international forecast. Global GDP is expected to grow at a rate that roughly corresponds to the historical average. The statistics received since the repo-rate decision in April have so far not had any dramatic effect on this picture. But the risk of a poorer development remains and at present there is greater nervousness on the financial markets than there was in April. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  International risks Even if the euro crisis does not trigger a total collapse in the international economy, there are a number of risks in the world economy that could lead to poorer economic prospects than we predict in our April Update. The first risk is that the deleveraging in the euro area will take longer than expected, and affect the Swedish export industry through lower demand.
The development towards increasingly open central banks appears to be the same in other countries that work in similar ways, particularly in Norway where the Centre for Monetary Economics has  1  The National Institute of Economic Research (NIER) is a public authority under the Ministry of Finance. The NIER produces analyses and forecasts on the Swedish and international economies and conducts research in these fields. It has an independent position and is responsible for the assessments it makes. 4  BIS Review 25/2006  organised an annual, independent evaluation of monetary policy for the past few years. As I said at the beginning, this openness and the possibilities for evaluation are necessary conditions for an independent central bank to enjoy confidence and legitimacy. To summarise, I consider it extremely important that independent central banks should be assessed. To ensure that this is carried out in a purposeful manner, the central banks’ forecasts and other information on which decisions are based should be well-documented and reported openly. It also requires a reasonably coherent explanation as to why the forecasts look the way they do. This means that we need to constantly develop our methods for making and assessing forecasts. However, it also requires that an institution actively commits itself to making thorough analyses of the information compiled so that the assessments and debate can be serious and constructive. What happens if low inflation persists?

They do not usually base their forecasts on an unchanged interest rate. The new assumption makes it easier to assess the forecasts, as the conditions are normally more realistic. The fact that we have chosen to make this change can be partly regarded as a result of academic research, and also partly because this assumption appears to have worked well for other central banks that have chosen to base their forecasts on assumptions other than a constant key rate, such as Norges Bank and the Bank of England. Basis for assessment So much for our monetary policy strategy, which is what I believe we should be assessed against. Let me now say a few words about the basis we supply for assessment. The analysis work on which the monetary policy decisions are based is published in the form of Inflation Reports. These contain analyses of the determinants of inflation and forecasts for inflation developments over the coming years. They also contain analyses of why deviations from target have arisen or are expected to arise, given a particular monetary policy stance. The Inflation Reports thus contribute to spreading knowledge about the Riksbank’s assessments and thereby make it easier for external parties to follow and understand monetary policy. Moreover, we want them to encourage discussion of monetary policy issues. So far we have published four Inflation Reports a year, but we have now decided to reduce the number to three.
Michael Held: The financial crisis - perspectives from a decade on Remarks by Mr Michael Held, Executive Vice President of the Legal Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to the Administrative and Banking Law Committees of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, New York City, 15 November 2017. * * *  Introduction Thank you to the City Bar and the members of its Administrative and Banking Law Committees. It’s a pleasure to be able to speak with you. The views I express today are my own, and not necessarily the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.1 I’d like to take my time here with you today to reflect a bit on the decade since the financial crisis. A decade later, while the most acute effects of the crisis have dissipated, American families and businesses—the Main Street economy—continue to feel or remember its longer term effects. Savings were depleted. Homes and businesses were lost. Many Americans’ careers were fundamentally altered. Consumer spending dropped more severely on a year-over-year basis than it had since the Second World War.2 A decade later, recognition of the human element of the Great Recession motivates both the private and public sector to remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent a future crisis. Remembering the effect of the crisis on American families, business owners, and investors helps prevent personal and institutional memories from fading. And the potential for memories to fade is real.

The MPC’s central estimate that QE had a total peak impact on GDP of around 2.5% in 2013 implies that adjusted Bank Rate fell below 0.5% during the depths of the crisis. In the May 2014 Inflation Report the MPC judged that maintaining the stock of asset purchases at £ would provide continued, albeit declining support to activity implying that adjusted Bank Rate is still currently below 0.5%. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  natural rate of interest will not rise to pre-crisis levels which is why we believe increases in Bank rate will be both gradual and limited. Moves in financial markets may also be signalling nervousness in the slow healing story. Financial markets drifted down in the second half of 2015 and they fell quite sharply in the first months of this year. Some of these moves have recovered a bit in the last week or so. But nevertheless current market signals seem to be suggesting a structurally weaker economic picture. UK 10-year real yields are negative. And yield curves are flat as far as the eye can see – the 5-year point on the UK forward market interest rate curve has fallen by around 0.8 percentage points to 1% in the last month.8 It is difficult to identify any really major economic news in 2016 that might underlie this. Rather it may be that markets are shifting to a new perception of the world economy and risks, and of policy-makers’ ability to respond to future challenges.
Second, the recently agreed Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD), which sets common EU rules including on state support for banks in resolution but allows for national flexibility in their application, aligned to national insolvency regimes, by national resolution authorities or in the Banking Union’s case, the new Single Resolution Board. Like CRD4, the BRRD reinforces financial stability by ensuring that the actions of national resolution authorities are recognised in other member states. I would single out another aspect of the BRRD. It follows the international standard for resolution developed by the Financial Stability Board – the “Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes for Financial Institutions”. There is a more general point here. The EU capital market and financial sector exists in a globally integrated market. It is in our economic interest for the EU to be as integrated as possible with that global market. As I have said, that market needs to be supported by properly implemented international standards. The EU and its member states need to play an active role in shaping those standards. And once international standards have been agreed, it is in the EU’s interest that it implements them – as in the BRRD. This is of crucial importance to the UK and to the UK’s financial stability. The UK is the home to financial firms and infrastructure that are truly global in their reach and activity. While much  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  of this activity involves the EU, a very large amount does not.

It is one that does not generally exist elsewhere within the single market. There are other examples. The general point however is that it is possible to find where necessary the balance between financial stability and the single market and the EU has, by and large, been able to do so. I hope and expect this will continue as we move into the next phase of the development of the single market – what has now become known as the Capital Markets Union and to which I now want to turn. Capital Markets Union The motivation to create a single, integrated, capital market in the EU is not new. As I have noted, the potential benefits to economic growth and “dynamism” at a time when growth in Europe was sluggish drove the efforts in the 1980s to liberalise capital accounts and create the single market in financial services. The reforms inspired in the 1990s by the Giovannini report aimed to create an integrated, well-functioning financial market to “help the EU economy by encouraging the right investments to be made in the right places” and so to “contribute to higher economic growth and employment.” And we should not under-estimate what has been achieved. To take one example, the UCITS regime launched then and refined over the years has enabled the growth of EU investment funds, operating with a passport across member states, with nearly € trillion of assets.
The challenge before us is to build a new financial architecture that would allow for the more efficient functioning of not only financial intermediation within national economies but also across borders. Islamic finance, with its emphasis on a strong linkage to productive economic activity, its inbuilt check and balances and its high level of disclosure and transparency offers this prospect. Indeed, inherent in Islamic finance is the explicit elements that address several of the issues that have surfaced in the conventional financial system during the current crisis. Given the global dimension of the current crisis, the accelerated pace at which it has spread and the severity of its repercussions, it has called for a higher degree of collective determination by the international community to work together towards developing a global strategy that will evolve a financial system that is stable and sustainable over the entire business cycle. As Islamic finance continues to become an integral part of the global financial system, it will increasingly be exposed to risks of financial stress arising from global financial instability and global economic activity. This necessitates a greater global engagement between those that are driving the reform agenda given that it will result in new structures, standards and regulatory regimes for the industry. This is particularly important  BIS Review 123/2009  1  when such standards become the basis on which assessments are made by multilateral agencies, rating agencies and the market at large.

As the role and relevance of Islamic finance in the global financial system gains significance, it will not only increase its potential to contribute to global financial stability but also towards strengthening global growth." It is my honour to be invited to speak at this Seminar on Islamic Finance: During and After the Global Financial Crisis, jointly organised by the World Bank, the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF). This seminar takes place at a time in world history that is characterised by an unprecedented global financial instability, that has now precipitated a synchronised global economic recession. Although signs of an impending recovery in the world economy have appeared in the horizon, the pervasively virulent and far reaching repercussions unleashed by the crisis has shaken the foundations of the global financial system. This damage has yet to be repaired and rebuilt. This has sparked the international call for the reform of the financial architecture to one that will best serve the world economy, to one that is more resilient to shocks and to one that would reduce the prospect for future financial crises. History has shown that there have been more than a hundred distinct banking crises in this recent three decades. There is therefore an even more urgent need to find an enduring solution to ensure the stability of financial systems.
The share of banks reporting a further slight tightening of conditions for corporate lending has fallen considerably, from 40% at the time of the previous quarterly survey to 3% for this quarter. Households appear to be benefiting from a similar trend, as no banks have announced a tightening of their lending conditions for households,  2  BIS Review 167/2009  whereas in the previous quarter 50% of banks reported a further slight tightening of lending conditions for non-mortgage loans and 20% for mortgage loans to households. The survey also suggests that demand for loans has stabilised. The share of banks experiencing increased household demand for mortgages has fallen from 40% at the beginning of this year to 10%. The situation in Switzerland is thus very different to that observed in other economies. Not only is there no credit crunch, but we have also witnessed a substantial increase in the volume of mortgages. There are also signs of a relaxation in lending conditions for mortgage loans. We would like to sound a note of caution, both to banks and to firms and households, as regards the risks inherent in a relaxation of discipline in real estate financing. Inflation outlook Monetary policy influences the medium and long-term inflation outlook. By contrast, it has very little effect on short-term developments. The past two years have been a perfect illustration of this. Inflation peaked at 3.1% in July 2008, before plummeting to –1.2% in July this year.

Long-term relationships with customers are being replaced by more transient transactions with counterparties. •  Raghuram Rajan observes how increasing product complexity and reliance on technology has created a detachment from the customer. •  It ultimately leads to a reductionist view of finance where “money is the measure of all worth”, a state that is hardly conducive for ethical conduct. 3  Second, compensation structures tend to over-emphasise profits as performance measures. Excessive focus on sales targets and commissions has incentivised a “trading mentality” which is often associated with too much risk taking or scant regard for client interests or the sustainability of relationships. Third, and more fundamentally, departures from ethical conduct are too easily tolerated as the norm. 2  Mark Carney, “The Future of Financial Regulation”, MAS Lecture, Singapore, 2014. 3  Raghuram Rajan, “Where Money is the Measure of All Worth” in Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, 2010. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  •  In a global survey of financial sector executives by the Economist Intelligence Unit, more than half the respondents felt that their career progression would be difficult without being “flexible on ethical standards”. •  If you look at the email and chat room messages between traders involved in the rigging of financial benchmarks, they betray a lack of any sense of guilt or wrongdoing. •  In fact, traders were congratulating and complimenting each other on their manipulation.
In my view, it would be surprising if there were significant effects on the real economy or inflation associated with substituting one short-term, liquid, risk-free asset (reverse repos or term deposits with the Fed) for another (reserves), except for the degree to which that substitution affects the Fed’s control of overnight interest rates. BIS Review 39/2010  5  because the FOMC has not specified the path of reserves it intends to achieve before raising interest rates. The second potential concern that some may have is whether the markets have adequately priced in the exit strategy. However, a few considerations should limit this concern. Most important, the current configuration of yields and asset prices incorporates expectations that short-term interest rates will begin to rise around the end of this year. Thus, the markets seem prepared for the risks toward tighter policy. Moreover, looking out to longer maturities, the shape of the Treasury yield curve appears to incorporate not only expectations of policy tightening, but a decent-sized term premium on longer-term securities. Indeed, the term premium is well above the levels observed over most of the past several years, even though inflation is likely to be low and upside inflation risks are limited. This should help to diminish the chances of a sizable upward shift in yields. A related issue is whether the current levels of risky asset prices will prove robust in a rising rate environment.

Thanks to this cooperation, our staff capacities were enhanced as regards the handling of responsibilities arising from the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, approximation to the ESCB standards, and the challenges that we may encounter when Albania receives the status of a candidate country and starts negotiations of EU accession. Last but not least, financial literacy is of key importance to the Bank of Albania. Thanks to support from and cooperation with the project team, an action plan was designed to promote financial literacy and enhance awareness of market-economy principles across various groups of the society. Also, a system for monitoring financial literacy in schools was set up. Further on, due to complexity of our work and new developments in the banking and financial area, it is clear that the project has strengthened our institution and has helped us cope with new situations. Moreover, the cooperation and communication between our institutions intensified from both viewpoints, professionally and personally. We do live in a global society, where financial developments take place at a rapid pace. Therefore, central banks should possess strong and reliable mechanisms of coordination and communication, which may prepare our institutions to cope with such situations.
Policymakers should be wary of supporting an industry that has so far produced no societal benefits and is increasingly trying to integrate into the traditional financial system, both to acquire legitimacy as part of that system and to piggyback on it. Instead, regulators should subject cryptos to rigorous regulatory standards, address their social cost, and treat unsound crypto models for what they truly are: a form of gambling. This may prompt the ecosystem to make more effort to provide genuine value in the field of digital finance. Shifting narratives: from decentralised payments to centralised gambling The core promise of cryptos is to replace trust with technology, contending that the concept “code is law” will allow a self-policing system to emerge, free of human judgement and error. This would in turn make it possible for money and finance to operate without trusted intermediaries. However, this narrative often obfuscates reality. Unbacked cryptos have made no inroads into the conventional role of money. And they have progressively moved away from their original goal of decentralisation to increasingly rely on centralised solutions and market structures. They have become speculative assets[8], as well as a means of circumventing capital controls, sanctions or financial regulation. Blockchain limitations A key reason why cryptos have failed to make good on their claim to perform the role of money is technical. Indeed, the use of blockchain – particularly in the form of public, permissionless blockchain – for transacting crypto-assets has exhibited significant limitations.

Eddie Yue: Opening keynote - "Scaling up sustainable finance in Asia" conference Opening keynote by Mr Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the ASIFMA "Scaling up Sustainable Finance in Asia" conference, Hong Kong, 17 March 2023. *** Alice, Diana, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Good Morning, Let me start by thanking ASIFMA for inviting me to this Sustainable Finance Conference. It is my great pleasure to share with you Hong Kong's vision and the concrete steps being taken to strengthen our leading role in green and sustainable finance. As we come into Spring after a colder-than-usual winter, this is a good time to talk about the advances that happen when the right ecosystem is combined with the right opportunities. In the financial world, green and sustainable finance brings extraordinary opportunities. And if we are looking for the best ecosystem for these opportunities to flourish, Hong Kong is the place. The climate challenge to Asia is huge, and urgent. Meeting this challenge will require substantial investment – some $ trillion over the next three decades based on market estimates. China alone will require more than 100 trillion yuan. The multi-trillion-dollar funding need can hardly be met by the public sector alone, and climate finance plays a crucial role here. It helps the public sector raise funding from the market to finance climate projects and initiatives. It also mobilises private capital to directly fund climate actions.