samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  7  In the case of energy markets there are probably specific factors to blame. A prolonged period of cold weather last winter had reduced inventories of gas in Europe. Interruptions to the supply of renewables further increased the demand for gas, as did efforts to shift away from coal in Asia. And there have been supply problems too in Norway and Russia. More generally, there are several possible reasons why these trends have continued, despite the worldwide easing of Covid restrictions. The substantial fiscal easing in the United States gave a renewed and significant impetus to spending on consumer durables, both in that country and therefore the world as a whole. In some cases – notably cars – supply problems meant this demand couldn’t be met. But US spending on other durables nonetheless rose significantly further between the first and second quarters of this year, as fiscal transfers started to come through, and in 2021Q2 was almost 30% higher than immediately before the pandemic (Charts 8 and 9). Chart 8. US accounts for much of the growth in global demand for durable goods Percentage points  US  Chart 9. Large increase in durables consumption in the US, now partly easing back  24 Consumer durables excl.

The balance credit rise marked during the eleven-month period of the year the value of LEK 15.3 billion, reflecting a rise of 30 percent relative to the yearend of 2003. The easing monetary policy of the Bank of Albania has helped smooth the appreciation pressure of the Lek exchange rate. The differences between interest rates in foreign currency and those in domestic currency incurred a decline during 2004. However, the rising foreign currency inflows on one hand, and the reduction of imports volume on the other one, have created a temporary difference between the foreign currency supply and demand during the summer period. This misbalance has exerted a significant pressure on the appreciation of the Lek exchange rate, fostering the foreign market volatility. The exchange rate volatility through this temporary rise of foreign currency supply has imposed the necessity of the Bank of Albania intermediation to the foreign market during the summer period, towards purchasing the foreign currency. Though trade deficit increased, the current deficit in the third quarter has been lower than in the previous quarters, thanks to increased and positive balances of income, services, and particularly current transfers. The current transfers balance is estimated at USD 295 million, being higher than the  1/2  one of the first two quarters, and nearly 44 percent higher than the one of the third quarter of the previous year. Overall, the balance of payments performance during 2004 was positive.
Energy price inflation will also be considerable lower ahead. In August, the enterprises in Norges Bank’s regional network noted that there had been a shift in sentiment in the Norwegian economy. An extra round of calls to some contacts in October indicated that the outlook had worsened since August. The latest reports from enterprises in Region East indicate that demand has declined since summer, with a further drop in September and October. Customers are responding to tighter lending conditions by postponing projects. The changes have occurred rapidly, and there is now considerable uncertainty among our contacts in this region with regard to developments over the next six months. The majority of the enterprises report that they will reduce investment. Many are considering workforce reductions as an alternative if the situation does not change in the New Year. The majority also envisage lower wage and price inflation ahead. In the past year, unemployment has been as low as in the mid-1980s. Seasonally adjusted registered unemployment was 1.8 per cent in October. The enterprises in Norges Bank’s regional network are expecting some reduction in the workforce ahead. There has been a slight increase in layoffs. Going forward, enterprises will probably adjust the workforce to lower output growth and reduce the use of overtime. After a long period of high housing investment and rising prices, activity in the housing market is now slowing. Tighter credit conditions are amplifying the fall in house prices.

Norges Bank operates a flexible inflation targeting regime so that weight is given to both variability in inflation and variability in output and employment when setting interest rates. The Norwegian economy has in general exhibited solid growth since the beginning of the 1990s, although with a mild setback in 2002 and 2003. Over the past four years, the mainland economy has been in a sharp upturn, with annual growth averaging well over 4 per cent and particularly vigorous growth in 2007. Growth is now slowing markedly in the Norwegian economy. Household consumption has stagnated and house prices are falling. Growth in the Norwegian economy has slowed, while inflation has accelerated. In October, the year-on-year rise in the consumer price index (CPI) was 5.5 per cent. Electricity prices rose sharply through summer after unusually low prices last year. Underlying inflation has also picked up. Inflation adjusted for tax changes and excluding temporary changes in energy prices (CPIXE) was 3½ per cent in October. Wage growth is markedly higher and productivity growth has slowed considerably. The high rate of cost inflation has led to a faster rise in prices for domestically produced goods and services. Prices for imported consumer goods are no longer falling and are now on the rise. The slowdown in the real economy is expected to start pushing down inflation towards next  BIS Review 143/2008  3  summer. Higher unemployment and weaker corporate profitability will probably lead to low pay increases in the wage negotiations next spring.
It depends upon the good sense and judgment of key players all around the world - the governments and central banks as well as major market participants in both the major creditor and the debtor countries, as well as the international organisations. My impression is that after the initial shocks, in which market adjustments have been massively overdone, the key players are now co-operating more effectively to bring about stabilisation. Within the constraints imposed upon it, the IMF in particular is playing a very positive leading role. And I particularly welcome the constructive part which the major commercial banks, from all the main creditor countries, are now playing in rolling over their loans to Korea. This has already helped to begin to stabilise the situation there, and it has provided a breathing space while new market financing is organised. Together with the availability of the further official support already committed, this, I am reasonably confident, will enable Korea to regain control of its external position, and go on to rebuild confidence on the back of the underlying strengths of its economy and an already rapidly improving current account. That, in turn, would do more than anything to help to re-establish stability elsewhere. Stabilisation, of course, is not the end of the story - it is simply the necessary first step. Even assuming, as I do, that we are able in fact to contain the immediate financial turmoil, there is bound to be a substantial economic aftershock.

Complex and opaque links between government, financial institutions and non-financial companies made it difficult for outsiders to understand the real nature of their exposures. Financial markets were not well developed, leaving the system heavily dependent upon the banks. There was inadequate regulatory or supervisory oversight. There was widespread government influence over financial flows, which importantly also contributed to a perception that much of the borrowing was effectively under-written by the government. The list could go on. The problem was compounded by the absence of any real perception of exchange rate risk. Borrowers were evidently confident that governments would maintain their exchange rate pegs against the dollar so that unhedged foreign currency debt, much of it at short term, appeared a cheap alternative to domestic currency borrowing. The result was a build-up of short-term private sector foreign currency liabilities, by banks and non-banks, which was not fully appreciated, and which left the Asian economies especially vulnerable to a flight of capital in the event of a change in sentiment. The problem is that national authorities can create their domestic currency, if they choose to do so, even if it leads to inflation, but they cannot simply create foreign currencies in the same way. So, once the run started, it was violent and contagious. There are certainly all sorts of lessons to be drawn from Asia’s experience for the future relating to the structural weaknesses in the financial system that allowed the problem to emerge.
The smooth functioning of our payment systems, in turn, depends on the safe operation of clearing infrastructure and the mitigation of liquidity risk. Finally, central banks can act as a liquidity backstop or a lender of last resort. Such action could be needed if a banking default were coupled with severe market stress. In such a scenario, a CCP would certainly hold high-quality collateral, but it may be unable to generate cash in the market in the very short time it has to manage a default. Given the systemic importance of CCPs and the scale of potential funding needs, it is essential that CCPs have sound liquidity self-insurance so that a liquidity shortage remains an extreme tail risk and the associated moral hazard is mitigated. In light of these considerations, which apply across all locations, the ECB has a clear interest in ensuring the safety and soundness of euro clearing. To this end, we need to have a clear legal competence that, importantly, should cover both EU and third-country CCPs. Proposals to differentiate between EU and third-country CCPs would not only leave considerable pockets of euro clearing without appropriate ECB oversight, they would also raise concerns about market distortions or an unlevel playing field. For example, a responsible central bank cannot extend liquidity to any entity without having a minimum level of information and control over it.

CCP default management can and should be enhanced Before concluding, let me say a quick word on today’s third topic, the complex challenges CCPs face in managing defaults.10 CPMI-IOSCO is currently working on default management auctions, which is very welcome as this area of CCP risk management could benefit from further convergence towards shared best practices.11 The recent default at Nasdaq Clearing has certainly focused the minds of policymakers on this issue. There is much ground to cover for CCPs to converge towards best practices, from setting the right incentives for auction participants to properly calibrating their financial resources to cover concentrated positions in thin or illiquid markets. I am sure this workstream will yield valuable conclusions for both regulators and the industry. Conclusion In sum, today’s conference shows that we are continuing to ensure that CCPs steadily become more resilient and sophisticated in their role as systemic risk managers and so can truly manage any situation. At times, this requires imagination to understand the interaction of participant behaviours, complex portfolios and stress scenarios, which is a prerequisite for setting the right incentives. It also requires humility to understand the limitations of this exercise and the need for fall-back plans. Extreme and unexpected events do happen and the very purpose of CCPs is to act as a circuit-breaker during crises. For CCPs to perform this role as adequately as possible, all relevant authorities, including central banks, need to pull on the same rope.
10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  (i)  TABLE AND CHART ANNEX  Table 1: Similarity of industrial structures  EA (Core vs VEAPs)(a)  EA (17 countries)(b)  rUK and Scotland(c)  rUK and Scotland (oil on geographic basis)(d)  Energy  0.1  1.0  1.8  10.0  11.5  3.1  Construction  0.6  1.3  0.1  0.7  1.3  0.6  Manufacturing  1.3  6.1  0.7  0.5  4.8  4.5  Finance and insurance  0.3  2.5  0.8  1.4  2.2  3.2  Other  0.3  5.6  1.5  7.4  8.5  5.2  Sum  2.6  16.4  4.7  20.1  28.3  16.6  Canada (13 provinces and territories)  US (50 states + DC)  Sources: Bank calculations; Statistics Canada; US Bureau of Economic Analysis; Eurostat; ONS Regional Gross Value Added. rUK and Scotland data are for 2011; Euro Area (EA), US and Canada data are for 2012. Industrial classifications in the US and Canada are NAICS, in the UK SIC, and in the Euro Area they are NACE Rev2. These were consolidated into the five broader industrial classifications to ensure consistency. Notes: The table shows absolute differences between output industry shares in each region and the monetary union as a whole, which are then averaged for each industry in each monetary union.

Heng Swee Keat: Developments in Asia and Singapore’s insurance industry Keynote address by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the GE/FICS Award Ceremony, Singapore, 24 July 2008. *  *  *  Mrs Fang Ai Lian, Chairman, Great Eastern Life, Mr Tan Hak Leh, Managing Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my pleasure to be here on this happy occasion, made all the more significant as Great Eastern Life (GE Life) celebrates its centennial this year. For a corporation to achieve success for 100 years is a significant achievement. It attests to the agility and business acumen of its leaders, as well as the commitment of several generations of staff. Today, we celebrate GE Life’s achievement as the first insurer in Singapore to acquire accreditation as a FICS assessment service provider. This reflects well on GE Life’s commitment towards staff development. Developments in Asia and Singapore’s insurance industry Despite the recent financial turmoil, the life insurance industry has held up relatively well in this region. While regional economies would not be insulated from the global economic slowdown, the medium-term outlook for the region remains good. The pace of economic growth and wealth creation in the region will drive demand for a range of insurance products. Indeed, estimates from Swiss Re show that life and general insurance premiums have been growing at a faster pace than GDP in most emerging Asian economies.
Some MoUs focus primarily on supervision, whereas others involve crisis management as well. Notably, they are not legally binding and give the national authorities considerable scope for discretion. Although the emergence of these MoUs is very positive, they are no guarantee for efficient crisis management. Probably, these MoUs will work well under normal conditions. And they will also be most helpful in facilitating coordination in some financial crises. However, in a more wide-spread crisis involving a large cross-border bank, MoUs alone will probably be insufficient. Take, for example, the issue of assessments. We have in Europe in principle agreed to share each other’s views and assessments in the event of a distress scenario. However, to be able to act decisively in a crisis situation involving a large cross-border bank, you would preferably need a joint assessment between the countries involved. I don’t think it would be too speculative to think that each country in an acute situation would be prone to present an assessment that supports its national interests as part of a negotiation strategy. Arriving at a joint assessment may therefore prove difficult, and above all take valuable time away from crisis management. To be able to act efficiently in a crisis situation, it is instrumental that conflicts of interests, as far as possible, are taken care of in advance. For that you need something more than the MoUs we have seen so far.

Their joint, coordinated action stopped the dangerous spiral of financial deterioration and economic contraction in which the world economy found itself at the end of 2008 and in the first few months of 2009. However, whatever the changes in implementation, there is one main principle that remains. I refer to the belief that monetary policy – conventional or not – cannot solve the ultimate causes behind the loss in investors’ confidence or the tensions in financial or banking markets. In fact, its main role is to provide time to adopt the necessary measures to reform and/or adjust. Macroprudential policy The other area in which I see more changes for the role of central banks is in the oversight of efficiency of financial markets and their interaction with macroeconomic stability. One of the main lessons of the crisis is that price stability, without financial stability, does not guarantee macroeconomic stability. Therefore, there is an emerging consensus on the need to develop a specific new area of economic policy, with a preventive focus and the explicit objective of ensuring the stability of the financial system as a whole. This has been named “macroprudential policy” and together with monetary policy, is bound to become one of the main elements in the policy set in the foreseeable future. Macroprudential policy is articulated around two dimensions. The first one, looks at how risk is distributed in the financial system at a given point in time.
(1993), “Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence”, Journal of Money Credit & Banking, Vol. 23(2), pp. 151-62, 159; Amtenbrink, F. (1999), The Democratic Accountability of Central Banks, Hart Publishing, pp. 11-17, 23-26; and Cukierman, A., Webb, S.B., and Neyapti, B. (1992), “Measuring the Independence of Central Banks and Its Effects on Policy Outcomes”, The World Economic Review, Vol. 6(3), pp. 353-98, 383. [7]For an early contribution on the notion of a nominal anchor in the context of monetary unions, see Issing, O. (1999), “  Currency Competition and European Monetary Union”, Annual Hayek Memorial Lecture, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, United Kingdom, 27 May 1999. On the same topic, see also Hoeksma, J. (2017), “The EU and EMU as correlated institutions beyond the State”, ESCB Legal Conference 2016, pp. 335-48. http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2017/html/sp170330.en.html[03.04.2017 15:53:14]  Central bank independence revisited [8]See Articles 127(2) and 128(1) of the Treaty on the  Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Article 5 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank (Statute of the ESCB). The ECB also has an advisory function and, in this regard, it must be consulted on any proposed Union act and draft national legislative provisions in its fields of competence (Articles 127(4) and 282(5) TFEU and Article 25.1 of the Statute of the ESCB). [9]Article 127(5) TFEU.

Our philosophy is to stimulate ownership of decisions and empowerment in the investment process – and that is appreciated by our managers. Moreover, the mere importance of the mission, as formulated by our Board, "... to safeguard and grow financial wealth for future generations through highly professional management coupled with strict integrity", is attracting resources in and of itself. To wed a business culture to a central bank, with its civil service responsibilities, has posed a challenge in terms of adapting the Bank's governance system to the increased importance of professional investment management. Elements in addressing this include a strengthened focus on accountability by a clear division of responsibilities and a system of checks and balances. Maybe the most important element in our governance system is the establishment of a high degree of transparency for the public by providing open information on performance, risks, costs and investments on a timely basis. All in all, we feel the challenge of managing the Fund has enriched the organisation by forcing the central bank to think outside of the box. And perhaps the central bank perspective and values have added to the depth and long-term horizon of the investment organisation. Let me round off this presentation by recapitulating some of the main insights we have gained in the decade the Fund has existed.
That evaporation appears to have played a key role in propagating stress during the Flash Crash.24  19  “Latency” refers to the time it takes from sending an order to it being executed. 20  Haldane (2011b), Mackenzie (2011). 21  Menkveld (2012). 22  Angel et al (2010). 23  Egginton et al (2012). 24  CFTC-SEC (2010). BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  So too did message traffic congestion. One side-effect was to slow-down price discovery across exchanges. Many traders firms found themselves observing stale prices. As a result, identical stocks traded at different prices across exchanges (Chart 5). In principle, this represented an arbitrage opportunity. In practice, arbitrage relies on costless trading and, at that time, trades could not have been executed at any price. The Flash Crash was short-lived. Some have argued the lessons have been learned. Yet it appears to have been anything but a flash in the pan. In the period since, researchers have identified a large number of “mini-Flash Crashes”, with temporary dislocations in prices in markets as varied as Japanese yen and cocoa futures.25 As with the Flash Crash, there appears to be no convincing explanation for these gyrations. The uncertainties and externalities associated with the race to zero are one candidate explanation. Liquidity mirages and message traffic congestion are nibbling away at the common good of market stability. The competitive quest for individual speed risks a fragile evolutionary equilibrium.

Andrew G Haldane: Financial arms races Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Berlin, 14 April 2012. All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches  *  *  *  Elephant seals have got too big for their beaches. A large specimen might weigh over 8000 lbs (3700 kg).1 Their size has a simple evolutionary explanation. Large males fight for the right to mate with a whole beach full of females. For elephant seals it is, quite literally, winner-takes-all. And the key to winning is simple – size. No-one is going to argue with a male swinging around his proboscis on the beach. In that way, size has become the dominant gene in the evolutionary trajectory of the elephant seal. But size is not costless for the elephant seal. It makes them easy prey on land. At times in the past, this has threatened their very existence. In the 18th century, their main land predator – man – hunted elephant seals for their blubber and fur. In the 19th century, their numbers fell rapidly to below 100 and for a time they were believed to be extinct.2 Just in time, governments intervened to place restrictions on hunting, nationally and internationally. Today, elephant seal numbers have swelled to above 800,000. The hand of government has protected them from man – and from themselves.