samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
While this is most visible for financial centres and very open small economies where global firms are large relative to the size of the domestic economy, these factors are also increasingly relevant for understanding the macroeconomic statistics of the euro area and other large economies. Complex cross-border production and ownership arrangements, such as contract manufacturing and merchanting, affect the measurement of the balance of payments and the national accounts through the booking of exports of goods that are neither produced domestically nor cross the border of the domestic economy. Moreover, transfer pricing – the pricing of the various transactions involved in intragroup crossborder production arrangements – substantially affects the amount and location of profits booked. Over time, the location of corporate structures has become increasingly mobile. This has been partly driven by fiscal and regulatory arbitrage incentives that motivate the re-domiciliation of headquarters and the geographical optimisation of the legal registration of intangible assets such as patents and copyrights. Intellectual property products (IPPs) have a high degree of cross-border fungibility and are of central importance not only for digital companies but also for other industries, such as pharmaceuticals. IPPrelated transactions, which primarily reflect the operations of a small number of large companies, have had a marked effect on the services component of the euro area current account balance and were also  visible – especially before the pandemic – in the euro area national accounts, where these appear as high imports of services and gross fixed capital formation (Charts 1 and 2).

Philipp M Hildebrand: Financial Stability and Hedge Funds: Effective and Ineffective Supervision Speech by Mr Philipp M Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, Diskussionsforum «Nachbarn Deutschland-Schweiz: Impulse für die Zukunft», Berlin, 9 November 2005. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The hedge fund industry has grown rapidly over the past few years and it has become an important segment of global financial markets. The possibility to use leverage and a high degree of flexibility are key elements of a broad range of investment strategies which have made the hedge funds industry very profitable. Hedge funds have been an important source of innovation in the traditional asset management industry and they have rendered financial markets more liquid, more efficient and more flexible. Nonetheless, the rapid growth of the industry and the excessive use of leverage may result in potential systemic risks which are relevant to central banks, unlike prudential matters. Overall, industry leverage is difficult to measure. However, several studies suggest that it is lower than at the time of the near collapse of LTCM in 1998. Even so, temporary excessive levels of leverage with single hedge funds can not be ruled out completely. A crisis in the hedge fund industry might therefore spill over to their primary trading partners, the major investment banks.
It should be remembered that one of the main reasons for the simplification of central bank targets in recent years, and for assigning them the main objective of price stability, is that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon and the long-term impact of monetary policy is above all on prices. Its impact on economic growth and employment is therefore generally only temporary. Since central banks broadly speaking have only one instrument, i.e. interest rates, and can therefore only achieve a single long-term macroeconomic goal, it is natural to set price stability as the ultimate monetary goal. This is not to say that price stability is a more important goal than, say, full employment, but simply that monetary policy instruments are inherently better suited to impacting prices. It is pointless to set objectives for monetary policy which it cannot achieve. Through price stability, a forward-orientated monetary policy can contribute towards creating a stable economic environment on which the long-term growth potential of the economy is based. From the above it is clear that the Central Bank’s main task is to achieve the inflation target, and this is what it aims to do. There have been vocal calls recently for the Central Bank to ease its monetary stance in order to soften or even prevent a looming economic contraction. The growth outlook has an impact on the output gap, i.e. the deviation in demand from a level which is consistent with balanced supply and demand for domestic goods and factors of production.

3/ How can we give further impetus to Europe? Getting back to the European level, I would like to point out that many improvements have also been made in the field of crisis prevention and management. Prevention is based on much more 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  efficient financial regulation and on a European governance framework that is better organised now with well-designed monitoring mechanisms on fiscal performance as well as on macroeconomic imbalances and structural reforms. Banking Union contributes to strengthening financial stability in the euro area and the EU as a whole and to ensuring that the banking sector is safe and reliable. The global European picture is of substantially enhanced resilience since the crisis. The Common Equity Tier 1 ratios of significant banking groups in the euro area have risen from 7% in 2008 to 14% today. Crisis management – including for Greece – has also evolved considerably with the creation of the ESM. So you can be fully confident about the resilience of the euro and of the euro area. It is not only an economic asset, it is also a political one, supported by each of the 19 governments and – which is still more important – by 68% of euro area citizens (and even by 70% of French citizens and 73% of German citizens). Moreover, monetary policy played its full part to maintain euro area cohesion. Europe has clearly succeeded with monetary union, but monetary policy should not remain the only game in town.
It is impossible to determine with some degree of accuracy whether such a bubble, in the sense of a speculation-driven price increase, has indeed formed. Central bankers are not more ignorant than investors and traders, nor are they more intelligent or better informed when it comes to the valuation of companies. One might argue that a crash is not so much the result of exuberant cash flow expectations for individual companies but rather the consequence of a sudden increase in discount rates, causing a dramatic downward adjustment of all present values. The relevant discount factors are the combined result of time preference, risk preference, and the prevailing perception of uncertainty. History has taught us convincingly that time preference is a relatively stable factor. The problem, therefore, lies more in a sudden shift of risk preference and the perception of uncertainty. If these two determinants could be stabilised, much would be achieved already. This task, however, also presupposes some “superior knowledge” and “deeper insight” on the part of central banks relative to the market. Such assumptions are unrealistic. Moreover, central banks, with the instruments they have at their disposal, do not have the possibility to deflate a presumed bubble all on their own. Interest hikes would certainly be a possibility. In so doing, however, one would have to accept consequences in the real sector which could be completely counterproductive. Finally, if central banks were obligated to avoid stock market excesses, this would have extremely disastrous moral hazard implications.

It is determined by the structure of the economic process and the dynamics of expectations. There is, realistically speaking, no chance to deduce a general policy rule and to formally embody such a rule in the central bank mandate. Any decision to correct slowly and gradually or in a single bold effort any deviation from price stability, whatever its origin, can only be taken individually. Monetary history has successful examples to show for both patterns of reaction, but also unfortunate episodes in which central banks actually increased the variability of the price level and of output through activist manoeuvres. It would thus appear reasonable that an addendum, unspecified as to substance, should be made to the mandate of ensuring price stability. For example, to the effect that in fulfilling the mandate due attention should be paid to the development of economic activity. Art. 99 of the Swiss Federal Constitution obliges the SNB to conduct a monetary policy which serves the general interests of the country. Endeavours are under way to spell out this vague formulation in  BIS Review 35/2000  4  more detail in the forthcoming comprehensive revision of the National Bank Law. When revising our monetary policy concept, we took a step in this direction by quantifying the stability target (CPI inflation below 2%) and undertaking to adhere to the target in the medium term. Transparency A further aim was to continue to improve transparency. It is a fact that the call for more transparency has sounded far and wide.
Denny H Kalyalya: Sustainable finance - savings are globally diverse, we are united in responsibility Speech by Dr Denny H Kalyalya, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the World Savings Day and Financial Literacy Awards, 4 November 2022. *** SALUTATIONS Mr. Phillip Chitalu, Secretary and Chief Executive Officer, Securities and Exchange Commission Mrs. Namakau Ntini, Acting Registrar, Pensions and Insurance Authority Mr. Markus Wittkamp All Senior Government officials Mrs Mizinga Melu – Chairperson Financial Literacy Working Group and BAZ All Chief Executive Officers of Financial Services Providers All Cooperating partners Nominated Participants for the Financial Literacy Awards Invited Guests Ladies and Gentlemen Good afternoon, It is an honor for me as Champion of financial education, to engage with you during the public awareness campaign for the 2022 World Savings Day and the Financial Literacy Awards ceremony. This year's theme focuses on preparing for the future, continuing with the 2021 theme "Sustainable Finance: Savings are globally diverse, we are united in responsibility." Sustainable finance involves taking due account of environmental, social and governance considerations when making investment decisions. This is pertinent considering the threat environmental risks are increasingly presenting to the economy. It is therefore expected that efforts to promote sustainable finance will contribute to the attainment of a climate resilient economy. The recently launched 8th National Development Plan also supports a low carbon and climate- resilient development pathway towards attainment of Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

For a more detailed analysis, see Banco de España (2020), “Recent developments in the most important Latin American banking systems for Spanish banks”, Box 2, “Report on the Latin American economy. Second half of 2020”, Analytical Articles, Economic Bulletin, 4/2020. 8 For a stress test analysis of the 61 largest banks in Latin America, see Annex 4 of the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook (2020), Pandemic Persistence Clouds the Recovery. 9 See A. Werner, A. Ivanova and T. Komatsuzaki (2021), Latin America and Caribbean’s Winding Road to Recovery, IMF blog. 5  First, in addition to the human cost in lives, the effects on poverty and income distribution have been very severe.10 Indeed, during 2019, bouts of political tensions and social unrest in several countries, partly related to this situation, fuelled economic uncertainty; this in a region where numerous elections are due to take place in the coming quarters. A second challenge is that posed by shrinking fiscal space following the increase in government debt in the region during 2020, positioning it as the emerging region with the highest government debt-to-GDP ratio and, where debt refinancing is concerned, leaving it highly vulnerable to changes in investor sentiment. Against this background, monetary policy is supported by the accommodative policies of the main developed economies and by low inflationary pressures.
Average Inventory  Crude Oil Price (rhs)  Figure 5 Crude grade qualities  Source: JPMorgan Commodities Research, Energy Intelligence Group  BIS Review 69/2004  7  Figure 6 Crude oil futures contract volumes (NYMEX)  60  300'000  50  250'000  40  200'000  30  150'000  20  100'000  10  50'000  0  0  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  Non-Commercial Long Contracts WTI Crude Oil (USD/ bbl) (lhs)  2002  2003  2004  Non-Commercial Short Contracts  Figure 7 Historical WTI futures price curves 50 45  U S D /b b  40 35 30 25 20 15 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  Y e a rs to e x p iry 2 0 0 4 -1 1 -1 2  8  1 ye a r a g o  3 ye a rs a g o  BIS Review 69/2004  Figure 8 Backwardation O il Spread (Spot - Futures 3M ) in U S D 3.00  2.00  1.00  0.00  -1.00 Spread Poly.

The basic growth mechanism for our standard of living, i.e. labour productivity, now becomes the weighted sum of capital growth per capita and technological progress. Given a constant age structure of the population, and an evenly balanced age pyramid, the basic formula for growth in the standard of living can also be expressed as the weighted sum of capital growth per employee and technological progress (a complication that I will return to later is that the age structure is not constant). Capital formation contributed to lower productivity growth in Sweden Why did it go badly for Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s? First, it should be noted that the majority of industrialised nations suffered a drop in productivity growth from the beginning of the 1970s. This was due to the supply shock associated with the first oil crisis, when the price of oil tripled, followed by a second oil crisis at the end of the 1970s when the price once again increased threefold but this time from a higher level. As we know, the price of oil affects many parts of the economy. Oil is used as energy for transport and heating purposes and its price therefore has a direct impact on the costs of these. Moreover, firms’ costs are affected since oil products are often used as intermediate inputs in, for example, different plastic products. So all countries encountered problems due to the oil supply shock, but productivity growth declined more in Sweden than in other countries. Many explanations have been put forward for this.
And there is, of course – a limited liability company is basically a means of protecting its owners from the private consequences of the company becoming bankrupt. Being able to fund a business operation through borrowing is, of course, necessary and, in most cases, effective. In efficient markets, lenders’ risks are handled by means of interest rates and contract clauses. The limited liability company is thus a historically wealth-generating social institution. Nevertheless, the example illustrates that the higher cost of funding through equity is more a matter of private than social costs. Another factor that separates the costs for own and borrowed funds is the tax system. Companies may deduct interest on loans, but pay corporate tax for profits on equity. But this is just a private economic difference – from the social perspective, the only difference is the subsidisation of debt-financing in preference to equity. This specifically applies to banks that may be systemically important – it would be socially costly to allow them to file for bankruptcy. So the market often expects that the state will save a bank that is on the ropes, one way or another. These so-called implied guarantees create even greater differences between social and private costs, and risk leading the banks to take even greater risks. Banks are vulnerable, contagious and sometimes systemically important. There are great differences between private and social cost-benefit calculations. Economic theory and empirical experience gives us good reason to regulate banks.

Third, substantial progress has been made on the large adjustment of financial positions in the household and financial institution sectors necessary after the substantial leveraging of households and financial institutions that occurred in the run-up to the financial crisis. Confidence is increasing that conditions are now in place to support sustained abovepotential growth, when it occurs.   Aided by the second installment of Large-Scale Asset Purchases (LSAPs), financial conditions have improved. After equity prices, interest rates and inflation expectations fell with the apparent slowing of the economic recovery in the summer, they began to move up again shortly after Chairman Bernanke’s speech laying out potential responses to the slowdown in late August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Charts 17–20).   The personal saving rate has risen to a level that is consistent with the historical relationship between that rate and household net worth relative to disposable income, reflecting the very large drop in household net worth from the combined impact of financial crisis and severe housing downturn (Charts 21–22).   The household financial obligation ratio has declined to the level that prevailed in the mid 1990s, reflecting a combination of debt repayment, debt charge-offs and lower interest rates (Chart 23). Households in all credit-quality quintiles are continuing to reduce their overall debt (Chart 24).   Banks tightened lending standards during the financial crisis and recession. Bank lending standards, while tight in level terms, have begun to ease (Chart 25).
When we set interest rates, we must always assess the risk of another sharp rise in cost inflation when the labour market tightens. High economic growth often leads to a sharp rise in asset prices and debt. Long periods marked by such developments may be a source of future instability in the real economy. When activity is high and household income expectations are high, asset prices and debt may increase rapidly. Expectations of high corporate profits may stimulate investment and lead to higher equity prices. Such an upswing may result in an increased willingness to take risk among both households and companies. They then become more vulnerable to a future downturn. Since the mid-1990s, debt and house prices have shown a marked increase in Norway. Initially and perhaps for a period, this may be viewed to some extent as a delayed adaptation to the deregulation of the housing and credit markets in the mid-1980s after households had burned their fingers in the first years following the deregulation. Mortgage loan products have since been further developed. Household income has risen considerably in recent years, and household optimism about the future is unusually strong, which may also have contributed to increased demand for loans and the rise in house prices. In addition, expectations of persistently low real interest rates over time may have provided an additional boost to house prices.

What we can do rather is to better use the levers we have at hand to facilitate convergence among regulators and supervisors in the way to address this trade-off, so as to limit ring fencing and prevent a race to the bottom in that area and the resulting market fragmentation: - The first lever is the agreement to and implementation of internationally agreed regulatory standards. Hence the importance for instance at the current juncture of the fair and complete 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  implementation of Basel 3. Hence also the importance of ensuring that national regulatory frameworks do not diverge unduly beyond internationally agreed standards and remain equivalent, the importance of the commitment of regulators and supervisors to such convergence, and also the importance of efficient processes to reassess regularly such equivalences - The second lever is the use of forum for information sharing and cooperation among supervisors. Significant progress has been made in that direction that should bear fruit. In Europe, the introduction of resolution and AML colleges for banks and of oversight colleges for CCPs have been helpful to increase the involvement of home and host countries in the supervision of cross-border groups or entities. However, we should also recognize that convergence of regulation and cooperation between supervisors may also have their limits in some circumstances. This is certainly the case when considering the regulation and supervision of central clearing activities, given their systemicity and their natural trend to concentrate and eliminate substitutes.
I have no doubt that the quality of the discussions we have today will allow us to deepen our understanding of these challenges and, hopefully, allow us to draw some useful conclusion in terms of economic policy. I leave the floor now to Mr. Isidro González, Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, thanking him as well as you all for your presence here today, and thanking Mr. Senén Florensa, President of the Executive Committee of IEMed, for the cooperation in the organisation of this event. Now, Isidro, the floor is yours. 3/3

Convergence Programs of the new Member States should include ambitious Medium Term Objectives to ensure that not only the Maastricht criteria are met, but most importantly, the emergence of excessive deficit situations is avoided and the risks of taking recourse to exchange rate adjustments after joining the ERM2 (and, eventually, the euro area) are minimized. The well functioning single market for all goods and services, including infrastructure networks, as well as pursuing the National Reform Programmes in the context of the reinforced Lisbon agenda is the other pillar for the success of the euro area and for the new Member States in particular. Estonia has been a de facto member of the euro area since the inception of its independent currency in 1992. Fixing the local currency to D-mark, and later to the euro meant that the monetary policy decisions were not made in Estonia. Estonia's currency board regime implies prudent fiscal stance that has been largely adhered to since 1992, resulting in our general government having accumulated a relatively large net asset position of around 10 percent of GDP. A solid budgetary position and early deregulation of product and capital markets implies that Estonia has been well placed to absorb both positive and negative shocks during the last 15 years. Deregulation and reform in preparation of the EU membership has allowed us to fully integrate our economic and financial systems with the Single Market. However, that kind of approach requires, in today's conjuncture, forward-looking structural reforms in almost all EU member states, e.g.