samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This has the further advantage of not requiring a complex adjustment to term rates to take account of market expectations for changes in overnight rates. To get a sense for dispersion within money markets, we can use overnight transaction-level data in the unsecured market (federal funds and Eurodollars) collected by the Federal Reserve on form FR 2420, and in the customer-to-dealer triparty repo market collected from the triparty clearing banks. (Figure 11) and (Figure 12) show dispersion indices for activity within each of these markets, calculated the same way as done by Darrell and Arvind. (Figure 13) combines all this activity into a single combined transaction level dispersion index. When I look at these figures, I see three things. First, I don’t see a pronounced move upward in dispersion within either the secured or unsecured markets individually, either in general or around FOMC meetings at which monetary policy was tightened. This suggests to me that recent increases in the federal funds rate have passed through, immediately and one-for-one, to virtually all activity in these markets. In fact, within the secured market, we see dispersion ticking down. This appears to relate to the general decline in secured rates after money market fund reform, which caused trading in the repo market to become more concentrated at or around the ON RRP offered rate.

The project of Borika AD for immediate payments in BGN, based on the requirements of the SEPA scheme for immediate credit transfers, is in an advanced stage of development. As an operator of the real-time gross settlement payment system (RINGS), the BNB assists in the implementation of the project. The company’s ambition is in 2021 for payment service providers in Bulgaria to start providing their customers with immediate credit transfers in BGN. In order to develop innovative, affordable, secure and convenient payment solutions both in the online environment and in physical stores, it is important to provide an interoperable infrastructure that allows the smooth execution of cross-border immediate payments within the EU, as well as the achievement of additional standardization to ensure compatibility between final payment solutions offered to payment service users (eg common standard for QR codes, provision of access to NFC chips in mobile phones, etc.). These, as well as other aspects related to technological changes in the field of payments, including the risks arising from unregulated services, especially technical ones, which are ancillary to the provision of regulated payment services, I wish interesting and fruitful work to the participants in the videoconference. 1 Opinion of the European Banking Authority on obstacles under Article 32 (3) of the RTS on SCA and CSC  2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
And while I’m not yet worried that we face a major and serious risk in the opposite direction, I do think we need to adjust the policy settings we put in place to head off the downside risks to inflation identified in the immediate aftermath of the big financial shocks in late 2008 and early 2009. It is possible to describe this challenge in different ways – as a gradual “normalisation” of policy or a gradual withdrawal of policy stimulus. Words which I don’t think create the right  BIS Review 99/2010  9  impression in the current environment – particularly in relation to an upward move of Bank Rate from 0.5% to 0.75% – are “rate hike” or “tightening” of policy. “Rate hike” implies a sharp rise in interest rates, which is not what I favour. I favour a gradual rise in Bank Rate which would be aimed to avoid destabilising confidence through a sudden lurch in policy. “Tightening” may be technically correct as the opposite of “loosening” but it implies that monetary policy might become objectively tight and restrain the growth of the economy significantly. Again, that is not my view about the policy stance we currently need. So how should we characterise the current challenge in front of the MPC? The Bank Governor, Mervyn King, is fond of sporting analogies. But I have always been pretty useless at sport and my greatest interest outside of my working life is music, and in particular rock music.

UK inflation performance That brings me to the final area where the UK economy has performed very differently to expectations last summer – headline inflation. The UK has just experienced the second significant upward spike in inflation in the last couple of years. Since the beginning of 2008, when the financial crisis and the ensuing recession might have been expected to push down inflation, consumer price inflation in the UK has averaged 3% – above the 2% target and more than one percentage point higher than average CPI inflation in the pre-recession period of growth. Our inflation rate is clearly influenced by external factors in the world economy, such as a volatile oil price, and these have clearly made the control of inflation more difficult over the last two or three years. But if these global forces were solely to blame for higher inflation, they would be having a similar effect in other major economies. As Chart 6 shows, the US and the euro area have seen lower and more stable inflation over the last couple of years, with inflation averaging around 1¾% since the beginning of 2008. US inflation has recently been pushed up to over 2% by higher petrol prices, but to a much lesser extent than in the UK. 5  According to the Labour Force Survey measure, unemployment peaked at 11.9% in mid-1984 and 10.6% in early 1993. Approximately two years after the start of the recession in both cases, unemployment was 10.2% at end-1981 and 10.4% at end-1992.
However, overall economic progress has been below the desired level for a sustainable reduction in unemployment and poverty in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s inflation has averaged 11 per cent in the post liberalization era. This has the adverse consequence of eroding the living standards of people, particularly vulnerable groups such as pensioners, other fixed income earners and the poor. Supply side factors, including sharp increases in the price of oil imports, have contributed to cost-push inflation. Sri Lanka’s vulnerability to the vagaries of weather, and relatively low agricultural productivity have been causal factors. Monetary management has been able to contain demand-pull inflation to a degree. The increase in inflation in 2004 over 2003 was perhaps typical - caused by a prolonged drought in certain areas of the country, a rise in international prices of key commodities, especially fuel, a somewhat higher growth in money supply and an increased budget deficit. Investment and savings ratios have been moderate; not sufficient to raise economic growth to the level necessary to improve the standards of living to the desired degree. Investment improved in 2004 to 25 per cent of GDP. However, a level of about 30 – 35 per cent of GDP is required on a sustained basis over the next five to ten years to improve essential infrastructure, to promote a higher and regionally balanced growth. BIS Review 36/2005  1  The external sector has been developing rapidly since 1977 with a significant degree of export diversification.

External trade expanded considerably in 2004 with an increase in both exports and imports, benefitting from the fastest global economic growth recorded in the past few decades. Trade deficits have been mitigated by increased worker remittances, and inflows from services, mainly tourism and port services. The flexibly managed exchange rate regime has helped to maintain Sri Lanka’s external competitiveness. Throughout the post liberalization era, fiscal deficits have been high due to heavy public investment in the early eighties and high defence expenditure from the mid eighties until the signing of the ceasefire in 2002. This has led to the public debt rising to over 100 per cent of GDP, a cause for concern. Recognising this, the government made a commitment to strengthen the fiscal consolidation process with the enactment of the Fiscal Management (Responsibility) Act (FMRA) in 2002, designed to reduce the budget deficit and outstanding debt in the medium term. The Economic Policy Framework of the new government emphasises the need to increase government revenue, in the fiscal consolidation effort, while maintaining an adequate public investment programme to improve the quality of the infrastructure in the country. The framework of monetary management has continued to be improved since 1977 to increase the effectiveness of monetary policy. Indirect policy instruments are now the primary means of monetary management. In order to make the operations of the Central Bank more focussed, the twin objectives of economic and price stability, and financial system stability, were designated as the primary objectives of the Bank in 2002.
News conference  Berne, 25 March 2020 Thomas Jordan  Introductory remarks by Thomas Jordan  Ladies and Gentlemen First, on behalf of the entire Swiss National Bank, I would like to express our sympathy to all those directly affected by coronavirus. Swiss society and our country’s economy face enormous challenges. The SNB is working closely with the Federal Council, the authorities and the business community to overcome this crisis. The measures adopted by the SNB complement those of the Confederation and are intended to cushion the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Monetary policy supplements the various fiscal measures taken by the public authorities. The Swiss National Bank has set up the SNB COVID-19 refinancing facility (CRF). This instrument is designed to strengthen the supply of credit to the Swiss economy by providing the banking system with additional liquidity. There is no upper limit on the amounts available under the CRF, and drawdowns can be made at any time. The CRF will be available from 26 March 2020. The CRF operates in conjunction with the federal government’s guarantees for corporate loans. The facility allows banks to obtain liquidity from the SNB, which is secured by these federally guaranteed loans. In taking this action, we are enabling banks to access the required liquidity that will allow them to expand their lending rapidly and on a large scale. The interest rate for these refinancing transactions corresponds to the SNB policy rate, currently −0.75%.

Under the CRF, the SNB can also conduct additional refinancing transactions in order to supply the banking system with further liquidity if required. As I mentioned, the SNB’s new refinancing facility operates in conjunction with the federal government’s guarantees for corporate loans. So how does this approach work? Page 1/2  Berne, 25 March 2020 Thomas Jordan  News conference  In a stressed situation like the one we are facing, the risk of companies defaulting on loans increases. At the same time, the banks are seeking to hold higher levels of liquidity. These two factors can lead to a credit shortage, even though demand for credit is rising sharply. The Confederation’s loan guarantees and the SNB’s refinancing facility can unblock the system and get credit flowing again. As the banks have all the necessary client relationships, the loans will find their way to the companies that need them. The approach is simple, effective and makes use of existing structures. Bank lending will play a crucial role in Switzerland’s economic development, especially in the coming weeks and months. The new CRF is intended to support banks in these efforts, as is the raising of the exemption threshold for the negative interest rate announced by the SNB last week. Furthermore, after consulting with FINMA, the SNB has submitted a proposal to the Federal Council requesting that the countercyclical capital buffer for mortgage loans on residential real estate be deactivated. This integrated package of measures gives banks maximum latitude for lending.
Note that, in both cases, aggregate consumption is slightly higher once the infection risk has gone because, having been saving more, the consumer has greater net wealth by that point. Chart 5b: Sharper response when infection rates  Chart 5c: Response smaller when there are  less persistent  close substitutes for risky spending  Finally, Chart 5(c) demonstrates what happens to aggregate spending when the two categories of spending are assumed to be closer substitutes3. Both lines use the shorter-lived spike in infection rates (the red line in 3  The degree of substitutability between two goods corresponds to the sensitivity of their relative demand to a change in their relative price (i.e. the slope of the demand curve). Chart 5(b) and the red line in Chart 5(c) assume that, in normal circumstances, a 1% rise in its relative price would reduce demand for the risky good by 1½%. The grey line in Chart 5(c) doubles this assumed response to -3%. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  8  5(a)). When it’s easier to find a reasonable substitute for the risky spending then, unsurprisingly, that’s what the consumer does. The drop in aggregate spending is also smaller in this case. How do these points square against the real-world experience? It’s hard to test them definitively, with less than a year’s experience to go on. It’s also quite possible that some of these parameters have changed through time.

Stronger competition stimulates a more efficient use and allocation of resources thereby increasing allocative efficiency, exerting downward pressure on costs and triggering price reductions. The extension and deepening of the EU internal market is among the policies that are needed to further improve the functioning of product markets. With service-related activities representing around 70% of value added and employment in the euro area (against almost 80% in the US), more competition in EU service markets is required. The gap between the euro area and the United States in labour productivity has widened considerably since the 1990s and some services sector, such as retail and wholesale trade, account indeed for a large part of this gap: labour productivity growth per person employed was 0.7% in the euro area in 1996-2002 compared to 5.5% in the US in 1996-2001. The euro area should step up measures to boost services market competition in order to increase economic efficiency and economies of scale. This would support a higher level and growth rate of labour productivity in the services sector and promote a more dynamic economy. Moreover, measures aimed at increasing services market competition may have a dampening impact on relative price  7  See Blanchard, O. (2004): “The economic future of Europe”, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 18, pp. 3-26; and also Gordon, R. J. (2004): “Two centuries of economic growth: Europe chasing the American frontier”, CEPR Discussion Paper, No. 4415.
Ajith Nivard Cabraal: Management Accountants – focusing on the repositioning of the profession Special address by Mr Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Global Summit, organised by The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India on “Repositioning the Management Accountant”, New Delhi, 12 January 2008. *  *  *  The theme of the Conference suggests that the Management Accountants of today are de facto doing something different to the traditional role of the Management Accountant. The new de facto role seems to be more of that of a strategist and a performance management specialist, rather than a historical “information supplying” or even a “decision facilitating” role of an accountant. If one were to drill down, we may perhaps note that the education and training of those who have become strategists and performance management specialists may not have necessarily been intended that way. But yet, it happened. How did this happen? •  Perhaps the training, although intended to create management accountants, was appropriate to create a strategist. •  Perhaps the training, coupled with business developments and public expectations, shaped management accountants to become strategists or the deliverers of outputs rather than contributors of inputs only. •  Perhaps the ability of the management accountant, as a result of his core disciplines, enabled him to respond effectively to unfolding developments and then deliver new outputs, and such abilities were recognized by the business community in the course of time.

In my view, this is not an area for regulatory prescription - there is not a unique organizational model that would be most effective for every bank. Rather, we look to see whether a compliance function achieves certain goals in addressing a firm’s specific compliance risk challenges. •  First, is it structured so that compliance staff can carry out their responsibilities with appropriate independence? Compliance staff may be embedded within business lines or have reporting lines to branch management or to country heads. But whatever the reporting line, they must have the capacity and incentives - monetary and otherwise - to critically evaluate operations, and they must have resources and support when problem areas are identified. •  A second, and related, question is: do local compliance staff have strong linkages to, and the backing of, head office compliance…and through head office compliance to global senior management and the board of directors? •  Third, does the structure support the development and implementation of sound monitoring and testing programs? Testing of course is a “point-in-time” event, but monitoring is very much an ongoing process. We have generally found that monitoring and testing tends to be one of the weaker components of many firms’ compliance risk management programs. •  A fourth question is whether the volume and quality of compliance resources is appropriate. This is obviously more than just a body count, but an assessment as well of whether the firm has staff with the appropriate technical skills to carry out the necessary sophisticated analysis.
Such practices may be misleading in judging the compliance with regulation. However these efforts may reduce risks but could be insufficient to avoid financial crises. Therefore, ways should be designed to involve more effectively the private sector in crisis resolution (the “burden-sharing” issue). In the wake of the Mexican crisis, the G10 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors endorsed the recommendation of the Group of Ten Report on “The Resolution of Sovereign Liquidity Crises” to introduce in sovereign bond contracts collective action clauses. The G7 endorsed this recommendation. Efforts undertaken recently by the G10 Deputies to design concrete steps to implement this proposal should also be supported. Another way to promote private sector implication is the voluntary roll-over or restructuring of short-term debt coming to maturity. The Korean experience has been replicated, yet in different conditions, with success in the case of Brazil. Such a solution worked well after the Brazilian authorities committed firmly to, and implemented, fiscal adjustment. The use of financial innovative techniques should also be considered: for instance, the introduction of roll-over options in debt contract (Buiter proposal) or put options associated with significant debt reduction. 3  BIS Review 81/1999  As to the role of the international community: The IMF has a central role to play in macroeconomic surveillance which is its main mission. The conditionality associated with financial assistance is essential to give economic agents a clear assessment of the efforts made by Members committed to implement adjustment programmes. Furthermore, the IMF can improve its action as regards prevention.

I would like to draw your attention to the following issues: í  first, the euro area will have to face up a number of challenges to confirm its initial success;  í  second, the success of the euro will make a contribution towards encouraging a balanced international monetary situation. I believe that in the current overall economic situation, the success of the euro will help not only Europe but also the rest of the world which will benefit from European prosperity and growth as part of a healthy world economy. This would help facilitate the current accounts adjustments of the countries affected by the crisis. The success of the euro will be complete if a number of challenges are taken up A few years ago, it was necessary to convince a great deal of sceptic people that the euro was a viable project. Many of them pointed to its presumed contradictions and its alleged inconsistencies: for example, the impossibility of achieving an efficient policy mix without a political federation; the impossibility of avoiding some “asymmetric shocks”; the lack of sufficient flexibility of the economy and real mobility of the labour force in the European countries, etc. The result was that the euro would never exist! BIS Review 81/1999  4  These criticisms proved wrong as to the introduction of the euro. But they are useful to help answer the question of what are the conditions for ensuring that the euro is a complete success.
The global and European roots of high inflation The search for the causes of the current high inflation starts in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The global economy recovered fast once the pandemic ended and the restrictions on consumption and travel were lifted. Aggregate demand in our economies bounced back, and it was also boosted by the wide-ranging support measures that governments and central banks offered to help companies and households cope with the crisis. It turned out that not all companies could respond quickly enough to this increase in demand, as some restrictions lingered and supply chains remained fractured. This put pressure on input prices that was then passed on to consumers. Then Russia attacked Ukraine, and this caused energy and commodity prices, including food prices, to increase sharply. The energy crisis hit Europe especially hard as the European Union as a whole and many member states were heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas. Russia weaponising energy pushed inflation up to levels not seen since the last great oil shock in the 1970s and 80s. By October last year inflation in the euro area had passed 10%, though inflation rates were very different across the  1/8  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  member states, ranging from 7% in France to above 20% in the Baltics in that month. Inflation in Slovenia was just below the euro area average at 10.3%.

A third and more general reason why inflation has been high in the Baltic countries was that the economic impact of the pandemic was more limited in our region and the pandemic was followed by a very strong and swift recovery. Expansionary fiscal and monetary policies combined with strong domestic demand pressures therefore contributed to an increase in inflation. On top of this was a change in the Estonian pension system in the autumn of 2021 that allowed individuals to start withdrawing their  2/8  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  pension savings before they reached retirement age. Some of this money was used to fund private consumption, which further increased inflationary pressures. The substantial dispersion of inflation rates between the countries of the euro area poses the question of how harmful these differences are in a monetary union. Obviously there will always be differences between the structures of our economies, and so there will always be some differences between the inflation rates in different countries. Such differences have been around since the euro was first introduced, though for most of the time they have been minor. Large differences in inflation rates could however lead to problems with the smooth functioning of a common currency area. An obvious problem is that a common monetary policy allowing nominal interest rates to be similar in all of the euro area countries will lead to differences in real interest rates if there are differences in inflation.