samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Some areas, however, remain susceptible to further efficiency gains, particularly the services sector. … but the public sector still lags behind. At the meso or sectoral level, some important measures were announced in the Budget for 2006, including the decision to intensify efforts to improve efficiency in the public service. Hopefully this will also involve the adoption of output-, rather than input-oriented management practices. The recentlysigned collective agreement for the public service, moreover, is an example of what a responsible social dialogue aimed at balancing competing interests can achieve. There remains, nevertheless, ample room for further progress. The country needs to undergo a culture change so as to realise the fallacy inherent in the perception of unlimited government power to levy taxes, which leads to the assumption of jobs for life regardless of performance or need, and of universal and free welfare services irrespective of their sustainability and of equity considerations. Such thinking is incompatible with an ethic based on efficiency and accountability, and with the need to reduce the burden of taxation, foster initiative and encourage investment. Social dialogue can, and should play a crucial role in promoting acceptance of the policies necessary to bring about this change. The attainment of greater efficiency in the public sector is a key objective because it provides vital support services to the productive sectors of the economy. It must, therefore, become better geared to ensure that the intentions of policy-makers are implemented rapidly and effectively.

The issues now range from the choice between the use of rule versus discretion on bank capital, to the use of leverage ratio, and to the implementation issue that includes how to exercise the measures effectively in the context of a financial system that is non-complex, as is the case of the SEACEN economies. On this, I have a view that vigorous stress-testing by supervisors and banks can help keep the effects of procyclicality manageable. I hope this conference will further discuss this issue. Finally, the complexity and cross-border linkages of financial systems will continue to increase, not decrease, following this crisis. On the other hand, the right and effective global regulatory and supervisory structures to handle cross-border implications are still evolving, while information flows and cooperation among regulators and supervisors, at this time, continue to be limited. It is clear that without significant improvements in both information flows and cooperation among supervisors, it will be difficult to prevent or contain future financial crisis spillovers effectively. Ladies and Gentlemen, this eleventh SEACEN conference provides us with an excellent opportunity to discuss these current and important issues. Our challenges are similar, and through our coordinated views and collaborated efforts, the SEACEN economies collectively will be in a stronger position to address these challenges. I wish all of you a successful conference with a fruitful exchange of ideas and a wonderful collaboration.
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES Address by Governor Øystein Olsen to the Supervisory Council of Norges Bank and invited guests on Thursday 14 February 2019  Analyses and charts are based on information up to and including 12 February 2019. THURSDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2019  Economic perspectives 2019  NORGES BANK ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 14 FEBRUARY 2019  Good morning, Kristoffer! It is now 6:00 am on Friday, 15 February 2030. The temperature is 7 degrees and it’s raining. You have been through four sleep cycles and can get up without violating the terms and conditions of your health insurance. The health module recommends cereal with oat milk for breakfast. I have bought oat milk, which was delivered at 4:00 am. News of relevance to you: The new government quarter opens today – your space is finally ready. Your investments in Green Equities have risen by 20 percent, on news of the major trade and environmental technology agreement concluded between the United States and China. The trading platform Nett sustained a hacker attack last night. Customer data were stolen, and customers are leaving the platform. I managed to withdraw 8 000 of the 67 000 kroner you had uploaded to the platform before all accounts were frozen. The rest of your money may be lost. In yesterday’s Annual Address, the Governor of Norges Bank announced that the next generation of central bank digital currency will be managed by artificial intelligence for a trial period. Have a nice day.

Source: Norges Bank  If necessary, Norges Bank can supply liquidity to the payment system. Norges Bank is the bankers’ bank. 13  In addition, Norges Bank has a special responsibility for the payment system. The Bank oversees and supervises various components of the payment system and should drive new and efficient solutions. NORGES BANK ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 14 FEBRUARY 2019  Today, nearly all payments from customers’ bank accounts are made using deposit money.7 This is money created by banks. When people borrow money from a bank, the bank credits the same amount to an account. The money deposited was created at the instant the loan was made. Deposit money circulates through the banking system, in and out of people’s accounts and is only to a limited extent converted to cash. As long as we have confidence in both the value of the Norwegian krone and in the banking system, we will also have confidence in deposit money. The cash provided by Norges Bank has important attributes. While deposit money is a claim on a private bank, cash is a claim on the central bank. Cash is a safe alternative if private payment solutions are not functioning or do not meet the expectations of the public in terms of security and efficiency. Even though the use of cash has declined, cash is still in use and has important contingency functions. But new digital alternatives are emerging.
Svein Gjedrem: Asset prices and economic policy Address by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Centre for Monetary Economics (CME)/BI Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, 12 September 2008. The text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. *  *  *  Inflation targeting Inflation targeting was introduced in Norway by Royal Decree in March 2001, after it had been applied for a period in many other countries. Our experience so far has been that inflation targeting has provided a sound basis for stabilising inflation and inflation expectations. In the period from 2003 to the beginning of 2008, inflation was below target. Ever-cheaper goods flowed into Norway from Asia, and with solid productivity growth in Norwegian enterprises, the rise in prices for domestically produced goods and services was also subdued. In an environment of low inflation, the interest rate was also low. At the same time, it was stated that when inflation picked up, the interest rate level would again return to a normal level. Solid growth in output and demand for goods and services gradually led to prospects for higher inflation. Since summer 2005, the interest rate has gradually been raised again to prevent inflation from becoming too high. The interest rate was raised well before inflation moved close to 2.5 per cent. In 2007, the key policy rate reached what we consider to be a normal level.

This rapid credit growth has become the challenge of the moment. However I believe that efficiency and soundness of financial system is a dynamic process and a continuous challenge. Frequently this challenge might generate from international financial markets too. Globalization of financial markets has increased the risk of contagion. The recent developments in the sub-prime mortgage loans, must serve as a excellent reminder of the never ending surprises, which make the trade off between monetary policy and financial stability a difficult balance. I want to make it clear that by financial stability I do not assume only the absence of a financial crisis, but a well functioning financial system that performs well its functions. I think too tight regulations that definitely minimize all the risks are not conducive to sustained growth. Therefore the real challenge for which we are working hard is to find an optimal balance between deregulation which promotes market forces and financial innovations and negative consequences of possible market failures and financial crisis. 4. Balkan region: trends and major characteristics  Dear students, The rest of my discussion will provide few remarks on the developments of the South East European region. I will briefly comment on the common problems and characteristics of the region and voice my opinion upon possible direction of progress and convergence in policies. Recently the Governors of the Region have been increasingly concerned regarding the issues related with banking system activity, market efficiency, financial stability, risk exposure and of course the role of central bank.
26.06.2018  Taking up of office by the Governor of the Banco de España  Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Honourable Ministers and Authorities, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues and friends, I believe today calls, above all, for a round of gratitude. First, I wish to thank Ministers Calviño and Montero for their presence here today. May they rest assured I am firmly committed to maintaining the close and loyal collaboration traditionally offered by the Banco de España to the Ministries for the Economy and Finance. I also wish to thank the previous minister, Román Escolano, for his presence at this ceremony, and for his proposal and defence of my appointment before the Parliamentary Committee for the Economy and Competitiveness. And my gratitude extends to the representatives of the Committee accompanying us today. I undertake to make every effort to improve the capacity of the Banco de España to face the challenges addressed during the Parliamentary Committee hearing. Ministers, as I am surrounded above all by colleagues, I trust you will allow me to continue in a more informal tone. As you know, including a three-year tour at the European Central Bank, I now have two decades behind me at the Banco de España. Professionally speaking, this is, then, my home. It is a real honour for me to have been appointed governor.

My assessment is that the problems we saw in March this year did not spread quite as much as they would have done if Ba-  5 See Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2023). 6 [30]  sel III had not been introduced. The banks now have more capital and more liquidity and are therefore better equipped to withstand various forms of shock.6 However, it should be noted that Basel III is not yet fully implemented.7 Negotiations are currently under way on how the final parts of Basel III will be introduced in the EU and some of the proposals entail less strict rules than those set out in the Basel standards. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasise the importance of full, timely and consistent implementation of all Basel standards in all countries, including the EU. Although the events of March did not hit the EU particularly hard, we need to learn lessons from what has happened in other parts of the world. This is important to ensure that the risks do not materialise in our part of the world as well. So what is new in the current situation and how do the existing global standards for bank regulation compare with this background? First of all, I would like to emphasise that I am not primarily talking about the situation or the regulations in Sweden, but more about the global standards, as it is these that are now being questioned.
Many consider the lack of cross-border mergers as proof that much remains to be done in terms of market integration and diversification. In any event, scant cross-border consolidation, particularly in a setting of clear overcapacity of the European banking sector, is symptomatic. On this matter, the ECB, in its latest stability report7, published a study on the degree of overcapacity of the sector in Europe and the potential implications for bank business. In keeping with the conclusions of the study, excess capacity may lead to operating below margin in the face of heightened competition. That would preclude making the necessary investments for the future of banks and their adaptation to new technologies and new operators (e.g. in systems), creating “zombie”-like banks that weigh down even further on the sector’s profitability. The study details those banks with a return on equity (RoE) that is lower than the median of 6% over three years, but the most worrying group would be that of banks with an RoE of less than 3%, no less than around 25% of the total. The study concludes with the need to address restructuring and mergers, showing a clear preference for cross-border as opposed to national mergers. On the ever-controversial matter of mergers, I have stated on several occasions that our role as supervisors is not to decide which mergers are desirable and which not.

For  BIS Review 36/2010  11  instance, the Committee thought that the chance that inflation would be 2% or higher in 2011Q1 was between 15% and 20%. We can once again use the February forecast to highlight a few of the key messages that the MPC wanted to communicate. In the early part of the forecast period, the probability of inflation being above the target is very high. This is because the data for inflation are well above target at present, and also because the fan chart here is relatively narrow. But the projection for inflation falls over the forecast period. This implies a fall in the probability of inflation being above target. Towards the final part of the projection, the probability of inflation being above the target rises back to being broadly one half. This chart emphasises that, in spite of the most likely outcome for inflation being below target, the nature of the distribution of risks implies that the probability of exceeding the target is about one in two. We can also combine the usual top-down fan chart with the information in the cross-sectional densities to produce a 3D fan chart [Slide 20]. The particular advantage of this chart is that it shows how the overall density changes over time. For instance, when the distribution is very narrow, such as at the start of the forecast period, the probability density at the centre of the fan is higher, simply because the MPC is more confident about its central forecast here.
Risks related to the corporate debt burden are under control. The Bank of Russia is monitoring financial stability, promptly and regularly adjusts its macroeconomic forecasts and its policy. The central bank is prepared to use all available instruments to stabilise the situation in case of need. However, in order to maintain macroeconomic stability we need not only a balanced policy pursued by the central bank, but also the appropriate fiscal policy, including the government debt management policy. The national debt in national currency is a basic financial instrument for any country of the world. It plays a leading part in the financial markets, is actively used by central banks in their monetary policies, as well as in banking and financial regulation. This is the role of a risk-free liquid asset, as we conditionally call it. The rates on other riskier assets are usually calculated with due account of the risk premium to government debt. As distinct from short-term interest rates regulated by central banks, long-term rates in the economy depend on inflation expectations and expectations with regard to government finance sustainability. The ‘risk-free’ is a key word describing the relationship between the financial system and the government debt. The latter may perform all these functions only if the state budget is balanced in the medium and long terms and the government may honour its obligations without resorting to defaults and the printing press. Budget discipline impacts the central bank’s ability to function as an economic and financial stabiliser amid economic shocks.

You may find a lot of examples in the Russian and international history. The Russian policy between the end of the 19th century and the start of the First World War serves as a model of how the balanced fiscal policy allowed the government to preserve national currency stability, refrain from increasing taxes, and stabilise debt in per cent of GDP at the levels acceptable to the market. At that time a sustainable economic growth persisted despite the lost war with Japan and the revolutionary upheavals. (Vice versa, uncontrolled budget deficit growth and in effect the breakdown of government finance during the First World War led to an economic collapse and triggered the 1917 revolution.) Let’s turn to more contemporary examples. The development of the so-called emerging markets, i.e. the financial markets of developing countries, started following the state budgets’ stabilisation and inflation reduction. Market uncertainty about fiscal stability may cause shocks  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  in the financial and FX markets. Both the situation in Brazil in recent months and the Russian crisis of 1998 can serve as an example. Moreover, market concerns over the consistency of the Bank of Russia’s policy and our adherence to announced goals, which we felt in 2014 and to a lesser extent in 2015, were also linked to the budget.
Additional challenge #1: Reinhart and Rogoff’s great contraction and debt overhang The Financial Crisis of 2008 left an enormous obstacle in the path of the U.S. recovery. From peak to trough, $ trillion of wealth was erased from household balance sheets. Although the value of households’ assets declined dramatically, their debt levels remained roughly the same. Many borrowers took on additional debt during the period of high and rising asset valuations, and high employment and income growth were key fundamentals for servicing these debt payments into the future. These debt burdens are key contributors to the headwinds I discussed earlier when I talked about the economic outlook. As I noted then, they appear to be substantially more onerous than we had expected. In their book This Time is Different, Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff documented the substantially more detrimental effects that financial crises typically impose on economic recoveries.7 Recoveries following severe financial crises take many years longer than usual, and the risk of a second recession before the ultimate economic recovery returns to the previous business cycle peak is substantially higher. In a related study of the current U.S. experience, Reinhart and Rogoff show that the current anemic recovery is following the typical post-financial crisis path quite closely, given the size of the financial contraction.8 It would be nice to point to some features of the recovery that suggest greater progress relative to the Reinhart-Rogoff benchmark. But those are hard to come by.

Making this translation in the loss function, we see that the conservative central banker attempts to minimize the equally weighted sum of squared inflation and unemployment deviations: L = (π – π*)2 + 1 * (u – u*)2 where u and u* are the actual and natural rates of unemployment6 The bottom line is that a conservative and tough-minded central banker can still value deviations in unemployment from the natural rate equally with deviations in inflation from its target. Accordingly, an inflation rate of 5% against an inflation goal of 2% presents this  3  Taylor, John B. 1979. “Estimation and Control of a Macroeconomic Model with Rational Expectations,” Econometrica 47 (5) September, pp. 1267–1286. 4  For example, Woodford, Michael, 2005. “Central-Bank Communication and Policy Effectiveness,” Paper presented at Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium on “The Greenspan Era: Lessons for the Future,” Jackson Hole, Wyoming, August 25–27, 2005. Available at: http://www.columbia.edu/~mw2230/JHole05.pdf  5  Rogoff, Kenneth S. 1985. “The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 100 November, pp. 1169–1189. 6  That is, Okuns’ Law says (y – y*) = 2*(u – u*), where u and u* are the actual and natural rates of unemployment. Making this translation in the loss function (so squaring and multiplying by ? = ¼ yields L = (? – ? *)2 + 1 * (u – u*)2.
Well - if ever there were a time when that phrase were true, it is now. I have spoken a little tonight about operational risk, and then about different types of financial risk. These are all areas where I believe this Centre can make an important contribution. The Bank of England is a voracious consumer of such analysis and expertise, and I very much hope that we will retain a close working relationship going forward. Thank you for asking me here this evening - I wish you all the best in your future work. 4  BIS Review 83/2001

A gradual transition requires, as you here in Finland are well aware, that the exchange rate is fixed irreversibly from the date of joining the union and the euro becomes the national currency, while banknotes and coins in the old currency continue to remain legal tender during a transition period. During this period there is no compulsion to use the euro and nor is there any prohibition against it. The disadvantage of a gradual transition would be that, as euro banknotes and coins already exist in the euro zone, it may appear strange to the Swedish general public that they cannot use them fully in all transactions in Sweden right from the start. The advantages of a gradual transition are that the major technical and practical adaptations to the euro could be made in stages, while Sweden would be able to participate fully in all co-operation and decision-making forums in the euro zone from EMU membership, without having to wait until the practical work was finished. The most recent report states that in a gradual transition process the financial sector and central government sector would need 1-1.5 years from the time of a political decision until the SEK/EUR exchange rate was fixed in order to prepare. After this, a further one year would be needed for the financial sector and two years for the central government sector before euro banknotes and coins could replace the krona. This is 1-2 years shorter than the three years the current EMU countries have had to prepare.