samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Estimates by Banco de España researchers suggest that the PEPP will have had a firstorder positive impact on inflation and on the GDP growth rate in the 2020-2022 period.2 The evidence available also suggests that the TLTROs have fulfilled the function for which they were designed, as banks have used the financing received to grant loans to the real economy.3 Admittedly, it is difficult to accurately quantify the economic and financial deterioration that would have ensued had the PEPP and the rest of the measures not been launched, and therefore to estimate the resulting overall effect on euro area macroeconomic developments. But one of the main effects of the monetary policy measures, in a setting as adverse as that in place at the onset of the pandemic crisis, has been to avoid disruption on financial markets that would have ultimately given rise to a much deeper and persistent crisis. 1  For further details, see P. Hernández de Cos (2021): “The European Central Bank's monetary policy: response to the pandemic crisis and future challenges". Speech at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). 2  See Aguilar, P., Ó. Arce, S. Hurtado, J. Martínez-Martín, G. Nuño, and C. Thomas (2020). “The ECB monetary policy response to the COVID-19 crisis”, Occasional Paper no. 2026, Banco de España. 3  See, for example, the October 2020 Bank Lending Survey in Spain.

Other approved decisions are as follows: a decision to allow GCC citizens to exercise the activities of insurance services, transport services, in its different forms, and real estate services, the application of the Same National Treatment on GCC citizens in the field of jointstock companies’ shares ownership and trading and GCC Citizens Real Estate Ownership Regulation in the Member States for residential and investment purposes. Women Right to Obtain a Housing Loan from the Real Estate Development Fund, when she is responsible for her family, has also been approved. The Ministry of Housing has been established and it has received allocations of SAR 250 billion. The Real Estate Development Fund’s maximum real estate loan has been increased to SAR 500 thousand from SAR 300 thousand. The draft Arab Agreement on Combating Cyber Crimes and the draft Arab Agreement on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing have been approved. Financial Leasing Law, which aims to provide a funding formula for joint-stock companies specialized in financial leasing, has been approved. SAMA has been entrusted with the supervision and control function over financial leasing. Real Estate Mortgage Law has been approved to provide the necessary guarantees, when practicing real estate finance activities, and define the mortgage contract parties’ rights and obligations and provide more flexibility in utilizing real estate assets.
Previously, liquidity was also influenced by purchases and sales of foreign exchange to influence the krone exchange rate. This has not occurred for the past 11½ years. Banks as a group cannot directly influence the level of their liquidity in Norges Bank. The level of banks’ liquidity is determined by the central bank’s liquidity supply and any changes in other central bank balance sheet variables. Changes in banks’ demand for central bank reserves lead instead to changes in market interest rates. For example, banks’ demand for more liquidity will be reflected in an increase in money market rates. Liquidity in the banking system  BIS Review 113/2010  7  Norges Bank determines market rates by providing sufficient liquidity to ensure that the shortest money market rates fall to a level close to the rate banks receive on their deposits in Norges Bank. Interest rates cannot fall below this “floor” as no bank will want to provide loans at a rate lower than the rate they can obtain from Norges Bank. Banks’ loans from and deposits in Norges Bank have been substantial and increasing over time. Demand for loans was particularly high during the financial crisis. It would appear that banks have grown accustomed to dealing directly with the central bank instead of redistributing liquidity in the interbank market. We are having to supply more liquidity now than previously in order to hold down money market rates close to the floor.

In order to dampen shocks in a country and mitigate the contagion effects on other countries, close collaboration between a financial corporation’s home country and the host country in which it operates is necessary. In its latest annual report, the BIS writes the following: “Close cooperation between home and host authorities will be inevitable. And some responsibility will have to shift to host authorities for deciding on the settings that apply to exposures in their jurisdictions and for advising home authorities of local financial conditions.” Norwegian banks are part of a common Nordic banking market. The rapid expansion of foreign banks in the Norwegian market in the growth period from 2004 to 2008 was trimmed back during and after the crisis. I am afraid it must be said that they have amplified fluctuations in Norway. However, we assume that the decline in their market share is due to the impact of the international crisis, which has generally been more severe for foreign banks than for Norwegian banks. BIS Review 113/2010  9  Under the Basel Committee proposal, the time-varying capital buffer requirement will apply to all banks operating in a country, including branches of foreign banks. Home country authorities will enforce the buffer requirement imposed by host country authorities. This means that Norwegian supervisory authorities, for example, can impose a supplementary capital requirement in periods of high credit growth in Norway. The requirement will apply to Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and other banks that provide loans to Norwegian households and businesses.
Of course, it is not so for any economy, and is still less so for Hong Kong, which is going through structural transformation. The nominal exchange rate is relevant, but more relevant is the real effective exchange rate (REER), which also takes into account the inflation rate and the trade patterns. The REER for the Hong Kong dollar has depreciated by around 13% since the crisis period in 1998. During the same period, the REERs for other Asian currencies have appreciated by various degrees, reflecting both a rebound in nominal exchange rates as well as higher domestic inflation. Hong Kong's competitiveness can also be measured by our economic achievement in terms of real GDP growth over the past few years. Here again the figures show that Hong Kong, with an annual average of around 3% growth in GDP between 1997 and 2000, has not performed badly compared with other economies in the region. And remember, these other economies have had their currencies devalued substantially. The sharp deceleration in growth this year is due mainly to the slowdown in the major industrial economies outside the region, not because of our competitive position, and certainly not because of the strength of our currency. All of us within the region are affected to one degree or another, and some, such as Singapore, Taiwan and Korea, have been badly affected because of their strong dependence on exports of electronics and computer parts. Hong Kong has done rather less badly so far, though we are still slowing down.

Joseph Yam: Building stability in unstable times Speech by Mr Joseph Yam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers Lunch Talk, Hong Kong, 24 October 2001. *  *  *  Thank you for inviting me to speak today. It is a pleasure to see such an excellent attendance - a sure sign of the vitality of the Institute and the relevance of its work to the banking community. It is less of a pleasure to be speaking at a time when the international situation is a grave and unstable one, when our own economy is under immense strain, and when conditions are likely to get worse before they get better. What is the role of our financial community in times like this? And, more specifically, what should the regulator be doing to ensure that monetary and financial systems are conducive to stability and are an aid to recovery? The answers, I believe, are to safeguard the strength of our banking system, to ensure that our financial infrastructure remains sound, even under stress, and to maintain steady policies that are conducive to stable, robust and efficient markets. I shall, in this talk, give some examples of how, thanks to the hard work that has been put in over the years, Hong Kong is well equipped to deliver on these aims. The examples may provide reassurance.
1 Firms became over-confident in their ability to hedge or exit positions if conditions changed, failing to recognise that many participants would be attempting to do the same and that market liquidity would then evaporate. Indeed, given a change in sentiment, the increased integration of financial markets transmits risks just as much as it disperses them. 1  2  See Bank of England Financial Stability Reports July 2006 and April 2007. BIS Review 50/2008  Banks’ funding thus became increasingly vulnerable to a sudden shift in financial market conditions. As covered extensively elsewhere, 2 the crystallisation of this risk in August 2007 led to a sharp decline in liquidity across a wide range of markets (as shown in Chart 3). Funding pressures intensified as asset managers lowered demand for asset-backed securities and complex products more broadly, to lower risks and to guard against pressures from their investors for early redemption. And as banks attempted to fund contingent claims, liquidity in wholesale term markets dried up – adding to the strain. A number of institutions across the globe, such as Northern Rock, IKB and Bear Stearns have succumbed to the pressure, necessitating public sector intervention to support financial stability. Section III: Defences against liquidity risks Banks have a range of defences to a sudden decline in the availability of wholesale funds. Recent developments have highlighted a number of limitations in these defences in addressing the recent system-wide liquidity shock. One potential counter-measure to liquidity pressures is to transform illiquid assets into cash.

A bank holding a buffer of reliable high quality liquid assets, such as Treasury bills or other government securities, can draw on them immediately and directly in the event of a sudden withdrawal of market liquidity or an unexpected increase in its funding requirement. Of course, safe, liquid assets offer lower returns than other types of assets, so there is an opportunity cost in maintaining such a liquidity cushion on the balance sheet. But such assets nevertheless provide the most readily available and reliable provision against a crystallisation of liquidity risk. Unfortunately, banks’ reserves of reliable liquid assets have proved insufficient to meet the recent funding shock. With hindsight, incentives to raise the efficiency of maturity transformation have lowered this safety valve in the system too far. I would like to examine in a little more detail the UK experience in this respect. In the midnineteenth century, UK banks held on average sixty percent of liquid assets as a proportion of total deposits, an extremely high ratio explained by the frequency of liquidity crises around that time. Shortly after the 1866 Overend and Gurney crisis, the Bank of England accepted a role as lender of last resort, leading banks to relax their extremely conservative (and inefficient) approach to liquidity. The average liquidity ratio dropped to around thirty percent of total deposits.
As we recognize in the sensitivity and risk scenarios of this MP Report, this is one possible outcome and its implications for the economy should be carefully monitored. While this is a matter in progress that we must follow closely, inflation has remained high for a long period of time and continues to be a complex and high-impact problem. The costs of this situation are evident. We have all felt the effects of rising prices in our daily lives, and a part of the population has suffered the hardest. Inflation introduces risks and distorts the information contained in prices, thus affecting investment, growth and employment. It is not possible to contemplate sustained growth in employment and activity if inflation is not kept under control. Therefore, bringing inflation back to the 3 percent target is an unavoidable task. I want to insist that, even if total inflation is on a downward path and will soon return to single-digit figures, the problem has not been solved. The convergence of inflation to 3% has not yet been consolidated and as long as it remains above that figure, the task of the Central Bank will not be complete. The causes of inflation have been discussed at length. The main one was the excessive increase in spending that led to the liquidation of social security savings and across-the-board fiscal transfers. In addition, there was the pandemic and its consequences on the local economy and in global production chains, plus the effects of the war in Ukraine.

As foreseen in the central scenario of this MP Report, projected growth in the United States and Europe will be negatively affected by lower credit expansion and greater global uncertainty. This effect will be most visible in the second half of 2023 and early 2024. For these years, growth in those developed economies that are Chilean trading partners is expected to average 0.4%, which compares with the 0.7% forecast in December (figure 10). Emerging economies will face tighter financial conditions, which will also affect the external demand relevant to Chile. The better outlook for China after its reopening, together with the evolution of the copper and oil market balances, has been behind the improvement in our terms of trade, which are revised upwards from the last MP Report. This combines the better outlook for copper prices and lower projected prices for foods and fuels. For copper, our projected prices for this and the next two years are increased. We foresee an average price of 3.85 dollars per pound in 2023; 3.65 dollars per pound in 2024, and 3 and a half dollars per pound in 2025. Oil prices have been quite volatile due to the tensions in the financial markets in recent weeks and their possible implications for world growth. In addition, inventories have been accumulated and OPEC has recently announced production cuts. In the central scenario, the average Brent-WTI price is projected to gradually decline from 73 dollars per barrel in 2023 to 67 dollars in 2025.
Almost without exception, countries favour criteria for representation that boost their own influence. This is normal when these kind of issues are discussed, but makes progress difficult. In the eyes of many it is Europe that is overrepresented. But it is enough to read the book ‘An Uncertain World', by the former US Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, to realise that it is not Europe that has the real power - it is the United States that essentially calls the shots. This simple example illustrates that there is a big difference between the formal and actual power. Personally, I come to a number of different conclusions from this discussion. The world has changed since the fall of communism and as a consequence of the positive development in a large number of emerging markets. That gives cause to modify countries’ formal influence in the IMF by updating  BIS Review 43/2005  3  quotas to better reflect recent changes in world economy. Such changes should be implemented step by step, and with as broad support as possible. Some argues that the criteria used for determining countries’ influence should be modified. I am not convinced that this is the right way to move forward. There is much symbolism in this issue, which makes it a difficult one. For obvious reasons, it is also difficult to find criteria that balances the need for both borrowing countries and creditors to get reasonable influence, and, at the same time assures that the organisation functions well.

A natural explanation is that demand has been weak and uncertain. Our ordinary Business Survey, which was published last week, confirmed the picture that many companies currently perceive the situation as relatively uncertain and that they are so far cautious in implementing price rises. 2 Although there are some signs that price increases have been held back by an increase in competition, it is nevertheless reasonable to expect faster price increases and higher inflation when economic activity strengthens again and demand increases. In addition to inflationary pressures, developments in housing prices and household debt – and not least the counter-measures needed and their consequences – comprise an important, but difficult to assess, domestic condition for monetary policy. One should bear in mind the fact that experiences from other countries point to a high and growing indebtedness sooner or later having serious socio-economic consequences, but there is no clear limit as to when the situation becomes unsustainable. If one looks at the information available on indebtedness among the households taking on new mortgages, which thus in many respects comprise the purchaser side of the housing market today, I think there is reason for concern. On average, these households take mortgages equivalent to more than 350 per cent of their disposable incomes. The interest rates they pay on these mortgages are very low in an historical and an international perspective. This is partly due to the fact that a very high percentage of new Swedish mortgages are taken at variable interest rates.
Since the summer, the exchange rate has fallen by almost 20%; and oil prices have fallen by around two-thirds, both of which will boost demand. No one can know at what point the impact of all this stimulus will have a visible effect on activity; the lags in economic policy are notoriously long and unpredictable. But welldesigned policies implemented within a consistent policy framework will eventually work. BIS Review 8/2009  5  1. Ten largest monthly falls in UK equity prices  Percentage change on a year earlier  South Sea  Aug-Sep 1720  Black Monday  Oct-Nov 1987  South Sea  Sep-Oct 1720  10 Se p-10 O ct 2008  10 Sep-10 Oct 2008  Oil shock & secondary bank crisis  Nov-Dec 1973  Oil shock & secondary bank crisis  Jul-Aug 1974  France fall to Germany  Jun-Jul 1940  Oil shock & secondary bank crisis  Feb-Mar 1974  Unexpected rate hike  Aug-Sep 1981  Oil shock & secondary bank crisis  Nov-Dec 1974  2. Chinese electricity production 30 20 10 0 September 2008  -20 Jan 01  -60  -40 -20 Percent change  Jan 03  Jan 05  4.

Baltic dry index (monthly averages)  Percentage change, latest three months on previous three months  Percentage change on a month earlier  3  80  2  60  1  40 20  0  0  -1  -20  -2 September 2008 Jan 01  Jan 03  Jan 05  -40 September 2008  -3 -4  Jan 07  Jan 01  Jan 03  Jan 05  Jan 07  -60 -80 Jan 09  9. Consensus forecast for world growth forecast for 2009 calendar year growth  September 2008  Jan-08  M ar-08  M ay-08  Jul-08  Sep-08  5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 -1.0  Nov-08  Survey dates  BIS Review 8/2009  7
These are all based on a reliable monetary policy with an average inflation rate of 2 per cent, but the assessments of productivity growth can differ. One problem in this context is that it is not self-evident which sectors should be used for measuring productivity growth. The public sector is particularly difficult to measure and productivity growth here is therefore often assumed to be zero. This means that a rule of thumb based on productivity growth in the economy as a whole is "conservative" in the sense that it gives a slightly lower scope for wage costs than other approaches. Despite the problems, the different approaches tend to give rather similar results in an interval of 3.5-4 per cent. Of course, there is reason to be cautious when making this type of assessment. Past experiences of wage formation in Sweden are that a wage cost norm can easily be perceived as a floor for negotiation. Another factor advocating caution is that Sweden could be a member of the Eurosystem in the not too distant future. In recent years, wage costs in trade and industry have risen by just over one percentage point more in Sweden than in the euro area. This is not sustainable unless productivity also rises at a more rapid rate in Sweden. A further factor calling for restraint is that the favourable productivity growth prevailing during the greater part of the 1990s was partly explained by growth in the telecom sector.

He would lose his contract and a different forecasting firm would be hired. In this way, the blame was externalised elegantly. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the young economist had to reassess his professional situation and to look for other fields to develop his skills. But he kept many valuable souvenirs. Don’t forget that he acquired first-hand knowledge of what a powerful giant multinational company can be, but also how fragile it can become when the growth of its organisation is not sufficiently controlled. - Incidentally, this same company is still prospering, but over the decades it has been thoroughly reorganised many times. Restructuring has become a habit. If the former young economist revisited “his” company today, he would not recognise it anymore. The complicated matrix organisation, including the central staff of economics, has disappeared. Responsibility is structured in much simpler ways. The hierarchy is considerably flatter. The game of externalising blame can no longer be played as easily as in former times. Even the quality of food and wine served at the visitors’  2  4  http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos055.htm. BIS Review 62/2004  restaurant is more modest. One might still be offered a cigar after lunch, but the selection would most likely be narrower than in the ‘good old days’. With respect to the disappearance of economics units in business corporations, John J. Casson writes: “During the past two decades, several corporations, including IBM, Citibank, American Express and General Electric, eliminated their economists units.