samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This result was significantly influenced by the positive balance of trade, due to both higher exports and lower imports. In the services balance, reduced shipment costs and the temporary increase in imports of services stood out (figure 7). On the external front, until the beginning of March, there was an environment of higher growth and concern about inflation. On the one hand, the increase in global growth expected for this year was based on upward surprises in the performance of several important economies, such as the United States, China and the Eurozone. On the other hand, in developed world economies, core inflation indicators were high, despite the fall in total inflation. All this heightened the concerns about inflation and the need to raise interest rates by the main central banks. In this scenario, commodity prices rose and risk aversion Fell. In general, interest rates rose as a result of the higher inflation outlook (figure 8). The tone of the external scenario changed significantly in the last month, as doubts arose regarding the financial health of international banks. The problems of several banks in the United States and Europe opened a scenario of greater global uncertainty. This has generated volatility in financial markets, which reduced risk appetite and led to an appreciation of the dollar and a decrease in government bond yields, anticipating a slower pace of rate hikes by the main central banks. It is worth noting that the market anticipates a lower Fed funds rate path than the Federal Reserve itself has communicated.

Table 2  Domestic scenario 2022  GDP Domestic demand Domestic demand (w/o inventory change) Gross fixed capital formation Total consumption Private consumption Goods and services exports Goods and services imports Current account (% of GDP) Gross national savings (% of GDP) Nominal GFCF (% of GDP)  2.4 2.3 3.0 2.8 3.1 2.9 1.4 0.9 -9.0 16.4 24.8  2023 (f) 2024 (f) 2025 (f) Mar.23 MP Dec.22 MP Mar.23 MP Dec.22 MP Mar.23 MP Report Report Report Report Report (annual change, percent) -1.75 / -0.75 -0.5/0.5 2.0-3.0 1.0-2.0 2.0-3.0 -5.3 -4.0 1.7 1.1 2.1 -4.6 -3.0 1.9 0.7 1.9 -5.0 -2.9 -0.2 -0.7 2.3 -4.5 -3.0 2.5 1.1 1.8 -5.9 -3.8 2.5 0.9 1.9 6.0 4.5 3.2 3.7 2.2 -5.4 -6.5 0.9 2.5 0.5 -4.9 -4.0 -4.1 -4.1 -4.0 20.2 18.7 19.8 18.9 19.2 24.3 23.3 23.8 23.2 23.2  (f) Forecast. Source: Central Bank of Chile. 19  Figure 13  Real consumer credit flows  (millions of UFs, moving quarterly average)  40  Rolling credit cards Credit card in installments Loans in installments Overdrafts  Households' financial burden (*)  (percent of monthly income, moving annual average)  20 19  30 18 20  17  10  16  0  15 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  19  20  21  22  (*) Median debtor's financial burden. Monthly income includes labor component (salaried formal) and pension fund withdrawals prorated over six months as from receipt of payment.
Uncertainty has eased owing to reduced volatility in inflation and economic units have been able to foresee longer maturities, thus that the risk premium has declined. Graph 4: Volatility in Inflation* 2,5 1,99 2  1,89  1,5  1,08 0,71  1 0,5 0 2001  2002  2003  2004  * Volatility is calculated as the 12-month moving averages of the standard deviations of monthly inflation rates. Source. CBRT. Another significant point I will mention in relation to the changing dynamics of inflation is the apparent change observed in the pricing behavior of producers and consumers. Hand-in-hand with the start of the disinflation process and the acknowledgement to a large extent in economic units that this is a permanent state, producers and consumers have adopted a different approach. Producers have started to pay more attention to cost control and the increase in productivity, while setting their profit margins in pricing policy and consumers have begun to be more actively involved in the pricing process by conducting price and quality controls, using the advantage of a more competitive market.

Also, in the case of Turkey, monetary reform was launched, not as part of the stability program, but after having monitored the results of the program and achieved macroeconomic stability to a large extent. At this point, I would like to point out that the realization of monetary reform up to now has been mainly in tune with our forecasts and has followed a favorable course. As of 8 April 2005, the amount of YTL banknotes in the total amount of banknotes made up 73.5 percent. Within this framework, it has come to our attention that some foreign financial enterprises have recently begun to issue bonds denominated in the New Turkish Lira. Another positive impact of monetary reform which also strengthens the macroeconomic stability process is that the securities issued in international markets in New Turkish Lira can now be cleared. Due to the inability of the technical facilities of foreign financial enterprises to keep records of a currency unit with all those zeros, issues denominated in Turkish lira could not be cleared in the international systems of safe custody such as Euroclear or Clearstream before the transition to the New Turkish Lira. This obstacle has been removed with the dropping of six zeros from the Turkish lira and the introduction of the New Turkish Lira. After all, monetary reform is one of the most prominent indicators of the permanence of macroeconomic stability and of the fact that price stability will be attained within this context.
Is it a problem if cash disappears? This is of course a valid question. There are some groups in society who for various reasons find it difficult to accept, use or gain access to digital technology and different solutions need to be found for these groups. But for the majority of the population, the market appears able to supply payment solutions on its own. The question does require some careful thought, however. What is money, and what is required for money to function as such? What is the difference between various types of money? Why have central banks gained such a central role in the monetary system? These are practical but nevertheless almost philosophical questions that cannot be fully dealt with in a short speech. But allow me to nevertheless develop these questions a little further. Can “new money” function as an arithmetical unit, store of value and means of payment? It is difficult to define what money actually is. Put simply, one can say that it is an agreement or convention between individuals in a country or region that “something” will function as money. That “something” can be stones, shells, gold, pieces of paper or something else. What has been used as money has varied over time and between countries and cultures. But for money to function as such, it must be 3 [6]  able to guarantee three basic functions. Firstly, it shall function as (1) an arithmetical unit, that is, all prices shall be expressed in terms of this unit.

Ladies and Gentlemen The new features on the K10,000 banknote are as follows: (1)  On the front of the banknote – there is a new bright silver demetallised holographic lead representing a fish eagle. This has replaced the old hologram of the head of a fish eagle. (2)  On the back of the banknote –the area around the value numeral, K10,000 in the right top corner, is printed with a special ink which shifts colour from copper to green when angle of view is changed. These are the two changes that have been made to the K10,000 banknote. All other features are basically the same. The reason for the introduction of these two features is mainly to enhance the security of the banknote. The Bank of Zambia would further like to inform the public that the new K10,000 banknote and the current circulating K10,000 banknotes shall circulate side by side. The new and current banknotes will therefore all be legal tender. The current K10,000 banknotes will be replaced by the new K10,000 banknote once they reach the end of their lifespan through soiling and/or mutilation. Therefore, I urge you to take a closer look at the new K10,000 banknote in order to inform the public correctly. I thank you. BIS Review 78/2008  1
This is because the tendency to invest more in international markets – as reflected in the surge in crossborder portfolio flows – has been accompanied by the tendency of households to shift part of their savings towards riskier domestic assets, as the sharp rise in countries’ domestic market capitalisation reveals. What can we say about the future? We should expect that home bias will continue to decline, most likely at a slow pace, because investors need to perceive that diversifying their global portfolio more and more on a global scale will reduce risk; for that they need to become more familiar with the international environment. 7  See for example French and Poterba (1991), Coval and Moskowitz (1999) and Huberman (2001). 8  See Solnik (1974). 9  De Santis and Gérard (2006) provide the methodology here adopted to compute home bias measures. 4  BIS Review 43/2006  Impact of EMU on portfolio reallocation and financial integration Did EMU play a role in the reallocation of capital worldwide and on financial integration? To answer this question, we need to remind us what a monetary union implies. The elimination of the exchange rate risk is the first obvious implication, which is also a feature of other fixed exchange rate regimes. But the fundamental difference is that – when EMU was established – Member States committed to irrevocable conversion rates of their currencies.

The economic impact of globalisation and the role of EMU I would now like to turn to the main area of my paper and discuss, first, the economic impact of globalisation on economic linkages – most notably trade and capital flows – and second, the impact of EMU on regional financial integration and global portfolio reallocation. Impact on trade, foreign direct investment and cross-border portfolio flows The effects of globalisation are channelled via trade in goods and services, all of which has a tangible impact on businesses and households. Globalisation means that transport costs have decreased, technological innovations are more easily diffused, information is readily available at a low cost, and consumer tastes have been converging with an increasing number of global brands. Over the last three decades, tariffs have halved and a large number of trade agreements have entered into force between various countries. These developments have resulted in a steady opening of markets in Europe and around the world. In the early 1970s, for example, global exports accounted for only onetenth of world GDP, compared with one-quarter today. The share of intermediate inputs in total trade flows is also at a historically high level, reflecting the dramatic deepening of global economic interlinkages in recent years. Higher global demand and increase in the use of the euro in international trade have contributed to this new phenomenon. While intra-euro area trade has grown robustly since the introduction of the euro, extra-euro area trade has recorded even more rapid growth.
Stablecoins and other new forms of private non-bank money might be the next big thing. Or they might be a flash in the pan. I don’t have a bet here – I am a central banker not a venture capitalist. My job, as a central banker and regulator – in all of this – is to ensure that financial innovations, including new forms of digital money, do not impair the Bank of England’s ability to maintain monetary and financial stability. This shouldn’t be confused with preserving the status quo. Financial stability is n’t about protecting incumbent banks or other existing firms from competition. Instead financial stability seeks to ensure that people and businesses can rely on essential financial services – like the ability to make a payment or the ability to get a loan – in bad times as well as good. A regulatory framework Earlier this week, the Bank of England published a Discussion Paper that examines the implications of stablecoins for its financial and monetary stability mandate. In it we present an illustrative scenario to examine the implications of the emergence of stablecoins and other new forms of digital money. The discussion paper models what would happen if a large number of households and businesses moved their deposits from banks and into a stablecoin or Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Contrary to some press headlines, even such a dramatic shift does not inherently constitute a financial stability risk as long as it happens in an orderly manner.

In Malaysia, the progress in this area has been facilitated by the common law which forms the foundation of the legal system. More specifically, the concept of "trust" under the common law has facilitated the issuance of Islamic securities such as sukuk and Islamic Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Since "trust" as an inherent notion embedded in the common law system is not generally found in the jurisprudence of civil law, some civil law countries have enacted specific legislation to provide for the introduction of trust so as to align their legal systems with the requirements of Islamic finance. The challenges brought by the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system While legal issues within a domestic financial system can be resolved by the home regulators and Shariah authorities, the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system brings with it many challenges. There is a need for mutual recognition of financial standards and products across jurisdictions. The progressive harmonisation of Shariah, in this respect, needs to be viewed as a driver towards greater international financial integration. Such a convergence and harmonisation can only happen with greater engagement among the regulators, practitioners and scholars in Islamic finance in the international community. The Annual International Shariah Scholars' Dialogue that has been taking place since 2005 is aimed at achieving this objective. This Dialogue has served to promote interactions between Shariah scholars from around the world contributing towards greater understanding and international convergence.
2 All three of these reasons – evidence that U.S. monetary policy is currently only moderately accommodative, the fact that U.S. financial conditions have been influenced by economic and financial market developments abroad, and risk management considerations – argue, at the moment, for caution in raising U.S. short-term interest rates. So, directionally, the movement in investor expectations towards a flatter path for U.S. short-term interest rates seems broadly appropriate. That said, to my eye, market expectations derived from futures prices – which price in about one 25 basis point rate hike through the end of 2017 – appear to be too complacent. If the incoming information validates my view of the outlook, then I believe that U.S. monetary policy will likely need to move at a faster pace than implied by futures prices towards a more neutral posture as the labor market tightens further and U.S. inflation rises. Moreover, market expectations may be putting insufficient weight on the possibility that the economy could outperform our expectations, that financial conditions could ease, or that the risks to growth from Brexit and other international developments could fade away. If such events were to occur, this might necessitate a faster pace of adjustment. For these reasons, I think it is premature to rule out further monetary policy tightening this year. As I said before, it depends on the data, broadly defined, and, as we all know, that is not something one can predict with any accuracy.

As some of you may recall, during my presentation in Arusha, I did indicate that our economy had shown some resilience in the midst of the global economic crisis. I am delighted to inform you that following the presentation, we have seen further improvements in macroeconomic indicators with GDP growth for 2009 estimated at 6.3% while inflation edged downwards to 9.9% in December 2009 and 9.6% at end January 2010. The exchange rate of  BIS Review 18/2010  1  the Kwacha against major international currencies has also shown some stability in the recent months. This is no mean achievement and credit must go the Government for providing a stable macroeconomic environment. However, the recent crisis has exposed clear gaps that need to be addressed in order to create wealth and reduce the high levels of poverty in our country. There is need to have innovative solutions to the problems that our economy faces today. These innovative solutions are expected to come from various stakeholders including associations such as yours. For us to make a significant dent on poverty, the economy should record growth rates of 8% and above. This can only be achieved by innovation and competitiveness on the world market. Ladies and Gentlemen, despite the stable macroeconomic environment, we have not reaped full benefits from the international trade arena.
Forecasts, or probabilistic statements in general, can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted. As a result, forecasters may decide to withhold information, even when, correctly understood, there is something useful in the forecast – a case in point being the recent Met Office withdrawal of medium term seasonal forecasts. When experts retire from the field, it is left wide open to quackery – and there is no shortage of quacks whether in medicine, economics or meteorology. So there is a major challenge in explaining that, although we may not have a precise prediction of the effects of a particular policy action, nor are we wholly ignorant of its consequences. Finding illuminating ways of expressing those judgements is difficult but important. We must not pretend to know more than we do, and we must avoid the delusion of spurious precision. 7. Communication in practice: fan charts  It is time to put some flesh on the bones of these abstract discussions. It is time in fact for a show – a slide show of the graphical representation of the uncertainty about future inflation which the Bank of England uses to communicate its views about the outlook. The Bank of England publishes a range of documents which describe the uncertainty about our analysis of the economy, and hence the uncertainty inherent in setting policy. Our longest-running, and perhaps the best known, is the quarterly Inflation Report, which the Bank has been producing since 1993.

The trigger policy I noted above and level-targeting policies may result in inflation running at rates that would make us uncomfortable during normal times. But we should not be afraid of such temporarily higher inflation results today. As I noted earlier, Ken Rogoff (1985) has written that in normal times, we may want conservative central bankers as institutional offsets to what would otherwise be inflationary biases in the monetary policy process. But these are not usual times – we are in the aftermath of a financial crisis with stubborn debt overhangs that are weighing on activity. And as Rogoff himself wrote in a recent piece in the Financial Times, higher inflation could aid the deleveraging process.11 To quote him: “Any inflation above 2 percent may seem anathema to those who still remember the anti-inflation wars of the 1970s and 1980s, but a once-in-75-year crisis calls for outside-the-box measures.” Conclusion Last year about this time economic conditions deteriorated to the point that we undertook discussions on how to provide further monetary accommodation – and we ended up with our second round of large scale asset purchases. Now, one year later, we again find ourselves with a weakened economic outlook and again trying to decide what further accommodation to provide. I’m sure everyone will agree that we seriously don’t want to be in this position again at this time next year. I believe that means we need to take strong action now. Thanks. 11  8  Rogoff, Kenneth S. 2011.
In the case of Albania, as in many other developing countries, remittances enter the country by either formal or informal means. The most recent surveys show that only 22.6 percent of emigrants prefer to use official means, whereas 77.4 percent turn to unofficial channels – in most cases by themselves. The official network includes the commercial banks and money transfer companies, the activity of which is regulated and supervised by BoA. Money transfer companies (Western Union and Money Gram) have played a significant role in transferring remittances from the beginning of their activity in the 90s. Their wide geographical extension throughout the country covering also many rural areas has complemented adequately the rather slow expansion of the banking sector in facilitating money transfers. Lately, the official network has gained considerable grounds over the informal ways in terms of total transfers carried out. The volume of remittances channelled via official means in 2004 is estimated to have been around 46 percent of the total, as opposed to just 12 percent - the average for the period 1994-1996. It seems the official network has earned Albanian emigrants’ trust for transferring their money. The development of the financial system in Albania it’s a key factor in explaining the movement of transfers toward official means. Thus, only during 2004, there have been 30 new branches and banking agencies opened throughout the country. Nevertheless, the unofficial flows remain still high, accounting for more than half of the total volume.

We understand that the task of strengthening and enhancing the financial stability of banks cannot be single-handedly managed by the Bank of Russia alone. It is important to place more responsibility for misconduct on the owners and managers of credit organisations themselves, to ensure the irreversibility of punishments for crimes. Qualitative changes are in store for the banking industry – these include a transition to a three-tier banking system, comprised of systemically important banks, banks with universal licences, and banks with basic licences. This is a radical change in the banking system, which we will need to implement with care in the near future. The three main tasks set before us, which we are currently resolving, are: to better manage risk, so as to protect the rights of depositors and creditors; to promote the availability of credit, including credit for small businesses; and to ensure fair competition, wherein a bank of any type will be able to work and earn within their niche in the market. Another pressing task is the implementation of a new resolution mechanism. We hope that it will be in place by autumn, when we will be ready to use it. This will allow us both to reduce the cost and to speed up the resolution mechanism, in order to make rehabilitated banks more attractive to investors. In the banking sector, as well as in the financial sector overall, the challenge lies not only in rehabilitating and cleaning up, but also in creating the conditions for development.