samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In 1978, he told a group of central bankers that a central bank needs to earn the right to advise the government by winning the confidence and respect of the public. Earning this right is difficult, but once this is accomplished “a central bank would have the strongest guarantee for its independence and effectiveness, far stronger than any formal expression of central banking authority”. Yet, however independent a central bank is from the government, it cannot function in isolation. Fiscal and monetary policies are most effective when they are well coordinated. Further, in a world increasingly buffeted by protectionism and the risk of financial contagion, central banks 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  must cooperate with each other. Effective policy making today needs to have a global perspective as the fallout of policy failures often spread rapidly across borders. Cooperation at the national, regional and international levels, is necessary. This trust however, forms out of reliability, and reliability stems from competence. It is my firmest belief that the best way for us to honour the late Governor Ismail Ali is to carry on this vision – the vision of a central bank independent, competent and respected. Once again, I would like to thank everyone present for joining us in commemorating the centennial of Governor Ismail Ali’s birth. In particular, our heartfelt gratitude goes to Prime Minister, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah and family members of Governor Ismail Ali for your support and presence for today’s special occasion.

Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus: Trust and integrity key principals of Malaysia central bank’s first governor Welcoming remarks by Ms Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Commemoration of the Centennial of Tun Ismail Ali’s Birth, Kuala Lumpur, 8 October 2018. * * * Trust and integrity. These were the key principles of the man who built Bank Negara Malaysia and shaped the nation. Some remember him for establishing institutions that form the economic pillars of modern Malaysia; some remember him for his contributions to the nation and the financial system. Some may remember him as family, or a good friend. Not all had the privilege to meet him, but all remember Governor Ismail Ali as a paragon of trust and integrity. Despite being the hands that shaped Malaysia’s early history, little has been written of Governor Ismail Ali. Stories of his discipline, thrift and dedication only passed through word-of-mouth, rarely put to paper. His wisdom and experience, whispered from ear-to-ear, risk being lost to the winds of time. It is my great pleasure to welcome you today. Indeed, it is our privilege to have Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir to grace today’s event and Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali to deliver a special tribute speech. Few may know that Governor Ismail Ali is the brother of Tun Dr Siti Hasmah and the brother-in-law of our Prime Minister.
The example of Japan in the 1980s suggests that consumer price stability may not be a sufficient condition for precluding bubbles in asset prices and financial instability. With trend inflation averaging two per cent a year, the situation in Japan in the 1980s was very close to what we now commonly mean by price stability. Yet the Japanese economy still moved towards a period of grave financial instability. Thus, the question practitioners have to consider is how to deal with a situation where asset price effects are taken into account with reference to consumer price inflation but where there may still be a risk of asset price bubbles that may lead to financial instability, a destabilisation of the real economy and a severe downward effect on consumer price inflation later on. One could argue that the effects of a large rise in asset prices on aggregate demand may be smaller than the effects of a large fall if such a fall increases general uncertainty and leads to more cautious spending behaviour. If the collapse of a bubble in asset prices has a much stronger effect than the preceding boom, it may be optimal to increase interest rates to raise the probability of bursting a bubble even though such a policy action may temporarily lead to lower consumer price inflation in the short term than otherwise would have been desired.

This implies that, when joining the EU, the new Member States will have to comply with all of the requirements outlined in the acquis communautaire which relate to European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Moreover, following accession, they shall each have to prepare themselves for the eventual adoption of the euro. Thus it is clear that the accession process and the entry of new members into the EU will have deep and wide-ranging consequences for the ECB and the Eurosystem. Of course, meeting the Maastricht convergence criteria is not a prerequisite for joining the EU. However, the introduction of the euro certainly puts some pressure on accession countries to make progress towards fulfilling the convergence criteria. In fact, we might consider their progress towards adopting the euro as part of a continuum, encompassing three distinct stages and crucial steps. These are: EU membership, participation in ERM II, and eventual adoption of the euro. The first of these steps requires implementation of the EMU-related acquis communautaire. Then, on the date of accession, new Member States will join EMU with the status of “countries with a derogation”. From this point onwards, they will be expected not only to treat their economic policies as a matter of common concern, but also to be committed to the eventual adoption of the euro, which should be an objective both of monetary and of other economic policies. This is a direct result of the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, no new opt-out clauses are to be granted to the accession countries.
Luis M Linde: The international economic environment and Spain’s economy Testimony by Mr Luis M Linde, Governor of the Bank of Spain, before the Parliamentary Budget Committee in connection with the draft State Budget for 2013, Madrid, 4 October 2012. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, The appearance by the Governor of the Banco de España before this Committee at the start of the annual debate on the State Budget is a tradition I am most pleased to embrace. I shall try to be as clear and direct as possible on those issues I consider most important. The Draft State Budget Law for 2013 is being presented against a background of singular difficulty for the Spanish economy. I intend, first, to discuss the international economic context, in particular in the euro area; second, to look at recent developments in the Spanish economy, with particular reference to competitiveness and fiscal consolidation; and finally, to analyse the key features of the draft Law. Without overstaying my welcome, I shall, before ending my address, briefly discuss the clean-up and restructuring programme for our banking system which, as you know, took a significant step forward on 28 September with the publication of the evaluations of the whole of the Spanish banking system. If you wish, we can go into greater detail on this matter in the round of questions, given its importance for restoring confidence in our economy, in activity and in employment, and, in short, for the implementation of the Budget for 2013.

A second informative feature is the similar evolution of the dollar in both episodes. It is natural to expect that a hiking cycle in the United States would strengthen the US Dollar relative to other currencies. This is indeed what happened in the 1994 cycle, with the US Dollar Broad appreciating about 7% in 2 years and almost 30% in 4 years. In contrast, the dollar weakened about 5% in the  4 It was not until the Asian crisis in 1998 when the consequences of balance of payment pressures where directly felt across the developing world. 5 Hereafter, all panels in figure 2 are centered around the month in which the hiking cycle started, labeled month 0. These correspond to February 1994, June 2004 and December 2015. 6 In this case, after a very sharp increase during 1994, the yield on the 10‐year US government bond fell significantly during 1995 to levels similar to those observed before the hiking cycle. 2          first 12 months in the 2004‐2006 cycle, at the very same time that the Federal Reserve had increased short term rates by 200 basis points. Because periods of dollar strength have tended to coincide with periods of weaker commodities, it is not surprising to see that commodities had a flat/declining trend in the second half of the 1990s. Indeed, high world interest rates, high credit spreads and low commodity prices all contributed to a weakening of emerging market economies.
We find ourselves nevertheless - not for the first time - in something of a quandary. The key questions confronting us then are: First - To what extent do we expect the gradual global recovery - which is critical for our manufacturing sector - to be sustained? 2  BIS Review 59/2002  Secondly - Depending on the answer to that, to what extent do we expect the consumption growth, that we have recently been relying upon to keep overall, aggregate, demand increasing, in line with our underlying supply capacity, to continue to sustain our overall economy of its own accord? and Thirdly - Depending on the answer to that, how much risk - of an abrupt retrenchment by consumers, and a significant shortfall on our inflation target, further ahead - would we be taking, and should we take, by cutting interest rates further now, to sustain consumer demand at the expense of a further build up of household debt and continuing increases in house prices, in order to maintain the growth of the overall economy? These are all difficult questions of degree. But you can be sure that my colleagues on the MPC will continue to monitor both the global and the domestic situation with their usual vigilance - and with an open mind. There’s no doubt that these are challenging times for all of us.

By the early summer both the MPC and financial markets were contemplating the possibility that we might soon need to act to moderate the growth of domestic demand, if that did not happen of its own accord, in order to accommodate a pick up in external demand. But we had not reckoned with the further nervous breakdown suffered by international equity markets during the summer! This seemed to be largely unconnected with developments in the global economy where a gradual recovery - including a gradual recovery in manufacturing output - seemed to be continuing, even if the pace of recovery was slower than was earlier anticipated. In part it no doubt reflected a belated correction of earlier “irrational exhuberance” but it seemed to be exaggerated by fears of possible further terrorist attacks following on from 9/11, by a series of corporate governance and accounting failures in the US, and by the possible implications of war with Iraq. But whatever the causes, the sharp further falls in equity prices have given rise to concerns about the strength of business and consumer confidence, and to doubts as to the sustainability of the global recovery. Internationally, and here in the UK, both in financial markets and within the MPC, the monetary policy debate has shifted back to the possible need for further monetary stimulus . One helpful consequence of this is that market interest rates have in fact fallen significantly, which will help sustain the recovery.
Sources: The Bureau of Labour Statistics, Eurostat and the IMF  BIS Review 100/2008  11  GDP growth in Sweden Quarterly changes in per cent calculated at an annual rate, seasonally-adjusted data 8  8  7  7  6  6  5  5  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0 -1  -1 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  Note. Broken columns refer to the Riksbank’s forecasts in M PR 2008:2. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Employed 1000s of persons, seasonally-adjusted data 4800  4800 Employed (ILO-definition) Employed (EU-definition)  4600  4600  4400  4400  4200  4200  4000  4000 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  Note. Broken line represents the Riksbank’s forecast in the M PR 2008:2. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  12  BIS Review 100/2008  Unemployment Per cent of labour force, seasonally-adjusted data 10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  Note.

Niklaus Blattner: IT in the financial sector - aspects of regulation and supervision Summary of a speech by Mr Niklaus Blattner, Vice-Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at 8. Berner Tagung für Informationssicherheit (8th Conference on Information Security), Berne, 29 November 2005. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The completeness, integrity, traceability and constant availability of data that has been securely processed are essential in order for the financial system to function smoothly. The Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) supervises banks and securities dealers domiciled in Switzerland. Its microprudential supervision focuses on the individual financial institution, in particular with regard to the protection of creditors and investors. By contrast, it is the task of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to contribute to the stability of the financial system, i.e. it is engaged in macroprudential oversight. Banking legislation provisions governing the IT organisation requirements of a financial intermediary do not explicitly address the topic of information security, but rather focus on the notion of “proper and rightful conduct of business”. For the SFBC, information security is merely one concern among others. In one of its circulars it has, however, addressed several critical areas in greater detail, e.g. on the topic of external data management and outsourcing. The SNB’s mandate is limited to the payment and securities settlement systems.
Both borrowers and lenders need to be careful not to over-stretch themselves. In line with the recent FPC statement, we will be keeping a very close eye on developments, and the Bank has a range of tools that can be used in mitigation of those risks. Stage 4: the flow of credit Annual growth in the stock of lending to households and businesses has remained close to zero since mid-2012, similar to rates seen in the run-up to the launch of the FLS. But it is important to bear in mind that prior to the announcement of the FLS, the Bank judged that UK bank lending was more likely to decline than increase over the following eighteen months. The profile of lending seen to date has been broadly in line with our original expectations: the trend in household net lending has been somewhat stronger than expected before the launch of the FLS and net lending to businesses has been perhaps a little weaker. We were also conscious that the stock of credit depends on both supply and demand. We were sure that the FLS would shift supply but the demand effects were always less certain. The price elasticity for firms in particular is likely to be low. It is possible at the margin that some firms will be better able to repay or refinance loans if their borrowing costs are a bit lower, but this effect is probably small relative to the importance of expected demand for a firm’s products.

Banks have improved their capital positions and profitability since the euro area crisis, and the stock of non-performing loans continues to decline at a moderate pace. But further improvements are needed in parts of the banking sector if banks are to achieve sustainable rates of return. In particular, overcapacity and cost inefficiencies weigh on many banks’ long-term profitability prospects. The better performance of some banks within the euro area, and in jurisdictions facing similar economic and financial conditions, illustrates the importance of addressing structural issues. The current interest rate environment has various implications for the resilience of the banking sector. Banks have benefited, and will continue to benefit, from the lower credit risk for borrowers, and from the higher asset valuations associated with lower interest rates and 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  better macroeconomic outcomes. This has helped support bank profitability across the euro area since the deposit facility rate turned negative in 2014. However, the negative interest rate policy also entails costs for banks, and these could increase the longer negative rates are in place, the lower policy rates are set and the larger the amount of excess liquidity held by banks. These vulnerabilities could crystallize if economic growth is much weaker than expected, or if weak growth persists for longer than expected. We thus welcome the measures taken by the banking sector in recent years to improve resilience, and support efforts to further strengthen resilience while conditions are benign.
But it is perhaps in the nature of financial flows that they do more often than not lead to overshooting in financial markets. The strong growth track record of Asia and indeed of other emerging markets has, with the benefit of hindsight, brought about excess optimism in these markets, producing a compression of yield spreads which underpriced the underlying credit, market and other risks that are typical of emerging markets going through financial liberalization. Indeed, Alan Greenspan said recently that “in retrospect, it is clear that more investment monies flowed into these economies than could be profitably employed at modest risk”. With the sharp correction seen in financial markets in Asia, against the background that the economic fundamentals have largely remained sound, whether in isolation or relative to other emerging markets beyond the region, it is possible that there might now have been overshooting in the other direction. 22. I am sure, however, that the markets will eventually find their right levels, reflecting new circumstances, for better or for worse. I am not convinced, in any case, that the devaluation brought about by floating the exchange rate is necessarily the panacea for the ills of our Asian neighbours. First year economics tells us that the four elasticities of demand and supply of imports and exports may not interact to produce a clearly positive contribution to the balance of payments position from devaluation.

A reference to the letter appeared in Skidelsky, R. John Maynard Keynes Volume 1: Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920, Macmillan, London, 1983, page 280. The official attendance on 13 September was 38,575; the Villa scorer was the incomparable Clem Stephenson, who may have lacked pace but whose passes were, according to contemporary observers, “as sweet as stolen kisses”; and the ‘most expensive’ right winger for Blackburn Rovers was John “Jocky” Simpson who cost Blackburn a record fee of £ when he was transferred from Falkirk in 1911. BIS Review 5/2004  1  do those prices come from? Each month - on “Index Day” (either the second or third Tuesday of the month) - around 300 “price collectors” visit a wide range of retail outlets and record the prices charged for 130,000 different items, ranging from small loaves of brown bread to large lawnmowers. Each of these different items will have changed in price by a different amount. A key difference between the CPI and RPIX is how these 130,000 price changes are averaged to give a measure of overall inflation. RPIX inflation is, for most goods, an arithmetic average of the inflation rates for each item. In contrast, CPI inflation is measured as the increase in the geometric average (the average of the logarithms) of the different prices.
I draw attention to these limitations of the Spanish economy at a particular juncture in which foreign direct investment is slowing considerably (FDI having been one of the main channels for the diffusion of technological advances), and in which the weight of high-technology imports remains very limited, despite the surge in import penetration. The prolongation of the current trends might mean that the industries most exposed to foreign competition have to adjust their staffing levels in order to maintain their business margins. Hence the importance of creating an environment conducive to technological innovation and to higher productivity, which I shall refer to later. The second area where risks have arisen from the extended expansionary phase of the economy is related, as earlier indicated, to the ongoing buoyancy of household spending on consumption and residential investment. This variable has been favoured by the notable generosity of financing conditions, and this has given rise to certain pressures on the financial position of Spanish households. As is known, household debt last year held on the upward course it has been following since the mid-nineties, clearly exceeding 100% of the sector’s gross disposable income. This new peak marks a departure from the average levels of the euro area and is beginning to draw closer to that of countries such as the United States.

It was able to consolidate its position as a significant international financial centre, and thus remains an important pillar of Switzerland’s economy. Stiff global competition, meanwhile, is still forcing the financial sector to increase its efficiency and lower costs. The days when banks and insurance companies were reliable job machines are gone and will probably not return in the foreseeable future. The challenges I mentioned - from securing the social security institutions to standing our ground in a global environment - will be major issues for the Swiss economy, politics and the public in the coming years, and they will put Switzerland’s adaptability to the test. Allow me now to comment briefly on a few of these challenges. 4. Current challenges  As in most industrialised countries, demographics create a need for action in Switzerland, too. The population is steadily aging and grows only slowly. It is thanks to immigration that it is rising at all. We will therefore face a massive increase in social security expenditure in the decades ahead. At the same time, economic growth in Switzerland is weak. This constellation threatens to destabilise public finances. There are solutions, yet none of them come for free. BIS Review 69/2004  3  The first two solutions, i.e. cutting back social benefits and/or increasing social contributions, are not very popular. In the first instance, the people are opposed to such measures. As to the second solution, it does not make economic sense to further increase the already heavy tax burden.