samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In our latest assessment this was based on the belief that inflation was somewhat higher than now proves to be the case. But monetary policy does not have such a degree of precision that it can control inflation to a tenth of a degree. And, moreover, inflation in July was high and far above the inflation target even after the downward revision of the figure. In the discussion ahead of the interest rate decision, I and other members of the Executive Board highlighted the weak labour market indicators which uniformly pointed to a weaker development of employment, which is also in line with the Riksbank's forecast. After the decision, the Labour Force Survey for August has been presented. This shows that employment increased by a moderate 0.5 per cent on a 12-month basis, which is marginally lower than the Riksbank's forecast. At our September meeting, we had access to the initial version of the National Accounts for the second quarter. These showed that GDP did not increase at all compared to the previous quarter and increased by only 0.7 per cent on a calendar-adjusted12-month basis. Now that the revised version of the National Accounts has been published, we can see that growth in the first two quarters has been marginally adjusted downwards in both cases. This means that growth in the first quarter was 2 per cent on a 12-month basis and with calendar effects taken into account. The corresponding figure for the second quarter was 0.6 per cent.

In my view this trade-off explains why we have raised Bank Rate progressively since last December in increments of 0.25% after the first rise. We have judged what we need to do in the face of these very big external shocks which, assuming Bank Rate following the market path used for the May MPR forecast, will see inflation fall very rapidly next year, and return to target in 2023, and then go below target. But other things may not be equal, and we have been clear that we see the balance of risks to inflation as on the upside. Here, I would pick out the risks from domestic price and wage setting, and this explains why at the MPC’s last meeting we adopted language which made clear that if we see signs of greater persistence of inflation, and price and wage setting would be such signs, we will have to act forcefully. In simple terms this means that a 50 basis point increase will be among the choices on the table when we next meet. 50 basis points is not locked in, and anyone who predicts that is doing so based on their own view. We do not pre-announce Bank Rate decisions for the very simple reason that MPC decisions are based on deliberation at the time among nine people focused on returning inflation to the 2% target sustainably.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  15  across respondents for the 2018 projections in December, and in the dark blue bars, the distribution for the 2018 projections in January. It is clear that dispersion in beliefs fell dramatically between the two surveys. The right panel shows that dispersion increased slightly in March but remains below the December levels. Belief heterogeneity Slide 14 already illustrates that forecasts are very different across survey respondents. I’ll now provide further evidence of how pervasive and important heterogeneity in beliefs is. Recall that in both the recent March and January surveys, respondents were asked about their subjective probability of “returning to the ZLB at some point in 2016–2018.” Slide 15 plots the distribution across respondents of this probability. It shows that respondents belonged to three groups, roughly speaking: a few who believed this probability to be low (less than 15 percent of respondents), a majority who thought the probability was about one in four (between 20 and 35 percent of respondents), and a sizable minority who assessed this probability as fairly large (more than 40 percent of respondents). This heterogeneity in the probability assigned to a return to the ZLB translates of course into heterogeneity in the probability distribution for the federal funds rate. The left panel of Slide 16 shows the smoothed density forecasts for the year-end 2017 federal funds rate for all March 2016 survey respondents. The density shown in the bottom left panel of Slide 10 is simply the average of the densities shown in Slide 16.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  information on household inflation expectations at the time; tested alternative wording of potential inflation expectations questions; studied the feasibility of eliciting individual uncertainty about future outcomes for inflation, house prices, and earnings growth; and introduced a panel dimension to the experimental data collection effort in order to study the persistence of inflation expectations and their responsiveness to inflation surprises. The HIEP considered different potential time horizons for its inflation expectations questions. For the short-term expectations, we settled on the one-year-ahead horizon – similar to the Michigan survey. We also examined the feasibility of asking for inflation expectations over a longer time horizon. The Michigan survey asks respondents by what percent per year they “expect prices to go up or down on the average, during the next 5 to 10 years”.17 We replicated this question in our experimental surveys, and found that the Michigan question elicits a mixture of interpretations, with some respondents using a 10-year horizon and others thinking about a 5-year horizon.18 From the results of our cognitive interviews and experimental surveys, we decided in the SCE to elicit medium-term inflation expectations at the one-year two-year-forward horizon.
Prior to the summer of 2007, in a number of official publications 16 , attention was drawn to a number of growing vulnerabilities and potential risks such as: •  the (then incipient) crisis in the US sub-prime mortgage market and its potential to deepen and spread to other markets;  •  the fact that financial market liquidity could vanish abruptly when investor uncertainty and risk aversion rose;  •  the role of hedge funds as key players, over the years, in fuelling liquidity in financial markets, implying that a shock to the hedge fund industry would severely affect the smooth functioning of some markets;  •  the excessive reliance of investors on the risk assessment of structured products made by rating agencies;  16  See ECB Financial Stability Review, June 2007; BIS Quarterly Review, June 2007; Bank of England Financial Stability Report, April 2007; IMF Global Financial Stability Report, April 2007. 8  BIS Review 115/2009  •  the concentration of risks in the financial system, which was becoming increasingly difficult to identify due to the proliferation of structured finance products and credit risk transfer instruments;  •  the risk-bearing ability of the ultimate risk-holders in these chains. However, it would be fair to say that few, if any – including market participants and public authorities – were able to foresee the magnitude and severity of the crisis.

Infrastructure Asia harnesses the networks and collective capabilities of public sector agencies and private sector firms across the region to meet Asia’s infrastructure needs by (i) connecting partners in the 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  ecosystem; (ii) building capacity in demand markets; and (iii) providing top-level project advisory to improve bankability. Infrastructure Asia provides an open platform for Chinese (including Shanghai-based) infrastructure developers and financial institutions to partner players in Singapore in regional infrastructure projects. b. Furthermore, as infrastructure demand and foreign investments along the Belt and Road region increase, we expect a boost in demand for commodities and growth in commodity trade. Singapore’s strategic location in the crossroads of key trade flows has enabled commodity traders in Singapore to capture such opportunities. Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (“SPDB”) opened its first overseas commodity centre in Singapore in October this year, providing global commodity businesses with commodity-related financial services and solutions. c. Singapore banks are also embarking on BRI collaborations with Shanghai banks. UOB signed a MOU with SPDB in September this year to serve companies hoping to tap on BRI opportunities, providing financial solutions covering investment advisory, cross-border RMB transactions, syndicated loans, project and trade finance, and cash settlement. OCBC Bank signed its second MOU with Bank of Shanghai in April this year, leveraging each other’s strengths, networks and platforms to support customers in their BRI expansion plans, including access to OCBC’s funding and risk management solutions for Bank of Shanghai’s corporate clients.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established by the end of the eighties of the last century and the Financial Action Task Force for the Middle East and North Africa (MENAFATF) was founded in the middle of this decade. The Kingdom is an active member in these two groups. BIS Review 54/2010  1  In 2003, the Anti-Money Laundering Law, which provided for criminalizing offenses related to money laundering was issued, followed by its Executive Regulations. The issuing of this Law and its Executive Regulations has helped government organs and their subordinate entities concerned with combating money laundering to develop necessary mechanisms and procedures to implement the Anti-Money Laundering Law and related rules and ensure that they are fully complied with. These organs have established specialized departments responsible for implementing these rules (compliance function), appointed qualified human resources (compliance officers), and allocated human and financial resources necessary to enable them to perform their functions properly. At the same time, each supervisory government authority has enacted rules and regulations derived from the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Law and its Executive Regulations and included them in its by-laws in a way commensurate with the work of those organs. Within the framework of the kingdom’s efforts to combat money laundering, I would like to highlight the following: 1. The Permanent Committee for Combating Money Laundering, which consists of representatives from seven ministries and government departments, has been established at SAMA to deal with issues related to money laundering. 2.

Any irregularities are detected and reported to concerned authorities to take actions for continually checking that they are corrected. 7. SAMA has established a permanent committee for regular monitoring of financial crimes in general and money laundering crimes in particular. The committee is made up of members from SAMA and banks to review the instructions and procedures taken in this regard so as to be applied as required. 8. SAMA has attached great importance to training in the field of combating money laundering. SAMA’s IOB held 47 training courses benefiting 800 trainees during 2009. Several government authorities, which are concerned with anti-money laundering issues, have also made great efforts to train their employees. A number of conferences and symposiums at the domestic and regional levels have been  2  BIS Review 54/2010  hosted to raise awareness of the issue of money laundering and strengthen human and technical capabilities to combat it. Your meeting today in this symposium is only part of SAMA’s efforts to raise the level of compliance and anti-money laundering. Dear audience, Despite considerable efforts made to promote the principle of compliance and anti-money laundering that have had a significant positive impact, money laundering criminal activities always seek new techniques to be able to continue. Hence, we always need to be alert and cautious, and we should enhance our capabilities and do our utmost to fulfill the tasks entrusted to us.
The enlargement process  The coming EU enlargement to Central, Southern and Eastern Europe countries is a historic stage in European integration. Twelve countries from central, eastern and southern Europe are currently negotiating accession to the EU. According to the calendar endorsed by the European Council, new st accessions will take place as from 1 of January 2004. It testifies again, if necessary, to the  BIS Review 60/2002  3  attractiveness of the European framework, which has contributed to both political stability and economic progress for almost half a century in Western Europe. Accession countries in western Europe have accomplished remarkable progress in stabilizing and strengthening their economies and institutions. Recent history shows the major improvements those countries have made, in hardly 10 years, on the road towards convergence with the EU. Let’s keep in mind, with some humility, the sometimes rather slow pace the current Member States took, regarding for example trade openness, price liberalisation, structural reforms and even monetary stability and fiscal soundness. Nevertheless, there is also general agreement on the fact that the gap, in terms of average GDP per capita, between the accession countries and the euro area, although diminishing, remains still quite significant. The size of the gap, combined recently with a rather limited growth differential between the two groups of countries, suggests that the process of real convergence will be gradual and will have to continue much beyond the tentative dates for EU accession.

In my view, three other major prerequisites are needed in order to foster robust, sustainable growth and durable job creation, namely : the continuation and strengthening of a policy designed to keep in check unit production costs, the improvement of the competitiveness of the economy, through ambitious structural reforms and lastly, the completion of a fully integrated European capital market. Raising the potential output growth and enhancing the competitiveness of the economy: If Europe wants to secure sustainable growth at levels that are as high as possible, the key variable is potential output growth. The level of potential output growth can firstly be raised thanks to investment: business leaders are completely free to invest wherever they want in Europe or elsewhere in the world. It is thus important that we create economic, legal and fiscal conditions that are as favourable as possible to investment in Europe. The investment appeal of Europe is crucial in this respect : the more we invest, the fewer inflationary pressures we will have, and the stronger potential output growth will be. BIS Review 60/2002  1  Another way of raising potential output growth is to increase the quantity of available labour and to boost gains in labour productivity: the fast transformation of information systems is likely to accentuate the structural transformation of the economies.
The third candidate explanation is that central banks are the architects of the apparently low trend real rate by pushing up demand for long-dated risk free assets. This argument is, I think, largely mistaken for some of the reasons I alluded to earlier. QE will have affected the price and hence the yields on bonds. Indeed, that is part of the objective. Central banks make use of asset purchases when their preferred policy instruments run into their effective lower bounds. But QE will not have affected the natural rate. QE acts as a substitute for changes in Bank Rate, taking the effective or “shadow” policy rate – Bank Rate adjusted for the impact of QE – down below zero and towards the extraordinarily low natural rate. In other words, central banks are not causing low underlying interest rates, we are responding to them. Policy Implications  What are the policy implications in a world in which the natural rate remains around zero and all else equal will not rise back to close to pre-crisis levels even as headwinds abate? I think there are two main implications for central banks. First, and most obviously, if the natural rate is going to be lower on average then the same will be true of the policy rate.

In the next few years, job growth picked up sharply and real estate markets soared, a clear sign that a growing number of people had regained confidence in the city. But, even during the booming 1980s, crime rates continued to increase—it wasn’t until 1990 that crime rates peaked and began a long downward trend. I returned to New York in 1983. The draw was an employment opportunity in finance. At the time, the city’s circumstances were improving but crime was still high, and there were still lots of problems caused by years of underinvestment. For example, I recall that the New York City subway system at the time was a near-wreck, with train speeds sharply reduced in many areas due to poor track conditions and dilapidated infrastructure. But, the seeds of improvement were in place. The financial services industry was beginning a long boom marked by financial market innovation and the rapid development of the nation’s debt capital markets—a boom that ended with the financial crisis. When I arrived, the build-out of the Battery Park City neighborhood was just starting. My first year, I lived at Gateway Plaza, which was the first big apartment complex in Battery Park City. However, it was early days and the nearest grocery store was about half a mile away north on West Street! Although a major economic downturn throughout the Northeast in the early 1990s took its toll on New York City—especially on employment and home prices—the city’s population continued to grow and its crime rate began to decline.
BIS Review 72/2010  9  Figure 6 Interest rate differentials (*) (percentage) 14  14  12  12  10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  -2  -2  07  08 Brazil Mexico  Chile Poland  09  10  Colombia Malaysia  Korean Rep.  (*) Difference between each economy's reference rate and the US Fed Funds rate. Sources: Bloomberg and Central Bank of Chile. Figure 7 Current account balance (percentage of GDP) 8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  -2  -2  -4  -4  -6  -6  -8  -8  80  84  88  Emerging economies  92  96  00  Emerging Asia  04  08 LAC - 7 (*)  (*) Simple average for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. Source: WEO, April 2010. For 2009-2011, estimate and forecast. 10  BIS Review 72/2010  Figure 8 Latin America: Change in international reserves (billions of dollars) 150  150  125  125  100  100  75  75  50  50  25  25  0  0  -25  -25  -50  -50  80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08 10 (f)  (f) Forecast.

It is hard to conceive a general rule governing the use of capital controls to deal with massive capital inflows, but it is certainly more difficult to apply such controls in economies highly integrated to the world markets. Something that the evidence seems to suggest is that capital controls affect mainly the composition of the flows, not necessarily their magnitude. In that case, in order to affect the composition of international liabilities, in particular those intermediated by the banking sector, it would be more efficient to direct the eye toward financial regulation rather than to capital controls. In addition, macro-prudential regulations should be used to mitigate the procyclicality of capital flows. These measures could include BIS Review 72/2010  5  liquidity management policies, for instance imposing differentiated liquidity requirements for short-term and long-term financing flowing to banks or to other financial agents. Final remarks To conclude, we must first emphasize that global financial integration entails extensive benefits, as it allows to smooth expenditure fluctuations and to obtain resources to finance investments in countries with capital shortage. However, we have also learned that capital flows can be destabilizing, particularly when financial systems are fragile and macroeconomic policies inconsistent. Long-lasting boom periods have always presented challenges to macroeconomic policy making. Sadly, the passing from economic boom to a costly recession is a too recurrent experience for emerging economies, especially in Latin America.
Saving is high both in oil-producing countries, China and other Asian countries. Long-term interest rates in Norway largely shadow external interest rates because like other countries Norway is keeping inflation in check. Norwegian households primarily finance house purchases by means of floating-rate loans. Long-term interest rates are still of considerable importance because  BIS Review 15/2007  9  they provide information about the future path of short-term interest rates that borrowers can expect over time. Unusually low short-term interest rates have probably also boosted the rate of increase in house prices in recent years, but this particular effect will be reversed when the interest rate is raised to a more normal level. Developments in short-term interest rates have influenced the path for house prices over the past 15 years, but periods of low interest rates are followed by periods of higher interest rates. Norges Bank’s policy rate is therefore of limited importance for house price inflation over a period of 15 to 20 years. The housing stock in Norway, which numbers a good 2.2 million dwellings, shows little change from one year to the next. As a result, higher demand for housing will primarily translate into higher prices in the short term. In the 1990s, housing starts in Norway were fairly low in relation to growth in the number of households. Moreover, population growth has been higher in recent years, largely reflecting a high level of immigration.

A survey of more than 31 European countries also shows that there is a high degree of job satisfaction among Norwegians.17 Demographic developments will have a dampening impact on demand for public services and social security disbursements over the coming years. The number of elderly among pensioners, i.e. 80 years and older, will not grow and the post-war generation will only start drawing on social security in the next decade. There will still be pressures for higher public spending. Demand for services we have chosen to let the government provide, for example health services, increases markedly when revenues rise at the pace they are rising today. Growth in government revenues – among others the return on the Government Pension Fund which is rising rapidly – also raises our expectations. At the same time, this is also a period of strong growth in demand for labour in the business sector. With the exception of part-time employees who want to work more, there are now few idle resources in the labour force. We cannot expect a substantial increase in the supply of foreign labour. Workers from other countries, such as Sweden and Poland with families and the largest share of consumption in their home country, have increased production capacity in Norway, but it now appears that the supply of foreign labour is starting to become more limited. Other inward labour migration does not generate higher value added per capita. Immigrants that become permanent residents make the same contribution to increasing demand as to increasing production.