samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
A recovery is expected towards the end of the year, albeit a tentative one, given that the deterioration in the employment outlook, the erosion of purchasing power and the fall in property prices look set to weigh on consumer sentiment and income. Europe represents the second pole in the global economy. Although the continent enjoyed strong growth during the first quarter of 2008, the remainder of the year should see a slowdown. A number of factors will contribute to this loss of momentum. First, the strong euro and the sharp downturn in the US economy are dampening exports. The sub-prime crisis has led to a tightening of credit conditions, while consumer confidence has deteriorated. This will have a knock-on effect on consumer spending. However, the slowdown in Europe will be much less pronounced than in the US, although the subsequent pick-up in economic activity will also probably be gradual. BIS Review 80/2008  1  The Asian economies, which constitute the third major hub, continue to exhibit strong growth as a whole, since they remain virtually unaffected by the slowdown in the US economy. Nevertheless, they have been hit by rising commodity and food prices, which are seriously reducing incomes. Regional variations aside, it would therefore be reasonable to conclude that the global economy, as a whole, is not witnessing a significant slowdown at present – as opposed to one of the rather more alarming scenarios that were only recently being mooted.

Dear banking system executives, As I mentioned above, this is a good moment, while the future still bears some questions. The economy is not exempt from this overall consideration. I take the opportunity to bring to your attention the fact that the institution each of you represents has a certain role to play in the everyday economic and financial life of the country. Now that we know the already-announced objectives of the Government of Albania for 2018, it is understandable that 2018 is a rather challenging year to further boost economic recovery and strengthen the financial stability of Albania. From this perspective, I would like to affirm that, like in 2017, in 2018 the Bank of Albania will continue to focus on:  guaranteeing a stable economic environment, keeping inflation rates in check, and having liquid markets with low volatility. The monetary policy will aim at an adequate supply, in terms of both quantity and price. The final monetary policy objective will be unchangeable, while the accommodative stance implemented in the past years will be present during 2018.  boosting credit recovery in Albania. We believe that the further boosting of the economy provides a friendly environment for lending to the economy. In addition, we will continue to insist in the implementation of the joint programme for the reduction of non-performing loans. In this light, we expect the banking system to be proactive in lending to the economy.
Are there differences between Europe and the United States that may have a bearing on the pace with which new technology is introduced? And what part does EMU play in this context? One important factor in the process of industrialisation in the late nineteenth century, when Sweden was transformed from poor country into a wealthy nation with almost the world’s highest growth rate, was the contemporary development of the financial system. Banks were established and financial know-how grew when interest controls had been abolished. As a result, inventions could be exploited and investment in the nascent industries could be financed. A mounting body of research findings published in the 1990s indicates that economic growth in various countries is appreciably affected by how the financial system works: the more highly-developed the financial system, the greater the stimulus to economic growth. An accessible banking system and efficient financial markets contribute to the development of investment and thereby to the economy’s growth trend. One conceivable reason why the US economy is being transformed more rapidly than is the case with Sweden and, even more so, the European Community, is the efficiency with which the US financial system works. Corporate financing may well be facilitated by the breadth and liquidity of diverse financial markets. 3  BIS Review 129/1999  With the rapid development of information technology, moreover, a new type of company has emerged. It differs from the traditional pattern in that its operations involve highly mobile human capital.

In an attempt to maintain growth in the traditional industries, economic policy responded with a series of devaluations. Each devaluation was invariably said to be the final one but the cycle of rising wage  BIS Review 129/1999  2  costs and a devaluation was still repeated again and again. The aim of compensating for the lack of change in Sweden’s corporate sector, which stemmed from the 1960s, simply did not work. If anything, the devaluations meant that the problems persisted and were accentuated. With the lack of investment in new products and the dependence on an increasingly outmoded structure of production, the entire nation’s material standard had to be adjusted. For many years, growth in Sweden was weaker than in the world around us. This example shows how a “new economy” at that time posed problems for the Swedish economy rather than opportunities. The lack of change, because wage formation did not function properly, resulted in an economy that was weaker and more susceptible to inflation. The period clearly illustrates how globalisation, increased competition and new technology can lead to lower growth and higher inflation if changes are not made sufficiently quickly. If the economy is under pressure from strong competition as well as poorly functioning wage formation, economic renewal may lag behind. It is therefore gratifying that the labour market organisations seem to be increasingly in favour of the inflation target policy.
To promote economic research of the highest quality, it is essential that the research activities of the HKIMR are, and are seen to be, carried out freely, without interference from interested parties, including the HKMA. It is therefore not desirable for the HKMA to exercise control of the  BIS Review 38/2003  1  HKIMR's day-to-day activities. But, of course, the professional quality and academic integrity of its activities need to be monitored and ensured. For this reason, a Council of Advisors, whose members are all distinguished economists working in and outside of Hong Kong, has been established. Many of them are in fact here today. The role of the Council is to ensure the quality of the HKIMR's activities and to alert the Board of Directors if shortcomings become apparent. While the relationship between the HKIMR and the HKMA remains close, the HKIMR does enjoy independence in research matters. One consequence of this is that the views expressed in its different publications do not necessarily reflect those of the HKMA. One of the distinguished members of the HKIMR's Council of Advisors is our first speaker today, Charles Goodhart, and it is my great pleasure to introduce him. It was very much his visit to Hong Kong that gave the HKIMR the idea of organising this workshop. As you all know, Charles is one of the world's foremost monetary economists and an expert on central banking issues.

The second risk is the long-term fiscal position of the United States. Recognizing that fiscal policy is the domain of the executive and legislative branches rather than the Federal Reserve, I would emphasize several points. For one, the current U.S. fiscal position is far worse than it was at the end of the last business cycle. For example, in fiscal year 2007, the budget deficit was 1.1 percent of GDP; in fiscal 2017, it was 3.5 percent of GDP. Similarly, federal debt held by the public was 35 percent of GDP in fiscal 2007, and 77 percent in fiscal 2017. Additionally, three factors will undoubtedly cause these budgetary pressures to intensify over time: the tax legislation will push up the federal deficit and federal debt burden; debt service costs will rise as interest rates normalize; and entitlement outlays will increase as the baby boom generation retires. Let me discuss each of these in turn. With respect to the tax legislation, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the cost at around $ trillion over the next 10 years.9 This estimate takes into consideration the likelihood that the legislation will boost the productive capacity of the U.S. economy somewhat—raising the economy’s potential growth rate—and that this incremental growth will generate additional tax revenues. To me, this seems like a reasonable estimate, recognizing that with any complex tax legislation, there is a high level of uncertainty about its impact on longer-term growth and revenues.
Money and credit, the universal instruments of commerce, could not exist without this most fundamental of financial technologies, which allows debits and credits to be netted off; debt to circulate as currency; money to replace memory; and with it, trade to expand exponentially. How much have we progressed since Keynes’ bed-ridden globalisation? Replace “telephone” with a “tablet” and “tea” with a “soy latteccino” and you have not the start of the Twentieth Century but the Twenty First, a century in which opportunities are no longer limited to men or denizens of the City. Nonetheless, finance continues to be arranged around a series of hubs like brokers, clearing houses and exchanges; whereas, in other domains, people form connections directly, instantaneously and openly, and this is revolutionising how they consume, work, and communicate. The extent to which finance continues democratising and transforming depends on superficially arcane, but fundamentally vital, enabling technologies. The emergence of mobile telephony, the ubiquity of the internet, availability of high-speed computing, advances in cryptography, and innovations in machine learning could combine to enable rapid changes in finance – just as they have in other areas of the economy. The ledger, once stone, wood, or paper – and always centralised – is now digital and may become distributed. FinTech has the potential to deliver more resilient financial infrastructure, more effective trade and settlement, and new ways to encode, share and analyse data. For the financial sector, these could offer shorter, speedier transaction chains; greater capital efficiency; and stronger operational resilience.

My objective has also been to focus on European issues and to highlight the special conditions of the euro area and the role of the ECB and the Eurosystem in fostering financial stability. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention. 6  BIS Review 53/2003
In my remarks this evening, I hope to explain my understanding of what we mean by inflation persistence, and thus how it has and will influence monetary policy decisions. To emphasise from the outset: this is a personal view, not necessarily that of the Committee as whole. In presenting my interpretation, I will address four questions: Why focus on inflation persistence? What is inflation persistence? What drives inflation persistence? And what are the close-to-realtime indicators of inflation persistence on which the MPC is focused? In doing so, I will use one aspect of recent economic experience – specifically the adverse terms of trade shock to the UK stemming from higher imported energy prices – as a ‘case study’ to illustrate my points. By implication – and possibly to the disappointment of some of you – that means I won’t offer a comprehensive assessment of the UK economic situation and outlook in my remarks tonight. And, as a result, I won’t be giving any guidance about the immediate outlook for Bank Rate decisions, which necessarily depends on such an encompassing assessment. Rather my goal is to provide some further insight into the thought process that guides my vote at the MPC: if you like, the thinking behind my own ‘monetary policy reaction function’. Why inflation persistence? The transmission of monetary policy actions to developments in consumer price inflation famously operates with ‘long and variable lags’.

This applies along corporate value chains in transactions between intermediate good producers (sellers) and final good producers (buyers), just as it does in the labour market between employees (sellers) and employers (buyers). And the underlying distributional competition exists among workers – say between private and public sector employees, or between employees and the self-employed – just as much as much as within the corporate sector or between firms and workers. Monetary policy has neither the mandate nor the capacity to make fine distributional choices across these different groups. That is something better left to the market and/or the decisions of fiscal and regulatory authorities. Monetary policy is potentially a very powerful tool. But it is also a blunt tool – able to steer the aggregate level of spending in the economy over time in pursuit of price stability, but not to micro-manage a broad raft other economic challenges. The danger of over-burdening monetary policy with other objectives and thereby distracting it from its core task was recognised in the design of the MPC’s remit, with clear primacy attached to the achievement of the inflation target. Page 10  What monetary policy can, should and must do is steer the economy in a direction whereby these distributional bargaining processes are resolved in a way consistent with the 2% inflation target. An understanding of how monetary policy actions and their implications for aggregate demand influence the power and position of participants in the bargaining process is needed.
Effects of the 2008/09 global financial crisis and Asia’s response The recent crisis had the global financial system badly shaken with widespread effects of an unprecedented scale across the world. The Asian region has however demonstrated remarkable resilience during the crisis as most countries in Asia entered the crisis period with a sound set of economic and financial fundamentals, mainly attributed to the lessons learned from the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. It was painful. It was a bitter lesson. We embarked on a bold reform that fundamentally alters the landscape of our financial system. But the payouts have been tremendous. The governments of the Asian economies have now the flexibility to implement large stimulus, given the strong economy and low public debt levels in the region. Credit flows to the private sector remain undisrupted as financial institutions in the Asian countries were strong and well capitalised. The household and corporate sectors in Asia were also not over leveraged. Furthermore, Asia was not confronted by widespread unemployment. The various reform measures had enabled the Asian economies to build more shock absorbers and reduced the number of shock amplifiers in their economies following the 1997/98 financial crisis. What we have learnt is that there are no short cuts in reforming a broken system. We also learnt that we should always have an open mind in looking at probable solutions. Just like what a good doctor would prescribe, some time, administering bitter medicines are the only way to go.

Moreover, they should finance their house purchase with a sufficient proportion of equity. Equity acts as a cushion, absorbing movements in property prices. In addition, banks should use discipline in lending practices, even in an environment of low interest rates. The prime considerations when granting loans should be the observance of maximum loan-to-value ratios and a conservative valuation of property. BIS Review 78/2009  1
Unemployment, in particular among youth, has risen sharply and many people have a dark view of the future. In the meantime, the acute crisis in the euro area must be addressed. Banks and governments have fallen into a vicious cycle. Banks were rescued by extensive government measures during the financial crisis, but banking sector exposure to sovereign debt is substantial. This debt has not vanished, but shifted hands. When a country’s debt-bearing capacity is called into doubt, it also has an adverse impact on banks. The events of recent years have brought fresh experience and reminded us of several historical lessons. Economic policy must be sustainable. Governments must save during upturns in order to weather downturns. At the same time, there are limits to what economic policy can accomplish if the economic foundations are eroded. A competitive business sector is crucial to maintaining growth and welfare. This also applies to Norway. The financial crisis was a reminder of how risk can be mis-assessed. Moreover, risks that operators seem to be managing well individually may prove to be a considerable strain on the financial system as a whole, which warrants contemplation of the new macroprudential surveillance framework that is now in the making. Norway, which is in a surplus and net asset position, faces some particular challenges. As investor and manager of the Government Pension Fund Global, we have seen that prices  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  and yields can react strongly to uncertainty about the future.

Øystein Olsen: Economic perspectives Address by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), to the Supervisory Council of Norges Bank and invited guests, Oslo, 16 February 2012. *  *  *  Demanding time for Europe “The year started without much hope, and it had to be expected that the pressure on business and industry would intensify, but however dim the prospects might have appeared, the outcome was darker than anyone had imagined. I need not enumerate the successive collapses that spread from country to country.” This was the opening of the annual address delivered by Norges Bank Director Nicolai Rygg 80 years ago. Britain had abandoned the gold standard and one country after the other, including Norway, followed suit. Interest rates had increased. Financial markets were turbulent. Although the tremors were on a greater scale in the 1930s, Nicolai Rygg’s description could serve as an apt retrospective today as well. In the course of the past two years we have seen economic problems spread across debt-laden countries in Europe. Greece was the first country to experience a financial collapse. The Greek government had to resort to external financial assistance in spring 2010, followed by Ireland and Portugal. The turbulence spread further in autumn last year. Interest rates on public debt rose markedly for Spain and Italy and thereafter Belgium and France. Several euro area countries are now struggling with soaring public debt and weak competitiveness in addition to restructuring and public budget cuts.
Flodén, M, Kilström, M, Sigurdsson, J and R Vestman (2016), Household debt and monetary policy: revealing the cash‐flow channel. Swedish House of Finance Research Paper No. Finansinspektionen (2019), The Swedish mortgage market. Finanspolitiska rådet (2019), ”Friare hyressättning och likformig bostadsbeskattning – Hur påverkas hushållen?” (“More flexible rent-setting and uniform taxation – How would households be affected?”), Särskilda studier från Finanspolitiska rådet (Special studies from the Swedish fiscal policy council). Finocchiaro, D, Jonsson, M, Nilsson, C and I Strid, (2016), “Macroeconomic effects of reducing household debt”, Economic Review 2016:2. Sveriges Riksbank. Swedish Union of Tenants (Hyresgästföreningen) (2013). “Hyresrättens betydelse för en dynamisk arbetsmarknad” (“The significance of rented accommodation for a dynamic labour market”). IMF (2016), Financial System Stability Assessment Sweden. Ingves, S (2006). “Introduction on monetary policy”, speech to Riksdag Committee on Finance. Sveriges Riksbank. Ingves, S (2007). “Housing and monetary policy - a view from an inflation targeting central bank”, speech at Jackson Hole. Sveriges Riksbank. Jahnson, D. and J Lundberg (2013). “Fördelningseffekter av utbudsrestriktioner på bostadsmarknaden” (“Distribution effects of supply restrictions in the housing market”), Reform Institute. 12 [13]  Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) (2014), “Bostadsbrist och arbetsmarknad – hur får vi en bostadsmarknad i balans?” (“Housing shortages and the labour market – how do we achieve a balanced housing market?”) Lindbeck, A and D Snower (2001), “Insiders vs outsiders”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 15 No. Lindbeck, A (2016), “Hur avveckla hyreskontrollen?” (“How can rent controls be dismantled?”), Ekonomisk Debatt no. 7.

The fund raising outlook for impact investing strategies remains strong despite recent challenging months. Managers in Asia can play a meaningful role in creating impact 14.  and capitalise on this opportunity. For example: Impact Investment Exchange, a Singapore-based enterprise whose platforms connect impact investors with underserved communities, issued its second Women’s Livelihood Bond in January this year. The $ million social bond is listed on the Singapore Exchange and a third bond is being planned as part of the $ million series. BlackRock recently launched an actively managed impact fund to invest in firms addressing global challenges like COVID-19 and advancing the UN SDGs. Conclusion 15. In conclusion, the pandemic has raised the importance of the climate and sustainability agenda, and I encourage the financial sector to not lose sight of these issues even as countries and corporates rebuild. This virtual conference, bringing together over 5,000 participants from 80 markets, is timely for us to continue sharing insights and experiences as we work together to address global challenges. I hope that you will form new partnerships and deepen existing ones 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  through this virtual conference. I wish you a very fruitful week ahead. Thank you.