samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It appears to me a particular strength of our country and an important part of the Swiss recipe for success that we are able to review new developments impartially and prudently, adapt them to our own situation if we consider them good, and link them organically to tested and tried systems wherever possible. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches

The choice of a two-year horizon is thus based on striking a balance between variability in inflation and variability in output and employment, and a perception of how interest rates influence these variables. If extraordinary conditions prompt Norges Bank to apply a different time horizon than two years, the Bank will provide an assessment of this. The same applies if special emphasis is placed on developments in financial markets. External cyclical developments and events have had considerable implications for developments in the Norwegian economy. The international upturn came to a halt in 2000. The bubbles in equity markets burst. Many years of high investment had led to excess capacity in some industries, and unemployment increased. The terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 put a new damper on economic activity. From summer 2002 to spring 2003, a highly unusual accumulation of negative events in the global community - accounting scandals, fear of terror, war and disease - put a brake on growth. US policy rates, which were sharply reduced at the beginning of the downturn, have subsequently been reduced further. Interest rates have also remained low in the euro area. In recent weeks, shortand long-term rates have moved up somewhat. This primarily reflects increased confidence that the recovery in the US will be sustained since the situation in the labour market appears to have improved. Both short and long rates, however, are still at historically very low levels among several of our trading partners.
2  BIS Review 39/2005  The main objective remains enforcing legal initiatives that would bring about the modification of legal and sub-legal basis. Modification of regulatory basis of Bank of Albania I have stated even previously that Bank of Albania aims at reviewing its regulatory basis with the sole intent to simplify it and to ease its implementation. For this purpose I have insisted on a continuous basis that the first contacts among mutual technical staffs to raise the banking system concerns on the regulatory framework enforcement should be established. After several discussions we come to the conclusion that the group of the following regulations should be subject of necessary modifications, and I would ensure you that work at the Bank of Albania has already started for this purpose. Methodical guideline on “foreign exchange risks” Observations: inclusion in the calculation of the open position of off-balance guarantees which include as unused credit limit, the financing commitments made and received, and registering of collateral estimated in foreign currency and received for guaranteeing the credit (all banks in the matrix). These are commitments that remain in force and for which, according to the current regulatory framework interpreting, the bank is required to create a real position (within the balance). It is proposed: to reformulate the methodical guideline, excluding the guarantees. Guideline “on bank regulatory capital” Observations: To make clearer systemization for the items being deducted from the additional capital, explaining that on which size deductions are to be calculated.

Philipp M Hildebrand: Developing countries and international capital markets Summary of a speech by Mr Philipp M Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, to economiesuisse, Zurich, 14 June 2005. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  After having plummeted on the back of the Asian crisis, capital flows to developing countries have risen considerably again in the last three years. In 2005, they are likely to reach the approximate level at which they stood shortly before the Asian crisis. Capital flows are channelled mostly to a few emerging markets, notably China. China’s monetary order is currently undergoing profound changes, with the country gradually liberalising capital movements. The concept of the “impossible trinity”, which was developed by the Nobel Prize winner Robert Mundell, asserts that this will inevitably lead either to a loss in monetary autonomy or to a flexibilisation of the exchange rate regime. Both trends can be clearly observed: the pressure on the fixed exchange rate on the one hand, and the rapid expansion of the monetary and credit aggregates on the other. In the longer term, China’s monetary order will probably move towards floating exchange rates. This transition will hopefully be successful. As China’s monetary policy of gradual change has so far proved its worth, it is likely to serve as an example to other developing countries.
3 That made conversion all the more time-consuming, and there were no electronic aids in those days. And although the exclusive right of coinage was really a cantonal prerogative, foreign gold and silver coins actually constituted the bulk of monetary circulation in terms of value. The cantons did not see any reason to mint money which was worth its face value. For everyday use they preferred to produce representative coins whose metal content was worth well below the nominal value. In this way, the cantons used their exclusive right of coinage as an easy source of funds. 4 This resulted in an over-supply of lower-quality representative cantonal coins, which circulated freely between the cantons. Problems relating to the deterioration of coinage were a recurring theme in the legislative assembly. The hopeless confusion resulted in mix-ups, hampered trade and travel, and meant that capital remained idle. 5 Sixty years later, however, in 1890, the Swiss multiple currency period was already past history. Nevertheless, Swiss monetary history had remained eventful. Since 1850, the Swiss franc had been defined in terms of silver, in line with the French franc, and after 1860, it was also defined in gold. 6 At the same time, foreign money was still in use, in the form of coins worth their face value. Unlike the situation in 1830, banknotes played an important role in payments transactions in 1890 (if not, perhaps for buying bread), partly because coins are unpractical for larger transactions. By now, the Federal Banknote Act of 1881 had come into effect.

The initiative is dangerous because it would weaken the SNB. The connection between a minimum share and a ban on selling which it embraces would very greatly restrict our monetary policy room for manoeuvre, since the SNB only retains its full capacity to act when  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  it is in a position to adjust its balance sheet to monetary policy requirements – in other words, if the SNB can expand or shrink it – without any restrictions. The value of this flexibility in reality has been impressively demonstrated in the past few years by two measures which allowed us to avert substantial damage from our country. First, the SNB supported the country’s biggest bank by establishing a stabilisation fund, thereby stabilising the Swiss financial system. Second, it combated the massive overvaluation of the Swiss franc by introducing a minimum exchange rate of CHF 1.20 to the euro. With the minimum share of gold and the selling ban demanded by the initiative, enforcement of measures like these would have been very much more difficult. Consequently, the initiative would make it considerably harder for us to intervene with determination in a crisis situation and fulfil our stability mandate. For this reason, the gold initiative could result in worse money instead of better money, totally in contradiction to the intentions of the originators. Introduction of plain money A popular initiative is also behind the third reform idea – the introduction of plain money.
The New Keynesian IS curve in the euro area This brings me to the second channel I would like to discuss this morning: the effects of monetary policy on real economic activity. 7 / 14  BIS central bankers' speeches  Much of our attention recently has been focused on the properties of the Phillips curve – that it may be flatter, non-linear or mis-specified in terms of the relevant economic slack. By now, we are fairly confident that non-linearities and broader labour market slack are likely to explain much of the weakness in inflation as of late.10 Some observers have interpreted the lack of stronger price pressures as a failure of monetary policy to stimulate the economy. They argue that persistently low inflation is testimony to the ineffectiveness of non-standard policy measures. If this were true, then also the reasoning behind the shock-based exchange rate pass-through would in part be misguided. I would argue, however, that such claims reflect a serious misunderstanding and simplification of how monetary policy works. There are very few instances, such as through the exchange rate, where policy can directly affect prices. In most cases monetary policy transmits to prices through its impact on the intertemporal allocation of consumption, savings and investment. If prices are slow to adjust, a cut in the key policy rate lowers the real interest rate, which, in turn, stimulates interest-sensitive spending.

Jean-Pierre Roth: Central bank communication policies and the challenges posed by the financial crisis Summary of a speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the presentation of the “BZ-Preis für Lokaljournalismus”, Berne, 27 November 2008. The complete speech can be found in French on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The financial crisis has prompted a rekindling of press interest in central bank operations, following a long period in which monetary authorities scarcely attracted any media attention. Our communication policy has thus been faced with new challenges in recent months. Today, central banks operate with the market, rather than “against the market”, as in the past. Financial market participants are therefore able to foresee central bank actions. Since the early 2000s, our communication policy has focused on transparency, and our experience with this has been positive. Thus, transparency increases the effectiveness of monetary policy. Yet, in the recent financial turbulence, transparency in monetary policy operations also turned out to be a double-edged sword, as communication problems arose. Indeed, there is a risk that operations to provide extraordinary liquidity assistance will impair the reputation of the recipient organisations, and thereby destabilise the market. There are a number of possible solutions with which a balance can be achieved between transparency and stability. BIS Review 147/2008  1
Turning to Thailand, although the Thai banking sector is resilient and has been largely immune to the global financial turmoil, the impact of the crisis on Thailand has been quite hard owing to the economy’s high dependency on exports. As noted earlier, economic activities contracted sharply in the fourth quarter of last year and in the first quarter of this year, but the situation started to stabilize from the second quarter onward as economic activities began to show signs of improvement consistent with the developments observed elsewhere. Latest data for September point to continued improvements in economic activities, both in private consumption and investment, reflecting largely the benefits that domestic demand has gained from fiscal stimulus and supportive monetary policy. Exports in September contracted by 8.3 percent year on year, much lower than the contractions of 17.9 and 25.7 percents of the previous two months. On the output side, recovery in domestic demand has been met by stronger activities in production. Index of manufacturing production rose by 0.4 percent year on year in September, while the rate of capacity utilization in manufacturing increased to 64.7 percent. On economic and financial stability, economic stability remains intact in Thailand with strong external positions marked by continued current account surpluses, high level of international reserves, and a low and stable external debt. As for inflation, the emerging signs of recovery have not put pressure on domestic prices.

They are our investment returns from past economic restructuring and reforms that were put in place, and they are the qualities that we need to preserve and to further expand upon by continuing with economic restructuring and reform. I probably have used up my allotted time. I hope the talk has been useful, and again I want to thank the Rotary Club of Bangkok South for the invitation. Thank you.
Zamani Abdul Ghani: Strengthening governance to derive value Keynote address by Dato’ Zamani Abdul Ghani, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the International Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing Conference 2010, Kuala Lumpur, 19 July 2010. *  *  *  It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to this Second Annual International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing. There has been an overwhelming response this year where participation, including international participation, has significantly increased from last year. I believe that this stems from the success of the first conference. There is also no doubt of increasing interest of the financial industry in preserving the integrity of the financial system, particularly from the threats of financial crime and terrorism financing. Let me begin by congratulating Malaysia’s Compliance Officers Networking Group (or the CONG Group) for successfully organising this conference. The CONG Group has worked tirelessly in collaboration with the Institute of Bankers Malaysia, the Securities Industry Development Corporation, the Malaysian Insurance Institute and the Asian Institute of Finance. In the preparatory discussions with members of the CONG Group, I personally witnessed the dedication, hard work and commitment shown by the Group in bringing out the best of the industry through this Conference. Needless to say, we in Bank Negara Malaysia or the Central Bank of Malaysia, has given our specific support to this Conference.

Such reports do not in any way implicate the customers of any unlawful activity or that investigation will commence as soon as the STRs or CTRs are lodged. Let me reiterate that the submission of these reports is to facilitate the gathering of financial intelligence for analysis purposes. Then, it is equally important to establish a range of red flags to enable detection of suspicious transactions. One important area is to be alert on high risk jurisdictions. Bank Negara Malaysia has, from time to time, provided information on this area such as circulars on countries that are deficient in their AML/CFT regime as identified by the FATF. In addition, please do keep yourself updated on sanctions from the United Nations as well as reports from multilateral organisations, such as the UNODC, which report on AML/CFT matters for a number of countries. Information from various sources would support the STRs and CTRs mechanism. The effective implementation of internal AML/CFT programme relies strongly on the capacity and capability of the resources supporting the programme. This is translated into the third  4  BIS Review 99/2010  key aspect of the AML/CFT programme, that is the provision of adequate and applicable resources to the compliance section of your institution. It is the responsibility of your Board and management to ensure that the compliance section is given due consideration and importance in terms of resources. It is within this context that I see the financial institutions corporate social responsibility (CSR) should be undertaken.
As intended, “limited and gradual” guidance has dampened interest rate volatility (Chart 4) and reduced the 9  correlation between interest rate volatility and economic uncertainty (Chart 5). Both developments have increased the degree of monetary policy stimulus, thereby reinforcing the recovery during turbulent times. 9  Part of the fall in volatility is likely to be due to rates being close to the lower bound, since this cuts off part of the lower tail of the distribution. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  8  Chart 4: Interest rate volatility has remained low since guidance was provided Standard deviation of option-implied distributions for 3m LIBOR in 12-months’ time, UK and US Basis points 200 August 2013 guidance issued  3m US LIBOR (12m ahead) standard deviation  180 160  February 2014 guidance issued  140 120 100  EU referendum  80 60 40  3m UK LIBOR (12m ahead) standard deviation  20 0  2000  2002  2004  2006  2008  2010  2012  2014  2016  2018  Sources: Bloomberg Finance L.P., Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Bank calculations.

These rules establish that it will be the shareholders and investors who will bear, in the first instance, the losses of a bank. In 2016 additional rules will come into force, protecting member states and taxpayers from having to pay for systemically relevant banks by establishing a resolution fund paid for by banks. It will take eight years for the fund to reach its target level of 55 billion euro. Is this not too little, too late? It will be a quite significant amount, taking into account several other safety buffers. First, banks have considerably increased their own funds in recent years. Second, the resolution fund will only be used after contributions have been made from shareholders and creditors. These could reach up to 8% of liabilities, which is already a significant amount. Thus the overall loss-absorbing capacity of banks has increased considerably. The resolution fund comes on top of this. The third pillar of banking union, the creation of a European fund to guarantee savings deposits, has come to a standstill. Should we be worried? Not unduly, because deposits are already guaranteed up to 100,000 euro at the national level. But more importantly: if the first two pillars of the banking union work properly and secure the stability of individual banks and the banking system, the need for a joint fund significantly diminishes. The stress tests revealed worrying weaknesses in Italian banks. Is Italy the weak link in the euro area?
As an example, it can be mentioned that prices for technology-intensive goods rose much more slowly than prices for services, even when inflation was high in Sweden during the 1980s. And inflation is currently much higher in many countries around the world, although they face the same development in international prices for technology-intensive goods as Sweden. In connection with this discussion, I would like to make it clear that an inflation target of two per cent does not mean that prices in each of the sub-groups behind the CPI will increase by an average of two per cent. As goods prices are expected to increase more slowly than services prices, service prices must probably increase faster than two per cent on average if the inflation target is to be attained.28 Figure A2 shows that this has not been the case. Closing comments Today I have tried to explain why I am worried about inflation having been below the inflation target for the past three years. This is mainly because a low rate of inflation can have a negative effect on wage formation and thereby the functioning of the labour market, and that the credibility of monetary policy can be damaged, which can mean that future monetary policy is less efficient and that economic planning is made more difficult by unnecessary uncertainty over future prices.

And according to Svensson (2013c), 60,000 more people are now unemployed than if the repo rate had not been raised since 2010. It hardly needs to be pointed out that such calculations are very uncertain. I have previously criticised Svensson (2013b) for focusing on a specific measure of inflation expectations. If one instead uses a different, more accurate, measure of expectations, almost all of the unemployment effect Svensson has calculated disappears (Flodén, 2012). And Söderström and Vredin (2013) point to problems with interpreting causal relationships behind Svensson’s estimated Phillips curve. The claim that unemployment would have been lower if a more expansionary monetary policy had been conducted since 2010 appears more plausible, however. But one can find objections to this conclusion. First, the reasoning presumes that a more expansionary monetary policy would not have caused the crisis scenario that a majority of Executive Board members have expressed as a risk that justifies a higher repo rate (see the article in Monetary Policy Report February 2014). Second, higher unemployment now can be counterbalanced by lower unemployment in the future, as monetary policy can become more expansionary in the future when inflation and inflation expectations today are low. The question is thus whether the low inflation affects the average level of unemployment or merely the volatility of unemployment over the business cycle. 13  Examples are the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB).
Moreover, our last system of explicit coordination – the system of fixed exchange rates under Bretton Woods – broke down for a reason. Monetary policy meant to suit everybody is likely in the end to suit nobody. Similar considerations underlie the widespread move in the emerging world away from fixed exchange rate regimes. Policymakers worldwide have learned that a framework capable of responding in a disciplined but flexible manner to changing domestic conditions works best over the long run. While explicit coordination looks neither feasible nor desirable, there is more that central banks in general, and the Fed in particular, could do to be better global stewards. One thing recent events demonstrate is the importance of effective Fed communication. It is clear in retrospect that our attempts last spring to provide guidance about the potential timing and pace of tapering confused market participants. In particular, markets seemed to conflate tapering with monetary policy tightening and raised their expected paths for policy rates. Lately, we seem to have done better: markets now seem to understand that policy rates will likely remain exceptionally low for a considerable period of time even after tapering is completed. As you know, we’ve taken a number of steps in recent years to increase transparency and improve our communications.

But the impact of this weak pay on companies’ costs has been offset by businesses appearing to hold onto more staff than warranted by the lower level of output. The corollary of the resilience in employment has been a sharp drop in labour productivity. As a result, growth in labour costs per unit of output has remained relatively firm, although it has fallen back as productivity has begun to recover. Companies that have spare capacity within their business should be able to use these underutilised resources to increase output relatively cheaply. As such, spare capacity within  4  4  See Benito et al (2010) for a discussion of the impact of the financial crisis on supply. BIS Review 122/2010  companies should, at the margin, push down costs and prices. But reports from our network of Agents suggest that some companies responded to the sharp fall in output by temporarily decommissioning some of their capacity in order to reduce their cost base. 5 Companies mothballed production lines; cut back on capital leases; reduced the number of shifts and so on. Although it is perhaps most natural to think of this mothballing behaviour in the context of manufacturing, it was also apparent within the services sector. It was relatively commonplace for professional services companies to encourage staff to take sabbaticals at much reduced pay. Aircraft were taken out of service. Shops were left empty. This type of adjustment has helped UK industry to withstand the effect of the recession.