samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In some countries, citizens have become indebted through the state – a national debt of more than 100 per cent of GDP is beginning to be common. In other countries, such as Sweden, the national debt is low, but instead private indebtedness is high. A large part of this development can be explained by lower interest rates. Households’ interest expenditure as a share of their incomes is not so much higher now than before, despite the large rise in debts. The debts have mainly been used to finance housing purchases, and, as the supply of housing has been relatively sluggish (although construction has been high in recent years), housing prices have risen substantially. But if we can explain part of the increase with low interest rates, does this mean it is not a problem? No, I don't think so. A high level of indebtedness leads to large risks – if interest rates rise, then households will have a much higher interest burden. 6 [25]  Monetary policy is conducted to attain an inflation rate close to the target and stable resource utilisation. The problem is that monetary policy has an impact through several different channels, including households’ consumption decisions, the exchange rate and investment. Monetary policy that is well balanced on the basis of inflation and resource utilisation in the economy as a whole can be problematic for a group of households that is highly indebted. In this situation, it is important that the banks and Finansinspektionen ensure that credit granting is sustainable.

However, the question is whether it will be possible to generate just enough inflation and then stop, or whether it will be impossible to shut the floodgates once the flow of money has started to reach full force. There are also interesting technicalities that differ from country to country that could be decisive for whether helicopter money could work differently to normal loan-financed fiscal policy stimulation measures. Does the central bank pay interest on central bank reserves and can cash be redeemed against these on a one-to-one basis? If prices do not increase one-to-one with the increase in the banknote volume (electronic or paper), a proportion of the increase in the banknote volume will closely resemble a debt increase, as the Riksbank will pay interest on this in the future. 18  Abolishing cash – or manner a negative interest rate on it Another suggestion from the literature focuses on the reason the lower bound for the policy rate exists, namely the existence of a risk-free asset with a return of 0 – cash. If interest rates become negative enough, households (in the case of the banks’ deposit rates) or the banks (in the case of the central bank’s deposit rates) will instead withdraw cash. Consequently, it is not possible to cut the level of interest rates indefinitely.
As I have already said, we now have robust banks and, in Europe, the soon-to-be completed asset quality review, conducted under the aegis of the ECB, will help to guarantee this. However, this does not mean weaknesses have disappeared. They are still there, only in other parts of the system. At the moment, for example, credit activities are mainly concentrated in the hands of large asset managers who together manage portfolios of several tens of trillions of dollars. These managers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and therefore more efficient, but at the same time they are getting bigger and bigger. They are judged on their short-term performances, often leading them to follow identical strategies, which in turn results in massive movements in the market. Some – though not all – transform short-term savings into structured products, a practice which, as the crisis has shown, can prove very dangerous. 4/ – Fourth paradox: our monetary policies are extremely accommodative, but inflation remains low and, in some cases, is even declining. Throughout the developed world, central  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  banks have slashed their policy rates close to the zero lower bound. Their balance sheets have ballooned under the impact of asset purchases and liquidity injections. But in all these countries, inflation rates are at levels considered too low with respect to the price stability target – in some cases dangerously so. In the euro area, inflation has been falling steadily for six months.

This is precisely their purpose at a time when investment choices are dominated by risk-aversion. As for their effectiveness, we need only think for a minute what things would be like now if we had followed tighter monetary policies. We should be proud that, during the recent crisis, our central banks managed to avoid the errors of the Great Depression. Second assertion: only inflation can eliminate the excessive debt levels inherited from the crisis and before. This clearly ignores the fact that markets know how to protect themselves from inflation and that the long-term effects of a loss of credibility on the part of central banks would be massively negative. Of course, this does not mean that the extremely low levels of inflation we have today are acceptable. The keyword here is symmetry: central banks need to put the same effort into combating low inflation as they do into preventing high inflation. Third assertion: public debt levels are unsustainable and we thus need to start default proceedings or debt restructurings. This assessment is often based on a limited appreciation of what is sustainable, neglects the highly disruptive effects of debt restructurings on financial stability, and is frequently founded on extremely pessimistic growth forecasts. Fourth assertion, which is the opposite of the previous one: we need more debt; we need to take advantage of low interest rates to rebuild public infrastructure and thus adopt less rigorous – some would say less austere – fiscal policies.
As we all know, Europe and the United States (US) had been the engines of world development in the last few centuries. However, emergence of new actors into the picture in recent decades has changed the global economic environment. Despite the fact that the role of the US has been continuing with an increasing weight, that of the EU has been rather slow. And hence today together with the US, new global actors are coming to the forefront, for example emerging from Asia such as China and India. To be more precise, between the years 1980 and 2004, the share of the EU-15 trade in total world trade decreased by 25.3 percent while that of East Asia and Pacific region countries increased by 165 percent. During the same period, the US also increased its share in total world trade by 13 percent. 4  3  Blair, T. (23 June 2005). “PM Speech to the EU Parliament”. EU Parliament. 4  The World Bank. Own calculations. 2/8  4 5  We observe a similar pattern in terms of growth as well. In fact, the largest rise in shares in total world output since 1980 belong to East Asia and Pacific region countries by 68 percent. However, the share of EU-15 s output in total world output decreased by 6.8 percent during the same period.5 It is exactly at this point that Turkey comes into the picture of the EU as one of the new actors in the global economy.

In historical perspective, as you all know very well, the EU is a "sui generis" structure implying a legal, political and economic project of integration shaped around contemporary values. Quoting Prime Minister Tony Blair's own words; "This is a union of values, of solidarity between nations and people, of not just a common market in which we trade but a common political space in which we live as citizens." 1 On the other side, as Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, clearly stated; "the contemporary level of civilisation" has always been Turkey's main objective since its foundation as a republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, considering the main principles of the EU and Turkey's desire to reach the contemporary level of civilisation, Turkey's everlasting willingness to be a member of the EU shouldn't be surprising. Accordingly, Turkey had applied to the EU for full membership in 1959. During these 46 years, governments with different political views have been in charge. Despite some delays, setbacks and obstacles in relations with the Union all over this period, our aim of full membership has never changed. Also, the majority of the Turkish society has always been supporting the main goal of full membership. In fact, 68 percent of the public who answered the most recent questionnaire of Euro Barometer in 2005 responded in favour of full membership. The second point I want to make is about the whole process leading to the eventual membership of Turkey to the EU.
Dimitar Bogov: Challenges of countries from South-Eastern Europe in the current economic and financial turbulence in the euro area Opening speech by Mr Dimitar Bogov, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the NBRM conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the monetary independence of the Republic of Macedonia, Skopje, 27 April 2012. *  *  *  Dear Deputy Prime Minister, dear ministers, distinguished Governors, Your Excellences, dear guests, colleagues and friends It is an honor to greet you and wish you welcome to this conference, which is a part of the activities for marking the 20th anniversary of the monetary independence of the Republic of Macedonia. The last two decades of monetary independence, the Republic of Macedonia has faced, and in our opinion, successfully addressed many challenges. Our twentieth anniversary takes place in exceptionally turbulent developments of global economy, particularly marked by events triggered by the euro area debt crisis. This means that as the other central banks from the region, we face a new challenge. Taking into account the timing of the conference, its topic came quite spontaneously, and therefore we consider that it will raise interesting discussion of current issues of the central banks of the South-Eastern Europe and beyond.

As he wrote in his autobiography, “When I first went to Germany I seemed to breathe a new and exhilarating atmosphere of freedom … [which] did not exist in [American universities]” (Ely, 1938). Two journeys, separated by a hundred years, reveal much about what occurred in Europe and America between them. Upon his return, Ely “undertook to draw up a project for the formation of a society to be called ‘The American Economic Association’, which should be broad enough to appeal to all the younger economists who, irrespective of their personal views, felt the stirring of the new life in economics”. His actions helped the AEA to develop into the great institution it is today. I have the privilege to work for another great institution, the Bank of England. And, as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Ely’s birth, I thought it would be appropriate to choose as the theme of my lecture today the role that institutions play in the conduct of monetary policy. In brief, I want to argue that the core of the monetary policy problem is uncertainty about future social decisions resulting from the impossibility and the undesirability of committing our successors to any given monetary policy strategy. The impossibility stems from the observation that collective decisions cannot be enforced so that it is impossible to commit to future collective decisions; the undesirability reflects the fact that we cannot articulate all possible future states of the world.
A wholesale CBDC may have several benefits  • Cross-border use of a CBDC may be explored as a more efficient alternative for remittances • Remittances using a structure of correspondent institutions are expensive and usually take time to settle. On the other hand, crypto-based alternative may be more efficient, but they are unregulated and have risks. • The cross-border use of CBDC would reap the benefits of crypto-based methods, without their risks. It certainly would require coordination between the central banks involved. On the other hand, some concerns have still not been fully addressed: a. Development and management costs of a CBDC, specially a retail CBDC that is available for a large number of people, can be substantial. Technical capacity is still not mature enough, and risks of cyberattacks are exacerbated. b. The level of anonymity that the CBDC should have is still a matter of discussion. In digital networks it can be easy to identify anonymous users due to their links to non-anonymous nodes, such as large companies. The public is already frightened by how much sensitive individual information is stored (NSA, Uber, Google, Facebook…), it is possible that a CBDC could create anonymity concerns. Page 8 of 11  Central Bank of Chile September 2019  c. Some of these concerns end up in a discussion about which is the optimum design features: anonymous or pseudo-anonymous? Interest bearing? Guaranteed convertibility of bank deposits into CBDCs?

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.
Triggering factors for the materialisation of risks and the exposure of vulnerabilities  I will now consider some possible factors that could trigger the materialisation of certain risks and the exposure of identified vulnerabilities. An important issue highlighted in the FSR relates to the existing ample financial market liquidity and the prevailing very low risk premia. One possibility is that an abrupt and sharp increase in risk aversion and a loss of confidence could lead to a substantial reduction in financial market liquidity which, as stressed, is currently abundant. Such a decline could expose several underlying vulnerabilities and trigger an adverse scenario which could involve: •  Funding liquidity challenges for highly leveraged financial institutions;  •  Unwinding of carry trades and possible unwinding of global imbalances;  •  Increasing credit spreads across the credit quality spectrum;  •  Increased asset price volatility in financial markets more generally; and  •  Reduced bank profitability as a result of lower trading revenues. A second adverse scenario could be triggered by a turn in the credit cycle or by a large credit event. This could lead to an unravelling of vulnerabilities in the corporate and household sectors and in credit markets that could involve: •  defaults of low credit-quality, high-leveraged households and firms;  •  significant challenges in the structured credit and CRT markets;  •  losses and potential failures of high leveraged financial institutions; and  •  counterparty risks for banks.

In addition, as we have moved far away from near-zero interest rates, it makes sense to shift 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  away from a focus on normalizing the stance of monetary policy relative to some benchmark “neutral” interest rate, often referred to as “r-star.” Now, I have spent a good deal of my career studying r-star and I find it to be a useful concept for describing the economy’s longer-run behavior. Having said that, at times r-star has actually gotten too much attention in commentary about Fed policy. Back when interest rates were well below neutral, r-star appropriately acted as a pole star for navigation. But, as we have gotten closer to the range of estimates of neutral, what appeared to be a bright point of light is really a fuzzy blur, reflecting the inherent uncertainty in measuring rstar.8 More than that, r-star is just one factor affecting our decisions, alongside economic and labor market indicators, wage and price inflation, global developments, financial conditions, the risks to the outlook… I think you get the point. Returning to the balance sheet, the question of what exactly the new normal looks like is still being analyzed and discussed at the Fed.
Evolution of New York Fed’s Effort In the ten years that followed the financial crisis, we have continued to see a stream of misconduct scandals and cultural failures, and a corresponding increase in significant litigation and enforcement activity, with costs estimated at an aggregate of $ billion worldwide.3 At the New York Fed, our work in advocating culture and behavior reform in the financial sector 1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  started in late 2013 when our former President, Bill Dudley, delivered a speech on the “too-big-tofail” problem.

There have been suggestions that, with the market now expecting the appreciation of RMB to slow down – or even reverse – there will be less interest in conducting RMB business. It seems to me that this would be a one-sided interpretation of a much more positive story. From a macro perspective, given the Mainland’s substantial trade and investment links with other parts of the world, it is safe to expect that a fair – and growing – portion of such activities will be conducted in RMB. Considering that the percentage of China’s trade settled in RMB is only less than 10% now (compared with 30% of Japanese trade denominated in Japanese Yen), it is reasonable to expect RMB-denominated trade to grow further. And with the Mainland economy continuing to grow faster than other major economies, we can also expect that the incentive for individuals and institutions outside China to hold more RMB assets will remain, if not get stronger. Consider also that, a more two-way RMB exchange rate will be conducive to a more balanced, and hence sustainable, development of offshore RMB business. For instance, when the RMB exchange rate expectation is no longer skewing towards just one direction, the incentives for both the payee and the payer to settle a trade transaction in RMB will be more balanced. Corporates will also be more willing to raise financing in RMB when it is not expected to appreciate strongly.
When drafting this objective, the Government was clear that maintaining core services should be a central pillar of the PRA’s safety and soundness objective, and not an additional obligation. This means the PRA will apply its existing supervisory approach to meeting our ring-fencing responsibilities. We will use this approach to focus on the biggest risks to ring-fenced banks and the integrity of their ring-fences. Ring-fencing expands the scope of the requirements with which ring-fenced banks need to comply, and that the PRA needs to supervise. But it would be a mistake to believe that the aim of ring-fencing was to create ‘bullet-proof’ banks to which the PRA could apply a lighter-touch model of supervision. Ring-fenced banks – like all financial firms – will take risks, and those risks need to be managed and mitigated by the banks. The PRA’s risk-based approach to supervision also means that the PRA will continue to focus on those banks which pose the greatest risks to the financial system. This would include banks which sit outside of the ring-fences of banking groups where they are important providers of critical economic functions such as lending to large corporates or intermediating in financial markets. And ring-fencing has brought about the creation of additional legal entities within our banking groups which will need to be supervised and meet prudential requirements on an individual basis. Previously, a universal bank could carry out all of its activities within a single legal entity, and face one set of prudential requirements.

Gent Sejko: Fourth review of the arrangement with the IMF concluded Speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the joint press conference with the IMF mission, Albanian MoF and MEDTTE, Tirana, 17 March 2015. *  *  *  Dear media representatives, During the last two weeks, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team visited Tirana, to conduct, together with Albanian authorities, the fourth review of the arrangement. In Bank of Albania’s perspective, the economic and financial developments have been relatively positive. Notwithstanding the problems the Albanian economy has encountered, it has recorded growth and a range of economic and financial balances of the country have improved. The economic policies and the legal, regulatory and institutional reforms by the Albanian authorities have played a significant role in this regard. These development policies are anchored in the arrangement that Albania has with the IMF and have benefited from the credibility and financial assistance of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The Bank of Albania deems that the reforms that Albania has started should continue, to provide sustainable and long-term growth. I would like now to outline Bank of Albania’s opinion on the country’s economic and financial situation, and to list the priorities of our work in the framework of this arrangement. The Albanian economy posted growth in 2014, which is expected to further accelerate in 2015.