samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Once relaxed, exchange and capital controls are both difficult and costly to reintroduce, and even relatively modest steps back from an open regime can be damaging to confidence and credibility, without buying much in the way of lasting stability. The policy responses to the challenges that come with economic and financial integration principally involve choices for governments at the national level. International cooperation can in some circumstances help provide a more supportive environment, but there are no feasible changes to the architecture of the international financial system that offer the prospect of a durably stable external economic and financial environment for nations, large or small. Fundamentally, the only realistic choice for policymakers is to equip their economies with the flexibility to cope more successfully in this increasingly integrated global economy. And this means preparing for a world of more rather than less flexibility in exchange rate regimes. Thank you. BIS Review 44/2007  3

Yet, looking back, the crisis also has its silver linings: the painful adjustments that followed prompted governments to strengthen economic fundamentals, enhance banking systems, deepen local bond markets, and build up foreign reserves to cope with potential external shocks. Because of these developments, the region has been able to emerge from the recent global financial crisis relatively unscathed and is now one of the key driving forces supporting the global economic recovery. 5. But we cannot afford to be complacent, as we are now confronted with a new round of challenges in uncharted waters. The unprecedented monetary easing in the advanced economies has led to global excess liquidity. And with the robust recovery of the emerging  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  markets, there are powerful push and pull factors driving investors to search for yields in developing economies including Asia. From Q3 2009 to Q4 2010, the net capital inflows to emerging Asia1 amounted to $ bn, the largest inflows in recent years. 6. The strong capital inflows and resultant abundant liquidity have led to exchange rate appreciation, fuelled credit growth and driven up asset prices in the region. With output gaps closing, inflationary pressures are accelerating in a number of Asian economies. Capital flows also complicate the macroeconomic policy responses. While exchange rate appreciation and monetary tightening could theoretically cool down the economy, in practice, they may attract even more speculative inflows to profit from interest rate arbitrage and currency appreciation. 7.
If I refer more specifically to what has been observed in the past in France, an economic strategy, based on a moderate increase in unit costs of production, gave us an important edge: the considerable improvement in the cost competitiveness of the French industrial sector from the mid-1980s has contributed extensively to boosting growth. The French economy grew faster than major euro area economies from 1997 to 2001 (+ 15,4 % in France compared to + 13,4 % in the euro area), while repeatedly recording a large current account surplus. This improvement in our overall cost-competitive situation has progressively materialised into growth, job creations and solid external accounts. Competitiveness is also linked to European harmonisation in other fields, for example in the service industries. Most of the barriers to trade in services appear to be due to national regulations and should be abolished or alleviated. While the Eurosystem acts mainly as a stimulus in the process of structural reforms, it also plays a leading role in ensuring financial stability. This brings me to the second challenge that EMU will have to take up. Financial stability Like any independent central bank, the Eurosystem has to fulfil two main functions: firstly, ensuring price stability, which is a key condition for sustained growth, and secondly, preserving financial stability, which has become a critical challenge in a globalized world economy. I insist on the highly complementary nature of these two objectives, as price stability is the foundation on which financial stability is built.

ECB governance On 3 February 2003, the Governing Council of the ECB unanimously approved a Recommendation for a European Council decision, which is aimed at adjusting the voting modalities in the Governing Council in an enlarged euro area, in accordance with article 10.6 of the Statutes introduced by the Treaty of Nice. This adjustment became necessary so as to maintain the efficiency and timeliness of the Governing Council’s decision-making process. The Recommendation has been submitted to the EU Council. We hope that it will eventually be endorsed by the Heads of State and Government after both the European Parliament and the European Commission, which has already delivered its opinion, have been consulted. BIS Review 11/2003  1  As soon as the number of members of the Governing Council will reach 22, the total number of voting rights will be limited to 21. The six executive board members will have a permanent voting right and the NCB Governors will share the remaining 15 voting rights which will rotate among them according to pre-established rules. To ensure that all decisions taken by the Governing Council are representative of the euro area economy as a whole, Governors will be allocated to groups which differ with respect to the frequency with which their members will have voting rights. The allocation of Governors to groups will therefore be done in accordance with a ranking of their respective NCB’s, reflecting mainly the size of economies and of financial sectors.
improved economic confidence following the attainment of the enhanced HIPC Initiative Completion Point in April 2005, which resulted in reduced external debt service obligations, and;  v.  increased foreign direct and portfolio investment, reflecting increased market confidence in the economy stemming from the greatly improved prospects for the copper sector, the cancellation of the bulk of Zambia’s external debt, and the continued commitment to prudent fiscal and monetary policies. Mr Chairman, all these factors have accounted for the current strengthening of the Kwacha. This has led to an outcry from some of our exporters of nontraditional commodities that they are losing external competitiveness and may close down their businesses. While I appreciate this outcry, I wish to state that the exchange rate alone does not determine external competitiveness of exports. Exporters should look at those areas in their production processes where they can attain efficiency gains and improve productivity. Besides the appreciation of the Kwacha which has an impact on inflation is beneficial to non-traditional exporters in several ways: •  reducing cost of capital goods  •  reducing cost of imported raw materials  •  reducing cost of freight/fuel  On its part, the Government can assist this process by directing investment in infrastructure and structural reforms, including labour laws, so as to reduce the cost of doing business in Zambia. Mr Chairman, in the Government securities market, developments in yield rates were mixed in 2005.

This growth has been broad-based - extending beyond the recovery of the mining sector and has withstood adverse shocks such as droughts and increases in oil prices. During this period, investment was strong, particularly in the mining, agriculture and tourism sectors, which sets a basis for further favourable economic growth in the medium to long-term. More recently, in 2005, the economy grew by 5.0% in real terms, marking the seventh consecutive positive real growth in output. This impressive performance was attributed to a number of factors, including: i. Strong expansion in construction, driven by a robust demand for housing and large scale investment in the copper sector. ii. A marked pick up in mining production with the coming on line of the Kansanshi copper mine. iii. Favourable external sector performance largely driven by favourable copper prices on the world market. iv. Expansion in financial institutions and insurance sectors. Mr Chairman, inflation declined to 15.9% at the end of December 2005 from 17.5% at the end of December 2004 despite several setbacks, including the partial drought that significantly reduced food supply and high prices of oil and petroleum products. Attainment of a single digit inflation has been Government’s goal for a long time. It is, therefore, pleasing to note that, in April 2006, annual inflation declined to 9.4%, the lowest rate in the last 30 years. This inflation outturn has been largely due to the conduct of appropriately tight monetary policy aided by prudent fiscal policy and the continued relative stability of the Kwacha.
The geographical extension of territory coverage by the banking business, the strengthening of competitiveness, the introduction of new products without mentioning other recent developments, constitute an additional argument in the vital role the banking system has and will have to play in the future. The country’s map covering the banking business expanded further, including new regions ever covered before. At the end of August, the total number of branches reached 109 or 21 branches more than the end of the previous year. I seize the opportunity of this event to express that positive assessments about the banking system have been given also in the report prepared by both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, after conclusion of the assessment they formulated on the financial system in Albania (FSAP). Of course, this is good news. The conclusions of FSAP, of this important international passport, are an indication of our earlier conclusions that the Albanian financial system is characterized by a supervised and effective banking system and by the other segments that are still in the initial development stages where the core issue remains their regulation and supervision. Despite the positive developments there is still much to do. The degree of financial intermediation continues to be relatively low (about 11 per cent of GDP). Some economy sectors, like agriculture, still continue to be less or not at all credited.

In the UK, the FSA has recently issued a consultation paper on RRPs, and an important initial pilot exercise will involve reviewing the contingency plans and procedures of the major firms as they draw them up over the coming months. The timetable for this work is ambitious with the plans being drawn up in the first quarter of next year, but that is necessarily so. The FSA and the Bank of England, working together, will review and challenge the submissions to assess their credibility. RRPs need to be owned by financial institutions at Board level. They should be of such importance that Boards need to understand that they are responsible for them. At the heart of the role of these plans is taking a forward-looking view of the threats that should be tackled. This is a clear change of approach. It builds from the work already done to embed stress testing into the toolkit. Stress tests are useful but limited tools. They provide a forecast of what we think is most likely to happen in the future conditional on a set of assumptions on what the future will bring. There are three obvious limitations to stress tests used on their own. First, typically they are a single point forecast of what could happen rather than a distribution of outcomes conditional on a range of stresses.
A related characteristic is that apart from defining, and applying, constructively, the rules of the game, the various authorities do then leave the market to get on with it - they do not by and large seek to tell the various markets, or firms operating within them, what they should or should not do. In the Bank, for example, we always stand ready to help when market participants collectively seek our help - say, in relation to market infrastructure projects where, working with market participants, we took on the development and introduction of new settlements systems for the Gilt-Edged, Money and Equity markets and new wholesale payments systems - but we try to avoid either dirigisme or unnecessary conservative resistance to market initiatives, whether collective initiatives, such as the creation of LIFFE, or initiatives at the level of the individual firm. We may act as a catalyst, encouraging different sectors of the market to address emerging problems, either on their own or by coming together, but essentially we take the view that the markets and firms themselves are best placed to find the way ahead. The third characteristic of what I’ve called the free market ethos - and one which is absolutely crucial to the City’s success - is impartiality and even-handedness, both in the application of the rules of the game and in terms of business opportunities - applying the same standards to all market participants or would-be participants, regardless in particular of nationality. Some people still find this difficult to understand.

Last but not least, if Switzerland were to give up its monetary independence by pegging the franc to the euro or by joining the euro area, it would lose its privileged status and, consequently, Swiss interest rates would increase to European levels. Since higher interest rates mean lower asset prices and lower levels of investment, and also higher mortgage rates, the Swiss are understandably not keen on giving up their national currency. Since any major decision in Switzerland has to be approved in a public referendum, the prospect of EU and euro membership in the near future is thus highly unlikely. Given our exposure to global economic and financial shocks, and their arguably smaller importance for the euro area, pegging the Swiss franc to the euro is not a realistic option. Flexible exchange rates give us the room for manoeuvre we need. •  What has our experience been of coexistence with the euro so far? Very positive. Rather than crowding out independent currencies, the euro has stabilised the monetary scene in Europe. In fact, the franc is less volatile today than it was before European monetary integration. The price of the euro in Swiss francs these days is about 3% lower than it was in 1999, in other words, almost unchanged. We did have periods, however, when the franc was under pressure, especially after September 11 and before the outbreak of the war in Iraq. The safe-haven function of the franc then triggered a 10% appreciation in our currency against the euro.
As a baby step, later this year I am starting a series of “Townhall” meetings around the UK, partnering with organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain, Age UK, Citizens UK and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). Their purpose is to listen and learn, as much as talk and teach, to local communities about the issues that matter for them. These public events, like public language itself, need to be localised and personalised if they are to land. 71  An excellent recent example of this is contained in Carol Graham’s new book on the well-being of different cohorts of American society (Graham, 2017). 72 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Decision Maker Survey (2017). 73 Nyman et al (2016). 22  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  22  (d) Nudging and Gaming  There are new techniques and technologies becoming available that may help central banks to improve the potency and reach of their messages and the quality and quantity of the feedback they receive on them. These techniques allow a much wider reach at a much lower cost. They also enable a dynamic process of two-way learning between central banks and the general public to take place. Semantic analysis has been a blossoming area of research over recent years, including on central bank text. But, at least insofar as research on central banks is concerned, this analysis has largely been positive and descriptive – what have central banks been communicating?

29  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  29  Chart 6A: Mentions of central banks in The Times newspaper  Bank of England  Number of mentions  Federal Reserve  14,000  Number of mentions  4,000  12,000 10,000  3,000  8,000 2,000  6,000 4,000  1,000  2,000 0 1800s  1850s  1900s  Bank of Japan  1950s  2000s  0 1900s 1920s 1940s 1960s 1980s 2000s  Number of mentions  600 500 400 300 200 100 0 1900s 1920s 1940s 1960s 1980s 2000s Source: Factiva. Notes: Charts show number of mentions per decade. 30  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  30  Chart 6B: Mentions of central banks in The Financial Times newspaper Number of mentions  Bank of England  Number of mentions  Federal Reserve  10,000  10,000  8,000  8,000  6,000  6,000  4,000  4,000  2,000  2,000  0  0  1900s 1920s 1940s 1960s 1980s 2000s  1900s 1920s 1940s 1960s 1980s 2000s  Number of mentions  Bank of Japan  3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0  1900s 1920s 1940s 1960s 1980s 2000s Source: Factiva.
The continued fall in inflation expectations, to a level that for Sweden is historically low, likewise suggests that inflationary pressure is subdued. Agents in markets for labour, goods and money now count on inflation being in line with the Riksbank’s inflation target in both the short and the medium term. Increased confidence in the inflation target can of itself lower the inflation propensity. The rate of wage increases to date this year indicates that the parties in the labour market are beginning to act in line with the lower expectations; the new wage settlements that have been concluded in 1997 show a downward shift in the rate of wage increases compared with 1996, towards levels that are more in line than before with the Riksbank’s inflation target. The Riksbank’s overall assessment is that in the coming two years the underlying rate of inflation will be between 1.5 and 2 per cent. Registered inflation, however, will rise by degrees with the disappearance of transitory effects that have pushed the CPI down in recent months. The registered rate will probably remain below the inflation target during 1997 and then move up towards two per cent in 1998. Against this background, in the inflation report the Riksbank considered that the monetary stance is well balanced. Forecasting inflation a couple of years ahead is, as everyone appreciates, a very difficult matter. So there is good cause to be humble. In the inflation report we have highlighted a number of factors that may cause inflation to follow a different path.

The crucial factors for this are quite different, such as capital formation, demographic trends, advances in technology and education, how the economy functions, etc. Some scope for stimulating the economy may exist in the short run but this presupposes an established confidence in economic policy’s commitment to price stability. If economic agents have doubts about economic policy, attempts to stimulate demand will be liable to elicit an upward shift in the rate of inflation that is expected by firms, households, trade unions and others. Wages and prices may then start to chase each other as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. The longer market rates of interest, which the Riksbank can influence only marginally, will begin to move up and the ultimate effect on demand may be the opposite of what was intended. The outcome may be a combination of low growth and high inflation. Much accordingly depends on the confidence that the price stability policy enjoys. In an economy where a low inflation policy is firmly established, it is easier to lower the interest rate without eliciting uncertainty about monetary policy’s long-term commitment. There is, quite simply, more room to manoeuvre. But this does of course presuppose that the outlook for future inflation condones such a policy. Independence and accountability The institutional framework for monetary policy is important for underpinning confidence in long-term economic policy.
We closely monitor this process and get ready to respond adequately in order to protect the Macedonian economy against severe impacts. Therefore, the cooperation between the National Bank and the commercial banks will be even more important. Thank you for your attention. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3

These include (1) closer integration of global economy through stronger trade and financial linkages, (2) increasingly large and mobile capital flows due to lower costs on cross-border investments, (3) rapid spread of information made possible by advancement in technology, and (4) more pronounced reactions on the part of market participants in times of heightened uncertainties ever since the onset of the global financial crisis. The interplay between market players’ expectations, their self-fulfilling nature and spillover effects paves the way for market exuberance in response to a trigger event. As a clear case in point, the recent ups and downs of financial markets upon new information the market perceives from each round of the Fed’s announcements highlight the role of “shifts in beliefs” on market volatility. What made the post-2008 period particularly vulnerable to such self-fulfilling global turmoil is the current stage of the world economy characterized by lingering structural weaknesses of the crisis countries and limited policy space that reduce the potential of macroeconomic stabilization policy. All of these factors reinforce the role of global shocks and contagion through real linkages as well as expectation channel in transmitting volatility around the world. Notwithstanding the turbulence of the global economy, Asian economies had proven to be resilient in the face of negative external developments, with favourable macroeconomic performance and well-maintained stability during the past period, thanks to the region’s flexible policy framework, robust financial system, and improved risk management as lessons had been learned from the crisis of 1997.