samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
–  As regards our present diagnosis on the situation of the Eurozone we are very often asked several questions, in particular: “How do you assess the risks to price stability?” and “What is your judgment on the present conjuncture in Europe?”  The best I can do is certainly to refer to the consensus of the Council of Governors of the ECB as summed up by our President Wim Duisenberg. The European Central Bank confirms its position of “wait and see” with regard to its monetary policy stance. In an environment of increased uncertainty about the global economy and its impact on the euro area, the Governing Council is carefully assessing whether and to what extent upward risks to price stability will continue to decline. The ECB has the primary objective of maintaining price stability. Within its forward-looking strategy, the Governing Council had raised central bank interest rates to contain increasing inflation risks and to bring inflation back to levels below 2% over the medium term. This policy has retained credibility as demonstrated by continuing low inflation expectations. It is important for economic growth that the households of the euro area can rely on price stability preserving their purchasing power and, therefore, supporting solid domestic demand. Information from the first pillar shows that money growth has been on a downward trend since the spring of 2000, indicating that upwards risks to price stability from the monetary side have receded.

So whatever is gluing official interest rates to the floor in major economies is proving remarkably resilient. What factors are responsible? Are they temporary or permanent? And what are their implications for financial markets, the economy and monetary policy? There are many factors which explain the extra-ordinary current constellation of yields. Many of these factors pre-date the crisis. Global real rates have been falling for over three decades (Chart 4). They averaged 5% in the 1980s and 4% in the 1990s. So far this century, they have averaged 2%. Currently, they are around zero or slightly negative. At a Parliamentary Committee hearing a few years ago I asserted, boldly, that global interest rates were at their lowest-ever levels. A wise colleague challenged me afterwards: “How do you know they weren’t lower in Babylonian times?” Several exhausted research assistants later I can report that, luckily, I was on safe ground. Interest rates appear to be lower than at any time in the past 5000 years (Chart 5). The explanations for this secular fall in global real rates include excess savings in the East, deficient investment in the West, worsening demographic trends and rising inequality (Haldane (2015a)). Some have interpreted their downward drift as evidence of secular stagnation, in an echo of concerns raised after the Great Depression (Summers (2014)). Whatever the explanation, there has been a further ratchet down in global real rates since the crisis. I wish to focus on two factors which have contributed to this fall: dread risk and recession risk.
It is the Riksbank's task to stabilise inflation around 2 per cent and we have assessed that it is better to act with monetary policy than to wait and see and risk being surprised by continued high inflation that requires even greater tightening later on. 5/10  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  Inflation thus needs to fall clearly this year, and it is important that underlying inflation also falls. We assessed in February that the interest rate needed to be raised and that we will probably need to raise it in April as well. As usual, it is the outlook for the economy and inflation that is decisive for monetary policy, and we are well aware that it takes time for the Riksbank's policy rate increases to have a full impact on the economy. As it is difficult to know how quickly the impact will be and how great the effects of the increases will be on the real economy and inflation, it is still important to follow new outcomes and new indicators to obtain a picture of inflation prospects. Inflation has already started to decline in some countries, but as we noted in February, we see few signs that underlying inflation has started to decline in Sweden. Nor has this picture been changed by the new information on inflation that has come in since our decision. On the contrary. In February, inflation excluding energy prices rose and the outcome was significantly above our latest assessment.

Too high inflation and great uncertainty about developments We have a year behind us in which inflation rose sharply around the world and central banks raised policy rates at a rapid pace. At the beginning of 2022, inflation was around 4 per cent in Sweden. The Riksbank and most forecasters assessed that inflation would fall during the year. As we know, it continued to rise instead. One reason was the rapid economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis, which pushed up prices on commodities, inputs and transport. Household demand was high, while it was difficult for businesses to adjust and increase production quickly enough. As a result, inflation received an unexpected boost when economies opened up. Another important reason was Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which drove up the prices of energy and grain, as well as other agricultural products. In addition, the high energy prices had indirect effects on inflation via, for instance, rising prices for transports and other input goods for companies. In the context of high demand following the pandemic, firms found it easier to pass on their increased costs to consumer prices than might have been expected from previous experience. One year later, at the beginning of 2023, we thus had both far too high inflation and the lesson from last year that it is very difficult to know how inflation will develop. There are many indications that inflation in Sweden, as well as abroad, will fall back in 2023.
It must be possible, for example, to understand the driving forces behind the forecasts – why does the forecast look the way it does? How is the forecast affected by changes in assumptions regarding, for instance, demand abroad or the oil price? The central bank also needs a forecasting apparatus that can effectively investigate the consequences of an alternative monetary policy. For the Riksbank, which publishes it own interest rate path, this is extremely important. To put it more technically, the central bank must use so-called structural models to assess the consequences of various policy rate paths, while other forecasts can mainly be produced with the help of statistical models alone. Normally, there  3  Uncertainty and the revisions of GDP figures and other data make forecasting more difficult and also make it more difficult to evaluate the forecasts. BIS Review 29/2009  5  are good reasons for believing that structural models provide poorer forecasts than statistical models. However, the Riksbank's main structural model, Ramses, has very good forecasting properties. 4 When making historical comparisons between the forecasts of central banks and those of other analysts, we also face a number of other difficulties. The first is that it is not certain that the central bank's forecasts are based on what the bank really believes is the best forecast of the policy rate and other variables.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the said ratio will increase to 36 percent in the EU-15 by the year 2020. However, it is expected to be only 16 percent in Turkey by that time. According to another study by the United Nations, the EU would need an average of 6.1 million immigrants a year from 2015 to 2040 to maintain a ratio of three working-age adults for each retiree20. This I believe clearly implies a substantial contribution of Turkey to the EU on the demographic front. On the other hand, when it comes to labour force participation rate in the income per capita equation, Turkey lags behind the EU. One of the reasons of Turkey’s lagging behind is the low female participation rate in the labour force. Although the female participation rate in banking, legal and medical sectors are among the highest in Europe, the very low participation in rural areas cause the overall female participation rate to remain quite low. Another reason of low participation rates based on official figures is the high share of the unregistered economy. With the ongoing reform process and their expected effects on the structure of the labour market, the share of the unregistered economy would decrease and then the female participation rate would increase. This will imply further increase in the labour force participation rate in the Turkish labour market in the near future. Moving on to the employment side of the equation, I will mention some other important points regarding the Turkish labour market.
Mohamed S Fofana: Tackling money laundering in Sierra Leone Statement by Mr Mohamed S Fofana, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone, at the official opening of the UNODC/GIABA/BSL training workshop on AML/CFT Strategy Development, Freetown, 10-13 July 2006. *  *  *  Distinguished Administrative Secretary of GIABA, Fellow Stakeholders, The Board and Management of the Bank of Sierra Leone, Participants, Distinguished Ladies & Gentlemen Let me on behalf of the Governor, Management and staff of the Bank of Sierra Leone welcome you all, especially those of you coming to Sierra Leone for the first time for this very important training workshop. May I also take this opportunity to congratulate you, Mr. Administrative Secretary of GIABA, on your recent appointment. I believe that your appointment is to underscore the fact that African problems require African solution. I also want to particularly welcome the facilitators from the UNODC and GIABA and proffer our gratitude to them for facilitating this workshop and for heeding to our call for help in the establishment of a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). In the past, emphasis has been placed on the drugs trade as the principal source of cash that is laundered. We now know that other activities such as terrorism, tax evasion, arms trafficking, smuggling, human trafficking and advance fee fraud (aka 419) are veritable fountains of cash for money laundering.

The trigger for the correction can vary – in the early 89–92 episode it was a sharp rise in interest rates as the UK sought to remain in the Exchange Rate Mechanism; in 2007–9 it was a sharp tightening in credit conditions amid a collapse in confidence in an over-levered banking system – but, unfortunately, there are more precedents in UK for periods of a rapidly growing housing market to end in this way. The question for the Financial Policy Committee, therefore, is whether the sustained momentum we are seeing in the housing market will continue and will lead to unsustainable growth in household indebtedness, undermining the resilience of the system. Our first thought must be to the direct exposure of the financial system to the housing market and its resilience to a major housing shock. Mortgage lending amounts to two-thirds of UK bank and building societies’ UK lending. Financial institutions are better placed now than they were before the financial crisis. The reinforcement of underwriting standards that I mentioned earlier, protects both borrowers from taking on unaffordable mortgages and lenders from bad debts. Since 2008, the amount of capital in the system has increased by £ with capital requirements against UK residential mortgages broadly trebling. We now have, for the first time, a new international liquidity standard, which should help to prevent long-term mortgage debt being funded from unstable short-term wholesale sources; since 2008, banks’ liquid assets have broadly trebled.
The geographical proximity and cultural similarities have been reinforced by the diverse strengths that exists in the region. These factors have been important in enhancing the integration process. As this greater regional economic and financial integration is advanced, it will serve as a powerful catalyst for the future expansion of intra-regional trade and investment, creating a self-sustaining and mutually reinforcing economic growth in the New Nusantara region. Ladies and gentlemen: It is my pleasure today to speak on the potential role of an integrated economic and financial platform within the Nusantara region, a region of rapid economic growth in which almost 300 million Muslims resides. My remarks will focus on the potential generated by a collaborative platform and the significance of building linkages between the Nusantara region with other parts of the world. The region's current economic progress, prosperity and financial stability has now accorded us a new strategic window of opportunity to develop new value propositions to unleash the full potential accorded by the accelerating economic and financial integration process. There are already encouraging formal and informal inter linkages between our respective financial markets as well as a higher level of engagement between the respective corporate communities, the market participants and the authorities. A collaborative platform that is based on the diverse comparative advantages of the Nusantara economies can benefit from the complementarities between our respective economies. Essentially, these opportunities will increase the potential to expand markets, increase products lines and deepen the research and development capabilities.

A critical success factor for the cross-border promotion of Islamic finance is the harmonisation of the governing shariah frameworks between our jurisdictions. In this regard, Indonesia's extensive history of scholarly achievement in the subject matter relevant to the principles of Islamic finance can be leveraged upon for the benefit of the region. We are most hopeful for substantive convergence of interpretation and application of the shariah laws and guidelines for the region. The greater collaborative engagement between our respective scholars would indeed facilitate the process. Ladies and Gentlemen: The large gathering of senior representatives of the public and private sectors here today hints to the significant interest to capitalise on potential of the Nusantara economies. The efforts of the private and public sectors in building a collaborative platform as a resilient base for a network of linkages to the wider world, with God's grace, insyallah, will contribute to advancing the Nusantara Agenda that would unleash the potential of the region for a greater shared prosperity. Thank you. BIS Review 73/2007  3
Its loss absorption capacity, as measured by the CET1 ratio, amounts to 17,6 per cent as at December 2021, which is also above the EU average of 15,7 per cent. But more importantly, the first round effects of the war to the Cyprus banking system do not appear to pose any material threat to the banking sector since the direct links of Cyprus' banking sector with Russia and Ukraine are limited and not material. As at December 2021, the total assets that is loans and deposits from the two countries amounted to just 0,8 per cent of total loans and 4,7 per cent of total deposits respectively. The only bank whose business model was affected by the war and the sanctions on Russia was RCB Bank. The Central Bank of Cyprus acted proactively and timely. Our objective was to safeguard depositors and financial stability of the country. Through our actions and the cooperation of RCB Bank itself, a transaction structure was successfully implemented that safeguarded all depositors without any impact on the public finances or any negative spill over effects to the rest of the banking sector, thereby preserving financial stability. It is our opinion, which is also shared by the ECB, that the decisions and actions taken were the best possible under the prevailing circumstances. The Cyprus banking sector is providing credit to viable businesses and households.

Overall, the war in Ukraine has a strong effect on economic sentiment and increased considerably the risks to the economic growth outlook which are now skewed to the downside. According to the April IMF forecasts, euro area GDP growth in 2022 is revised down to 2,8 per cent, from the previous projection for growth of 3,9%. A 1.1 percentage points reduction in expected GDP growth. However, there are still factors supporting economic activity and recovery, such as the reopening of the economies after the crisis phase of the pandemic, strong labour market underpinning incomes, and households' accumulated savings from the pandemic period which support consumption. The labour market in particular, has sustained its recovery momentum, with unemployment falling to a historical low of 6,8 per cent in February 2022. Job postings across many sectors still reflect strong labour demand. Whereas the war caused GDP growth to be revised downwards, a parallel impact is that it has also intensified the upside risks surrounding the inflation outlook, especially in the near term. Based on the same IMF forecasts, euro area inflation in 2022 is expected to reach 5,3 per cent, compared to 1,7 per cent projected by the IMF back in October 2021. Core euro area inflation, as measured by HICP excluding energy and  1/5  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  food rose from 2,7 per cent in February to 3 per cent in March 2022 with an increase in the sectoral inflation rates for both non energy industrial goods and services.
The crucial task of valuing and disclosing the impact of losses on core banking institutions is still work in progress: important announcements are being made almost daily, and beyond them lies the equally important task of repairing banks’ balance sheets. The current shortage of liquidity makes the pricing of complex assets even more difficult. At the very least, this reinforces the need for transparency in providing estimates of losses, and descriptions of the best-efforts processes used to produce these estimates. The process of price discovery for many complex asset classes is unlikely to be completed quickly. For assets directly related to US sub-prime, this is unlikely to be before the US housing market stabilises. Other structured credit markets are likely to remain illiquid until confidence in the banking sector has been restored, and large financial institutions are willing to take more risk. Clearly the situation is still developing. And its impact on the wider economic outlook – global and domestic – will depend critically on what happens from now on. Here there are some major uncertainties.

Honoured guests: There is no doubt that inflation targeting is the future for monetary policy in Iceland, as it is for other countries with monetary independence, even though targets may be modified along with the tools used to attain them. There was a time when it was believed that central banks could achieve their objectives by wielding a single weapon: seven-day interest rates. It was also believed that central banks should think only about the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy and let the financial system alone in other respects. In the narrowest sense, the task in hand was inflation, not asset bubbles. But this narrow policy was doomed to crash and burn, here as well as elsewhere. Monetary policy has been reformed and strengthened since then, and is sometimes referred to as inflation targeting-plus. In May 2015, London Business School professor Hélène Rey published an influential paper bearing the title Dilemma not Trilemma: The Global Financial Cycle and Monetary Policy Independence. Rey argued that, because of financial integration, independent monetary policy was actually no longer an option for small currency areas unless it was possible to manage the capital account directly or indirectly, no matter what exchange rate regime was pursued.
To fund these purchases, private capital will be needed (e.g. in the form of senior tranches of SPV debt). Therefore, this project lacks the firm official commitment which similar central bank (BoE, Fed) programmes not reliant on private investor participation have. 5. The latest uncertainty is the adjustment of the entire EFSF project to the loss of France’s (and Austria’s) AAA rating from S&P, followed by the downgrading of the EFSF’s own rating from AAA to AA+. In its comments on this change, S&P stated explicitly that the EFSF’s rating has a developing outlook, which means that the agency foresees the possibility both of returning the rating to AAA (if offsetting credit enhancements are adopted) and of downgrading it further to below AA+ (if key guarantor countries are downgraded). A lower EFSF rating would probably be associated with higher interest costs of refinancing. There might even be a fall in liquidity in the EFSF bond market owing to the exit of some institutional investors, who primarily target the AAA segment of issuers. 6. On a more general level, the lack of coordination of resources for supporting European countries is disturbing. It is resulting in fragmentation of resources and a lack of transparency in the setting of parameters such as “who”, “how much”, “to whom” and “how”. Specifically, the European Union, or the euro area, is planning simultaneously to lend to the International Monetary Fund, to guarantee the EFSF and to guarantee the ESM, while central banks guarantee the capital of the ECB.

Many objectives have been hinted at in the more than 18 months since it was created, but nothing specific has been implemented so far. Yet each of the objectives is highly important, be it the issuing of protection certificates or the establishment of the special purpose vehicle or the purchasing of peripheral countries’ bonds in the secondary market. 2. The ambiguity in the definition of the Facility’s mission is indicated by the changes made both to its guarantee structure, even though the structure remains based on the “per partes” principle, and to its rules of operation during its short lifetime. The fact that the term EFSF 2 has caught on for the new structure reveals just how fundamental these changes are seen to be. 3. Uncertainty also exists on the issue of increasing the effective capital strength of the Facility using concepts such as leverage (via an SPV), protection/insurance, loss tranches and short-term funds. From the reputational perspective, these are exceptionally controversial issues, because many market participants interpret them as a mere attempt to disguise the fact that the euro area countries do not currently have enough resources for a credible rescue plan for Italy and Spain. If they did want to create such resources, they would be putting their own debt arithmetic at risk, because under Eurostat methodology the guarantees for the EFSF’s bonds are included in the guarantors’ gross government debt. If the Facility is to provide effective assistance in stabilising the larger European economies, it will need more funding.