samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
And they must do so in a manner that avoids engaging in a race to the bottom, but rather, puts us back on the path to ever higher achievement of prosperity. The sooner they get on it, the better. Uncertainty is corrosive; it is hurting job creation and capital expansion when we need it most. As Margaret Thatcher would say: “Don’t dawdle. And don’t go wobbly on us, Congress.” Monetary policy cannot substitute for what you must get on with doing. Get on with your job. The ugly truth I think I have made it pretty clear today that I believe what is restraining our economy is not monetary policy but fiscal misfeasance in Washington. We elect our national leaders to safeguard our country. An integral part of that consists of safeguarding the nation’s fiscal probity. Pointing fingers at the Fed only diminishes credibility – the ugly truth is that the problem lies not with monetary policy but in the need to construct a modern, appropriate set of fiscal and regulatory levers and pulleys to better incentivize the private sector to channel money into productive use in expanding our economy and enriching our people. Only Congress, working together with the president, has the power to write the rules and provide the incentives to correct the course of the great ship we know and love as America. I hope you, as the voters who put them in office, will demand no less of them. Thank you.

Another way to calculate Texas’ contribution to job creation is to lop off those states that have continued losing jobs and consider only those that have positive growth in employment these past two years. Using this metric, Texas has accounted for 29.2 percent of job creation since the recession ended. These are the facts. You may select whichever metric you wish. Regardless, it is reasonable to assume Texas has accounted for a significant amount of the nation’s employment growth both over the past 20 years and since the recession officially ended. This raises the obvious question – what kind of jobs are being created in Texas? Here are two charts that might help you form an opinion. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The first provides a breakdown of employment growth by sector since the recession ended, listing each employment sector by its weight in the employment mix of Texas. The most jobs have been created in the educational and health services sector, which accounts for 13.5 percent of Texas’ employment. The second-most jobs have been created in the professional and business services sector, which accounts for 12.5 percent of the Texas workforce. The mining sector, which includes support activities for both mining and oil and gas, employs 2.1 percent (yes, two-point-one percent) of Texas’ workers. In the second chart, you will see that these jobs are not low-paying jobs.
6  See for example Financial Times (Ralph Atkins), 2 March 2007, p.11: “Central bankers eye Norway’s clarity on rates” and Michael Woodford (2007): “The Case for Forecast Targeting as a Monetary Policy Strategy”, in Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21, no. 4, pp. 3-24. 7  In 1959, Petter Jacob Bjerve, then director general of Statistics Norway, wrote that “Apparently, the question of whether national budgets should be published involved an optimum problem: considering both advantages and disadvantages of publishing, any cabinet will probably decide what to publish so as to achieve best possible results of its policy, according to the social preferences of the cabinet.” See Petter Jacob Bjerve (1959): Planning in Norway 1947-1956, North-Holland Publishing Company, p. 352. 2  BIS Review 140/2009  Hermod Skånland proposed the establishment of an incomes-policy council that was to decide the limits for wage growth in Norway. 8 But the proposal was not in tune with the new views which were already taking root in society. The council was never established. Domestic and international developments in the 1970s weakened the conviction that the economy could be fine-tuned. While market failure was the main concern earlier, focus now shifted to regulatory failure. The political pendulum swung away from government control and towards market liberalisation. 9 When decisionmaking was to be decentralised, it was important that the decision-makers acted in line with the overriding policy objectives. New transparency and disclosure requirements were designed to this end.

In the interview Skogstad Aamo flatly denied rumours of a krone devaluation. But before the interview was printed, the news agency NTB reported that the krone had been devalued by 12 per cent. 16 Perhaps the journalist was disappointed but Skogstad Aamo was not criticised for breaking the eighth commandment. Over the last decade, the objective of monetary policy has not been a fixed krone exchange rate, but price stability through low and stable inflation. 17 According to the monetary policy regulation the objective is inflation of close to 2.5 per cent over time. But how long is over time? And what is close to 2.5 per cent? With these formulations, it is no longer that easy to evaluate monetary policy. There are several reasons for this. First, it takes up to one to two years for a change in the interest rate to feed through to inflation. Second, inflation is not only influenced by the interest rate. For example, precipitation levels can have a strong impact on electricity prices. Third, we set interest rates also with the aim of promoting stability in output and employment. If the economy is exposed to severe shocks, we may at times seek to bring inflation rapidly back to target, while under other conditions we deliberately choose a longer horizon. An evaluation of monetary policy cannot therefore be based on the latest figures for inflation.
For five quarters it persisted at this level. Today’s adjustment of our monetary policy should not be seen as a changeover to a restrictive policy. Our interest rate increase is merely to be regarded as an appropriate step towards more neutral monetary conditions following a lengthy period of extraordinary circumstances. It is an indication that we view economic prospects more optimistically and that we trust the economic upswing in Switzerland to be robust. Our monetary stance remains expansionary. Every forecast and every decision is fraught with uncertainty and risks. Should the economic recovery be delayed due to unexpected events or should the Swiss franc appreciate markedly, we shall react appropriately. As in the past, the Swiss National Bank shall keep all its options open. Observed inflation June 2004  BIS Review 39/2004  3  Inflation forecast on March 2004 with Libor at 0.25% and of June 2004 with Libor at 0.5%  Inflation forecast of June 2004 (98 kb)  4  BIS Review 39/2004

For some time, efforts have been under way worldwide to reform major reference interest rates such as Libor. These reforms aim to put existing benchmarks on a more solid footing and, where necessary, to develop alternatives. In the case of Libor, these reforms are still ongoing. In the context of these reforms, a decision has already been made to discontinue the TOIS fixing on the Swiss money market and replace it with SARON at the end of 2017. This is due to the fact that, despite various reform attempts, the volume of transactions underlying the TOIS reference rate has remained too low for efficient price formation. Transaction volume is not expected to be an issue with SARON. Unlike the TOIS fixing, which is calculated using data contributed by a panel of banks, SARON is based on actual market transactions and binding quotes. This fact reinforces trust in SARON and makes it more attractive as a reference rate for all money market transactions. Progress has already been made in establishing SARON on the Swiss money market. For some weeks now, it has been used as the reference rate for interest rate derivatives; hence, quotes for SARON interest rate swaps (SARON swaps) are already being offered. We can observe this in chart 4, which plots the curves for TOIS and SARON swaps. We see that the yield curve for SARON swaps already covers all maturities. Moreover, the SARON yield curve is below the TOIS curve.
8 “The Committee currently anticipates reducing the quantity of reserve balances, over time, to a level appreciably  below that seen in recent years but larger than before the financial crisis; the level will reflect the banking system’s demand for reserve balances and the Committee’s decisions about how to implement monetary policy most efficiently and effectively in the future. The Committee expects to learn more about the underlying demand for reserves during the process of balance sheet normalization.” See the Addendum to the Policy Normalization Principles and Plans, June 13, 2017. Minutes to the FOMC’s November 2016 meeting summarize the FOMC’s discussion of its long-run framework and its implications for the long-run balance sheet size. 9 Logan, Implementing Monetary Policy: Perspective from the Open Market Trading Desk, May 18, 2017. 10 See Leonard, Martin and Potter, How the Fed Changes the Size of Its Balance Sheet, July 10, 2017, for detail on  how these transactions work in practice. 11 Interest is not reinvested. Instead, the Federal Reserve’s net income is remitted to the Treasury. 12 This is done by placing noncompetitive add on bids at Treasury auctions and by buying agency MBS on the open  market.

Take, for example, the bank sector’s solvency, measured as the ratio of equity capital to the balance sheet total. This amounts to only a few per cent, whereas the level in non-financial firms is 20, 30 or even 40%. So a simple way of solving the bank sector’s vulnerability would be to raise the capital base to what is customary in other companies. Banks would then be in a better position to cope with unexpected disturbances in the financial markets. Maintaining a large reserve of equity capital for unexpected events is, however, costly and someone would have to pay for this. The solution would therefore lead to expensive credit and low interest on  1  BIS Review 9/2000  deposits. Projects that are not exceptionally profitable would not obtain finance and the level of saving in the economy would be low. With little investment and low saving, growth would ultimately falter and prosperity would suffer. From this it will be readily understood that unduly tight capital adequacy requirements for the bank sector can be very costly for the entire economy. So if the whole economy would be liable to suffer because the banking system opts for or is coerced into holding a sizeable capital reserve, one can say that this is not a viable remedy for ensuring the financial system’s stability. But how, then, are financial crises to be prevented?
In my view, these last two factors have probably pushed up the NAIRU by 0.5 to 1 percentage point on top of the about 1 percentage point effect of extended unemployment benefits, which is likely to be a temporary effect. Taken together, this suggests that the current NAIRU might be between 6 percent and 7 percent. Although undesirable, this rise should not create concern about the medium-term inflation outlook. First, even the higher estimate of NAIRU is still far below the current unemployment rate of 9 percent. Second, as discussed above, much of this rise is likely to be temporary rather than permanent. As the labor market improves, the extension of unemployment claims benefits will almost certainly be allowed to lapse. When this occurs, the NAIRU is likely to drop back to somewhere in the region of 5 percent to 6 percent. Third, some of the evidence that the NAIRU has increased is not particularly compelling. For example, the loop in the Beveridge curve that is evident now has been seen in past business  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  cycles – cycles in which there was no persistent rise in the NAIRU. This strongly suggests that the rise in job mismatch has a cyclical component. Fourth, the 9 percent unemployment rate may understate the amount of labor market slack. That is because the labor participation rate has fallen sharply.

The krona’s role changed in the 1990s In the period since the fixed exchange rate was abandoned the Riksbank has not targeted the level of the krona. For monetary policy the primary consideration is how inflation prospects relate to the 2 per cent inflation target. But in the Riksbank’s assessment of inflation the exchange rate is, of course, an important factor. Through producer and consumer prices for imported goods and services, the exchange rate has a direct effect on inflation that normally is comparatively rapid. Moreover, the exchange rate influences inflationary pressure indirectly and usually with a longer lag via effects on the level of economic activity. All else equal, a weaker exchange rate leads to stronger demand for Swedish goods and services and thereby to rising resource utilisation. The exchange rate can also influence inflation expectations indirectly, with effects in the first place on price setting. Since the Riksbank introduced the inflation target, our view of the exchange rate and inflation has changed by degrees. In the early years with a flexible exchange rate, monetary policy was influenced a good deal in practice by short-run exchange rate fluctuations. The focus then shifted and today it is clearer that what matters for monetary policy is the entire path of the exchange rate and inflation in the coming years. The monetary policy reaction to a shift in the exchange rate depends on the cause of the shift, its perceived duration and the economic situation in general.
Simple theory suggests there should be an inverse relationship between the depth of the downturn and its duration. Seen this way, the severity of the drop in consumption last spring was in some ways the counterpart to its brevity. The second thing I want to touch on today is what such expenditure-switching does to the supply side and average costs in the economy. The answer for relatively moderate shifts is probably “not much”. The composition of what we buy changes all the time, as do relative prices, and we can usually safely ignore this when thinking about the economy as a whole. Nor should such shifts in the composition of spending matter much in the longer term, even if they’re sizeable. That’s because, over time, economic resources – people, capital and general know-how – can move in response. The economy adapts. But for a short time, at least, significant shifts in demand may be harder to absorb. They result in excess capacity in some areas and too little in others. Until they’re able to respond to the shift, resources are therefore misallocated. As I’ll explain later on, this can have negative effects on productivity, and positive effects on average costs, even for a given level of aggregate demand. The consequences for cost pressures over the medium term – and therefore for monetary policy – are probably limited.

For example, the leading global fund managers recently indicated that they consider sustainability to be a core criterion for investment selection, given that sustainable portfolios could offer higher risk-adjusted returns and that companies that follow sustainable criteria may have greater potential for success in the medium term. Let me finish my address by highlighting that there is still some considerable distance between expectations and the reality of the data at hand, but also that the pace of change is very brisk. Standards are and will always be imperfect, but this is no excuse for us not to try to move forward. Thank you. 4
There are three ways we can achieve this: The first is by enhancing offshore RMB liquidity. As mentioned earlier, the HKMA’s currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China was enhanced in July. Apart from the overall increase in the size and removal of the need for renewal of the swap agreement, on the back of this, the HKMA enhanced its RMB Liquidity Facility, and the important changes include: Expansion of both intraday and overnight repos from RMB10 billion to RMB20 billion each, providing an additional RMB20 billion in liquidity to the market; Extension of the overnight repo operating hours from 6 pm to 5 am the next day (when the RMB RTGS system closes), making operation more flexible and streamlined, especially for those in other time zones; and Reduction of repo rates of the overnight repo, with the spread over CNH HIBOR lowered from 50 to 25 basis points. We will constantly monitor the need for further enhancements to keep RMB liquidity in Hong Kong at the optimal level. The second approach is to facilitate the development of more diverse offshore RMB products. The expansion and enhancement of the Connect schemes to promote the cross-boundary use of the RMB and facilitate further portfolio flows into and out of the Mainland is crucial. Southbound Trading under Bond Connect and Wealth Management Connect have created new opportunities for investors and increased the usage of the RMB in capital markets and wealth management. We will consider enhancements to Southbound Bond Connect to enrich Hong Kong’s bond market.

While these initiatives bode well for inclusiveness, the government must be careful not to excessively gear government spending towards populist policies that eventually add financial burden to the already-tight budget and sovereign debt in the future. In particular, it is important that the government prioritize and balance between public consumption and public investment accordingly. More importantly, efficient management with good governance will be the key ingredients to policy success in this regard. For our part, the Bank of Thailand has also put inclusiveness as one of the main agenda in the Financial Master Plan II, other than efficiency and provision of financial infrastructure. The objective is to provide financial access for all, particularly to the underserved, in an efficient and financially viable manner without compromising financial stability and prudence. This is still an on-going process which we are committed to. Ladies and Gentlemen, Before ending my talk this evening, I would like to address some of the concerns raised by Japanese corporations in Thailand, as reported in a survey from JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization). The key concerns include political stability, development of customs-related system and human resource development. On politics, I have good faith that the upcoming election is another important step towards political stability, while commitment to improving inclusiveness mentioned earlier would bring a long-term solution to the country.
Reflections on Leadership in a Disruptive Age Speech given by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England Regent’s University London Monday 19 February 2018  I am grateful to Jennifer Nemeth for her assistance in preparing these remarks. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  I. Introduction  I was asked to reflect tonight on leadership and values. This is somewhat dangerous territory, and certainly one that creates a target-rich environment for critics who can spot gaps between preaching and practising. Indeed, a review of a recent book on leadership and values suggested that it’s very publication signalled overconfidence – the complacency before the storm – and cautioned that CEOs and investors ought to be wary of the ‘curse of authorship’. There are countless examples of pride coming before the fall in finance. Think of those who dubbed the period before the Global Financial Crisis the ‘Great Moderation’. Or the four most expensive words in the English language. 1  But, because we can learn from experience, and because leadership lies at the heart of Regent’s University’s mission- literally ‘Developing tomorrow’s global leaders’ - I will forge ahead. I will begin by reviewing the main activities of leaders and the core attributes of leadership. I will try to address what leadership is and isn’t and whether it’s inherent or can be developed. I will conclude with some perspectives on the challenges and opportunities you will face leading in our disruptive age. II.

16  11  Carney, M (2017) See Ng Kok Song, P (2014) Organisations with effective communication are over four times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement and 20% more likely to report low turnover according to a study by British Consultancy, CHA (as quoted in Kouzes, J and Posner, B (2010)) 14 As quoted in Kouzes, J and Posner B (2010) 15 Carney, M (2015) 16 Carney, M (2017a) 12 13  6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  6  When leaders get this balance right, the combination of purpose, hope and clarity inspires, unleashing the talent and energy of the organisation. Inspiration is essential because it is impossible for leaders to meet every challenge, see every opportunity, or manage every situation by themselves. The highest-performing organisations are those with the highest number of people who are empowered to think as leaders themselves. 17  During the financial crisis the need for clarity of mind, thought and communication was paramount. In its depth, panic took hold as, “Firmly held truths [were] no longer relied upon. Articles of faith [were] upended. And the very foundations of economies and markets [were] called into question.” The only goal in a panic is to stop it. 19  18  Leaders do this by, as Napoleon would command to his generals “[to]  march toward the sound of gunfire”. This requires mobilising quickly. In this spirit, Tim Geithner’s refrain was “Plan beats no plan”.
The objective must therefore be to constantly try to find new ways of raising growth without jeopardising economic stability. This also entails a continued challenge for the Riksbank to regularly analyse the Swedish economy’s growth potential so that monetary policy will also continue to be well balanced in the future. Thank you! 6  BIS Review 45/2003

The assumption underlying both reports was that the Central Bank’s key objective would continue to be price stability, as is mandated by law, and that the exchange rate of the króna would remain flexible, although it would not need to be entirely free-floating. I will not explain the grounds for these assumptions here, as they have been discussed widely, except to point out that it is unrealistic to entrust monetary policy with objectives other than those it has the chance to fulfil using the available instruments, and that adopting a fixed exchange rate would eliminate the advantages of an independent currency and independent monetary policy without eliminating the disadvantages. Therefore, policy formation lies in finding a framework that can work under the above-described conditions. There were a number of drawbacks to Iceland’s pre-crisis monetary policy framework. A major flaw was the lack of an adequate response to the excessive capital inflows that contributed to credit and asset price bubbles and domestic residents’ significant foreign exchange risk, which was to a large extent unhedged. Furthermore, monetary and fiscal policy were not well enough aligned, and the same can be said of other Government decisions that affected demand. The burden on monetary policy was therefore greater than it would have been otherwise, which further stimulated capital inflows. This, together with strong demand, pushed the real exchange rate higher than it would have been otherwise and exacerbated macroeconomic imbalances, as could be seen most clearly in a sizeable current account deficit.