samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The positive movements in household savings contributed to the growth of the lending activity, so according to the latest available data as of September 2017, loans increased by 4.3% on an annual basis, with a solvency that is almost twice as high as the statutory levels and volume of liquidity that enables optimal day-to-day operation. It is also worth noting that in spite of the political environment, the deposit growth and the trust in banks have been achieved in the environment of historically lowest interest rates, both on the financial markets in the euro area and on the domestic interbank market. Also, allow me to mention that in the forthcoming medium-term period, the deposit market will urge banks to make even greater efforts to modernize and increase their offer. We live in times of global digitalization, great advancements in information technology and its daily use in the financial sector. Innovation and application of modern technologies globally put competitive pressure on the traditional forms of banking, and encourage banks to constantly adapt, be proactive and inventive, and by changing their business models to new phenomena and conditions, ensure their market success. Such processes will inevitably touch the bank operations in the Republic of Macedonia. In perspective, the use of modern technologies will not only affect the market performance of banks, but will probably change radically their relationship with depositors and other clients.

Free flows of capital across borders can make the domestic financial market deeper and wider, increase liquidity, and facilitate price discovery, thus improving efficiency of resource allocation. At the same time, diversification by investing overseas can help raise investment returns for households, which would in turn help promote private consumption and support sustainable growth. For emerging markets in particular, participation of foreign financial institutions can speed up the  1  Kaminsky, G.L., C.M. Reinhart and C.A. Vegh (2004), "When it rains, it pours: procyclical capital flows and macroeconomic policies", NBER Working Paper, 10708. BIS Review 141/2008  1  learning process and facilitate the adoption of best international practices by the financial sector. Therefore, while a more liberal regime for capital flows could at times bring about negative impacts, the relevant response should not be to keep the capital account closed forever, but to find ways of effectively managing the potential risks. International experiences have provided some broad suggestions on how such risks could be managed. Foremost is the importance of appropriate sequencing between liberalising the capital account and other domestic reforms. Development of financial institutions and markets, enhanced macroeconomic stability, and proper risk management by banks and enterprises would help to increase the resilience of the domestic entities in dealing with volatile capital flows. In addition, prudential regulation and supervisory framework need to be established, in order to prevent excessive risk-taking by domestic financial institutions.
In the case of 2021, the expansionary stance would be mainly due to the impact on growth of the NGEU programme.6 Therefore, should any of the risks mentioned in relation to the impact of this programme materialise, the expansionary stance of fiscal policy could ultimately be smaller in 2021. 2.4  Government debt in the Draft Budget  According to the Draft Budget, the general government debt-to-GDP ratio will reach a historic high of 118.8% of GDP in 2020 and will edge down to 117.4% in 2021. This fall would be exclusively a consequence of the strong nominal GDP growth forecast in 2021, since both the budget deficit and the stock-flow adjustments would exert upward pressure on the government debt ratio.7  Nonetheless, taking into account the risks I have already mentioned, to GDP growth (on the downside) and to the level of the budget deficit (on the upside) in 2021, the government debt ratio may behave less favourably than projected in the Draft Budget. 6  Although this programme will have a neutral effect on the general government balance, by partly closing the negative output gap forecast for that year, it will increase the cyclical component of the balance – calculated as the product of the output gap and its elasticity to the cycle (0.6, according to the OECD) – and the structural deficit.

In this respect, and in what, in my view, should be the third main defining principle of Spanish fiscal policy in the coming years, public resources should be geared towards those uses or initiatives that have the most capacity to increase future economic growth. Apart from certain support measures that may be necessary in the short term, it is vital that economic policy in general, and budgetary policy in particular, are geared towards achieving the structural transformation of the Spanish economy, to correct some of the shortcomings that have accompanied us in recent decades and to ensure that we are not left behind in the profound changes that are taking place worldwide, including in terms of the level of globalisation, digitalisation and ecological transformation of our economy. Lastly, it is advisable that budgetary policy, rather than promoting initiatives that involve acquiring future payment commitments that will drive up our structural deficit, instead encourages temporary increases in the deficit, concentrated on items that can boost our growth potential in the medium term. I will refer repeatedly to these basic principles later. 2 Draft State and Social Security Budget for 2021 In this section I wish to offer my assessment of the main revenue and expenditure measures included in the Draft Budget, of the general budgetary policy stance envisaged for 2021, and of expected developments in Spanish government debt.
Indeed, it is worth noting that in 1994,  12  This lack of spare capacity in firms is hard to reconcile with the relatively sharp drop in GDP in the recession and the resilience of employment. However, it is possible that future data revisions may change the profile of GDP during the recession. It is also possible that underlying productivity growth trends were overestimated during the long expansion of the 1990s and 2000s, and that the economy was further above capacity in 2006/7 than was appreciated at the time. 10  BIS Review 158/2010  when the early 90s fiscal consolidation began, the UK economy grew by over 4%, which is still the strongest rate of GDP growth we have seen in any calendar year since the late 1980s. The strength of growth surprised forecasters, who had greatly underestimated the momentum of growth which would be generated by a rebound in private sector demand, a strong world economy and a competitive exchange rate. 13 There is a risk that we are making the same mistake again because of the preoccupation with downside risks following the financial crisis. The second key argument is that higher interest rates should help to exert a brake on abovetarget inflation and keep inflation expectations anchored around the 2% target. There are significant upside risks to the forecast recently published in the Bank’s Inflation Report which could sustain the period of above-target inflation into 2012 and 2013.

Andrew Sentance: Getting back to business Speech by Mr Andrew Sentance, Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, at the lunch hosted by the Bank of England and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Belfast, 24 November 2010. *  *  *  I would like to thank Tomasz Wieladek and Matt Corder for research assistance and I am also grateful for helpful comments from other colleagues. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England or other members of the Monetary Policy Committee. It is a great pleasure to be back here in Northern Ireland for the fourth time in my capacity as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee. As a former business economist, I greatly value the opportunity to visit individual businesses and meet with business groups in different parts of the UK, as I am doing on this two-day visit to Northern Ireland. And I would like to thank Frances Hill and her colleagues at the Bank’s Northern Ireland Agency for all the work they do with the business community here and for organising this visit. It is over twenty years since I first came to Belfast when I was working for the CBI in the late 1980s. It was so long ago that Nigel Smyth was not yet then the CBI Director here in Northern Ireland! And it may even have been before Nigel joined the CBI as Deputy Director to Alasdair MacLaughlin, over twenty years ago.
When the FOMC wanted to adjust its federal funds rate target – that is, the interest rate banks earn or pay when lending or borrowing overnight reserves with another bank – it directed the System Open Market Account (the Desk) manager in New York to alter the supply of reserves within the banking system (up or down) as needed to match the estimated demand for reserves in order to keep the federal funds rate very close to the FOMC’s target.2 In this setup, the amount of banking reserves in the system – required and excess – was very small and the Desk typically conducted open market operations that added or drained no more than a few billion dollars of reserves from the banking system to ensure that the federal funds rate traded around the FOMC’s target. In October 2008, after passage of the TARP legislation, the Federal Reserve was authorized to implement a new tool, the ability to pay interest on required and excess reserves.3 This tool was significant because it meant that the FOMC would be able to control interest rate policy even with a much larger balance sheet and a much larger amount of excess reserves in the banking system. This was important because it gave us more scope to expand the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet to help address the financial crisis and to provide support for the economic recovery, knowing that later, when the recovery took hold, we could raise interest rates even with an enlarged balance sheet.

As we noted in the December FOMC statement, we anticipate that we will continue reinvestment “until normalization of the federal funds rate is well underway.” I think this policy makes sense not only because the decision to end reinvestment will represent a further tightening of monetary policy, but also because it is difficult to assess ahead of time the impact of such a decision on financial market conditions given the lack of historical experience. I also believe that continuing reinvestment until the federal funds rate reaches a higher level makes sense. We want to ensure that we have the ability to respond to adverse shocks by easing monetary policy by lowering the policy rate. Having more “dry powder” in the form of higher short-term interest rates seems more desirable than less dry powder and a smaller balance sheet. Now the words “well underway” in the FOMC statement are vague – what does that mean in terms of the level of the federal funds rate? Reiterating the disclaimer that I am speaking for myself, my view is that we should not set a numerical tripwire for ending reinvestment. If the economy were growing very quickly and the risks of an early return to the zero lower bound for the federal funds rate were deemed to be low, then I could see ending reinvestment at a relatively low federal funds rate.
In addition, a bank must have a clear understanding of an HLI’ s operations and risk management capabilities. The Committee observed weaknesses in each of these areas. Let me give a few examples. The Committee found that banks did not obtain sufficient financial information to allow for a full assessment of how much and what types of risk had been assumed by large HLIs. In particular, banks did not obtain the information needed to measure leverage. They also did not have sufficient information to understand HLIs’ concentrations in particular markets and risk categories, or their exposure to broad trading strategies. BIS Review 27/1999  2  Similarly, banks generally did not sufficiently understand the ability of HLIs to manage their risks. Because risk profiles can change from one day to the next, or even from moment to moment, it is necessary for a bank to be sure that the HLI can effectively manage its business operations and risks on an ongoing basis. In general, we did not find sufficient reviews of HLIs’ risk management systems and their underlying assumptions, back office systems used to manage daily operations such as collateral and liquidity, and the major accounting and valuation policies. Exposure Measurement The Committee also thought that banks need to develop better measures for determining the credit exposure resulting from different types of trading activities.

Along the way of trying to solve different policy problems transparency and openness have been important features to us and helped us to increase credibility for our actions. The clearer the principles and rules are that guide policy, also in the financial stability area, the better. Given the complexity of European policymaking and the many different national aspects involved I think that the arguments for this clear framework and for rules are even stronger on a European level although perhaps more difficult to obtain. BIS Review 85/2000  4
1985=100 160  160  140  140  120  120  100  100  80  80  60  60  40  40  20  20  0 1990  0 1992  1994  1996  1998  2000  2002  Sources: EcoWin/Conference Board and NBER SG Gausdal 31.01.03  In the US, consumer confidence has weakened since the autumn of 2000. Growth in the US has been sustained over the last year, fuelled by low interest rates, an expansionary government budget and growth in private consumption. Business investment and net exports have made a negative contribution. A new package of measures, including tax cuts and higher government transfers, has recently been presented in order to stimulate the US economy and prevent a recession. However, growth in the US will probably remain low this year. Industrial confidence in the euro area and the German IFO index Monthly figures. Seasonally adjusted  15  110  10 5  IFO business climate (righthand scale)  0  100  -5 90 -10 -15 80  -20 -25 -30 1995  Euro area (left-hand scale)  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  70 2003  Sources: EcoWin, EU Commission and IFO SG Gausdal 31.01.03  Monetary policy in Europe has become more expansionary. Since the presentation of Norges Bank’s Inflation Report on 30 October, key rates have been reduced by 0.5 percentage point in Sweden and the euro area.

December 1995=100  Oslo Stock Exchange Benchmark  300 275 250 225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25  S&P 500  03  n  n  n  n  n  n  n  Ja  Ja  Ja  Ja  Ja  Ja  Ja  02  01  00  n Ja  99  97  98  Oslo Stock Exchange IT  96  300 275 250 225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25  Source: EcoWin SG Gausdal 31.01.03  Many other countries also experienced a period of strong expansion in the 1990s. Economic growth in the US was particularly high. New technology generated optimism and laid the basis for strong investment growth. At the same time, wage growth and inflation remained low. Equity prices, however, rose sharply just before the turn of the millennium, particularly in the US, but also in many other countries. 1  The output gap, which is a reflection of capacity utilisation in the economy, is measured by different methods: the trend GDP method (the HP method) and the potential GDP method (the production function method). When using the HP method, adjustments are made for the increase in vacation days in 2001 and 2002. This is also taken into account when applying the production function method. The output gap is zero if aggregate output is equivalent to the level of activity that can be achieved over time without generating a rise in price and cost inflation.
The potential benefits of a well integrated ICT in agriculture are diverse and include: •  transparent dissemination of information such as weather patterns, seed and fertilizer use, availability and distribution;  •  easy accessibility to suppliers of inputs;  •  common distribution of information on market prices of crops; and  •  generally bringing together of suppliers and buyers of crops. Government has put agriculture at the core of rural development and poverty reduction as well as employment creation. It is therefore important to note that the expansion of ICTs in rural communities is more required now than ever before, as most information is now  4  BIS Review 76/2008  disseminated through internet and cellular phones. These facilities will help uplift the living standards of rural communities. 3.2  Agriculture  Zambia’s agriculture sector has enormous potential to become a major grower and exporter of agricultural and horticultural produce. The country has an abundance of quality land, water (over 40% of fresh water resources in Southern Africa) and ideal climate all suited to a wide range of agricultural products. Only 15% of Zambia’s 60 million hectares of arable land is under cultivation. The recent surge in food prices in the world presents an enormous opportunity for Zambia to become the food basket of the sub region. This can be achieved by re-doubling efforts to boost agricultural productivity coupled with substantial increase in infrastructure investment to ease supply bottlenecks that are pushing up prices.

That stance combines an exceptionally low policy interest rate – the federal funds rate in a range of 0 to 25 basis points – with forward guidance indicating that this range would be appropriate at least as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6½ percent, inflation is projected to be no more than 2½ percent between one and two years in the future, and inflation expectations remain well anchored. Moreover, to support a stronger economic recovery, the FOMC is purchasing Treasury securities at a rate of $ billion per month and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) at a rate of $ billion per month, and has stated its intention to continue purchasing assets until it sees substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market, conditional on ongoing assessment of benefits and costs. Combined, these actions are intended to ease financial conditions and thereby help to establish a selfsustaining economic expansion. Turning to recent developments, incoming data on the U.S. economy have been mixed of late. Based on the advance estimate, real GDP declined slightly in the final quarter of 2012, which was below the consensus expectations of an increase of around one percent. In addition, in January payroll employment rose by just 157,000, below the 200,000 average monthly gain in the fourth quarter, and the unemployment rate edged up to 7.9 percent. Offsetting these soft indicators, we see evidence beneath the surface that private demand firmed in the final months of 2012 and has been reasonably well maintained thus far this year.
Still, the world over currency counterfeiting and design concerns prevail irrespective of modern technology. Second, it attempts to protect the real value of currency by maintaining inflation at low levels through monetary policy. If prices or inflation rise day by day, the value of currency in terms of goods and services it can buy gets less and less and people will tend to dispense with currency as money and tend to use other international currencies as their preferred media of exchange. In such events, the currency system will collapse and the existence of the Central Bank will be questioned. This happened in Germany in 1920 and Zimbabwe in recent years. Second, the conduct of monetary policy Monetary Policy contains measures to regulate the supply, availability, cost and international exchange of the country’s money. Accordingly, levels of interest rates, exchange rate and credit in the economy are under the control of the Central Bank. These economic variables determine almost all economic activities of the public such as investments, savings, international transactions, production and employment. Their changes first affect our expenditure (what is called aggregate demand) its impact on production, income and employment. This course of effects is termed the monetary policy transmission mechanism. As these variables are part and parcel of our day-to-day life and their effects vary on different segments of people, the world over Central Banks get their fair share of praise or blame for whatever ensues in the economy.

Such payments services  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  make the payments safer and faster. Payments are the circulation of money which is the life blood of the economy. Sixth, agent of the government This is the function that leads to a lot of criticism on the independence of the Central Bank. Six most important agency functions are the management of public debt, fiscal agent, official depository, financial adviser, management of Employees’ Provident Fund and Administration of Exchange Control Act. The most important agency function of the Central Bank is the financial/economic adviser to the Government. In this regard, as the Central Bank is responsible for the monetary policy in its entire scope and escalation. Conventionally central banks have had the responsibility to advise the Government on fiscal and other operations to the extent that they impinge on the economy and advise as to what should be the best course of policy action for the economy. Given the nature of the central banks’ functions, advance access to macroeconomic and financial information and their expertise, central banks are the closest economic advisers to the Government. The Central Bank statutorily submits a number of reports such as the Central Bank Annual Report as part of this advice. In addition, the Central Bank provides advice on various policy matters on an on-going basis to the Government. However, central banks world over are blamed for not providing constructive and impartial advice because of the independence issue. I will talk on central bank independence in a moment.