samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The question, then, is whether the approaching end of net asset purchases in the euro area might see a sudden waning in the support for global bond yields, and thereby risk amplifying 2/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  prevailing upward pressure on global sovereign bond yields stemming from the ongoing tightening by the US Federal Reserve. If such adjustments were abrupt, they could risk causing broader capital reallocations, including from emerging market economies, and force a revaluation of global equity prices, with potentially adverse impacts on the financial conditions consistent with our primary mandate. The gradual decline in net capital outflows since their peak in the spring of 2016, which you can see in the chart on the left-hand side, would, at least at face value, nurture such concerns. It suggests that there is at most a loose correlation between the actual pace of Eurosystem purchases under the APP – which has been gradually declining since April last year – and the intensity of cross-border capital flows. The persistence of policy-induced cross-border capital flows The chart masks important differences across investors, however. You can see this more clearly on my next slide. Up until May this year, net capital outflows in debt securities have decelerated, by and large, as a result of a reduction in the pace of net sales by non-euro area residents – as you can see in the chart on the left-hand side.

In Hong Kong, the Gini coefficient has risen steadily from 0.476 in 1991 to 0.539 in 2016, whereas in the US, it has increased from 0.449 in 1991 to 0.519 in 2015.2 Economic inequality causes social divisions, with the rise in populism especially in the US and Europe being one of the unwelcome symptoms, and it also affects development and growth in the longer run. Indeed, problems with income and wealth disparity have become so acute that it has recently triggered a debate on the “crisis of capitalism”. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, when presenting her Global Policy Agenda at the IMF Spring Meetings last month, also pointed out that the rewards of economic growth have not been shared, and called for a “new multilateralism” which will, among other things, foster inclusion. 4. With so much at stake, policymakers simply cannot brush aside the issue of the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. Over the past two years, I have been talking about, on different occasions, how globalisation, technological innovation and monetary policy may have affected distribution of income and wealth. Today I wish to offer some further thoughts about the distributional consequences of monetary policies: what has happened so far, and the way forward for policymakers. The distributional effects of unconventional monetary policies 5.
On its part, the Government introduced tax and rental concessions and subsidised loan programmes. The Bank of Russia took measures through the financial system to reduce people’s costs for covering their daily financial needs. 1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  The earliest decisions made at the very beginning of the pandemic were related to loan restructuring. Both households and companies affected by the pandemic were granted loan repayment holidays. We really appreciate how quickly you approved respective laws for this. Having the capital cushion, the banking system was to act in the most responsible manner during this period. Therefore, banks also offered loan restructuring to clients who were not eligible pursuant to law. Eventually, 12% of all restructured loans to both individuals and small and medium-sized businesses were restructured according to law, and the remaining portion — under banks’ inhouse programmes. Currently, we have no concerns about the termination of loan repayment holidays. The majority of borrowers have managed to resume their scheduled repayments. Potentially bad loans are covered by banks’ capital cushions. What does this mean? This means that they do not pose any threat to banks’ stability or capabilities to expand lending, which is vital at the moment. Moreover, we granted temporary regulatory easing to banks to be able not only to restructure loans, but also to issue new ones, thus helping the economy. We allowed banks to use their accumulated capital cushions, which enabled them to issue more corporate and mortgage loans. We shifted towards accommodative monetary policy.

But unfortunately, market players failed to act in a responsible manner in this situation. They made offers to individuals to invest funds in complex, or opaque products, and people could thus lose not only income, but also a part of their investment. Of course, this was the last thing people needed during the pandemic. We are grateful to you for empowering the Bank of Russia to limit the sales of hazardous products to individuals. Furthermore, we will establish requirements for product selling procedures so that financial institutions cannot mislead retail investors. To this end, we are introducing key information documents on all products which will provide a clear and brief description of a product’s main parameters and inherent risks. We also need an open-ended cooling-off period for people, even if they have faced hard selling when some products were offered or promoted, will have the opportunity to reject any services. At the moment, such a period is applied solely to voluntary insurance. I would like to stress that we will continue our efforts to tighten the screws in this area, so to say, until we see that the market behaves more maturely, understanding that it is more beneficial for it to establish long-term relations with customers, rather than swindle money from them right there and then.
19  20  See Figure 3 in Flodén (2016). 21  See af Jochnick (2015). Flodén (2016). Sims (2016) discusses more generally how large balance sheets risk weakening the financial independence of central banks. 22  This conclusion is not self-evident, however. One could also argue the opposite and say that the Riksbank, as a result of low interest rates and small amount of cost-free capital, should seek higher returns. And in normal times, government bonds with long maturities can be expected to give a return that is higher than the anticipated funding costs via the repo rate. Such a search for yield is associated with risks and will sometimes succeed, sometimes fail. It is therefore hardly a sustainable strategy for an institution like the Riksbank, which is now celebrating its 350th anniversary and is striving for an equally long future existence. 23  16 [16]

Lord Mayor, you are a great example to all of us who want to improve the diversity of our institutions, which makes them better places to work in. You are going on to undertake a role of great importance, one that reminds us that whatever the problems that we deal with, there are unthinkable acts of evil taking place. It reminds us not be become obsessed with our own work to the exclusion of the terrible human suffering that can happen. We wish you all the best in your future role, and please accept our thanks for all that you have done and are doing as Lord Mayor. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
2  2 http://www.snb.ch/en/ifor/finmkt/fnmkt_benchm/id/finmkt_reformrates  Page 4/7  Berne, 15 December 2016 Andréa M. Maechler  News conference  Slides  Page 5/7  Berne, 15 December 2016 Andréa M. Maechler  News conference  Page 6/7  Berne, 15 December 2016 Andréa M. Maechler  News conference  Page 7/7

But before I hand you over to the MoneyPACIFIC team for their presentation I truly believe your goals and objectives in your respective designations can be greatly complemented with our agenda of financial literacy and that this latest resource will be of use to the pursuit of youth and women empowerment, assist the micro-entreprenuers, complement student learnings from the existing national education curricula, and overall greatly assist us in all our diverse capacities as financial consumers. Manuia le tātou fa’amoemoe. Thank you. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches
After seven years of continuously creating jobs, and continuously falling unemployment, the UK labour market remains in rude health. It also appears to be tight. One way of gauging that comes from comparing the stock of vacancies (V) in the economy (aggregate labour demand) with the stock of people seeking work (U, aggregate spare labour supply). Chart 5 plots two measures of the V/U ratio in the UK.3 They are at their highest since the 1960s. Both ratios also well in excess of 100%, suggesting demand for labour exceeds available supply. 3  The broader measure is the vacancy-effective searcher ratio, where effective searchers are a weighted average of the employed, unemployed and non-participants. The weights on the employed and non-participants are their job finding probabilities relative to the job finding probability of the unemployed. The unemployed therefore have a weight of one. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  Chart 5: Vacancy to unemployment ratio Ratio, percent 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 2002  2004  2006  2008  2010  Vacancy-Unemployment ratio  2012  2014  2016  2018  Vacancy-Effective searcher ratio  Sources: ONS and Bank of England calculations. Other evidence confirms that picture. The UK unemployment rate (3.8%) is below the Bank’s estimate of its long-run equilibrium rate (or NAIRU) of 4 ¼%. In business surveys, a majority of companies point to acute skills shortages across a range of professions and industries.

Chart 32: Real interest rates and unemployment (1999 – latest) Unemployment rate (per cent)  14  UK  12 US 10 Euro area 8 6  Euro area latest  4 2 UK latest  0 -6  -4  -2  US latest  0 2 Real interest rate (per cent)  4  6  8  Sources: Thomson Reuters Datastream, ONS and Bank of England calculations. Notes: Real interest rates defined in simple terms as current short-term central bank policy rate minus headline CPI inflation rate. 31  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  31  The UK occupies an unusual, mid-Atlantic position. It has similar levels of real interest rates to those in the euro area, at the same as having similar levels of unemployment to those in the US. Put differently, relative to both the US and the euro area, and its historical past, the current UK monetary stance looks relatively accommodative. For the same output gap and a higher rate of inflation, the UK’s monetary stance is 2 percentage points looser than in the US. There may well be good grounds for these international differences – for example, differing levels of neutral real rates and different natural unemployment rates. Nonetheless, the very different starting positions of the economy and monetary policy should give us cause to pause before simply assuming central banks should be moving synchronously, even when faced by a common global shock.
Barbro Wickman-Parak: The Riksbank and the property market Speech by Ms Barbro Wickman-Parak, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Fastighetsdagen 2008, Stockholm, 14 May 2008. *  *  *  Subprime loans in the United States were the origins of the deep-seated tensions in the international financial markets, which have not yet relinquished their grip after almost a year. The problems in the subprime market are an important reason behind the collapse in housing construction and the falling house prices, which have made a profound impression on the real economy in the United States. In some other countries, too, the earlier sharp rises in property prices have slowed down and been replaced by falling prices. Here in Sweden we have so far been spared these events. How does the Riksbank view future developments in the property market and what stance does the Bank's monetary policy take in relation to asset prices? Today I will address these questions. I will also briefly comment on the recent developments in the financial markets. Several countries have experienced rapidly rising house prices, for instance the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as Denmark, Ireland and Spain. Recently there has been a slowdown in the rate of increase and in some of these countries house prices are now falling. In the United States house prices have fallen by around 10 per cent since the peak in 2006 (see figure 1). In Sweden, too, house prices have risen rapidly, even more so than in the United States.

As I mentioned earlier, the problems in the US subprime market had widespread and profound effects on the international financial markets. These loans had been packaged together with other securities into structured products and sold to investors around the world. The uncertainty over where the potential losses were created a general distrust between the banks and a general increase in risk aversion. The former was expressed in a rise in the differences between interbank rates and risk-free government bonds, what are known as TED spreads. The latter was expressed in, for instance, rising credit spreads (see figures 7 and 8). For a few weeks now we have seen signs that the tensions in the credit market have eased. The credit spreads have declined and the cost of insuring against losses has fallen (see figure 9). Other signs are that the banks have been able to sell off loans from their balance sheets. They have also been able to strengthen their own capital, although a large part of this process still remains. The stock markets have also recovered. The uncertainty in the interbank market has prevailed longer; the TED spreads have remained high but have fallen over the past few days. In Sweden the TED spreads have also risen, but unlike other countries the markets have continued to function without any intervention from the Riksbank. Despite the fact that there are positive signs, it is still too early to assume the danger is past.
For sums between SEK 100 and SEK 500, 22 per cent said that they prefer cash. Second, it appears that cash imparts a sense of security and our survey showed that 65 per cent felt very secure about using cash as compared to 35 per cent for cards. The term security may mean many different things, but the feeling of having the entire transaction under control is central. A card transaction may feel less concrete and be harder to understand. It may also be difficult to estimate the risk of fraud, for example as a result of skimming. We know that older people are much more prone to use cash and less prone to use cards than younger people. The difference is also substantial. Third, appropriate substitutes for cash are not always available. Although cards are accepted almost everywhere, there are few alternatives when it comes to payments between private individuals, for example on second-hand markets on the Internet. Using your Internet bank in the evening to make a transfer between two bank accounts in order to pay for a sofa is not always a smooth and easy alternative to cash. It was in such cases that cheques performed an important function. Fourth, cash is one way of storing a value and it is often wise to maintain a certain liquidity reserve in the form of cash. However, despite everything I have said about the use of cash in Sweden and internationally, there is a lot that we do not know or cannot explain.

The value of the banknotes and coins in circulation has fallen from 9.6% of GDP in 1950 to 2.9% in 2010. So, the question is: Should cash be compared with the extinct Neanderthals or the surviving Crocodiles? But why is this of interest to the Riksbank? Well, a first obvious answer is because it is the Riksbank that issues banknotes and coins. Another, and more complicated, answer is because one of the tasks of the Riksbank is to promote a safe and efficient payment system. This may sound a little high-flown, but it means, among other things, that we should promote the development of safe and efficient payments. This is why we have a natural interest in cards and cash. Hence, we are interested in the evolution of the market for payments, and that is why I am standing before you today. What I intend to talk about today is why I believe that cash will continue to play an important role in our payment system for the foreseeable future (even though not 85 million years) and why cards and other technological developments will not be able to fully take the place of cash. Ironically, part of the explanation for this lies in the strong position that debit and credit cards hold on the Swedish market. As usual I would like to make clear that my speech is an expression of my own views and that it may not necessarily be shared by my colleagues in the Board of the Riksbank.
But this 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  time, technology and its use has permeated into our lives through the ubiquity of smart devices. This coupled with advances in “AIDA”, or Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, mean that new technology can transform or create new business models in ways unseen previously. The rise of social networks and the digital ecosystems, enabled by BigTech and FinTech players, have spurred new business collaborations including with conventional financial institutions that cut across economic sectors. Advancements in distributed ledger technology (blockchain) have also opened up new possibilities to disrupt existing market infrastructure. 8 Already, FinTech developments have revolutionised the way financial services can be delivered. Some examples in capital markets include: (a) In fund and wealth management, the rise of robo-advisory services and AI-driven investment management; (b) In equity research, the use of AI to generate analyst reports; and (c) In primary and secondary markets, blockchain-based platforms that can substitute for central trusted parties by providing an alternate reliable protocol for fund-raising, trade execution, settlement and custody. Regulatory Stance to Innovation 9  Let me broadly share MAS’ stance towards innovation in financial services. 10 Financial institutions have always been at the forefront of innovative use of technology. To the extent that new developments in technology and business models bring benefits to the broader economy, allow improvements in business management, and give customers better choices or services, these are to be encouraged and even supported.

Thomas Jordan: The Swiss National Bank’s monetary policy in turbulent times Summary of a speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Geldmarkt-Apéro of the Swiss National Bank, Zurich, 19 March 2009. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The financial market crisis has now widened into a global economic recession, and the Swiss economy is feeling the full impact. The SNB has taken prompt and decisive action in response, and substantially relaxed its monetary policy. In mid-March, as a result of the sharp economic downturn since December 2008, a further major expansion of monetary policy became necessary. However, the SNB was already operating a de facto zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), and the natural limits of conventional monetary policy had been reached. The SNB therefore took three unconventional measures: increasing the number of transactions in repos with longer terms, purchasing Swiss franc bonds issued by private sector borrowers, and buying foreign currency on the open market. In implementing these unconventional steps, the SNB has demonstrated that, even in an environment of zero interest rates, it still has a number of tools at its disposal which allow it to react flexibly to any undesired tightening of monetary conditions. In this context, it is important not to misinterpret the foreign currency measures as the start of a “beggar thy neighbour” policy.
In my view, the experiences of including indebtedness in the balance when making monetary policy decisions in Sweden are therefore not particularly positive. Swedish monetary policy leaning against the wind The Riksbank has recently been much clearer about how the risks linked to housing prices and household indebtedness have affected the monetary policy decisions.2 The risks have  1  The minutes of the monetary policy meetings in 2005 and 2006 show that the Executive Board took into account the then very rapid increase in household indebtedness and housing prices (see, in particular, the minutes of the monetary policy meetings in April 2005 and February 2006). At the monetary policy meeting in December 2009 I myself mentioned developments in household debt and housing prices as a reason for not cutting the repo rate. 2  In the summary of the Monetary Policy Report published in October 2012, it is explained that the repo-rate path “is expected to go hand in hand with households’ debt ratios not rising”. The introduction to the Monetary  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  been allowed to justify a higher repo rate than the prospects for inflation and resource utilisation would have indicated. Thus, one can say that the Riksbank has practised what is known in central bank contexts as leaning against the wind, to counteract a potentially harmful growth in debt.

When the krona appreciates, this has both a direct effect on inflation, which is pushed down when import prices fall, and an indirect effect in that the demand for Swedish-produced goods and services is affected negatively. Strong krona contributes to low inflation The possibility for monetary policy to steer the exchange rate is limited, but there is nevertheless reason to believe that the krona has become stronger than it would otherwise have been because of our leaning against the wind. If foreign exchange market participants see an increased difference between the yield on a Swedish treasury bill and the yield on foreign equivalents, the Swedish treasury bills and thus the Swedish krona will be more attractive and therefore more expensive – that is, the krona will appreciate. Although it is difficult to see clear links between observed exchange rates and interest rate differentials, a positive interest rate differential usually coincides with a strong krona (see Figure 1). The difficulty in seeing clear links is due to expectations having considerable significance for trade on the financial markets. The market rates and the krona rate do not change when the Riksbank makes its repo-rate decisions, they change when market participants’ expectations of future repo-rate decisions change. Figure 1.