samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
A similar point can be made about debt issued under the Government’s Credit Guarantee Scheme – the Government provides a guarantee but it is still the market which buys the bonds and provides the cash. As these schemes come to an end, the challenge for the banks is not so much the sourcing of an additional quantity of funding. It is to roll over that existing market funding into different funding instruments. More generally, a central bank should not allow its liquidity operations to become, or even to be perceived as a source of sustained funding for banks or for any other form of mediumterm lending. The only medium-term source of commercial bank funding, and hence for their lending, is private sector savings, whether channelled through retail or wholesale markets. A central bank does not have access to those private sector savings. The grey area is that short-term liquidity support, in size and continually rolled over, looks and acts a lot like funding. That is why the Special Liquidity Scheme was designed to lend against legacy assets only and one of the reasons why the Bank has been so determined that it will end as scheduled. Suppose the scheme were to be rolled on indefinitely. What was intended and designed as system-wide central bank liquidity support would become instead a fiscal operation. We would be using government debt – and hence public money – to subsidise a group of private sector firms, with the public purse being at risk.

After provoking an exceptional increase in liquidity in August, on 6 September 2011 the SNB announced that it would no longer tolerate a EUR/CHF exchange rate below CHF 1.20. This measure remains the focal point of Swiss monetary policy. In the current global context, Switzerland’s economic situation does not justify any strengthening of monetary conditions and this should remain the case for the foreseeable future. The SNB continues to enforce this minimum rate with the utmost determination and remains prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities for this purpose. From a conceptual perspective, the minimum exchange rate is not a quantitative easing measure and most of my generic comments do not strictly apply to the Swiss case. Nevertheless, the risks associated with this measure do, to a certain extent, resemble those I just described. The first of these risks is that the minimum exchange rate may superficially seem like a simple or straight-forward measure, which may in turn give the impression that monetary policy is a catch-all problem-solver, i.e. that it is almighty. This is clearly not the case. Monetary policy has neither the capacity nor the mandate to protect the Swiss economy from all the shocks to which it is subjected. The aim of the minimum exchange rate is to avert the worst possible developments in zero interest rate environment. It is not a response to each and every challenge with which the Swiss economy is faced, nor can it be implemented at any desired level, free of any risk.
In the case of bank lending and pricing, uncertainty in cash flows from the projected carbon credit, and the slow process of local approval, is seen as a major risk to banks. Lack of understanding of CDM and carbon trading market by financial institutions is also a factor weighing on its progress. In the case of investment fund, this is an area that has the strongest potential for private investors’ participation in supporting clean technology and energy-efficient companies. Again, clarity beyond 2012 is needed for evaluating the longer-term economic payoffs, and whether carbon credit is considered securities legally is an issue in some countries. What I have mentioned are some of the practical issues that have emerged in emerging markets, and need to be addressed in order to be able to speed up the process. To conclude, climate change is a big deal for the financial system for a number of reasons that I have mentioned. As for the response, the overall direction of the financial sector’s response to climate change so far is positive, but still very much in an early stage. The progress, however, is more limited in Asia. To promote greater engagement of the financial system, the issues of incentive and availability of tools are important.

At the end of the process, Banca d’Italia and Deutsche Bundesbank were selected to implement Bank of Albania’s project. Banque de France and National Bank of Romania are also part of the team for certain components of the project. We feel privileged, certainly, by this close partnership with these two major central banks. Relations with these two institutions date back to quite early in the history of the Bank of Albania. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  Whether multilaterally or bilaterally, they have assisted for many years the Bank of Albania achieve its objectives and operate like a modern and reliable institution. I am therefore optimistic about the success of this next project, irrespective of the relatively tight agenda and deadlines. Now, let me briefly introduce you to the main components of this project. It will involve eight departments at the Bank of Albania and will address important issues, grouped as follows: 1. Banking Supervision and Financial Stability 2. Monetary Policy and Statistics 3. Internal Audit 4. Payment Systems 5. Other central banking functions such as human resources and European integration For each component, measurable results have been envisaged, which will be translated into regulatory documents, guidelines and specific recommendations related to policies. All outcomes will aim to approximate the final product at a higher level to standards and models of the European System of Central Banks.
In this context, perhaps the biggest advances of monetary policy of the last 20 years leading to the GFC had to do with the transparency and the overall macroeconomic coherency of interest rate decisions, which led, among other transformations, to the adoption of explicit inflationary objectives in a number of advanced and emerging market economies. In the aftermath of the global crisis, it soon became clear that traditional MP was simply not going to cut it, especially given the limitations of other policy options, such as fiscal expansion, to reactivate the global economy after the major blow it suffered. Central bankers were forced to be creative and think outside the box of traditional monetary tools in order to make a difference. A useful framework to understand how policy tools have evolved is to think about interest rates in the following way. The price of a given form of debt, issued at a particular maturity and by a specific counterparty, is the sum of three main components. The first is the expectations of short-term, risk-free debt over the maturity of the instrument. Let’s call this component the path of risk-neutral rates. The second is the compensation for risk that must be offered to an investor to account for the fact that longer maturity instruments are more volatile (have higher duration) than short-term rates, let’s call it the term premium channel. The third is simply default risk.

Bank of France reports industrial output generally stabilized in May 1997 BANK OF FRANCE, MONTHLY BUSINESS SURVEY, 17/06/97. According to business leaders surveyed by the Banque de France, industrial output generally stabilized in May, following a sharp upturn in April. The automobile sector was the only one to register a decline, which was accentuated by calendar effects. The capacity utilization rate fell back slightly from one month to the next. Overall demand changed little. On the domestic market, inter-industry demand was less buoyant than in April, whereas foreign demand, boosted by the strength of the dollar and the pound sterling, remained firm. Orders continued to stream in from English-speaking, Asian and East European markets. Order books were considered to be at normal levels across the different sectors, and they appeared on the full side in the business equipment sector. Inventories, which fell back, now seem to be at the desired level. Over the coming months, industrial output is likely to advance appreciably in all sectors. The best performances are expected from the food-processing industry and the capital and intermediate goods sectors. Commodity prices edged up, notably in the food-processing and capital goods sectors. These increases were only partially passed on to finished product prices, which rose only in the food processing industry, while remaining unchanged for consumer and intermediate goods and dipping in the capital goods and automobile sectors.
And all the narrow collateral previously eligible will remain permissible under the new regime as either narrow or wider collateral. 6  Of course any drawdown is predicated on the counterparty being expected to remain solvent. 7  This is in line with new FSB principles aimed at reducing the extent to which ratings are “hard-wired” into financial contracts. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Chart 3 Metrics of sovereign credit risk, market liquidity and size(a) US France Germany Netherlands Canada UK Italy Spain Belgium Austria Australia Sweden Denmark Finland Norway  5 yr CDS premia  300 250 200 150 100 50 0 -1  0 -50  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  10yr bond bid-offer spread (bps)  (a) The size of the bubbles is representative of the total amount of sovereign debt outstanding (in sterling terms). Ireland and Portugal are not shown, as their respective bubbles lie significantly to the north-east of the other countries identified in the Chart. Bubbles for Cyprus, Japan, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Slovenia and Switzerland are also not shown for clarity (although they are accepted as wider collateral). Data as at 11 April. Valuation The Bank’s valuation of collateral plays a key role in protecting the Bank against loss in the event of a counterparty default. Where available, the Bank uses market prices to value a security.

This could be illustrated on the table describing developments in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary in terms of inflation and GDP growth: 1991  1992  1993  1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  CPI Czech R. Poland Hungary  52,0 60,3 35,0  12,7 44,6 23,0  18,2 37,7 21,9  10,2 29,4 21,6  7,9 21,8 29,2  8,6 18,8 20,3  10,0 13,2 18,8  6,8 8,4 10,5  2,5 9,8 11,4  4,0 8,6 10,2  4,1 3,6 6,8  0,6 0,8 4,8  GDP Czech R. Poland Hungary  –11,6 –7,0 –11,9  –0,5 2,6 –3,1  0,1 3,8 –0,6  2,2 5,2 2,9  5,9 7,0 1,5  4,3 6,0 1,3  –0,8 6,8 4,6  –1,0 4,8 4,9  0,5 4,1 4,2  3,3 4,0 5,2  3,1 1,0 3,8  2,0 1,4 3,3  EIU Country data, national statistics  As already mentioned, since the financial sector consisted mainly of the banking sector, the impact of economic reform was felt mainly by the banks. There was no alternative source of financing for corporations, so difficulties in the corporate sector were passed on directly to the banks. The situation was complicated more by the fact that the government owned some of the most important corporations, as well as the main banks. Political rationale preceded economics. In most of the countries, the privatization of most firms happened early in the transformation process.
One consistent source of strength for the city has been immigration. Over this period, New York City benefited from a sizable influx of immigrants, which more than offset out-migration in many neighborhoods. To illustrate this, let’s take a look at one such neighborhood in Brooklyn, Sunset Park, that was losing residents to the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s. As property values fell, new migrants from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Central America moved in. By 1990, Hispanics comprised about half of all Sunset Park residents. These new residents developed a thriving community, which boosted property values. There was also an influx of Chinese residents, and part of Sunset Park has come to be known as Brooklyn’s Chinatown. There are many other examples where immigrants revitalized whole neighborhoods: Russian and Ukrainian immigrants in Brighton Beach; Chinese and Korean immigrants in Flushing; and Indian immigrants in Jackson Heights, just to name a few. So, has it been all good news for New York City in recent years? Certainly not. Many challenges remain. One by-product of a strong economy and real estate market has been a decline in housing affordability, and an increase in homelessness. It is estimated that there are over 60,000 homeless people in New York City today—almost double the number from 10 years ago and more than four times as high as in the early 1980s. Moreover, poverty rates remain high in many parts of the city, and the education system can certainly be improved.

In the next few years, job growth picked up sharply and real estate markets soared, a clear sign that a growing number of people had regained confidence in the city. But, even during the booming 1980s, crime rates continued to increase—it wasn’t until 1990 that crime rates peaked and began a long downward trend. I returned to New York in 1983. The draw was an employment opportunity in finance. At the time, the city’s circumstances were improving but crime was still high, and there were still lots of problems caused by years of underinvestment. For example, I recall that the New York City subway system at the time was a near-wreck, with train speeds sharply reduced in many areas due to poor track conditions and dilapidated infrastructure. But, the seeds of improvement were in place. The financial services industry was beginning a long boom marked by financial market innovation and the rapid development of the nation’s debt capital markets—a boom that ended with the financial crisis. When I arrived, the build-out of the Battery Park City neighborhood was just starting. My first year, I lived at Gateway Plaza, which was the first big apartment complex in Battery Park City. However, it was early days and the nearest grocery store was about half a mile away north on West Street! Although a major economic downturn throughout the Northeast in the early 1990s took its toll on New York City—especially on employment and home prices—the city’s population continued to grow and its crime rate began to decline.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the increase in productivity throughout the  4  Friberg, K. and E. Uddén Sonnegård, "Changed wage formation in a changing world? ", Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 1, 2001. 5  Calmfors, L. & Driffill, J., (1988), "Bargaining structure, Corporatism and Macroeconomic Performance", Economic Policy 6. BIS Review 63/2002  3  economy has been approximately 2.0 per cent, while the average increase during the 1980s was only around 1.2 per cent. The strong growth in productivity at the beginning of the 1990s was partly due to the fact that primarily companies with low productivity were driven to closure during the crisis, at the same time as there were extensive cutbacks in staff. There has also been a structural transformation in Swedish trade and industry towards a more knowledge-intensive production. During the second half of the 1990s there were deregulation processes in several fields, for instance the electricity and telecommunications markets, which led to an increase in productivity. In addition, Sweden benefited from the strong growth in the IT and telecommunications sector, which has shown greater increases in productivity than other areas of the economy. Increased use of IT in traditional manufacturing industry and service operations probably also contributed to the increase in productivity. In addition and at a more general level, greater macroeconomic stability has probably reduced uncertainty and facilitated long-term investment decisions, which in the longer term is positive for the development of productivity.

The second entails initial profit margins being sufficiently high to stimulate investment and enable continued rapid growth in the economy. The final assumption concerns the overall, average wage scope for the country as a whole. The definition of a long-term sustainable wage increase may differ between sectors and regions depending on the different conditions for production technology, productivity development and competition. If the economy is not balanced, there may be a short-term deviation in nominal wage developments from the long-term sustainable level. This could be due to a stronger exchange rate, for instance. The inflation target is expressed in terms of CPI, which consists of the prices of both imported and domestically-produced goods and services. If imported inflation, which comprises approximately onethird of CPI, develops weakly as a result of a stronger krona or lower international price pressure, domestic prices may rise more rapidly than 2 per cent over a period of time without causing a threat to the inflation target. There is then temporary scope for nominal wage increases above the level implied by productivity growth. Payroll expense has risen on average by approximately 3.9 per cent a year from the beginning of the 1990s up to 2001, which is slightly more than the "wage norm" implies. At the same time, inflation has been at an average of only 1.8 per cent. An important explanation as to why the increase in payroll expense could be so high without triggering an acceleration in domestic inflation is that productivity has developed strongly.
It is now feeling the full force of a severe shock that is impacting both supply and demand. Our monthly business survey of 8,500 businesses carried out between 27 March and 3 April illustrates the effect of the lockdown measures that have been in force since 17 March. The measures have had a major impact on business activity, which was down by 32% in March, and consequently on our quarterly GDP growth estimate which was down by around 6% in the first quarter. In all sectors, activity is dropping, and in most cases, dramatically. This decline is not solely the result of the context in France. Orders from abroad have also been badly hit, as the epidemic is affecting the majority of French businesses’ major trading partners. In industry, the automobile, metallurgy, and machinery and equipment manufacturing sectors were the worst affected by the decline in activity. For  Page 2 of 8 industry as a whole, the capacity utilisation rate fell from 78% in February to 56% in March, which is the lowest rate ever recorded in the survey. In services, the greatest slump was seen in accommodation and catering. Construction sector activity also deteriorated significantly, as a number of construction projects were put on hold at the beginning of the lockdown period (Slide 3). In short, at the end of March, the economy was running at two-thirds of its normal pace.

This means that every two weeks of lockdown “costs” us approximately 1.5% of lost annual GDP and at least 1% of additional government deficit. II. Building the appropriate economic policy responses  2.1 The emergency: rapid, strong and convergent responses during the crisis Confronted with this unprecedented, and totally unforeseeable crisis, rapid, strong and convergent responses were implemented across the board in fifteen days to stem the effects of a severe economic shock. The lessons of 2008 have not been forgotten. Seldom has there been such a solid consensus on the direction and the scope of the measures to be taken, including among economists, which is quite rare. In France, we have put in place a shield to protect businesses of all sizes and to help them get through this shock, which in turn protects their employees. This “cash shield” is fashioned from both unprecedented fiscal and monetary measures. The fiscal measures put in place by the government primarily revolve around deferring payments of taxes and social security contributions, a solidarity fund for the self-employed and above all initiatives for those in partial employment – formerly referred to as “technical unemployment”, but we have fortunately inverted that description. France has thus learned from the success of Germany and its Kurzarbeit in 2009.
Concluding remarks During the autumn, the Riksbank has taken measures, together with governments and other central banks, to counteract the confidence crisis that arose in the financial markets in connection with Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy. The measures have been taken different forms. The Riksbank has taken part in these measures through both general liquidity support to the Swedish banking sector and special support to Carnegie and Kaupthing Bank, but also through cooperation with other central banks. The Riksbank will continue to contribute liquidity as long as is necessary. BIS Review 149/2008  7  Although the most acute problems in the global financial markets have been counteracted, I consider it slightly surprising that the markets have not normalised to a greater extent than they have. Although the interbank rates have fallen, they are still at a high level in historical terms. The measures implemented by central banks and governments have nevertheless been both extensive and forceful. An important part of the counter-measures implemented by governments and central banks around the world during the autumn has been to ensure that no systemically-important bank is allowed to fail. The financial crisis has meant that the focus has been moved from monetary policy to the efforts made to safeguard financial stability. This is entirely natural. Monetary policy is not an effective tool in preventing financial crisis or in resolving a crisis that has broken out. It has had some impact on financial stability in that the Riksbank's repo rate cuts have helped to push down market rates.

Under the Initiative, a Credit Guarantee and Investment Facility has been set up as a Trust Fund of ADB to provide credit guarantee to allow investment-rated issuers to issue local currency bonds in ASEAN+3 markets. Another good example is the Asian Bond Fund project of the Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP). The launch of the ABF funds introduced to the region’s bond markets a new low-cost and efficient product in the form of passively-managed index bond funds and helped catalyse infrastructure, tax and regulatory reforms at both the regional and domestic levels. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority took an active part in the design and implementation of the project. These efforts, along with the rapid economic growth and improved investment climate, have contributed to considerable growth in the local currency bond markets. According to ADB, the  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  amount of local currency bonds outstanding in emerging East Asia increased by more than ten folds from $ billion prior to the Asian financial crisis in 1996 to $ billion in 2011. We have also seen the interesting development of offshore bond markets. In Hong Kong, the RMB bond market has grown substantially since the first issuance in 2007, with total issuance increased to over RMB 100 billion in 2011 from RMB 10 billion in 2007. The range of issuers has also diversified, from predominantly the sovereign and banks in China to multinational companies and international financial institutions.