samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
All of this points at more favorable current-account balances in the medium term. Anyway, for the purposes of assessing this risk we also need to review the evolution of the deficit measured at trend prices. In this sense, news is pointing in the right direction, because the estimate for this year went from 5.7% of GDP last March, to 4.9% in this Report. We estimate that in 2014 it will continue to recede to 4.6% of GDP. The international economy is undergoing a normalization process that influences the Chilean economy. This means a lower external impulse, with more balanced world growth between developed and emerging economies, terms of trade approaching their long-term level and global financial conditions more in line with historic patterns. A smaller boost from foreign investment is also to be expected – especially in mining –, which will take pressure off the current-account deficit and the use of internal resources. Monetary policy is well equipped, if so required, to back this adjustment process. The Board follows closely the evolution of the external and domestic macroeconomic scenario and its implications on inflation, and reaffirms its commitment to conduct monetary policy so that projected inflation stands at 3% over the policy horizon. I would like to end by sharing with you some final thoughts. Final thoughts We have been 19 months with the same monetary policy interest rate. And as with the exchange rate, during this time we have received the most diverse recommendations and suggestions from the market.

Only the public can measure the degree of success and our goal is to provide the public with elements and emotions related to our national identity, through a worthy banknote series, created by renowned brands in the banknote production industry such as G&D, De La Rue and Oberthur, whose logos have been present on our currency since it was first issued. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
It is sometimes claimed in the media that there is a link between the Riksbank’s closure of its depots and the increase in cash transport robberies. I would doubt that claim. First and foremost, it must be remembered that approximately 85 per cent of the cash transports that are attacked are on their way to ATMs, and the Riksbank has never been involved in these transports. Only a very few transports to or from our offices have been the target of robberies. Furthermore, the large increase in the number of robberies took place while the Riksbank still had a network of cash depots throughout Sweden. One possible explanation for the increase in the number of cash transport robberies, which has been suggested by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ), is that criminality may to some extent have been transferred from robbing banks and post offices to robbing cash transports. Other possible explanations, according to BRÅ, are that cash transport robberies yield much larger amounts than bank and post office robberies, while increased security in post offices and banks may have discouraged prospective robbers. I think that we should ask the question of why Sweden has so many more cash transport robberies than other countries, not just other Nordic countries, but the majority of European countries. There have occasionally been suggestions put forward in the general debate that if one tried to reduce the use of cash in society, the number of transports to ATMs could be reduced.

Cash transport robberies – a social problem The large number of robberies of cash transports in Sweden comprises a major problem for all of us – each of us is affected in some way by cash management in our society. Developments have become even more troubled over the past years, as we have unfortunately seen an escalation in the violence used during the robberies and attempted robberies, through the use of explosives and heavy weapons. I regard these recent developments with great concern and hope that this forum will enable us to improve the security of cash transports and cash management in general. The number of robberies of cash transports doubled from the already high figure of 30-40 robberies a year to 70-80 robberies a year in 1998 and 1999 and has since then remained at this very high level. Statistics from the European Security Transport Association, ESTA, show that Sweden holds a scarcely honourable third place with regard to the number of cash transport robberies in relation to the population. We had a total of 224 cash transport robberies between 1998 and 2004, while the corresponding figure for Denmark was 93, for Norway 42 and for Finland only 4. Equally alarming is the fact that Sweden accounts for one tenth of the total capital losses in cash transport robberies in Europe; if one takes into account the size of the population, we were the country that lost the second highest amount of money, after Ireland.
Get creative It’s easy to say, in essence, “Don’t miss the forest for the trees.” Let’s acknowledge that the challenges you encounter in the first line of defense are a veritable thicket. To manage effectively the risks that your firms face requires intellectual agility and creativity. For now, I want to touch on a few considerations: diversity, choice architecture (especially incentives), and moral reasoning. These inputs can help you apply the three lines of defense model more effectively, especially in the face of rapid technological innovation. Diversity If you want to think nimbly, embrace diversity: the way we think, our backgrounds and areas of expertise, our experiences—including, but certainly not limited to, the ways that people treat us because of where we were born, our race, gender, pedigree, sexual orientation—and even our values. Diversity can help address the problem of silos that I described earlier. The problem with silos is not specialization, but blind spots. At the New York Fed, I don’t want economists making legal judgments, or lawyers performing economic analyses. But I very much want lawyers and economists to provide insights to each other based on their specialties. More generally, inviting outside views helps avoid common, human biases. 4 “Groupthink” is one well-documented bias. Another is the “endowment effect”—placing greater value on what one already has versus what one does not. What links these phenomena is an excessive preference for the status quo.

Thus the technological advances of the last 25 years – especially the internet – have not significantly diminished the demand for cash. People still appreciate cash as a store of value and a means of payment. It is visible and tangible, which makes it especially valuable when there is uncertainty about the stability of banks. In addition, interest rates have been very low for some time now, and therefore the opportunity costs of holding cash are also low. However, the significance of cash as a payment instrument, too, remains unimpaired. In this regard, two essential characteristics stand out: As legal tender, cash is widely accepted and extremely reliable to use. Nevertheless, technology is constantly moving forward in terms of new forms of electronic payment as well as in the area of digital forms of money. What is more, the share of the population which grew up without bank cards, the internet and mobile telephones is continually shrinking. Is Switzerland therefore becoming a cashless society? Even if the importance of cash does decline over time, it is unlikely that it will be completely replaced. Its specific advantages suggest, rather, that it will continue to be used as a store of value and a means of payment. With well-established, flexible processes in banknote production and handling, the SNB contributes to ensuring that cash continues to meet the public’s requirements at all times. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1
Raising our ambitions for business performance’, available at: https://howgoodisyourbusinessreally.co.uk/ Vlieghe, G (2016), ‘Debt, Demographics and the Distribution of Income: New challenges for monetary policy, Speech given at the London School of Economics, available here: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/2016/872.aspx World Economic Forum (2016), ‘The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016’, in particular Chapter 1.2 on ‘Drivers of Long-run prosperity’, available at: http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016/  24  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  24

Even so, targeted fiscal and monetary stimulus measures should support growth at close to 7% this year. •  Against this backdrop, overall growth in Emerging Asia will remain firm, at 6% this year. Banks in Emerging Asia will therefore not do badly. There are, however, downside risks that they need to watch. First, the divergence in monetary policy settings among the G3 economies could pose risks to financial stability that could also potentially hurt growth. The anticipated normalisation of interest rates in the US against continuing quantitative easing in the Eurozone and Japan will be reflected in sharp movements in exchange rates and bond yields. This is not a prediction, it is already happening. The scenario of a “double whammy” posed by a rise in US interest rates and a strong US Dollar could expose vulnerabilities among some Asian borrowers. •  Rising interest rates will increase the debt servicing burden of Asian households and corporates, especially those who have taken on high levels of debt at low rates. •  Asian corporates with large unhedged dollar borrowings could face increasing stress as a strengthening dollar undermines their ability to repay loans. Banks in Emerging Asia could face higher non-performing loans. They could also face reduced US Dollar funding if there are large capital outflows from Asia. But their liquidity and capital positions are generally sound and they should be able to weather this. What matters is the medium to long term, and here the outlook for Asia remains sanguine.
Accordingly, measured in real terms, it will amount to 26.9 percent of GDP in 2012, up from 26.2 percent of GDP in 2011. The effects of the worsened external scenario will be visible mainly in inventories. The baseline scenario estimates that in 2012 inventories as a percentage of GDP will vary less than they did in 2011, reflecting the inventory adjustments that enterprises will be carrying out because of the uncertainty coming from abroad. Consumption and investment will also be partly affected by the worsened global conditions, but the main determinants will be the aforesaid factors. All these elements combined depict a scenario for 2012 where domestic demand grows less than in 2011, although still faster than output. The baseline scenario foresees the current account of the balance of payments posting a deficit of 3.1 percent of GDP this year, that is, bigger than in 2011, but somewhat smaller than forecast in March. Despite the lower price assumed for copper and the weak domestic demand, the expected adjustment in domestic demand plus the drop in the oil price are behind this smaller deficit (table 3). The Board estimates that y-o-y CPI and core inflation will continue to hover around the target until the end of the projection horizon, this time the second quarter of 2014 (figure 3). This trajectory assumes that wages will be adjusted to reflect productivity and the inflation target.

Not just because that is how one safeguards the purchasing power of our fellow citizens, in particular of the most vulnerable amongst them, who have the least protection against price increases. But also because price stability allows us to create the conditions for sustainable growth and dynamic job creation, and to combat unemployment effectively. In today’s world, however, financial stability, for which price stability is a prerequisite, is of great value. We must unremittingly endeavour to create conditions for the international economy that minimise misalignments in asset prices, excessive volatility, purely speculative phenomena and dangerous herd behaviour. This is the underlying message in central banks’ repeated calls for prudence and caution. Nothing is more conducive to economic euphoria than ample monetary liquidity, but the after-effects can be very painful, with the formation of speculative bubbles, sharp swings in asset prices, and the herd behaviour of huge capital flows. A monetary policy based on stability is the indispensable complement to the remarkable efforts undertaken these past years to improve the international financial architecture. *  *  3  *  BIS Review 115/2000  The economy of the euro area has the favourable monetary, financial and competitive conditions necessary to contribute to the pursuit of growth that is sustainable because non-inflationary. But as the Monetary Policy Council has indicated these past years, monetary policy needs to be relayed by the other main components of economic policy. Four conditions would appear necessary to preserve and reinforce the complete success of the single currency.
Northern Rock represented the most extreme case of this, the bank run, starting with wholesale creditors and then on to a full-scale retail creditor run. And it follows from this assessment that banks depend upon maintaining the confidence of their depositors that they will over time be able to meet claims on them. A very important part of maintaining confidence in banks is that the value of their assets – the loans they make, to simplify – has not fallen below their sustainable value in the accounts of the bank. In order to prevent this happening, banks maintain buffers of their own funds – capital – which can be used to maintain the claims of depositors. 1  Liaquat Ahamed: “Lords of Finance” (Windmill Books, 2009), p14. 2  Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff: “This Time it is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”. Princeton University Press, 2009. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Here then we have the two fundamental elements of the safety and soundness of banks, liquidity and capital. Banks are often said to fail either because they are insolvent (lack of capital) or because they are illiquid (lack of funds to meet the claims of depositors to be repaid). My own experience of dealing with banks that get into trouble suggests that the reality is somewhat different – it isn’t a case of either one or the other. On the whole, banks lose deposits for a reason – depositors worry that there is something going on that they do not like.

For purposes of this discussion, I will split our economy in two--the real economy and the financial economy. Let me begin my explanation of the present structure of the economy with real variables. - The Turkish economy is a continuously growing, dynamic economy. Its longterm average annual growth rate is over 4 percent and its average annual productivity increase is around 2 percent. In each of the last two years, GNP has increased by around 7 percent, well above most OECD countries. Along with this rapid growth, the composition of the gross domestic product (GDP) has shifted during the last two decades, toward the industrial and services sectors, while the GDP share of agriculture has greatly declined. The share of the public sector in industrial output has also decreased. - Spending on investments has been increasing since the first quarter of 1995. Normally, periods of investment aimed at increasing production capacity last for about 20 months, but the increase in investment activity spending remained focused on increasing production capacity throughout 1995 and 1996. The Economic Trend Analysis of the Central Bank of Turkey shows that no earlier period of expectation of rising investments has ever lasted longer. - Official records show that Turkey’s unemployment rate has been holding fairly constant at around 7 or 8 percent, which is very low compared to the other OECD countries. In April 1996, total employment rose by 2.6 percent and unemployment fell to 6.3 percent. The urban and rural unemployment rates were estimated at 9.3 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.
90  80  80  70  70  60  60  50  50  40  40  30  30  20  20  10  10  0  0  Jan.06  Jul.06  Jan.07  Jul.07  Jan.08  Jul.08  Jan.09  (*) Corresponds to volatility index VIX. Source: Bloomberg. BIS Review 76/2009  9  Figure 5 Projected world growth (annual change, percent) Subprime crisis erupts  4.0 3.5  2 1 0  2.5  -1  2.0 1.5  Lehmann, AIG, etc. 3  Lehmann, AIG, etc. 3.0  Bear Stearns goes bankrupt  4  Bear Sterns goes bankrupt  -2 07  May Sep. 08  May Sep. 09  -3  May  08  (a) Projections for 2008  Apr. Jul. Oct.  09  Apr. (b) Projections for 2009  Source: Consensus Forecasts. Figure 6 Projected growth for Chile (annual change, percent) 6  Subprime crisis erupts  5  Bear Sterns goes bankrupt  Bear Stearns goes bankrupt  6 5  Lehmann, AIG, etc. Lehmann, AIG, etc. 4  4  3  3  2 1  2  0  1  -1 07  May  Sep.  08  May  Sep.  (a) Growth projectoins for 2008  08  Apr. Jul. Oct.  09  Apr. (a) Growth projectoins for 2009  Source: Economic Expectations Survey, Central Bank of Chile.

But in the current crisis, which has no precedents in many decades, to look at simple correlations based on normal periods can be very misleading. From my standpoint, it is more important to conceptualize what is happening today, in order to analyze the prospects of the economy and draw policy conclusions. To address this subject I will use some basic economics that will allow us to understand the synchrony and severity of the current crisis. These arguments have been present for many years in the profession and have gained enormous importance today. The first refers to the existence of multiple equilibria and the effect of failed coordination. The second deals with the effect of uncertainty on economic decision making. These two elements help us understand how the confidence crisis that swept the world aggravated the output contraction, hitting hardest the demand for industrial goods. In the next section I will describe the main  BIS Review 76/2009  1  ideas that clarify the impact of the confidence crisis, and then analyze the international scenario in the following section. Some basic ideas The objective here is to account for the basic ideas behind the coordination failures, multiple equilibria and how uncertainty affects aggregate demand. Coordination failures Let us assume a very simple economy 1 with a large number of consumers. Each consumer demands D units of a manufactured good, which we can think of as a durable good (e.g., car, house, appliance, electronic device).
On the second issue, financial imbalances may foment under the radar and are difficult to detect. Granted, I have said that monetary policy should be perceptive. But as you all know there are limits to the far-sightedness of economists or central bankers as the global financial crisis so painfully showed. To paraphrase Mark Twain: “it’s not what you know, but what you don’t know that gets you.” Hence it would be wise to prepare for the worse by building resiliency from within. A framework for macroprudential policy is needed. Let me remind you that The Bank of Thailand’s mandate covers both monetary and financial stability. Monetary policy focuses primarily on price stability. Macroprudential policy should focus on financial stability. We therefore see no conflict between joint use of macroprudential and interest rate instruments as they primarily serve different objectives. Prudential measures constitute the first line of defense against financial imbalances by serving as “sand in the wheel”, so as to dampen the financial cycle, weaken procyclicality, and hence reduce the propagation of financial shocks. The interest rate tool, in comparison, is too blunt. However, as the last line of defense, monetary policy can be used to lean against the winds of excessive asset prices. The prudential measure we announced last year – a loan-to-value limit of 90 percent for condominium purchases – is an example. The measure in itself is not particularly binding; it is more significant as a pre-emptive move designed to signal policy resolve in mitigating possible build-up of real estate bubbles.

The current surge in oil and commodity prices also poses a challenge to global growth, though, we expect the supply shock to have a limited impact due to several reasons: first, increased oil resiliency, second, real oil prices are still lower than its peak in 2008 and third, many emerging markets administer prices to cushion the blow. There is a downside risk that this environment of global liquidity amid uneven recovery and geopolitical risk in the Middle East may threaten global growth and stability. This scenario has a low probability of happening. Nevertheless, we should be mindful of it. In this scenario, oil prices will surge upward again and remain high due to strong demand from emerging markets, partly fueled by global liquidity, and supply constraints arising from adverse weather and widespread and protracted unrest in the Middle East. Global recession may result; or worse, global stagflation. The outcome depends on how US and Euro policy makers will respond. US and European monetary policymakers are therefore between a rock and a hard place of balancing structural risks to growth and new risks to inflation. If US or Euro recovery is still fragile, policymakers may choose to keep interest rates low, prompting stagflation further down the road. The US and Euro policymakers are therefore in a race against time. Their economic stimulus packages must revitalize the economy before the negative side-effects return home to derail the recovery. In such a world, what can the Bank of Thailand do?