samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Economic activity improving When it comes to the prospects for higher demand from the euro countries following the debt crisis and all the structural problems, I have become gradually less pessimistic over the last 12 months. This is for example because several highly-indebted countries have made progress in reducing their budget deficits. The Swedish crisis of the 1990s made a great impression on me as an economist and my experience from that period tells me that when households and companies see that the worst problems are over and that the situation is being managed then there is potential for increased confidence about the future, which we have also seen in recent months. This is despite the fact that unemployment is still high and that the recovery of economic activity in these countries is starting from a low level. Of course a lot remains to be done and here the responsibility primarily lies with the politicians in the respective countries. The euro area’s common monetary policy is an important tool for easing the readjustment, but it cannot correct all the causes of the crisis. This requires decisions at the national level in order to come to terms with weak public finances and to change economic and political structures so that competitiveness is improved. It has long been the Riksbank’s assessment that the crisis can be resolved in an orderly way and that economic growth will gradually improve.

This means that any reforms to the MA will be a key determinant of success against all three of the government’s objectives for the Solvency II Review. My colleague Charlotte Gerken discussed in April how we use the MA as part of our supervisory approach, and I won’t rehearse the points that she made today4. As a regulator, we have long believed in the core concept behind the MA. We firmly supported its inclusion in Solvency II, and we brought in a similar mechanism in our previous Individual Capital Adequacy Standards (‘ICAS’) regime. There has been a lot of feedback about broadening of the asset eligibility criteria for the MA, and about simplification of the application process. We have heard this feedback, and are confident that the review can achieve improvements in these areas. If we get these changes right, the path can be smoothed for insurers to invest for the long term in a way which supports innovation and growth and is sustainable. Of course as I said earlier, unless there is adequate policyholder protection, any such changes will not meet these objectives. So through the QIS we will be gathering data around how the MA could be calculated, so that we can be sure that the reformed MA provides adequate protection given the wide range of assets annuity writers hold. Changes on eligibility and process don’t so easily lend themselves to a QIS, but they can be designed to ensure that the MA meets the government’s other objectives for the review.
Thus, insofar as the proportion of young workers and low wage earners in the sectors most affected by the pandemic has  1  By way of illustration, according to the Labour Force Survey the sharpest declines in terms of employment to Q3 were in hotels and restaurants (-19.3%) and artistic activities (-9.1%), while in other market services sectors, such as financial activities (4.4%), real estate activities (2.3%) and information and communications (1.8%), there were year-on-year increases in employment in that period. In industry, employment fell by a year-on-year rate of 4.5%, while in the nonmarket services sectors it increased by 1.9%. By region, employment posted the biggest year-on-year declines in the Canary Islands (-8.1%) and the Balearic Islands (-7,4%), while there was a less marked fall in the Basque Country (-1%) and Asturias (-1.3%), and a slight year-on-year increase in Murcia (0.1%). 5  been relatively high,2 the crisis has borne down particularly sharply on those workers showing a greater initial degree of vulnerability and with more limited resources to sustain their spending. This might influence the future path of inequality in Spain.3 As regards business dynamics, since the onset of the crisis the number of firms registered for social security purposes has fallen most appreciably, by almost 84,000 firms from endFebruary to end-September. That marks a year-on-year decline of 6.1%, which is down on the peak in spring (10.5% in April), but still very high. This evidence is consistent with the analyses conducted by the Banco de España.

12103 6 For further details please refer to https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2017/changing-risk-and-the-search-for-yield-on-solvency-2capital 7 Financial Stability Report, December 2016, Bank of England. 5  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  insurers have used internal securitisations backed by their equity release mortgage portfolios in order to create a senior tranche with the required fixed cashflows. Let us dig a little deeper into the Matching Adjustment. In principle, the higher discount rate on liabilities is intended to reflect the component of the spread over risk-free rates that compensates other investors for risks to which the insurers are not exposed. In the case of bonds, this is the liquidity premium for the risk that they might have to sell into secondary bond markets at a time when credit spreads are wide. Annuity writers are not exposed to this risk and can therefore earn the liquidity premium provided they can bear the credit risk and hold the assets until maturity. Mechanically, however, the Matching Adjustment is not calculated by estimating directly the market premium for any risks to which insurers are not exposed. Rather it is calculated indirectly as a residual by subtracting from the yield on an asset (1) risk-free rates and (2) an estimate of the required premium for risks to which insurers are exposed. In the case of bonds, insurers are exposed to the credit risk that the issuer is unable 8  to pay interest or principal at maturity.
That was the story of the Flash Crash, with order imbalances propagated through the futures market due to pass-the-parcel dynamics before ricocheting back to affect prices in the cash market. 26 A second channel of contagion is between different exchanges and trading platforms. Here, too, HFT has changed the landscape. Because HFT strategies have emerged to arbitrage differences, price transmission across exchanges and platforms is near-instantaneous. It also has the potential to be more disruptive. Liquidity on these exchanges is no longer  25  Hardin (1968). 26  CFTC-SEC (2010). 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  pooled and centralised. Instead it is distributed and localised, increasing the potential for illiquidity premia to emerge in periods of stress. A third potential contagion channel is across stocks. HFT algorithms tend to amplify crossstock correlation in the face of a rise in volatility due to their greater use of algorithmic trendfollowing and arbitrage strategies. That is consistent with the evidence in Chart 9, with heightened correlation per unit of volatility relative to the past. Taken together, these contagion channels suggest that fat-tailed persistence in individual stocks could quickly be magnified to wider classes of asset, exchange and market. The micro would transmute to the macro. This is very much in the spirit of Mandelbrot’s fractal story. Structures exhibiting self-similarity magnify micro behaviour to the macro level. Micro-level abnormalities manifest as system-wide instabilities. In many respects, this is an unsurprising conclusion.

Singapore has political and economic stability, well-regulated financial markets, excellent transport and digital connectivity, a skilled talent pool, and extensive trade linkages with ASEAN. Singapore has one of the most vibrant PE/VC ecosystems in Asia. PE/VC assets under management increased by 42% year-on-year to $ billion in 2021. Over the last five years, growth in PE/VC investments has averaged nearly 30% per annum. As of June this year, there were a total of 428 PE/VC managers in Singapore, up from 336 at the start of 2021. Many existing players have expanded their capabilities and investment teams. The Asia Pacific region remains the top investment region for this group of managers, with 55% of assets invested within the Asia Pacific. Singapore accounted for 46% of the record-high $ billion in VC deal value in ASEAN last year [5] . To make PE/VC investment opportunities more accessible, we now have private market platforms in Singapore – such as ADDX and CapBridge. MAS is working to anchor more such platforms here. Investing to deliver sustained long-term returns in an increasingly uncertain world is no easy task. I hope today’s conference will give you ideas for growth and opportunities to connect with valuable partners. Thank you and best of luck. [1] Boissay, F, De Fiore, F, and E Kharroubi, “Hard or Soft Landing?”, BIS Bulletin No.59, July 2022 [2] BIS Annual Economic Report 2022 [3] Bain & Company Asia-Pacific Private Equity Report 2022 [4] Preqin Territory Guide ASEAN 2022 [5] Preqin Territory Guide ASEAN 2022
To the surprise of many institutions and experts, a great part of them of proven experience and repute, BNB’s gross international foreign exchange reserves increased from BGN 24.9 billion as at the end of 2008 to BGN 26.1 billion at the end of 2011. Presently the lev is more than 150% covered with BNB’s international foreign exchange reserves of the highest quality (not even taking into account the government’s deposit). In short, for fifteen years now businesses and citizens have benefited from the predictability and stability resulting from the fixed exchange  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  rate and the stable Bulgarian banking system. Not lastly, in the past year the current account turned positive after an impressive growth of Bulgaria’s exports for two years in a row (by over 30% annually in each year), and at a growing share in total EU imports. All this offers interesting matter for discussion at a forum like this one. How do adjustments and counteracting “imbalances” in a small and open economy with a currency board fit into orthodox economic theories and explanations from popular textbooks, which are as a rule written about economies quite different from that of Bulgaria, and by authors of a radically different economic background? I am curious as to what conclusion today’s scientific forum will reach.

Dimitar Radev: Decision about the euro is strategic, not conjunctural Interview by Mr Dimitar Radev, Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, for Investor Digest, October 2019. * * * Mr. Radev, how would you assess the results of the asset quality review that the European Central Bank (ECB) conducted on six Bulgarian banks? How is the subsequent communication with Frankfurt in view of the goal of entering ERM II? The results are not surprising. They correspond to our own assessments. The communication with the ECB was and remains excellent both when it comes to the work related to the asset quality review and stress test, and when it comes to the overall process of preparing to join ERM II, the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism. By definition, the parameters of such stress tests are markedly conservative. The ECB’s approach, however, included some quite unlikely scenarios, such as increasing corporate tax to 30% in the next three years. This could be a negative development for countries like Greece with its 28% tax, or Spain with its 25%, but it seems unrealistic for Bulgaria with its 10%. Wasn’t it logical for the European Banking Authority’s methodology, which was developed for the stress tests on the largest Western European banks a year ago, to be adapted to the conditions in Bulgaria? The technical parameters in the methodology of the stress test’s baseline and adverse scenario are the same as those applied across all the member states by the European Banking Authority.
3  Long-term interest rates, income growth and house prices  Favourable economic developments in Norway have had an impact on developments in our property markets. House prices have risen sharply over the past 14 years. Real house prices have almost trebled. This rise has been considerably stronger than earlier. Moreover, the rise in house prices has spanned a long period. With the exception of a few months in 2003, house prices have risen continuously since 1992. This is the second longest period of rising real prices since 1819. Statistics for earlier years do not exist. House prices also rose in the 18 years between 1954 and 1972, albeit at a more moderate pace. BIS Review 15/2007  7  Norway is not the only country where house prices have shown a strong rise over a long period. House price inflation has been particularly high in Ireland and the Netherlands, but Denmark, the UK and Spain also stand out. The countries where house price inflation has been high are the same countries where economic growth has been strongest. Since prices are rising in tandem in many countries, it is natural to look for common driving forces. With increasing cross-border flows of intermediate goods, capital and increasingly so labour, prices will largely reflect growth and competition in the global economy. If capital or labour becomes too expensive in one country, businesses can relocate production. Prices for fixed factors of production, such as property, will on the other hand reflect income developments in different countries.

Keynes, both on microfilm, makes the library an excellent repository for undertaking any study of economic history. Let me conclude with a few words about today’s III Seminar of Economic History that we are opening now. As you can see in the programme, we have about thirty participants from a dozen universities, central banks and research centres. Economists from the Banco de España are participating as authors and also as discussants of a number of papers on historical episodes that are relevant to our understanding of the world of today. Many thanks to all the participants, authors and discussants. We are really honoured this year to have with us one of the leading expert in the history of central banking, Professor Charles Goodhart, for many years at the Bank of England and now at the London School of Economics. Thank you very much, Professor Goodhart, for joining us today. Now, without further ado, I give the floor to Pablo Martin Aceña, for his introductory remarks. 4/4
The Rt Hon Sir Edward George: The Bank of England’s monetary policy objective and recent challenges Speech by The Rt Hon Sir Edward George, Governor of the Bank of England, to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) Birmingham, 11 April 2002. *  *  *  I've had a long-time interest in the RSA. I was honoured to be elected as a fellow in 1986. But this is the first time I've participated in one of your programmes. The Society, unusually, brings together people from different backgrounds and disciplines - across the arts to the sciences, but with a common interest in social and economic progress in the broadest sense. That diversity, but also commonality, of interest is reflected in the RSA Journal, which I find a fascinating read - whenever I get the time. It's reflected, too, in your lecture program so that I find myself slotted in between a lecture entitled "The feel good factor", on a medical theme, and another entitled "Chaos is good for you!" describing a creative approach to business management! In fact I have been invited to talk about the "Monetary Challenges" we are currently facing - and, when you've heard what I have to say, you may feel that this juxtapositioning is not wholly inappropriate. But let me begin by explaining what it is that we are trying to do through monetary policy at the Bank of England, and why.

The Malaysian banking sector strengthened further and remained resilient to perform its intermediation function efficiently and effectively throughout 2001. The capital position of the banking system improved with the risk-weighted capital ratio increasing to 12.5% as at end-January 2002. Although non-performing loans had increased in 2002, it has remained at manageable levels. The net NPL ratio of the banking system stood at 8.4% as at end-January 2002, cushioned with a loan loss provision of 58.7% on the NPL amount or 146.5% if collateral are taken into consideration. The banking system continued to record profits in 2001 amounting to RM7.5 billion, which will further strengthen the capital position of the banking sector. In terms of potential risk to the banking sector, total outstanding loans in arrears have stabilised and continued to remain at manageable levels. Significant progress has been achieved in the financial restructuring undertaken by Danaharta and Danamodal. Progress in corporate debt and non-debt operational restructuring under the arrangement of the CDRC progressed at a more rapid pace in 2001 with the implementation of the new framework introduced in August. As part of debt restructuring, a number of large corporations have undertaken rigorous restructuring exercises in terms of management and ownership structure, and the disposal of non-core businesses and assets. The satisfactory progress of corporate debt restructuring under the new CDRC framework is expected to have a positive impact on the NPLs in the banking sector. The successful resolution of the larger CDRC cases has contributed towards reducing the NPL in the banking system.
However, a symmetric PLT regime—in which misses have to be made up on both sides of the inflation objective—has an important shortcoming. Compensating for inflation overshoots by deliberately keeping inflation below the FOMC’s 2 percent objective would increase the risk of getting pinned at the effective lower bound for interest rates. As a consequence, some—including former Chairman Ben Bernanke—have proposed adopting an asymmetric PLT regime. In such a system, misses below the objective would be offset by misses above only when the effective lower bound was binding. Under normal circumstances, misses above the objective would not be offset. Rather, they would be treated as “bygones,” as is currently the case.14 However, I suspect that establishing a modified PLT regime would present some challenges. First, for such a modified PLT to be effective in anchoring inflation expectations, households and businesses would have to understand how the regime would work, and view the Federal 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  Reserve’s commitment as credible. One can imagine that such credibility might be hard to sustain during a long spell of inflation misses to the downside. Second, while such a regime might be attractive in broad brush form, the devil lies in the details. If inflation undershot for a few years, what would the desired overshoot path look like? How high would the FOMC permit inflation to go above its objective, and for how long? What would happen if the Fed failed to fully offset past downside misses and cumulative undershoots became sizable?

For example, if we are in a period of “secular stagnation”— characterized by chronic excess global savings and aging populations—then one would expect r* to remain persistently low. 3 But, if we are in a world of abating headwinds as we recover from the financial crisis, then one would expect r* to rise over time. This lack of clarity about the environment increases the degree of uncertainty about the level of r*. Despite all these uncertainties, one still has to have a viewpoint. In the current circumstances, I would judge that r* over the medium term is likely to be somewhere around 1 percent. Although that is higher than the estimates from some models, I have nudged up my estimate because financial conditions are still easy and fiscal policy will likely be quite stimulative in 2018 and 2019.4 If the neutral real interest rate is around 1 percent, there is still some distance to go before monetary policy actually gets tight. At the FOMC’s 2 percent inflation objective, my estimate of r* implies that the federal funds rate would need to rise to around 3 percent for monetary policy to be considered neutral. Of course, as the factors that influence r* change, my estimate of r* will also move around over time. 2/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  Whether monetary policy will need to move to a restrictive setting depends crucially on how low the unemployment rate can go without inflation climbing meaningfully above 2 percent.
Madis Müller: Why is inflation so high and so different in different euro area countries? Speech by Mr Madis Müller, Governor of the Bank of Estonia (Eesti Pank), at the Bank of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 3 March 2023. *** Thank you for inviting me. I am very pleased to be back in Slovenia. Bostjan and his colleagues from Banka Slovenije are such excellent hosts that it is always pleasure to visit your central bank. Today my plan is to take stock of where we stand in our fight against our common enemy, high inflation. I will first talk briefly about the causes of the surge in inflation, both globally and in Europe, where we should note that current inflation rates differ widely across the member states of the euro area. Since I am in the unenviable position of representing a country that had one the highest inflation rates in the euro area last year, I will also explain the drivers behind the particularly fast growth in consumer prices in Estonia. I will then discuss how high inflation impacts consumers and the public finances, how monetary policy has responded, and how monetary, fiscal and structural policies interact. I will conclude by explaining why the best contribution that we as central bankers can make to the economy is to restore price stability. This requires us to maintain our course of monetary tightening until we are confident that inflation will be brought back to its target in a lasting and sustainable manner.

Much of the following also applies to Latvia and Lithuania as the other two Baltic countries. To start with, the share of energy and food in the consumer basket is still somewhat higher in our countries than the average in the euro area. This meant that rapid rises in the prices of energy and food in particular consequently had a bigger impact on our inflation readings. Compounding this, price setting has traditionally been more flexible in the Baltic region than in other euro area countries, meaning that both rises and falls in commodity prices are translated more swiftly to consumer prices. Administered prices are also flexible and governments have allowed higher global energy prices to pass through quickly to regulated prices, while governments in some other euro area countries have been more cautious. High energy prices have also passed through to consumer prices in Estonia particularly fast because Estonian households have generally preferred to have flexible prices in their utility contracts. This had been a smart choice in most previous years, but it cost us dearly in 2022. It meant that any price increases in the wholesale markets for electricity in particular were immediately reflected in the prices paid by households. The increases in the prices of electricity that Estonian households experienced in the first half of last year were indeed dramatic.