samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Moreover, the NBR Museum has on display valuable exhibits testifying to a “culture of money” dating back to ancient times in our region. The NBR Museum has made substantial efforts to raise awareness about the history of the national currency, the features of banknotes and coins, as well as the role of money in the economy. For instance, in 2005–2006, the National Bank of Romania conducted an extensive communication campaign on the leu’s redenomination, and in view of the prime function of a central bank, namely currency issue, keeps the public informed about the leu’s security features. At the same time, apart from these efforts, our central bank often includes among its strivings to increase financial education, themes related to the history of the  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  European single currency. It is only natural that Romanians be well aware of the currency of the club that we aim to be part of. Keeping the public informed is an ongoing process, prepared and unfolded long before Romania’s euro adoption. This is why we appreciate and support the ECB’s effort to showcase this travelling exhibition to the EU Member States to the benefit of all European citizens. I therefore totally agree with Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB’s President, who said precisely one year ago (on 10 March 2010, when this exhibition was inaugurated in Frankfurt) that “the euro should speak both of Europe’s diversity and its common culture, its history and its future”.

Starting with the history of money to the production of euro banknotes and on to the security features and the educational games in the Kids’ Corner, all visitors will definitely find useful information displayed in an attractive manner. For the NBR, the Euro Exhibition is yet another opportunity to strengthen our external communication activities, to get closer to the public at large and to open the doors of our institution in a special context: consolidating the steps towards full integration in Europe. Let me end by thanking all of you here today. I now give the floor to Mr. José Manuel González-Páramo to share with us his thoughts about the exhibition. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches
The mandates of central banks are changing, as they are strengthening their macro-prudential powers and embracing more explicitly the objective of financial stability. Some major central banks have for the first time assumed the direct supervision of credit institutions. Thus, this period of changes is going to be a landmark in the history of central banking. The current overhaul of banking regulations globally is also fundamental by nature. The scale of reforms in the regulatory framework for the banking industry, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the outbreak of the euro area sovereign debt crisis, could be compared only with the major reforms undertaken in the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The sheer magnitude of this changeover, however, does not guarantee the elimination, once and for all, of the regulatory gaps and loopholes for the risk taking activities of banks. Moreover, while the wide-ranging changes in banking regulation certainly improve banks’ capital, liquidity, operations and governance, they are sometimes feared to have a discouraging effect on banks’ lending and other services in the public interest. What caused the recent wave of banking reforms, what issues regulators still need to consider, and how are banks expected to respond on a global or national level?

In the emerging economies, performance remained uneven, while growth continued to cool in China. The global economy is expected to gather pace again, reinforced by expansionary monetary policy around the world and ongoing low oil prices. For instance, after a disappointing first  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  quarter, the two large economies, the US and China, are starting to show signs of improvement. Nonetheless, uncertainty about the future development of the global economy remains high. Various risks – first and foremost the difficult financial situation in Greece and geopolitical tensions – could jeopardise the recovery. Swiss economic outlook According to initial estimates, Switzerland’s real GDP declined slightly in the first quarter. As expected, goods exports suffered from the strong Swiss franc appreciation, but also from a downturn in global trade. Domestic demand, by contrast, developed robustly. Having said this, the situation varies considerably from one industry to another. Profit margins are under significant pressure in several sectors, and this is forcing companies to take steps to reduce production costs and raise efficiency. Against this backdrop, unemployment has increased slightly on a seasonally adjusted basis. Over the coming months, the global economic recovery is likely to lead to a gradual upturn in demand for Swiss products; this will cushion the impact of the exchange rate shock somewhat. As the global economy gathers momentum, we expect Switzerland to return to positive growth in the second half of the year. The SNB continues to anticipate growth of just under 1% for 2015 as a whole.
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It was soon followed by the reduction of current and capital account foreign inflows, an abrupt fall of foreign demand and slowdown of domestic demand for goods and services. In response to these developments, the economic growth rate marked a progressive slowdown during the last year, but still remained positive. Albania’s balance of payments was characterized by imbalances in foreign currency inflows and outflows. The imbalances were reflected in the swinging of demand and supply ratios of foreign currency, yielding the depreciation of the exchange rate in response to new balances that dominated the foreign exchange market. Fiscal policy became more expansionary in 2009, supporting economic activity in the country but also increasing the pressures on the financial markets. The shock that hit the financial system gave rise to the establishment of a challenging environment for the monetary policy to be transmitted completely and timely. Against this challenging background, the Bank of Albania accomplished its legal mandate to maintain price stability in economy successfully: CPI annual inflation remained within our 3 + 1 percent target in 2009. The Bank of Albania’s easing monetary policy established the proper monetary conditions required to maintain price stability. In addition, the supply of the economy with the necessary liquidity and at a declining cost stabilized the financial markets and created the proper conditions for the support of economic activity during 2009.
Persistently low interest rates mean that government borrowing appears to be on favourable terms. But at some point further ahead, interest rates will rise again. Central banks will have to consolidate their balance sheets. Some countries will then find themselves in vulnerable position. NORWAY WAS WELL POSITIONED Norway clearly stands out in this regard. We were well positioned to face the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. Unlike many other countries, we have been able to pursue a very active fiscal policy without having to borrow. We also had room for manoeuvre in monetary policy. In a little over a month, it will be 20 years since the current framework for the division of responsibility in economic policy was established. Fiscal policy would be guided by the fiscal rule, while monetary policy would target inflation. Up until 2001, fiscal policy was responsible for stabilising employment and output. After the switch to inflation targeting, monetary policy has functioned as the first line of defence in stabilisation policy. The primary task of monetary policy is to ensure monetary stability. It must not pursue its primary objective to the exclusion of other relevant considerations. Monetary policy must also take into account the real economy. A monetary policy regime that ends up amplifying fluctuations in the real economy will fail the test of time. As long as confidence in low and stable inflation is well anchored, monetary policy can contribute to high and stable output and employment.

In some business sectors, unemployment remains very high. Other sectors have been shielded. Interest rate cuts have given households more money to spend. At the same time, there were fewer opportunities for them to spend it. So while some have faced a precarious job situation, others have used the occasion to save. We see the same impact and uneven effects in a number of other advanced economies. 3  NORGES BANK  Chart 2 Many countries have been harder hit than Norway  ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 18 FEBRUARY 2021 Total COVID-19 deaths per 10 000  GDP growth, percent  UK Italy US Sweden Japan Norway 0  5  10  15  20  Souces: IMF, OECD, OurWorldInData.org, Statistics Norway and Norges Bank  Many countries have been hit harder than Norway – in terms of both economic and health effects (Chart 2). The differences reflect in part how quickly countries locked down and put a brake on the first wave of infection. The design of support measures, organisation of the health sector and structure of the economy have also played a decisive role. In countries with a rudimentary welfare system and a large informal sector, the pandemic has had serious consequences. Unfortunately, 2020 proved to be the year when the global poverty rate showed a renewed rise. THE WAY AHEAD Pandemics are watershed events that leave behind long-lasting scars. They have claimed a multitude of lives through history.
17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  17  You’d expect all this to lead to matching reallocations in employment – job shedding in the weaker sectors and regions, strong rates of hiring where demand has picked up the most. And in the DMP survey that is indeed what you do see (Chart 21). But it hasn’t yet happened to the same degree as in firms’ reported sales – nor, if we extend the series backwards with other sources of data14, to the same extent as after the financial crisis, whose impact on firms’ output was also highly uneven. Chart 21: Employment reallocation has picked up but still looks lower than after the financial crisis  Sources: Decision Maker Panel, Bureau Van Dijk (based on Companies House data) and Bank calculations. For similar reasons, and again both on the demand and supply side, I would expect these imbalances to subside somewhat as the economy recovers. The underlying dispersion in demand is more likely to narrow than widen further. We’ve already seen some signs of that across sectors, with “social consumption” recovering faster than areas of spending since the economy re-opened (Chart 14 again). In the meantime, the reallocation of jobs, which should also reduce these strains, is likely to continue and may even pick up for a while. However, I’m more uncertain about this process, and the implication for costs in aggregate, than about the transitory nature of goods-price inflation.

One can’t be precise about these things, but I do think that, for reasons on both the demand and supply side, these very rapid rates of wholesale goods-price inflation are likely to subside at some point. Indeed, in some cases they could even go into reverse. When it comes to demand, I think it’s reasonable to expect shifts caused by the pandemic to narrow again as the threat of it recedes. Consumers will rotate some of their spending back to services. To the extent strong demand for durable goods specifically is to make up for ground lost last year that only needs to be done for a while: people buy a new computer or car only once every few years, not every quarter. Indeed there may already be signs – tentative but visible – that these imbalances are beginning to diminish. Retail sales fell in May, in both the US and UK. Spending on Barclaycard doesn’t suggest any reacceleration in June, in this country (Chart 14). It does on the other hand suggest that other areas of spending – those most heavily affected by the lockdowns, like hospitality and restaurants – has been growing faster than that on goods since the economy re-opened in April. Second, supply in some of these goods markets is ultimately quite “elastic”: over time, higher prices encourage higher production, ensuring a degree of self-correction. For some basic commodities the response could be relatively straightforward: it might simply be a question of reopening an existing plant, mine or sawmill.
Many jurisdictions have in place statutory regimes to allow the resolution of failing banks. But until now, the potential use of those regimes on systemic and cross-border institutions has been in doubt. G20 Leaders endorsed two proposals that will allow global systemically-important banks to be resolved when they fail, without the need for taxpayer support and without disruption to the wider financial system or real economy. The first is an agreement, catalysed by the FSB, between ISDA and an initial group of 18 global derivatives dealers. This new Protocol prevents derivative contracts being terminated disruptively in the event of a bank entering resolution. It is a crucial step to closing off the risk that foreign counterparties take their money and run. Most jurisdictions already have legislation that achieves this nationally, but for global banks national solutions aren’t sufficient. This new agreement fills the gap by extending the  weights have stabilised and the increase in leverage has been unwound. The Bank of England’s proposals are set out in Bank of England Financial Policy Committee (2014c). 5  4  Much of this has been driven by the FSB and the joint public-private Enhanced Disclosure Task Force. Across the major jurisdictions, the recommendations of the taskforce are more than half way towards full implementation. Banks in the UK have implemented 95% of the recommendations. The latest progress report is in Banziger et al (2014). BIS central bankers’ speeches  approach across borders.

It is clear that the aim of central banks to make monetary policy less exciting and more boring needs to be complemented by a collective effort to bring boredom to the international monetary stage. 1  Over the past year, senior policymakers from within the G-7 are reported to have claimed that “It’s awfully important that the euro zone adopt policies that will allow them to grow faster. Their slow growth is hurting our growth” (John Snow, AFX news 24/03/04), and that “Our American friends need to put in place a determined policy to control their deficits and so that their currency does not distort commercial trade” (Nicolas Sarkozy, AFX news 25/11/04), or indeed that China’s exchange rate policy “has become a destabilizing force in the world economy, has led to major international exchange rate and trade imbalances throughout the world” (Open letter from US senators Schumer, Bunning, Durbin, Graham, Dodd and Bayh to Vice President Richard Cheney, 22/01/04). 2  BIS Review 9/2005
They are indispensable to avoid any room that may be used for abusive actions that would impair the institution. I therefore request that you take the necessary measures in terms of financial, human and technological capacities in order to ensure the safety of each banking operation. In pursuing its supervisory function, the Bank of Albania will have this matter under close focus and I assure you that any decision that may have hampered the safety of the activity will be handled with utmost stringency by the law. In a broader context, banking activity, in addition to operational risks, is faced with other financial-related risks. We will therefore increase the regulatory requirements for banks to be engaged in an integrated process of risk evaluation and management proportionate to the level of development and sophistication. In a more practical approach, this implies that banks should have specific functional structures that monitor risks in the main activity areas and endeavour to anticipate their possible evolution and impact on banks’ activity. These structures must be  2  BIS Review 174/2010  in place in the largest banks and their products should be an integral part of the decisionmaking process. Dear participants, We are leaving behind a challenging year but other numerous challenges will follow for banking activity. They provide us the opportunity to put our vision into practice, in order to ensure a stable banking activity as a precondition for conducting an efficient intermediation activity with remarkable contribution to economic development at home.

Philipp Hildebrand: Swiss monetary policy Summary of a speech by Mr Philipp Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Annual Meeting of the IFZ (Institute for Financial Services Zug), Zug, 1 June 2006. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  Having successfully pursued a strategy of money supply targets for around 25 years, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) decided to adopt a fundamentally new monetary policy approach in 1999. Although it integrated some of the important elements of inflation targeting, it did so less strictly, thus allowing greater flexibility. Money stocks and credits continued to play a vital role in the new concept. Unlike the European Central Bank, the SNB chose not to make the monetary analysis a separate pillar in its concept. An important distinction to inflation targeting is that monetary policy focuses on maintaining price stability in the medium to long term, while inflation targeting is generally oriented towards short-term and, in some cases, variable inflation targets. The SNB's monetary policy uses an inflation forecast as a central indicator and sets its operational goal in the form of a target range for the three-month Libor. A monetary policy that is geared to the medium and long term affords leeway for a certain degree of stabilisation of the real economy.
For instance, Zambia, has successfully managed to stabilize the key macroeconomic variables. For the first time in 30 years, inflation managed to fall to its lowest levels while the exchange rate has been relatively stable whilst reflecting market fundamentals. Further, the lending interest rates have been declining in response favorable macroeconomic environment. Notwithstanding the improved macroeconomic environment, the Zambian Government is aware and committed to resolving the remaining challenges facing the banking and financial services industry. Accordingly, Government adopted a 5-year Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP), which aims, amongst other things, at promoting the development of a stable, sound and market based financial system. One of the key recommendations of the FSDP is establishment of a credit reference bureau in order to improve the credit culture in Zambia. In June 2006, the Bank of Zambia licensed one company to provide credit referencing services and commercial banks are concluding a service level agreement with this company that will allow the bureau to serve as a clearinghouse for credit history information and promote the ability of lending institutions to share both positive and negative data about their borrowing customers. BIS Review 36/2007  1  Ladies and Gentlemen, this development will address one of key structural problems that the baking sector has faced for a long time.

So, 7 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  think of that as Bangladesh. That the messenger, who the person is who’s transmitting the payment, this is SWIFT, is secure. And the receiver. So in this case, the New York Fed is secure. That goes for anybody who is executing payments. It doesn’t have to be Bangladesh, through the SWIFT, to the New York Fed. It’s anybody executing a payment through any payment medium to any receiver. The thing that we’re trying to work on internationally is to try to make sure that everyone understands their responsibilities in that chain. So, it’s really important that the person executing the payment, that their facilities are secured. What seemed to be the case in the Bangladesh situation was their facilities were not secured, so someone executed a payment that looked completely authentic through the SWIFT pipes to the New York Fed. It was an authentic payment – it looked like an authentic payment when we executed on some of those payments – not all of those payments. So, we need to make sure that that first leg is buttoned up, and also we need to make sure that everyone understands their responsibility along that chain. So, this is something that we take very seriously. We’re working also with the institutions that we interact with.
If, instead, economic growth disappoints, inflation stays unusually low and the labor market continues to exhibit evidence of considerable excess slack, then lift-off will likely be pushed back in time. 1 With respect to the trajectory of rates after lift-off, this also is highly dependent on how the economy evolves. My current thinking is that the pace of tightening will probably be relatively slow. This depends, however, in large part, not only on the economy’s performance, but also on how financial conditions respond to tightening. After all, monetary policy works through financial conditions to affect aggregate demand and supply. If the response of financial conditions to tightening is very mild – say similar to how the bond and equity markets have responded to the tapering of asset purchases since last December – this might encourage a somewhat faster pace. In contrast, if bond yields were to move sharply higher, as was the case last spring, then a more cautious approach might be warranted. In terms of the level of rates over the longer-term, I would expect them to be lower than historical averages for three reasons. First, economic headwinds seem likely to persist for several more years. While the wealth loss following the financial crisis has largely been reversed, the Great Recession has scarred households and businesses – this is likely to lead to greater precautionary saving and less investment for a long time. Also, as noted earlier, headwinds in the housing area seem likely to dissipate only slowly.

The decisions, which usually pass through internal professional filtrations,  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  and are made by the Governor and the NBRM Council, are within exclusive responsibility of those two bodies, and since the Governor is also a President (with the new law, a Chairperson) of the Council, I also consider these decisions, particularly if there were bad ones, as my personal responsibility. I actually want to say that the statutory independence of the NBRM over the last seven years was completely preserved. This should remain in the future. The central bank independence is crucial to the macroeconomic stability and very important to the financial system stability. With such position, I consider that we successfully pursued all assignments entrusted by the law: (1) We preserved low and stable inflation as a primary objective of the central bank. The seven-year average (2004–2011, April) equals 2.2%. I know what some may think of the so called “tolerant” or “useful” level of inflation. I leave it to them to “reconcile” their “tolerant” level of inflation and de facto fixed rate. In case they again oppose to the existing regime of exchange rate, to have even higher inflation, we will be decent enough to seek for an elementary analysis of its usefulness, i.e. of the advantages of such alternative. (2) We maintained a stable exchange rate level, without registering misalignment between its level and the economic fundaments.