samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The same can be said of the banking system, since if we undertake sufficiently extensive reform, we will be able to reasonably negotiate the current crisis; otherwise, banks would have to ultimately focus on the battle against bad debts and on the difficulties in obtaining external funding, and the authorities would have to focus on restructuring the banks that have deteriorated to the point of being clearly inviable. However, if we take advantage of this historic moment and carry out far-reaching labour reform, we will face a more positive scenario in which Spanish firms could promptly raise their competitiveness in the difficult (for these purposes) environment of a monetary union. Spain would enter a scenario in which increased productivity would provide a significant boost to its best firms. This would be particularly positive for SMEs, which find it most difficult to take advantage of the flexibility mechanisms offered by the current institutional framework, and they would benefit enormously from the implementation of a more flexible and simpler system. Meanwhile, budgetary consolidation could be achieved without swingeing cuts in expenditure and the banking system would be in a position to support this new growth phase. It would thus be a mistake to opt for small-scale labour reform, as if we could even afford to tackle this reform slowly, in various phases over various years. This would have been possible 5 or 10 or 15 years ago, when the last expansion phase started and the need for labour reform was not pressing.

Why would the most efficient retail bankers not be able to export their  BIS Review 22/2004  1  concept, just as IKEA, McDonald’s, or American Express, to name a few other retail service companies, have done in their industries? However, there are economic obstacles related to the cost of entry into new markets. Major cross-border expansion must, with few exceptions, be made through mergers or acquisitions. The success of a cross-border deal depends on the ability to realise synergies. This takes a number of tough decisions regarding reductions in staff numbers and overlapping or inefficient systems and operations. If then to this entry cost are added extra hurdles in the form of regulations and politics it is easy to see that the difficulties related to cross-border expansion might seem insurmountable to a bank manager. On the margin, I think these extra hurdles or barriers might be more important than the inherent economics of banking. Generally, in countries where the costs of entering the national banking market are relatively low, the market share held by foreign banks tends to be higher. In the last decade, countries with less developed banking systems and few or no powerful incumbents have seen extensive entry by foreign banks. Witness the expansion by European and American banks into emerging markets, e.g. in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. In the EU, in contrast, national banking markets are generally well developed and incumbents are strong, making entry costs much higher.
The central function of the Riksbank is to achieve price stability or at least keep the rate of price increases low and stable. This approach to monetary policy is based on the insight that in the longer run, higher price increases cannot generate growth and employment. Growth stems from other factors, such as technological advances, the way the economy functions, demographic trends, etc. Attempts to stimulate economic growth by accepting higher inflation soon tend to boomerang. This is clear both from our own experience in recent decades and from what has happened in other countries. The players in the economy adapt to the higher inflation; prices, wages and interest rates rise; the end result is normally an economic trend that is weaker instead of stronger. Throughout the western world today, economic policy is less concerned with “stop and go” policies to influence short-run activity and focuses more on creating good and stable long-term conditions for economic growth and employment. In such an approach, the function of monetary policy is to safeguard the value of money. In the past decade support for a policy of this type has also grown markedly in Sweden. This year’s Spring Economic Bill states that “The overriding task for monetary policy is price stability”. In keeping with this and in order to facilitate the implementation of a credible monetary policy, more and more countries are striving to separate monetary policy decisions from day-to-day policy-making.

Under certain circumstances stock adjustments may trigger a more marked economic slowdown. This may happen, for instance, if effects of the adjustments either spread to private consumption or have a negative impact on the labour market and household confidence. The Riksbank was therefore alert to the risk of private consumption being weaker last spring and summer, which would have pointed to a further curb on inflation. In practice, however, private consumption went on rising in the summer and its growth became somewhat stronger in the autumn. Low inflation and interest rate reductions The rate of inflation decreased during 1996 and the rates that different economic agents expected in the future also moved down markedly (Diagram 2). This enabled the Riksbank to lower the repo rate from 8.91 to 4.10 per cent. As a result, the initial position for the ongoing growth phase in Sweden’s economy is more favourable than for many years. The drop in the rate of consumer price increases was appreciably accentuated by the Riksbank’s repo rate cuts in that these contributed to the reduction of mortgage interest costs. Under normal circumstances the tolerance interval around the price stability target should suffice BIS Review 56/1997  -4-  to absorb transitory effects on the price level. Last year, however, the fall in interest rates was very marked because many factors had a concerted effect that rapidly altered the picture of inflation. The magnitude of that interest rate fall is also largely responsible for the weak price trend to date in 1997.
It initially relied on outside investment advisors to support its first purchase program, before eventually bringing trading operations in house, and then later developing capabilities to conduct auctions on its proprietary auction platform.44  Conclusion The Federal Reserve and other central banks initially proceeded with asset purchases in a cautious way given that the tool was new. However, I believe we have learned that the benefits are notable and the costs likely less than feared. Moreover, U.S. fixed income markets were able to withstand more sizable purchase operations than we initially anticipated, and we now know that we can successfully maintain interest rate control with a large balance sheet as we raise rates. This experience could give policymakers greater confidence in using this tool to provide additional monetary policy accommodation in future zero lower bound episodes, and give market participants greater confidence in the effectiveness of the tool in mitigating the zero lower bound. With evidence suggesting the neutral fed funds rate has fallen notably, we should continue to absorb lessons from our and other central banks’ experiences. In particular, we will need to consider the importance of communications, how to organize an operating regime that transitions smoothly, and how to maintain operational readiness. As we normalize the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, we continue to proceed cautiously given our lack of experience with this process.

1, Spring 2003. 34 Such communications are a form of Odyssean forward guidance about the balance sheet. See Jeffrey R.  Campbell et al, “Macroeconomic Effects of Federal Reserve Forward Guidance, ” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2012. The authors distinguish between central bank forward guidance that simply forecasts macroeconomic performance and likely monetary policy actions (Delphic guidance), and guidance that publicly commits the central bank to a set of future actions (Odyssean guidance). 35 Because market prices are forward-looking, an announcement that affects expectations about the stock of  assets held by the Fed should have an immediate impact on market prices. However, the overall size of the market impact will depend on the expected path of portfolio holdings over time. In addition, completion of purchases may be perceived as strengthening the central bank’s commitment by making it more difficult to deviate from announced plans. 36 However, since term premium effects decay as securities age, selling securities with relatively short remaining  times to maturity may not be materially different than redeeming those securities. 37 The Fed’s first two purchase programs were launched with pre-announced sizes and time frames (although the  first program was later expanded). In contrast, the third program was open-ended and state-contingent.
To translate this back into a Taylor-rule world, we would need to know the so-called “shadow prices”. Of course we don’t know those unobservable prices. But we can, perhaps, get a broadbrush handle on the materiality of the tightening by using estimated equations for credit (and money) demand, holding all other influences constant. 10 There is just huge uncertainty  7  See Tucker, PMWT (2008), “The credit crisis: lessons from a protracted peacetime”, remarks given at the Chatham House conference on “The New Financial Frontiers”. These remarks are also forthcoming in the 2008 Q3 edition of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin. 8  See Taylor, JB., (2008) “Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy”, testimony before the Committee on Financial Services, US House of Representatives, February and Mculley, P and Touli, R (2008) “Chasing the Neutral Rate Down: Financial Conditions, Monetary Policy, and the Taylor Rule”, Global Central Bank Focus, PIMCO. 9  Another reason reflected in the Curdia and Woodford (2008) paper is the fact that borrowers and savers have different propensities to consume. Consequently a change in spreads will affect the “average rate” faced by borrowers and savers in a different way from a change in the policy rate. 10  Based, for example, on Brigden, A and Mizen, P (1999) “ Money, credit and investment in the UK corporate sector”, Bank of England Working Paper number 100. BIS Review 112/2008  5  about such estimates but, for what it’s worth, they indicate a material tightening from this source.

Paul Tucker: Money and credit, twelve months on Speech by Mr Paul Tucker, Executive Director and Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, at the Money, Macro and Finance Research Group 40th Annual Conference, Birkbeck College, London, 12 September 2008. *  *  *  As many people have said, this is a challenging time for policymakers. But the real challenge is for households and firms in the real world who are having to navigate the fallout from the extraordinary combination of financial and commodity shocks rippling through the world economy. Our job as policymakers is to make that process as smooth as it can be over the medium term. And having our eye on the medium term means we must ensure that the gains of the past ten-to-fifteen years in stabilising inflation are not frittered away. In confronting that task, policymakers are having both to make big picture judgments about the balance of forces buffeting the UK economy; and to apply areas of economic theory that stretch the frontiers of existing research. So, in joining your research conference this morning, I want to sketch, broadly, what the current conjuncture suggests, from the policymaker’s perspective, should feature in the future research agenda of monetary economists. The current conjuncture, and policy By way of establishing the context, I will begin with the Bank of England’s most recent economic forecast. In August, the Monetary Policy Committee published our latest projections for output growth and inflation.
We have a very open economy with free capital movements. Stable inflation expectations also contribute to more stable exchange rate expectations. Inflation targeting means setting the interest rate so as to achieve a numerical target for inflation. Norges Bank sets the interest rate with a view to stabilising inflation at 2.5 per cent within a reasonable  BIS Review 53/2004  1  time horizon, normally 1-3 years. The more precise horizon will depend on the disturbances to which the economy is exposed, and how they affect the path for inflation and output. The inflation target represents a framework for, not an obstacle to, monetary policy’s contribution to stabilising output and employment. We have chosen flexible inflation targeting. Variability in output and employment as well as inflation is given weight. The objective of monetary policy is to safeguard the value of money in the long term, and seek to contribute to stabilising economic developments in the short and medium term. Like other central banks, Norges Bank publishes reports about the economic situation, the inflation outlook and the conduct of monetary policy. The transparency of the basis for monetary policy decisions has increased. Norges Bank presents an account of both the main aspects of economic developments that influence interest rate decisions and of the Executive Board’s assessments. The alternatives considered by the Executive Board are made public. Interest rate decisions are taken on the basis of an interest-rate setting strategy drawn up by the Executive Board every four months.

The Riksbank monitors the financial sector with a systemic perspective. If we hadn’t realised it before, one clear lesson from the crisis of 2008–2009 was that monitoring individual institutions is not enough. We and other authorities around the world learnt that we have to keep our eyes on the connections between the banks and how they are affected, as a whole, by developments on the markets. Among other means, the Riksbank influences financial market participants through the analyses we make and the recommendations we issue in the Financial Stability Reports. Another important role for the Riksbank is being the country’s representative in several forums that set the standards for the financial sector, primarily the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) and the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS). At the same time, it is worth pointing out that, at present, the Riksbank does not have any sharper tools than words in the preventive work or macro-prudential supervision. We can warn and recommend, but when it comes to real measures, other authorities currently hold responsibility. It is a difficult task. Always raising a warning when everything seems to be going well seldom makes you popular. Financial stability policy is of great importance for Swedish households Preventing future crises is an important task – as is being able to manage them if they break out anyway. I hope that this speech has clarified why Swedish households are dependent on financial stability.
This system will have much greater functionality including the potential for such synchronisation which we are now actively exploring with the London centre of the BIS Innovation Hub. At present, given where we are on in the UK on the imminent implementation of a vastly more capable RTGS system these options look to provide a faster route to settlement of tokenised transactions in central bank money and are working with industry on how to best exploit the possibilities of the RTGS system [22]. But we will continue to remain closely engaged with all the options. As with retail payments, it is difficult to forecast now what will prove the more successful approaches. It is most likely that, as is not uncommon with technological development, a range of approaches will eventually be implemented and will co-exist. We have a variety of payment systems, both wholesale and retail, of different vintages operating in the UK today. I would guess that in the future, as new technologies take hold we will see both more innovation and more variety. Changes in how we pay for things and what type of money we use is an exciting area of possibility for the Fintech world. It is also a fundamental issue for the Bank of England – as a regulator, as the provider of the central high value payment rails and the issuer of the highest quality, public money in the UK.

François Villeroy de Galhau: Insurance and pensions – institutional innovation, economic innovation, technological innovation Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the7th annual EIOPA Conference, Frankfurt am Main, 22 November 2017. * * * Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to be in Frankfurt today for this 7th Annual EIOPA Conference and I wish to warmly thank EIOPA’s Chairman Gabriel Bernardino for his kind invitation. I must say that I feel at home, since we are not far away from the ECB building where I take part in the meetings of the Governing Council at least every two weeks. But today I will speak in my capacity as President of the French supervisory authority, the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), which belongs to the board of supervisors of EIOPA, and which is in charge of the supervision of both insurance companies and banks in France. This is an important responsibility as the French insurance market is the second largest in the European Union, just behind the United Kingdom, with an aggregated balance sheet of approximately EUR 2,600 bn. Given that I am speaking before the panel dedicated to innovation, I will take this opportunity to focus on three kinds of innovation, which in my view can lead us to rethink insurance and pensions: institutional innovation, economic innovation and technological innovation. 1. Institutional innovation Let me start with institutional innovation.
If, on the other hand, we understand political union as the establishment of an entity that resembles the traditional nation state, the European Union may still have some way to go, if indeed this is the direction that Europeans want to take. Today’s Union is not a European Federation, for example, or a United States of Europe, with a constitution and a single executive. The euro marks the achievement of full integration in the monetary field. In purely functional terms, it is therefore an end point, rather than an intermediate step. However, with the euro, we now form a “Schicksalsgemeinschaft”, a community with a shared future. Our economies are linked, and so our policy decisions have become a matter of concern for all. We have a legitimate interest in developments and political actions in other euro area countries, since we are affected by them - for better or for worse. If I may use a “domestic” metaphor, the marriage in which the euro has joined our countries is about more than just living under the same roof, it is about sharing a common vision and about managing life together. Concluding remarks In the context of the current attempts to help the European Union work smoothly and on a sustainable basis following its future enlargement, I would like to conclude by mentioning the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. The process of European integration has delivered half a century of stability, peace and prosperity.

But, going beyond that, the FSB has encouraged and is sponsoring an exercise on effective supervision of SIFIs, Significantly Important Financial Institutions. BIS Review 148/2010  1  A remarkable fact is that although the style of banking supervision varies enormously across the world, almost nothing seems to have been done to get to the bottom of the question of which approaches are the more effective – having an army of on-site examiners, such as for example in the United States; or relying on offsite analysis, which tends to be the pattern in much of Europe. An exercise led by Julie Dickson for the Financial Stability Board is producing an evaluation of what is needed to supervise the largest firms in the world effectively. The idea is that that will either get encapsulated in an FSB code or in a re-draft of the Basel Core Principles for Effective Supervision. 3. Capital and liquidity  The third element is capital and liquidity. Virtually all crises have at their root over leverage in the financial sector and excessive maturity mismatch. We need to overhaul the corresponding policy instruments –capital and liquidity requirements. On liquidity, Basel is introducing an accord for minimum liquidity requirements for the first time; this is about a quarter of a century after it was first contemplated and so rather overdue, but therefore very welcome. There is an awful lot of debate around this still. Many in the industry – in the banking industry – have been resisting it. But this will happen.
In this context, strengthening of the macroeconomic foundations in the Turkish economy and the gradually increasing financial integration with the world economy facilitates the sustainability of higher current account deficits. Floating rate regime and a strong financial system also alleviates the negative consequences of the current account deficit during a possible capital outflow. The current account deficit is one of the risk factors for our economy today as it was in the past. Management of this risk like the other risks besides its control through medium and long-term structural measures considering its structural peculiarities are vital for the establishment of a permanent stability in the economy. Finally, I would like to express my pleasure one more time for having this opportunity to communicate my views about the policies of the Bank and the macroeconomic developments. Thank you. 8  BIS Review 28/2007

Caleb M Fundanga: Bank of Zambia retirees Talking notes by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the luncheon in honour of Bank of Zambia retirees, Bank of Zambia, Lusaka, 12 December 2006. *  *  *  • Deputy Governor – Administration • Directors • Ladies and Gentlemen • Retirees and Potential Retirees in our midst Some people say “retirement is wonderful; it is described by many as doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it”. That is to say, you now become accountable to yourself for your actions! Retirement marks an important milestone in one’s life, it is so important that in many cases you have to consult, and reflect extensively before you take that very important decision. It is a day one should not only anticipate during ones working life, but also plan for. Retirement can occur voluntarily as the case is with VESS, by attaining the age of 55 as provided by statute or prematurely due to a misfortune such as failing health. In all circumstances one must plan for the event. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is for this reason that the Bank has found it befitting to host a luncheon in your honor, by recognizing all the hard work that you have put in the Bank in the many years of service. Admittedly, relationships between the Bank and ex-members of staff have in certain cases not been so good.