samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This additional distortion has given rise to further instability in the financial system, both directly and through its interplay with the weaknesses of the public sector. Given the central role played by sovereign debt in financial markets, its dysfunctional behaviour threatened both financial stability and the transmission of monetary policy. In this context, the Eurosystem launched its Securities Markets Programme (SMP), which entails the outright purchase of debt instruments to address the malfunctioning of securities markets and to ensure the proper transmission of monetary policy impulses to the wider economy and, ultimately, the general price level. In addition, in order to mitigate the impact of the sovereign debt crisis on the banking sector’s ability to refinance its activities, the ECB temporarily reversed the phasing-out of its nonstandard measures. It also took collateral-related measures to support access to central bank liquidity by banks located in the countries that were committed to implementing economic and financial adjustment programmes negotiated with the European Commission, in liaison with the ECB, and the IMF. There is no denying that the financial crisis has put the euro and the economy of the euro area to the test. During the crisis the euro area public authorities have proven their capacity  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  and willingness to take the necessary emergency steps to maintain financial stability. However, the crisis has clearly shown the need to undertake a number of reforms in order to address some institutional and structural weaknesses in our economies.

But also from the supply side developments were, for a period at least, positive, partly because there was an increase in the working-age population. In recent years, however, it has become evident that many people have ended up outside the labour market, partly as a result of a rise in sick leave. As regards productivity growth, the trend in recent years has been more positive. At GDP level it has been approximately 2 per cent per year or slightly above. This differs from the situation in the 1970s and 1980s. It is likely that the changes in monetary and fiscal policy and increased transparency with stiffer competition have been important in this regard. So how should we feel about developments in the near future? When it comes to productivity, there is reason for optimism, even if the high figures seen in the 1990s partly reflect both rapid growth in the private sector compared to the public sector and robust growth in the ICT sector. Our economy is more open and has greater competition and downward price-pressure in many sectors. The cost pressures in the public sector also have a similar impact. The outlook is considerably gloomier for the labour supply. As I mentioned, developments are now on a downward trend. One cause of this is that economic policy in some respects has become less focused on raising labour force participation. In terms of both transfers and taxes, changes have been implemented that reduce the incentive to work.
Alignment with international standards supports competitiveness because it makes it easier for international firms to conduct business in the UK. It avoids inefficiencies that would arise from international firms having to comply with a different set of rules when they operate here. It also helps protect the UK’s financial system from the risks that originate outside of this country. Such risks will inevitably arise when a country’s financial system is large and open. To use my earlier analogy as our immune system needs to protect us from infection from elsewhere, and to stop us transmitting infections to others, we need global prudential defences to keep us all healthy. Dare I also say that financial services centres are more competitive when their regulators have a good reputation amongst their peers – for independence, strength, and effectiveness built on technical competence and understanding of financial markets. Some of my audience may be surprised that there is a concept such as regulatory innovation! But there is such a thing and UK regulators have a good reputation for it, recognised for example by the IMF in its recent Financial Sector Assessment of the UK. [14] Protecting and enhancing regulators’ reputation benefits global firms operating in the UK and UK firms operating overseas, not least through UK influence in global standard-setting bodies. For one thing, it makes it more likely that other regulators will allow firms in their jurisdictions to operate in the UK in a way that maintains deep interconnections with its financial system.

That is why, for example, we have clarified expectations about how firms should manage risks from cryptoassets and why, with the FCA, we set up and chaired the Artificial Intelligence Public-Private Forum to help us better understand the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on financial services. [3] It is also why we published this July, with the FCA and Bank as Financial Markets Infrastructure regulator, a discussion paper on critical third parties proposing proportionate measures to strengthen their resilience in a manner that supports the openness of the UK as a financial centre. [4] Good prudential regulation also changes to meet new sorts of risk, which is why we were amongst the first regulators globally to develop standards for operational resilience. [5] It turns out that white blood cells that target immune responses at threats, and direct them away from our own bodies, are called ‘regulatory T cells’, although I doubt they were named after prudential regulators! But they do what we need to do when we choose to take action. We need to boost the health of the markets we oversee, by letting our ‘regulatory T-cells’ target the threats we face in a tailored manner, leaving the healthy parts undisturbed. This is why, for example, we are  Page 4  building what we call a Strong and Simple framework for small domestic banks and building societies for whom Basel standards were not designed.
These objectives of macro-economic policy – monetary and overall fiscal policy – will certainly be familiar to you in this country; they are at the heart of the policies being pursued right across Europe;  BIS Review 36/2001  1  and they are the policies endorsed, too, by all the members of the IMF in the Madrid Declaration adopted at the IMF Annual Meeting in 1994 and expanded and updated two years later. Of course on occasion the flesh proves to be weaker than the spirit – and achieving these macro-economic objectives is not easy in practice even as a technical matter. But the intention – the international commitment to macro-economic stability – is clear. Acceptance of the aim of macro-economic stability served to bring into sharper focus the structural, supply side, of the economy – that is the whole raft of influences that can affect the underlying growth rate of capacity and thus the growth rate of aggregate demand that can be sustained. And here, too, there has been a strengthening international presumption in favour of open markets and free competition – both domestically and internationally – with a continuing strong presumption against predatory trade or exchange rate manipulation. The justification is that undistorted competition contributes to potential global economic growth through increased efficiency and the more effective allocation of productive resources. Faster growth in turn provides a more favourable context for addressing social concerns, including the issue of poverty.

It is really a great honor to have representatives from the central banks of the EU member states as well as from the candidate countries attending this conference, especially having in mind that on the last day of the conference some of them will have presentations and share their experiences in the domain of payment systems. Ladies and gentlemen, Now, allow me to declare the seventh conference on payment and securities settlement systems open! I would like to wish the chairman Mr. Michiel van Doeveren and his colleagues a successful conference. I hope the weather will be fine and you will enjoy the beauties of Lake Ohrid, and in the afternoon and in the evening, you will have the opportunity to visit the city of Ohrid, which is one of the best preserved material and spiritual legacies witnessing the millennial existence of our culture and historical heritage. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
In this regard, I would like to express my gratitude to the Financial Education Network and everyone involved in the FLM for their relentless efforts in elevating financial literacy. The reality is that as our lives become increasingly digital, criminals are also finding new and innovative ways to commit digital crimes, such as financial scams. Indeed, the issue of financial scams has become a global issue, not just unique to Malaysia. Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to scam victims. This is a concerning trend which keeps many of us up at night. For Bank Negara Malaysia, our priority is to ensure that banking and payment channels remain safe and secure. Given that the tactics used by criminals will continue to evolve, we will, where necessary, issue new security advisories and additional security measures for banks to take from time to time. These include the five measures announced on 26 September to further strengthen the banks' controls and safeguards against financial scams. I am pleased to see that banks are giving their full commitment and making progress in implementing these measures. The government recently announced the establishment of the National Scam Response Centre or NSRC, a command centre to coordinate rapid response for online financial  1/2  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  scams. NSRC brings together resources and expertise from NFCC, PDRM, BNM, MCMC, financial institutions and the telecommunication industry to combat financial scams more quickly and effectively.

Mugur Isărescu: Regional economic outlook - Europe Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the conference "Regional Economic Outlook - Europe", Bucharest, 17 November 2017. * * * Your Excellences, Ambassadors, Members of the diplomatic corps, Ladies and gentlemen, Distinguished guests, It is my pleasure to welcome you to the National Bank of Romania. The Board and I are honored to host the presentation of an important IMF document, one of their flagship reports, namely “2017 Regional Economic Outlook Report”. It is a tradition for the National Bank of Romania to host this event and we are pleased to greet the presence of many foreign diplomats – this is a clear testimony of its importance. Allow me to extend a warm welcome to Mr. Jeffrey Franks, who has been a long-standing friend of Romania. Mr. Franks is a veteran of the Fund, who – over the last 25 years – has managed challenging assignments, including the resident offices in Ukraine and Ecuador, and has led teams in Pakistan, Romania, France, Belgium, and Paraguay. He was the IMF Mission Chief for Romania for almost 3 years, from 2009 till 2012. As many of you may remember, during his mandate as mission chief, Romania overcame a very difficult period, with the support of the IMF, WB and EC.
Unemployment is up, businesses have closed, and the direct and indirect costs to the taxpayer have resulted in fiscal deficits in several countries of over 10% of GDP – the largest peacetime deficits ever. At the heart of this crisis was the expansion and subsequent contraction of the balance sheet of the banking system. Other parts of the financial system in general functioned normally. And we saw in 1987 and again in the early 2000s, that a sharp fall in equity values did not cause the same damage as did the banking crisis. Equity markets provide a natural safety valve, and when they suffer sharp falls, economic policy can respond. But when the banking system failed in September 2008, not even massive injections of both liquidity and capital by the state could prevent a devastating collapse of confidence and output around the world. So it is imperative that we find an answer to the question of how to make our banking system more stable. As Bagehot knew only too well, banking crises are endemic to the market economy that has evolved since the Industrial Revolution. The words “banking” and “crises” are natural bedfellows. If love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, then banking and crisis go together like Oxford and the Isis, intertwined for as long as anyone can remember. Unfortunately, such crises are occurring more frequently and on an ever larger scale. Why? 2.

Krzysztof Rybiński: Monetary policy challenges resulting from the rapid credit growth in the CEE Panel discussion by Mr Krzysztof Rybiński, Deputy President of the National Bank of Poland, at the National Bank of Poland International Conference of Central Bankers and Economic Educators “Monetary Policy Challenges Resulting from the Rapid Credit Growth in Converging Economies”, Warsaw, 23 November 2007. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, In recent years we have witnessed a rapid growth of credit in CEE countries. Today, I would like to focus on globalisation as one of the main causes of such development. First, I will explain how globalisation contributed to recent credit growth in the CEE and then I will discuss what could be the possible consequences for the monetary policy of vanishing globalization “tail wind” in the nearest future. To start with, let us define the term globalisation, as its meaning is so broad, that when it is referred to in a discussion, various people understand various things. One of the definitions of globalisation is provided by the International Monetary Fund 1 , where it is construed as “the growing interdependence (integration) of national economies, in particular as a result of the growing international trade and financial flows”. Moreover, an element of globalisation that is worth mentioning is the fast flow of information and knowledge, which is the driving force behind globalisation processes. One should keep in mind that globalisation is not a completely new phenomenon.
I see a risk in allowing monetary policy to continue to lean against the wind until one sees tendencies for  15  I n a long-run perspective, inflation below the target could lead to unnecessarily high unemployment if inflation expectations are firmly anchored around the target (see Svensson, 2013). In the same way that unexpectedly high inflation benefits those who borrow and is a disadvantage to those who lend as the real value of the debt becomes lower than anticipated, unexpectedly low inflation can benefit those who lend at the cost of the borrowers. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  inflation expectations in the long run to begin to adjust downwards. That is a situation that might be hard to turn around. Target attainment is important for credibility One argument that is sometimes put forward is that the differences between what the majority of Executive Board members and the minority advocate are so small and that in practice it is not very important whether or not one cuts the repo rate a little more. And in a strictly “mechanical” sense, it is perhaps true that a policy rate that was 0.25 percentage points lower for a period of time would have a limited effect on the economy. But for the sake of credibility and target attainment in the long run, it is also important how households and companies perceive monetary policy. How seriously does the central bank view the inflation target?

I believe that the high level of debt, combined with an unwillingness to have higher debts than assets, could in such a situation have negative effects on growth in consumption.10 I would therefore feel more secure if the level of debt was lower, or at least was not increasing. But if I would feel more secure with a lower level of debt, why not use monetary policy to try to slow it down? The answer is simply that the disadvantages with using monetary policy in this way outweigh the advantages. A trade-off between target attainment at different horizons One fundamental problem here is how to make the trade-offs clear to economic agents, which is necessary if one wishes to convince them of the need to lean against the wind. The policy the Riksbank has conducted for some time means that one deliberately allows longer time for both inflation and the real economy to return to normal levels. At the same time, this is justified by the Riksbank’s mandate to stabilise inflation around the inflation target and production and employment around long-run sustainable levels. It is probably not clear to everyone how the actual aim of the policy is connected to the justification for it. The tradeoffs therefore need to be made concrete and clear – partly so that the Riksbank’s principal can assess its monetary policy, and partly so the general public can understand the basis for the policy the Riksbank conducts.
Finally, special attention will have to be paid to the incoming data from the financial sector in order to closely monitor the impact of recent events and tensions. The implications of recent financial sector tensions have been contained so far. But, if these tensions persist or intensify, a scenario could materialise of significantly tighter credit and financial conditions and worsening confidence, with downward effects on economic activity and prices. In this respect, special attention will have to be paid to data on the supply of bank credit, as measured for instance by the BLS. Conclusions Let me conclude by highlighting two main takeaways from my words today. First, at the ECB Governing Council we stand ready and have the instruments available to respond as and when necessary to maintain price and financial stability in the euro area. Second, in March we took a further step in the process of adjusting the monetary policy stance to the euro area inflation outlook, but uncertainty is high and future decisions will continue to be data-dependent. Inflation in the euro area is slowing and will continue to do so markedly in the coming months. But there are factors affecting underlying inflation that may delay its return to the 2% target in the medium run and that we will therefore monitor closely going forward.

Moving up the risk spectrum, the price of both investment and sub-investment grade corporate bonds has risen since March last year, by 20% and 60% respectively. Global equity prices have risen by over 70% over the same period. The rise in UK equity prices is one of the largest in the 316-year history of the Bank of England (Chart 4). Residential and commercial property prices in the UK have turned. And global wealth losses on private sector securities, at around $ trillion, have fallen by a factor of four over the past year alone. What explains this remarkable recovery in risky asset prices? Three factors seem to have been important, all of which can be traced to policy actions by the authorities:   First, the rate at which the future cashflows on risky assets are discounted has fallen due to lower short and long-term global real interest rates. Using a standard asset pricing model, this discount rate effect accounts for perhaps around one fifth of the rise in UK and euro-area equity prices and one third of the rise in US equity prices since March last year (Chart 5).   Second, as fears of a repeat of the Great Depression have abated, the premium that investors require to compensate for this risk – the risk premium – has fallen, boosting expected future cashflows on risky assets. This more than accounts for the rise in UK and US equity prices over the past year (Chart 5).
Hence, the overconcentration on agriculture in pro-poor growth strategies appears to be principally supply driven and there are no demanders who actually wish to utilise them to derive benefits. Hence, the continuation of providing state support for rural agriculture, however much it is well intentioned, would trap an unwilling rural population in agriculture, thereby delaying the adjustment which has to take place by way of transferring the excess labour to other gainful areas of the economy and improve the productivity and efficiency of the agricultural sector of the country. This means that the growth strategy should focus on providing gainful employment to the rural poor in other growing areas such as the services sector and integrate it with the global economy so as to ensure income sustainability 14 . Two main issues have been present in Sri Lanka’s state sponsored poverty alleviation programmes in the past. One was the moral hazard problem and the other was the adverse selection problem. Since the poverty alleviation programmes anticipated providing benefits to selected poor individuals free of charge, those individuals did not have to work hard to receive such benefits. Hence, the schemes did not provide any incentive for participants to work hard and get out of poverty. As a result, individuals who were taken into the schemes preferred to be in the scheme forever, thereby perpetuating poverty and raising the cost of its eradication significantly 15 .

This trend of state functioning as the main promoter of growth and fair distribution has continued even to the present day. In Sri Lanka, during the last lap of the British rule, the country converted itself into a model welfare state following the example set by the colonial master in the post-war period 2 . Accordingly, education and health care were universalised and made free of charge, a wide range of food subsidies were introduced and state led development initiatives, in social and physical infrastructure, industry and agriculture, were started. All these pro-poor policies were intended to ensure socio-economic security for a wide spectrum of population, allowing the unprivileged to have social mobility through state support and intervention. The model yielded some results such as higher human development, but, economically pushed the country behind many late starters like Singapore or South Korea. Both these countries which were ranked very much below Sri Lanka at the time of independence have graduated to the status of developed countries within a period of just three to four decades reducing their poverty levels from around 50% of the population in 1950s to below 5% by the turn of the century. The creation of “a super welfare state” in this manner without the backing of a proper resource base by Sri Lanka has been criticised by many as an unsound and unsustainable policy compared with that pursued by superperformers in the region.