samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
2  For a survey on the literature on speculators and their impact on price developments in the oil market, see Weiner, R, (2002): “Sheep in wolves’ clothing? Speculators and price volatility in petroleum futures”, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 42 (2), 391-400. 2  BIS Review 69/2004  at 35 USD per barrel for WTI delivery in 5 years (see Figure 7). Moreover, despite the most recent sharp correction in spot prices from 55 to 46 USD per barrel WTI, long-dated futures prices have receded only marginally. Since 2002, prices of oil futures are generally quoted below expected spot prices - a state labeled backwardation. Backwardation implies uncertainty about production and supplies and effectively favors further inventory draw downs (see Figure 8). Price information extracted from the market appears to confirm that at least for the time being, average oil prices are likely to remain elevated compared to historical price ranges. Forecasting market prices is an inherently difficult endeavor. Immense uncertainties on the supply side make oil price forecasts particularly challenging. Reserve figures can be increased rapidly by the discovery of new oil fields or by exploitation at greater margins due to new technologies. Proven oil reserves in the Middle East, for example, increased from 16 billion barrels in 1944 to 116 billion barrels of meanwhile extracted or still available reserves in 1975.

1986:1 -1999.12 ( ex 1990:9) :  17.9 [18.0]  3.60  2000:1 -2004:07  27.7 [27.4]  4.51  O IL  04  Figure 3 Correlation between oil price and GDP R e v e r s e d c a u s a lit y : O il is d e m a n d d r iv e n s in c e 1 9 9 5 40  .0 5  35  .0 4  30  .0 3  25  .0 2  20  .0 1  15  .0 0  10  -.0 1 1985  1990  O IL _ O E F  1995  2000  G DPW O RLD_YY  Correlation: World-GDP (yoy) and Oilprice  6  1980 -1994.4  -0.389  1995.1 -2004.4  +0.330  BIS Review 69/2004  Figure 4 US oil inventories  60  360 340  50  mn barrels  320 40  300  30  280 260  20  240 10  220 200  0 1  4  7  10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 W eek  W eekly Min and Max since 1994  Crude Oil Inventory 2004 (4wk avg.)
But regardless of the projects, the aim is always to transfer our excess reserves outside the SNB in order to manage them more effectively than within the central bank and its relatively restrictive framework. On our side, we are not keen about the idea of being in charge of managing a large reserve  BIS Review 73/1999  4  portfolio. We do not wish to wear two hats, one as central bank in charge of monetary policy and that of asset manager for the country. We could run the risk of being caught in the crossfire of criticism when it comes to executing a mandate which is not a part of our basic responsibility. One way or another, the transfer of excess reserves by the SNB to one or several outside entities is not just a simple accounting problem. Even though the National Bank is independent it does not have the legal power to dispose of a part of its own resources for other purpose than monetary policy. Legislative and constitutional steps are necessary and they are currently under way. It is important to have them in mind because they may hold a few surprises. 3. The political process 3.1 First stage: demonetisation of gold The first stage, which aims at demonetising gold, is already well under way. The demonetisation of gold required two legal adjustments: • •  a revision of the Swiss Constitution a revision of the current Coinage Act.

The fact that this precision was introduced at the initiative of our parliament indicates that the Swiss people wish to keep ample gold reserves. Consequently, we do not envisage going beyond the announced plan of selling 1300 tonnes. BIS Review 73/1999  6
Jean-Pierre Roth: No news, good news - transparency and communication in monetary policy Address by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Annual Meeting of the European Business Press, Zurich, 16 June 2006. This paper was prepared with the support of Martin Brown, International Research and Technical Assistance Section, Swiss National Bank. *  *  *  Introductory remarks Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to address you here, on the occasion of your annual meeting. I would like to take this unique opportunity to talk about an issue which, in recent years, has strongly affected my job as a central bank's President and your work as journalists: transparency and communication in monetary policy. Over the past two decades, central banks, especially in Europe, have undoubtedly be-come more transparent. Central bankers now regularly communicate their assessment of inflationary pressures to the public and go to great lengths to explain their monetary policy stance. Gone are the days when central banks argued that secrecy was an essential ingredient of an effective monetary policy. As a consequence, monetary policy decisions are no longer taken at irregular intervals or at weekends, in order to surprise markets on Monday mornings. This, of course, is fortunate for business journalists. You no longer need to spend your weekends worrying that you might have to suddenly start writing about a surprise policy intervention.

Market predictions of monetary policy measures have been accurate, leading to lower volatility in financial markets and improving the effectiveness of our policy measures A prime example of this is the most recent increase in our operational target in March 2006. An analysis of interest rate movements shows that the increase of our operational target by 25 basis points was almost fully anticipated by financial markets prior to the announcement. Contrary to what many believe, a central bank does not lose any prestige in seeing its policy correctly anticipated by the markets. It is just proof of a well-understood monetary strategy. 3. Credibility - words are not enough  In Switzerland, the systematic communication of monetary policy has had the desired effect of getting market participants to adapt their expectations well before actual policy interventions are made. Does this mean that the Swiss National Bank now only has to indicate its intentions in order to influence interest rates? Or as some academics and practitioners have posed the question: can central bankers now replace open market operations with "open mouth" interventions? Considering the recent tightening of monetary policy in Switzerland, one might be tempted to agree that open mouth operations are sufficient to move interest rates. After all, short-term interest rates rose long before an increase in the operational target was announced or before we raised the actual interest rates on repo transactions. However, this interpretation of the data ignores one crucial issue.
34 There are no comparable institutions in Norway – there is only one central bank. The benchmark must be international best practice. The evaluations are generally performed by international central banking experts or economists at other central banks. 30  See for example Bruce Chapman (2003): “Rational Choice and Categorical Reason”, University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151(3), 1169–1210 and Philip Pettit (2001): “Deliberative Democracy and the Discursive Dilemma”, Philosophical Issues (supplement to Noûs) 11, 268–99. 31  See the discussion in Carl Andreas Claussen and Øistein Røisland (2010): “The discursive dilemma in monetary policy”, Norges Bank Working Paper 2010/5. It should be noted that premise-based decisions can be vulnerable to strategic behaviour. It is possible to vote on the premises in such a way as to reach a preferred outcome. 32  The material on which interest rate decisions is based is published on the Norges Bank website. For a more detailed discussion, see “On transparency” in Norges Bank Occasional Paper No. 41 (2010). 33  Reports from Norges Bank Watch are available at: http://www.bi.no/en/Research/Research-Centres/Centrefor-Monetary-Economics-CME/Norges-Bank-Watch/  34  See inter alia David Longworth and Asbjørn Rødseth (2003):“Report on the Decision-Making Process and the Strategy Document”, Hans Genberg, Charles Wyplosz and Andrea Fracasso (2003):“How do central banks write? An Evaluation of Inflation Targeting Central Banks” and Ingimundur Fridriksson (forthcoming): “The Monetary Policy Report Process in Norges Bank”. 8  BIS Review 147/2010  7. Was the decision good?

Even if our delegating authority and critics have access to the background for our decisions and the way we arrive at them, one big question still remains: what should the criteria be for judging whether our decisions are good? The objective of monetary policy is a natural place to begin our assessment. Have we or have we not achieved price stability? Even if we make our best efforts, there is no guarantee that we will succeed in reaching this objective. The key policy rate is not the only factor affecting the economy and that can disturb the outcome. Even so, we can give weight to accurate information, assess the most relevant alternatives and listen to input. Making a decision on this basis might excuse us from blame if the outcome should in retrospect turn out to be unfavourable. 35 Let us return to the decision in 1949 to follow the pound sterling. As I said, in retrospect the consequences of this decision appear to be less favourable. Nor, perhaps, was the decisionmaking process sufficiently thorough. Doubts have been raised as to whether alternative courses of action were adequately assessed. 36 But the authorities apparently felt that they had no choice other than a comparable devaluation of the krone. 37 Norway’s competitiveness could have been weakened substantially if they had not followed the British move. In view of this, it can therefore be argued that their motives for doing what they did were good ones. The 1949 decision also illustrates the problem of counterfactual analyses.
The expected policy rate 3 months ahead is based on STINA contracts combined with STIBOR T/N and the policy rate. Both this series and the rate on treasury bills are shown as 10-day moving averages. Sources: Nordea markets, the Swedish National Debt Office and the Riksbank. The right-hand panel in Figure 3 instead compares the rate on covered bonds with the expected policy rate.8 According to the portfolio balance sheet theory, purchases of government bonds can also push down rates on other bonds with similar maturities, such as covered bonds. But it is difficult to see any such effect in Figure 3.9 During 2015, the rate on covered bonds instead rose in relation to the expected policy rate. Later during the purchase period, the interest rate differential declined, but to approximately the same level as before the start of the purchases. What conclusions can we draw from these observations? First, we have already observed that the rate on short government securities was lower than the policy rate. This reasonably means that, although the policy rate was cut to −0.50 per cent in 2016, it was not at its technical lower bound.10 The Riksbank's asset purchases meant that two short market rates were established, the Riksbank's policy rate, which was still indicative of pricing in the interbank  8 Covered bonds are issued by banks and mortgage institutions and used for financing mortgages to households. 9 All this is in line with Krishnamurthy and the Vissing-Jorgensen (2011).

No one knew how large the losses would be and whether the reserve capital would suffice. Funding ran short. Because what financiers in the market would want to give loans to a bank that appears unsteady? And who would want money in an account in this bank? I am sure you will remember the pictures of the queues outside Northern Rock’s branches in the United Kingdom. To restore confidence, the state and the taxpayers in many countries had to inject capital and go in as owners of the banks. This would not have been necessary if the banks had held more capital when the dark storm clouds gathered in summer 2007. The Basel Committee has taken note of this. The current capital requirements are being raised substantially. If I may go into technical details, the new regulations require that the  BIS Review 159/2010  3  banks should have a Tier 1 capital corresponding to at least 6 per cent of their assets, or more correctly their risk-adjusted assets. The risk adjustment means that for each asset one recalculates the value, depending on whether the value of the asset can be regarded as certain. One sign of this might be, for instance, that the value of the asset has varied a lot. The higher risk an asset is believed to entail, the more capital needs to be allocated. At present, the minimum requirement for Tier 1 capital is only 4 per cent of the total riskweighted assets.
Chart 3 – Shares of world GDP and population 2010 figures  GDP at market prices  EU-27, 26%  US, 23%  Apac G10*, 27%  Other, 24%  Population  Apac G10*, 46%  EU-27, 7% US, 5%  Other, 43%  *: Apac G10: Asia-Pacific G10, including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan Province of China and Thailand. Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, World Bank and Eurostat. The pattern of the past thirty years has, therefore, been of a successful Asian model of development spreading out and encompassing a wider range of countries with larger populations and becoming more self-sustaining. The most likely scenario is that this pattern will continue over the next 20–30 years as the strong economic fundamentals which have supported high rates of growth in recent decades continue to enable productivity levels and living standards to catch up with the West. As chart 3 shows, the ten leading economies in the Asia-Pacific region are home to nearly half of the world’s population. And yet they still account for only just over a quarter of world GDP. This shortfall largely reflects the relatively low average living standards in India and China, which together account for over a third of the world’s population.

Andrew Sentance: The challenges of the “New Global Economy” Speech by Mr Andrew Sentance, External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, at the Jersey Chamber of Commerce, St Helier, 25 May 2011. All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches. *  *  *  I would like to thank Adrian Chiu for research assistance and I am also grateful for helpful comments from other colleagues. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England or other members of the Monetary Policy Committee. It is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to speak here today at your Annual General Meeting lunch and I am extremely grateful to Ray Shead and the Jersey Chamber of Commerce for inviting me and helping to arrange this visit. For you here in Jersey, this event is a first – as I believe it is the first major speech which a member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has given in Jersey or any of the other Channel Islands. Hopefully I am blazing a trail for my MPC colleagues to follow in the future! For me, however, it marks the close of a chapter. This is my last public speech as a member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), as my term in office comes to an end this month.
Taken together, these two sets of actions steadily raising the target range for the federal funds rate and steadily bringing down our securities holdings—should help bring demand closer to supply. In fact, even though we haven’t done either of these things yet, financial conditions have already responded based on the expectation of Fed action. For example, medium- and longerterm Treasury yields and fixed-rate mortgage rates have risen close to their December 2019 levels. Of course, our actions will be driven by the data and a determination to achieve our maximum employment and price stability goals. With these three factors working together to restore balance between supply and demand, I am confident we will achieve a sustained, strong economy and inflation at our 2 percent longer-run goal. For this year, I look forward to continued growth and receding inflation, both for the nation and North Jersey. Specifically, my forecast for the U.S. economy is for real GDP to grow a bit below 3 percent this year, for the unemployment rate to end the year around 3-1/2 percent, and 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  for PCE price inflationto drop back to around 3 percent, before falling further next year as supply issues continue to recede. Conclusion Since the onset of the pandemic two years ago, this has an extraordinary time for the economy and monetary policy.

A Swedish export company with income in dollars, but paying out wages and taxes in kronor, must exchange dollar income for kronor. The company transfers the foreign exchange risk to the bank, by selling dollars for kronor. This can be done in two ways: either the company sells the dollars when it receives them, on the spot market, or it sells its future dollar income as soon as it receives an order, on the forward market. In both cases the bank buys dollars and thus takes over the foreign exchange risk. The bank also makes a charge for doing this. Today the margins in foreign exchange trading are 0.02 per cent. The bank's foreign exchange risk thus increases, unless another client happens to make an equally large foreign exchange transaction in the opposite direction at exactly the same time, ensuring that the bank's holdings of various currencies remains unchanged. This is, of course, very unlikely. The export company's foreign exchange transaction therefore gives rise to several transactions between banks, with the aim of distributing the foreign exchange risk throughout the banking system. This means that the clients' purchases and sales of various currencies and in various banks are matched against one another, to avoid an increase in the total risk in the banking system. The first foreign exchange transaction will therefore lead to many new transactions before all of the banks have once again achieved a healthy level of risk taking.
Surveys of market participants’ expectations of systemic risk – the closest analogue to inflation expectations on the financial stability side – have subsided over recent years (Chart 7). How much of that is attributable to the new regulatory regime, rather than external factors, is at present unclear. Looking internationally, unlike with monetary policy, consensus has yet to be reached on whether regulatory policy should also be set independently from government. A recent IMF  52  Hammond (2012). 53  Hayek (1979). 54  Calomiris (2014). BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  study found only half of macro-prudential regimes internationally were operated by central banks, though a number of others were in the hands of independent regulators. 55 Perhaps with the passage of time that will change, as with monetary policy independence. Psychology suggests it should. Because the risk cycle is even longer than the business cycle, myopia biases are even more likely when tackling crises than inflation. The case for independence is at least as strong for regulatory policy as it is for monetary policy. 56 Hubris biases Under the UK’s new framework, decisions on monetary, macro-prudential and microprudential policy are made by Committee, rather than by an individual. Committee members are individually accountable and drawn from inside and outside the Bank. This structure provides some safeguard against over-confidence bias – for example, by diluting the influence of any one individual’s views on policy decision-making. There is evidence to support this in monetary policy decision-making.

All else equal and given that such a depreciation were to be permanent, the stimulus to the Swedish economy would be fully equal to the effect on the United States economy of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts this spring. Against that background it is accordingly difficult to claim that aggregate monetary conditions in Sweden have become tighter, even though the Riksbank raised the repo rate last December and, most recently, at the beginning of July. I should point out here that it is not the krona’s current value that features in the Riksbank’s overall inflation forecast and monetary policy. What we use instead, as described in our Inflation Report, is an assessment of the krona’s future path. The krona’s future path is invariably a major factor behind the Riksbank’s inflation forecast. And it is the inflation forecast that forms the foundation for monetary policy. Thus, the development of the exchange rate, demand, inflation expectations and so on all affect the interest rate decision indirectly via the inflation forecast. It is never a simple matter to determine the path for the exchange rate in the coming one to two years that ought to be used in the assessment of inflation. But as long as all reasonable assessments point to the Swedish economy being in good shape, in the long term that should also motivate an exchange rate that is considerably stronger than we have seen in the past year.
We can all observe around us the growth of the ATM industry, but it is worth considering how influential it has been on the circulation of banknotes. First, the rise of the ATM has fundamentally changed and modernised the distribution of what is sometimes regarded as an old-fashioned means of payment. Second, it is likely that the growth of ATMs may have led to an increase in notes in circulation for another reason. BIS Review 162/2009  5  When we talk to ATM operators about their business model they stress that the least acceptable outcome is for their ATMs to run out of notes. As a consequence, ATMs are restocked well before they run out. This means that the overall ATM estate is holding what could be described as idle inventory stock, but these are defined as notes in circulation. But I should be clear that I don’t have enough evidence to prove to you that the stock:output ratio for banknotes has gone up, which would run counter to the story in almost all other industries. I want to move on now to trends in cash usage (I am using “cash” here to mean banknotes and coin). Chart 8 shows survey evidence for the use of cash in retail transactions in the UK over the last 25 years. In terms of the share of the total volume of transactions, cash has fallen from over 80% in the mid 1980s to 60% currently.

I would add one other thought on the demand for banknotes, which is more to do with human psychology. I suspect most people, however much they use cards, feel a degree of comfort from knowing that they also have cash in their wallet or purse, even if it is as a back-up. What does this analysis tell us about future demand for cash? As a central bank responsible for the issuance of banknotes, two principles are at the front of our thinking: first, that we issue central bank money, in the form of claims on the Bank of England; and second, that in doing so we must meet the public’s demand for our notes. By issuing central-bank money, we are providing both a means of payment and a store of value. But I think we should recognise that the paradox of banknotes that I have described indicates that there may well be a limit to the growth of the value of notes in circulation insofar as the use of banknotes as a means of payment is not increasing. This is, though, a broad assessment, and I would not wish to offer a judgment on the level at which the demand of the public to hold more banknotes will peak. An important reason for this uncertainty is that, as recent experience indicates, the demand for banknotes as a store of value is dependent on the state of the economy and the financial system.