samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
These  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  estimations conditioned the retaining of the stimulating nature of monetary policy during the second quarter of 2012. The key rate stood at the lowest historical level, providing eased monetary conditions in order to meet our inflation target and support the Albania’s economic activity. Also, the Bank of Albania has continued to inject sufficient liquidity demanded by the banking system, against an expanded collateral base and at adequate maturity terms. According to recent data from INSTAT, the Albanian economy recorded an annual fall of 0.2% in the first quarter of 2012. Industry contracted 19.3% y-o-y, mainly due to the significant decrease in electrical energy output. Also, Construction decreased its activity in real terms, by 17.6%, thus providing a negative contribution to the performance of the gross domestic product. By contrast, Services contributed positively to the economic activity, pointing to an annual growth of 6.0%. Agricultural sector grew 4.5%, y-o-y during this period, providing a positive contribution to the growth of the gross domestic product. Estimations on the aggregate demand in the first quarter of 2012 suggest a continuing weak domestic demand. The consolidated fiscal policy determined the lack of fiscal stimulus in this period and a downturn in public sector’s demand for goods and services. Private consumption remains slow, thus reflecting the prudent consumer’s behaviour and the increasing tendency for saving. Private investments also remained low.

Given the free production capacity, Albanian businesses found less room to increase their investments in machineries & equipment, and production, while the demand for resident buildings remains weak. At the same time, foreign demand was sluggish in the second quarter of 2012, owing to the problems in euro zone and in our main foreign trade partners. The weak foreign demand, and the problems in electrical energy production, imposed the slow increase of the Albanian exports. Data on economy for the second quarter of 2012 are incomplete. Indirect data signal a weak recovery of the economy in this period. Their analysis supports the estimation for a continuing sluggish aggregate demand, especially of the domestic demand. On the production side, economic sectors are expected to maintain in the second quarter of 2012 the dynamic showed in the first quarter of 2012. Fiscal developments in the second quarter of 2012 were in line with those observed in the first quarter of 2012, characterised by the consolidated fiscal policy and its inclination to maintain budget deficit and public debt targets. This behaviour is reflected in the contraction of budget expenses by 2.5% in the first half of 2012 Furthermore, fiscal revenues increased by 3.7% during this period, continuing to show a slow dynamic of their taxing component. The performance of public expenditure and income in the first half of 2012 is materialised at the significant contraction of budget deficit in annual terms, at 37.7%. This deficit was ALL 16.8 billion in monetary value, and is assessed at 2.6% of GDP.
If, however, ON RRPs are offered above the level of money market rates that would be produced by IOER alone given prevailing frictions, ON RRPs should become attractive and help to form a floor for money market rates, either directly through increased take-up that reduces reserves or indirectly through the competitive pressure I described. Since money funds – the majority of the Fed’s ON RRP counterparties – don’t face the same balance sheets costs as banks, the floor formed by ON RRPs should be relatively firm. While ON RRPs are a potentially useful tool for monetary policy control with large amounts of excess reserves, FOMC and market participants have noted the potential for very large regular usage to alter patterns of financial intermediation. Further, a fixed-rate structure with no usage limits could exacerbate liquidity pressures during times of stress. 11 The FOMC recently authorized testing of a cap on the total daily usage of the ON RRPs that could help mitigate these risks. I’ll return to these risks and some ways that they may be mitigated in a bit. In sum, arbitrage activities by banks, complemented as needed by ON RRP operations, should cause a higher IOER rate to lead to higher levels of market rates. However, if the pressure on market rates from the Fed’s administered rates turns out to be insufficient, the Committee has a range of other tools – including term deposits, term RRPs, and asset sales – that could be used to help tighten the stance of policy.

New regulatory acts and key amendments to actual acts on banking supervision approved during 2010 are:   Regulation “On management of risk from open foreign exchange positions”;    Regulation “On risk management in the activity of non-bank institutions”;    Guideline “On conservatorship and liquidation of banks”. *  *  *  Besides the main aspects of the Bank of Albania’s work, such as monetary policy and banking supervision and regulation, the Bank of Albania’s activity was also focused on fulfilment of its other legal obligations and institutional commitments. Sparing the details, I would like to emphasize that the Bank of Albania has done a great job in 2010 for:   Developing and sophisticating the payment system;    Supporting the integration processes of the country, in accordance with our scope of activity;    Enhancing our communication with the public, as an essential instrument to foster transparency and central bank independence;    Further developing the monetary statistics and those of the external sector of the economy;    Strengthening research capacity, in support of analysis and decision-making. All these activities serve the financial system development and support the free market economy in Albania.
Nonetheless, by 2015 there were still only 13% of companies who had adopted all five of these basic technologies. And there was still a tail of 9-10% of companies who had adopted only 2 or fewer of them. This tail appears to be largely made up of smaller firms. In innovation surveys, UK SMEs fare poorly by th  European comparison on introducing new product and process innovations, ranking 20 out of 36. 35  This picture is less encouraging still when it comes to the adoption of more advanced technologies. Chart 15 looks at adoption rates across UK companies of six such technologies (mobile access to email, documents and software, websites with online ordering, fast broadband access and electronic data interchange sales) on two dates (2011 and 2015). Progress towards adoption of these technologies appears to have been slow between 2011 and 2015, with only a modest rightward shift. Even by 2015, fewer than 10% of UK companies had four or more of these advanced technologies. More than half of all UK companies had adopted one or less of them and a quarter had yet to adopt any. This suggests a patchy picture of technological adoption among UK companies, with a long tail of slow-adopters of basic and especially advanced technologies. If we turn to penetration rates, the picture is in some respects similar. There appears to be a significant but small upper tail of companies with high utilisation of technologies and a large lower tail whose penetration rates are low and patchy.

It was only founded a year ago and we believe it will continue to develop and be fully fledged as a legacy of our national memory. In mid 1800s, announcing the competition on American banknote, the US Secretary of the Treasury, specified two obligatory requirements to participants about the design: it had to be original, and unpublished previously, and have a national character. Since at the beginning, the banknote is thought as not only a means of exchange, but also as an education tool for the public. As such, it should bear important moments of the history. The banknote performs this function through complicated techniques of subtly fine lines, to prevent reproduction, attributable also to robust security features. Although we frequently have these valuable papers on our hands, seldom do we concentrate for a few minutes and enjoy the art embedded in them. We very rarely focus on examining how the work of a talented painter is intertwined in a sort of a miniature canvas with that of a talented engraver, turning that piece of paper into an elegant expression of creative art. The image is familiar, but it is hard to believe that 14% of interviewers in advanced countries are able to remember recognise the picture designed on each banknote. Even less people may recognise the portrait depicted on 1000 Leke or 2000 Leke Albanian banknotes.
As shown in a survey made by Finansinspektionen earlier this year, there are many indications that the households taking on loans are those that can afford to borrow. The Riksbank has also drawn this conclusion so far in its Financial Stability Reports. I therefore find it difficult to believe that the developments in the housing and credit markets at present would constitute any danger to the banks and thus to financial stability. BIS Review 70/2010  9  Concluding remarks In connection with dramatic events like the recent financial crisis, proposals for radical changes tend to crop up in the general debate. But I do not see a radically-different monetary policy ahead of me. I am still convinced that flexible inflation targeting is the best monetary policy solution for Sweden. The repo rate is not the most effective weapon for trying to prevent or alleviate an imbalance in, for instance, the property market, but this does not mean it is completely ineffective. We must become better at analysing financial conditions and not least at capturing variables such as house prices and credit growth in our forecasts. And this is something we are working hard to achieve, both at the Riksbank and in many other areas. We must become better at clearly explaining how we assess the risks of a bubble given a particular repo rate policy, and what consequences a bubble may have if it bursts.

If we knew a very good way of calculating the probability of a bubble growing and bursting at some point in the future and of calculating how great an effect it would have, then we would of course have already put this calculation into our models. But unfortunately we have not got there yet, although intensive work is being carried out, not least by the Riksbank, to better capture financial variables in our analyses and forecasts. However, there is a long and difficult road ahead before we achieve what we want. Practical problems and important considerations Let us assume, for instance, that we were to find ourselves in a situation where there is a major risk that a loan-driven bubble in the property market will collapse further ahead and that it will then contribute to a heavy fall in GDP. How should we react to this? If we knew with certainty that this would happen, then it is likely that most of the models we have now would indicate that we ought to cut the policy rate to alleviate the effects on inflation, production and employment. But if we were to cut the rate in such a situation we would also risk blowing up the bubble even more before it burst. This would in turn contribute to the ensuing fall being from an even more over-valued level and the consequences would be even more serious than if we had not cut the repo rate.
But even 150,000 job gains per month would be consistent with gradually using up any remaining slack present in the U.S. labor market. Although I expect business fixed investment to begin to grow again in the second half, it will likely remain soft as profits have stagnated and election year uncertainty could act as an additional depressant. All else equal, investment tends to be weaker when uncertainty rises because this creates an incentive for businesses to delay decisions until the uncertainty is resolved. Also, trade seems likely to exert a net drag on growth. There are two factors at play here: the sluggish growth rate of aggregate demand abroad and the continuing impact of earlier dollar appreciation on U.S. export competitiveness. With respect to downside risks to the growth outlook, one that is hard to gauge is the potential fallout from the result of the recent U.K. referendum. It is widely anticipated that U.K. growth will slow as a consequence. Although the direct impact of slower U.K. growth on U.S. trade will almost certainly be very small – total U.S. exports to the U.K. are only about 0.7 percent of U.S. GDP – there are a number of other channels that could amplify the impact of the Brexit decision on U.S. economic activity. These include the potential adverse effects on European economic activity, on the perceived health of the global banking system, and on broader financial market conditions.

Second, external events – such as Brexit – can have effects that go beyond just their impact on global trade. Conversely, what we do in the United States has an impact far beyond our borders, and we need to take that into consideration in how we conduct and communicate monetary policy in the United States. Put simply, monetary policy is a two-way street, and we all need to be cognizant of that. As always, what I have to say today reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or the Federal Reserve System. 1 The US economic outlook Despite the many twists and turns in the road so far, my baseline outlook for growth and inflation in the United States has not changed much in recent months. After a weak first quarter, real GDP continued to grow sluggishly in the second quarter. On the positive side, consumer spending rose more quickly during the second quarter. On the negative side, business fixedinvestment spending continued to disappoint, residential investment was weak and inventory investment was a substantial drag on growth. Looking forward, I expect economic activity to expand at roughly a 2 percent annualized pace over the next 18 months, appreciably above that of the past three quarters. Over the remainder of this year, the economy should continue to get some lift from consumption and from a fiscal policy stance that remains mildly stimulative. Moreover, I anticipate that residential investment will rebound from its decline in the second quarter.
When Norges Bank had finished collecting the silver tax around 1820, the Bank’s silver holdings came to somewhat more than 50 grams per inhabitant, which is the equivalent of about one silver spoon. The value of the Fund has just recently exceeded NOK 5 trillion, or about NOK 1 million per inhabitant. Chart: Return on Fund accounts for one third of its total value The Fund’s results have been favourable. Since 1998, the cumulative return on the Fund has been close to NOK 1 800 billion, which is more than a third of the Fund’s total value. So far, our nation has earned a solid return on its investments. Quite paradoxically, low growth and low interest rates abroad are probably the main factors behind the solid performance of the Fund over the past two to three years. Chart: Annual return on the GPFG Since the end of the 1990s, a persistent fall in yields has driven up government bond prices. In recent years, the unconventional monetary policy measures of the world’s major central banks have contributed to even lower interest rates and higher prices for equities and other 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  securities. This has resulted in above-normal returns on the Fund’s investments. But today there is no longer room for a considerable fall in interest rates and equity prices have risen to fairly high levels. Chart: Return consists of two elements Our measure of final return includes both capital gains and direct cash flows, which comprise dividend and interest income.

The US economy in particular is on the road to recovery. Financial market participants see opportunities, not just problems. However, in a number of emerging economies volatile capital flows are creating problems. High debt growth and rising house prices may constitute a risk. The recovery abroad is fragile. The key policy rate is also low in Norway. Our inflation target is slightly higher than that of other European countries. As a result, inflation and nominal interest rates in Norway are also slightly higher. But prospects for a persistently low interest rate level internationally will inevitably also have consequences for Norway. The real interest rate in a small open economy cannot in the long run differ substantially from that of our closest trading partners. Given the prevailing long-term interest rates abroad, it will likely take a number of years for interest rates in Norway to move up towards a level that was previously considered to be normal. When the drafters of the Constitution gathered at Eidsvoll 200 years ago, there were no private banks in Norway. It was not until the latter half of the 1800s that a private banking system truly came into being. Norges Bank acquired its present-day role as lender of last resort. With private banking came banking crises. The 1899 crash in Christiania triggered the first serious banking crisis in Norway. A real estate bubble in the capital burst and house prices plummeted. It took more than 100 years for real house prices in Oslo to return to their pre-crisis level.
Such measures would also boost confidence in the modelbased approach. Second, it must be ensured that, if necessary, there can be an orderly resolution of a big bank in the event of a crisis. From the Swiss perspective, the emergency plans on maintaining systemically important functions are particularly important in this regard. The emergency plans must be credible and workable in a crisis. For this reason, the big banks should continue to push forward consistently with their emergency plans. Moreover, global  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  resolution plans must ensure that the non-systemically important units of a big bank can be resolved in an orderly fashion. Adjustments to the group structure, as recently announced by both big banks, represent a first step in this process. An additional tool which can facilitate global resolution is based on the bail-in concept, which is the subject of widespread discussion at international level. With a bail-in, debt can be converted to equity capital, which would enable the big banks to carry additional losses in the event of a crisis. However, the effectiveness of a bail-in essentially depends on whether appropriate debt is available in sufficient quantities, and whether its characteristics are such as to ensure a smooth conversion into equity capital in the event of a crisis. In this regard, the authorities will have to examine the extent to which it is necessary to expand the existing TBTF regulations to take account of Swiss specificities.

Similarly, the level of unit labour costs is lower in Malta than in both the weaker and stronger groups, as will be discussed later. It is important that the public debate and the formulation of policy focus more closely on what is needed for Malta to remain aligned with the better performers. In the first two quarters of 2013, Malta’s GDP growth rate stood at 2.7%. Net exports have been the main source of expansion. The outlook is for stronger growth in 2014 as Malta continues to benefit from its competitiveness. The economy continues to diversify, creating high value added job opportunities. While some sectors have had to downsize, there has been a compensating expansion in other sectors, such as financial and other services. This is shown in Chart 4. An aspect that may go unnoticed is the role of the financial sector in the resilience of the Maltese economy and its alignment with the stronger group of countries. Financial soundness indicators confirm that Malta has a sound and robust banking sector. A three-way split of the banking sector distinguishes between the core domestic banks that are closely integrated with the domestic economy at one end and the international banks that conduct all  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  their business abroad at the other end, along with a relatively small sector, the non-core domestic banks, in between, as shown in Chart 5.
Today, such a system does not generate any benefits for most EU members. There now exists a wide range of monetary policy frameworks, running from currency boards and hard pegs (used by Denmark and the Baltic states) to inflation-targeting economies with floating exchange rates (the UK, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland), with other countries lying somewhere in between. Countries with currency boards have been allowed to pursue their original policy within the ERM-2, meaning that fulfilling the condition of staying inside this system is a formality. But what is the sense in asking countries that already use inflation targets and floating rates to enter the ERM-2? The step is simply counter-productive. It implies switching from a regime that is perfectly compatible with the European Central Bank framework to a semi-fixed exchange rate, which is incompatible. We certainly do not need any exchange rate band to assess whether a currency is stable as determined by the market - we can just take a look at the prevailing market exchange rate. Similarly, the budget deficit threshold of less than 3 per cent of gross domestic product has been modified by the stability and growth pact, which sets stricter criteria for keeping the fiscal house in order. All EU members are expected to comply with the pact, so that staying under the Maastricht 3 per cent limit is again purely a formality. This Maastricht criterion could be abolished without any harm being done. What about inflation?

Over the past three or four years we have had many discussions on this issue with the ECB and the European Commission. We have repeatedly pointed out that setting the inflation criterion in relative terms - against the three best performers in the EU - was an appropriate option 10 years ago. But today we have another firm anchor: the single currency and the definition of price stability applied by the ECB. The purpose is for an applicant to converge with the euro area. So the benchmark should be the price stability benchmark used by the ECB and not the countries that happen to have the lowest inflation, quite often because of one-off shocks. Even more important, the growing number of EU members increases the probability of extremes: by definition the distribution of inflation rates is wider. Therefore the benchmark currently being used is systematically lower than it was during the second half of the 1990s. This means that the favourite argument of equal treatment does not hold: the same rule leads to stricter treatment because there is a different and much larger sample. All these examples illustrate a more general European dilemma. We need a stable legal framework, but all legal systems in history have evolved as the world has changed. Rules such as constitutions are - and should be - difficult to change. Others, however, have to be more flexible. There is little doubt that rules supporting policymakers' decisions belong to the latter group.