samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The ECB’s asset purchases are being expanded in terms of both size and composition: the monthly purchase volume has been increased from € billion to € billion and the universe of eligible assets now includes non-bank corporate bonds. Purchases are intended to run until the end of March 2017 – or beyond, if necessary – , and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation to levels close to 2% over the medium term. Taking into account the current outlook for price stability, the Governing Council expects the ECB’s key policy rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, well past the horizon of the net asset purchases. We are confident that the very accommodative monetary policy stance will provide further support to the euro area recovery and will accelerate the return of inflation to levels that we consider to be consistent with our objective. The Governing Council has done and, within its mandate, will continue to do whatever is needed to pursue its price stability objective. Our very accommodative monetary policy stance has provided considerable support for the euro area recovery. By supporting growth prospects, our actions have also been beneficial for financial stability.

Mario Draghi: IMFC Statement Statement by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the thirty-third meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, Washington DC, 15 April 2016. *  *  *  The euro area economy is continuing on a path of gradual recovery, notwithstanding an external environment characterised by some further deceleration in economic growth and occasional bouts of financial volatility. But the outlook for euro area growth remains faced with uncertainty, mainly as a result of downside risks to growth prospects in emerging market economies, a clouded outlook for oil prices and their economic implications, and also geopolitical risks. Given the new risks to the outlook for inflation, as well as the materialisation of some of the existing ones, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank has adopted a comprehensive package of monetary policy measures to further ease financing conditions in the euro area, stimulate bank lending and thereby reinforce the momentum of the euro area’s economic recovery and accelerate the return of inflation to levels below, but close to, 2%. In order to reap the full benefits of these monetary policy measures, decisive implementation of structural reforms and greater progress towards sustainable and more growth-friendly public finances is necessary. Such a combination of policy actions will not only lead to higher sustainable growth but will also make the euro area more resilient to global shocks.
Given the possibility of persistent expectations of high inflation following the run-up of oil and other commodity prices early this year, the issue of central bank’s credibility in achieving price stability has become even more critical. Indeed, over the past few months, there was intense debate on the appropriate monetary stances to deal with the current inflation problem. The Bank of Thailand has decided to gradually withdraw the demand stimulus, by increasing the policy rate by a total of 50 basis points during the past two Monetary Policy Committee Meetings. The rationale is that uncontained demand, boosted in no small part by the presence of large real negative interest rates, as well as relatively small output gap during the first half of 2008, could potentially fuel even more severe and persistent inflation and force us to take a bigger dose of bitter medicine with significant loss of economic growth in the future. Second, to further enhance the effectiveness of central bank’s objective in achieving price stability, it is crucial to establish an understanding between the central bank and the government of the lagged-nature of monetary policy transmission, and the need for targeting stability to effectively anchor long-term inflation expectations. To this end, the recently passed BOT Act specifies that, at the end of each year, the Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee, jointly with the Minister of Finance, will be required to set an annual target for monetary policy for the following year.

By the middle of this century, the median age of the world population is expected to increase by 10 years to 36 years. Globally, the proportion of persons aged 60 years and older is forecast to double. The fastest growing group of the older population is made up of those who are 80 years old or more. This age category is projected to increase more than five-fold over the next 50 years. While ageing is indeed a global phenomenon, it is likely to represent a more onerous challenge for developing countries than for developed ones. The majority of persons aged 60 and over will be found increasingly in developing countries; and as the pace of population ageing is much faster in these countries, they will have less time to adjust to its effects than the developed countries. Developing countries, moreover, will have to meet this challenge starting from a lower level of socio-economic development. For instance, the elderly in developing countries will be living mostly in rural areas and hence will face additional difficulties compared to their counterparts in developed countries who tend to live in urban centres. These differences imply that the policymaking capacity of developing countries will be tested more severely. More specifically, there will be important decisions to take regarding social security schemes, particularly traditional pension systems in which today’s workers pay for the benefits of today’s retirees.
It never crossed my mind back then that one day I would be working on the problem of how to provide monetary accommodation in an economy with massive unemployment, very low inflation (perhaps even too low) and a policy rate stuck at the zero lower bound. With the exception of scholars of the Great Depression, back in the 1980s today’s policy challenges were not on anyone’s radar screen. Of course, that changed with the developments in Japan during the 1990s. More macroeconomists began thinking about liquidity traps and the monetary policy tools to help escape from them. These analyses gained momentum following Paul Krugman’s Brookings paper in 1998.1 They focused both on the use of the central bank’s balance sheet to provide accommodation and on communication about policy goals and forward guidance about the path for policy instruments. Much of this latter work was done within the New Keynesian paradigm, since communications are central to the policy transmission mechanism in those models.2 For obvious reasons, such research has come back into vogue today. The nonstandard policies emphasized by these lines of research have been important elements in the Federal Reserve’s toolkit over the past four years. The Federal Reserve engaged in two waves of large-scale asset purchases (March 2009 and November 2010), and, more recently, extended the maturity of the assets on our books (September 2011).

As I will talk about shortly, I believe such policy could provide more clarity about our attitudes toward providing monetary accommodation – and would be more in line with a structure I would have preferred to have seen in our August 2011 and January 2012 actions. This policy also can be structured in a way that would represent a balanced risk-management approach to achieving the dual goals of maximum employment and stable prices that the United States Congress has mandated to the Federal Reserve. Communications enhancements First, though, I’d like to discuss the Fed’s latest initiatives to enhance communications. As an accountable central bank in a democratic society, the Federal Reserve has an obligation to clearly articulate what it is trying to achieve with monetary policy. I believe that our latest communications efforts are an important step in further increasing such accountability to the public, as they reaffirm our commitment to both legs of the dual mandate and describe the ways in which we will seek to achieve those objectives. The framework statement Let’s start with the framework statement of our policy goals and long-run strategy. The framework clarifies how the FOMC interprets our statutory responsibilities for facilitating maximum employment and price stability in terms of measurable and achievable economic goals that we aim for over the longer run. We say that the Committee sees a rate of inflation of 2 percent over the long run as being consistent with the price stability leg.
Mr Duisenberg outlines the benefits of European Monetary Union, growth and stability for Europe Speech by the President of the European Central Bank, Dr W F Duisenberg, at the Global Economy conference organised by the Economic Strategy Institute in Washington, D C on 27 April 1999. Introduction Following almost a decade of meticulous preparation and economic convergence, 1 January 1999 saw the start of Stage Three of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), with the introduction of the euro and a single monetary policy for the euro area. This area constitutes an economic region that roughly equals the United States in terms of both its economic strength and its degree of macroeconomic openness. The euro area has a population of 292 million, which is slightly larger than that of the United States, at 270 million, and a somewhat smaller GDP of EUR 5,800 billion compared with the EUR 7,600 billion of the United States. As will be clear from these figures, the euro area economy is of a formidable magnitude, and indeed is one of the largest economies in the world, with a purchasing power matched only by that of the United States. It is my conviction that EMU has the potential to stimulate further the growth of the euro area economy and to increase the prosperity of its participants. At the same time, a successful EMU is also in the interest of the United States and the world economy in general, creating opportunities for trade, direct and portfolio investment.

Before I address the benefits of EMU and the stability-oriented policies that have to be implemented to ensure that these benefits are achieved, let me briefly mention the main institutional bodies involved in the formulation and implementation of the single monetary policy. Monetary policy is determined by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB), which consists of the eleven governors of the national central banks (NCBs) of the participating Member States and the six members of the Executive Board of the ECB. The implementation of the single monetary policy is the responsibility of the Eurosystem, which is comprised of the ECB and the eleven NCBs of the participating Member States. The Executive Board of the ECB is a separate decision-making body. Its role is to ensure that the tasks conferred upon the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) are implemented, either through its own activities or through the NCBs. Economic growth - the benefits of EMU I should now like to address the benefits of EMU and why I believe that the introduction of the euro and the single monetary policy can result in higher economic growth in the euro area and thereby contribute positively to the development of the world economy. Of course, the degree to which these benefits are achieved depends not only on the monetary policy of the Eurosystem but even more so on accompanying stability-oriented fiscal policies and appropriate labour market policies.
For its part, the supervisory community is carefully monitoring the efforts of banks to follow through with the implementation of improved risk management practices for highly leveraged institutions. The Basel Committee intends to prepare a follow-up report on the progress banks are making. In my view, the degree of improvement will signal whether the industry has truly absorbed the lessons of the LTCM episode. The approach the Basel Committee has taken with respect to highly leveraged institutions mirrors its efforts in addressing other risk management issues. A primary aim of the Committee is to describe and promote prudent risk assessment and control practices by banks. By setting out the current state of the art in key areas, the Committee provides banks and their supervisors worldwide with the tools to measure industry progress toward the goal of effective risk management. In recent years, the Basel Committee has engaged in a sustained effort to develop and publicize sound practices in a variety of areas. These have included papers on such topics as: •  the management of credit risk;  •  loan accounting and credit risk disclosure;  •  guidance for managing foreign exchange settlement risk;  •  enhancing corporate governance in banking organizations;  •  a framework for internal control systems in banking organizations;  •  operational risk management; and  3  BIS Review 126/1999  •  risk management for electronic banking and electronic money activities.

Indeed, throughout this period of high inflation, one of the bright spots is that various measures of longer-run inflation expectations have remained remarkably well anchored and consistent with our 2 percent target.2  Imbalances Endure Our most important policy tool is the setting of the target range for the federal funds rate, which influences demand for goods and services by affecting borrowing costs. So far, tighter monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world is helping to bring a better balance between supply and demand. Inflation has declined in a number of sectors, particularly for many categories of commodities and goods. In addition, the supply-chain bottlenecks that had constrained the supply of goods have largely dissipated. For example, the New York Fed's Global Supply Chain Pressure Index has declined to a level that indicates supply pressures are now actually somewhat lower than normal.3 I hear the same from business leaders from around the Federal Reserve's Second District, who confirm that supply chains have improved considerably. At the same time, data on rents for new leases provide early signs of slowing inflation for shelter. This is important because shelter inflation had been a significant driver of higher inflation over the past year. However, despite the moderation of inflation, imbalances endure, with overall demand still exceeding supply in the economy. This is seen in the inflation rate for core services excluding housing, which has been running around 4-1/2 percent since last August.
Although drafting recovery plans is the task of individual banks, the Bank of Albania, in its capacity as the Supervisory Authority, plays an essential role in assessing the quality and reliability of these plans. During 2018, banks have prepared recovery plans based on a new bylaw adopted by the Bank of Albania that sets out their detailed content. The opening panel of this Conference will present concretely our assessment of these plans. In brief, we may say that our challenges remain the same as those faced by other supervisory authorities, whether in European or regional countries. In sound financial situations, such recovery planning allows the Bank of Albania to deeply understand the structure and activity of the bank, thus supporting our supervisory process to identify areas for improvement, as well as bank’s self-diagnosis in these areas. In stressed financial situations, the recovery plan is the main document the bank has to correct its difficulties and, as such, it must be efficient, applicable and comprehensive. The second step of the new crisis management framework is related with the early intervention in the bank. This step is activated if, after the implementation of the recovery plans, the bank’s actions fail to improve the situation. The Bank of Albania, in the capacity of the Supervisory Authority, undertakes several concrete early intervention measures in the bank, before the bank shows signs of insolvency. Currently, we are in the process of drafting bylaws for the early intervention implementation in accordance with the new legal requirements.

In this context, the risk of disruption or a financial crisis matters because of the potential reduction of necessary financial services and economic activity in the future. As I discussed in a talk at this conference a few years ago, a short-term discussion of the balance between firm resilience and the provision of financial services may be reframed over a longer horizon as a dynamic trade-off between the provision of financial services today and in the future.5 This risk/return framework extends that perspective if one cares about the volatility of those financial services across different states of the world and over time. The idea of multiple objectives suggests a policy trade-off with an efficient frontier. In this framework, an efficient financial sector regime can only realize more intermediation if it accepts a higher risk of financial instability and less intermediation in the future. A second premise is that the official sector can impact outcomes relative to this frontier through a combination of rules, regulation, and supervisory policies. For example, a reduction in loan documentation requirements, risk management reviews and supervisory oversight might allow increased lending in the short-run, but potentially lowers loan quality and increases risk over time. A particular set and calibration of policies is efficient if the only way to increase financial intermediation is to accept higher risk of disruption or crisis. Equivalently, an efficient outcome is one where the only way to reduce risk is to accept less intermediation.
Ravi Menon: Getting in all the cracks or targeting the cracks? Securing financial stability in the post-crisis era Opening remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Asian Monetary Policy Forum (AMPF), Singapore, 24 May 2014. *  *  *  Monetary policy at the crossroads 1 Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, President of the National University of Singapore, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the inaugural Asian Monetary Policy Forum. Thank you all for coming. 2 I would like to particularly thank Steve Davis of Chicago Booth and Bernie Yeung of NUS Business School. It was your vision and tireless effort that made this Forum possible. You have assembled here a dazzling array of eminent economists and respected practitioners to discuss and debate the most pressing questions in monetary policy today. 3 One of these questions must be: what role should monetary policy play to help secure financial stability? For two decades before the Global Financial Crisis, central bankers thought they had found the secret sauce of monetary policy. The recipe was simple – an independent central bank, a single target (price stability) and a single instrument (the interest rate). Monetary policy was directed at achieving price and output stability, with the central bank’s reaction function well-characterised by the Taylor rule on an ex-post basis. 4 The recipe worked brilliantly. Sustained price stability and steady economic growth were the order of the day. The result was the Great Moderation.

As a result, euro area countries cannot afford to implement a sovereign default without suffering as a consequence of such a default a major breakdown of their financial, economic and social structure. There is no post-war example of a government in an industrialised economy restructuring its debt. For a euro area sovereign to seek to restructure its debt would be a huge leap into the unknown. This aspect is frequently omitted by financial analysts in their  10  The classic reference is Fischer. I (1933). “The debt-deflation theory of Great Depressions”, Econometrica 1(4), pp. 337–357. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  newsletters or by commentators or academics in their short op-eds. And this is the reason why they do not get the point right when they state that default and restructuring is unavoidable in the euro area. The fourth difference is that, given the much greater depth and intensity of financial and economic integration in Europe, the strength of contagion across financial institutions and markets is potentially more significant within the euro area today than was the case in Asia in the 1990s. That is not to say that there was no contagion in the 1990s. But the cross-border exposures within the euro area are an order of magnitude greater than was the case for such intra-regional cross-holdings in Asian EMEs. This means that the potential for spillovers and a systemic area-wide crisis is much higher and has to be factored into the policy responses.
The monetary targets were then translated into a permissible level of credit to the private sector by commercial banks after allowing for the impact of the behaviour of the external sector and the credit requirements of the government.” This is a classic characterisation of an annual monetary programme, which is a crucial element in monetary aggregate targeting. Based on Irving Fisher’s Quantity Theory of Money, monetary aggregate targeting seeks to explain the relationship between money growth and nominal economic growth (which is the combination of real economic growth and inflation). In this framework, as monetary policy instruments attempt to influence the final objective of inflation by first affecting monetary aggregates, broad money supply was considered the intermediate target. For operational purposes, reserve money or base money, which could be influenced and monitored by the Central Bank on a daily basis, was considered the operating target. The operating target and the intermediate target, both being monetary aggregates, were linked to each other through the money multiplier. 9  An Evolving Exchange Rate System While monetary aggregate targeting remained the framework for the conduct of monetary policy in Sri Lanka, the exchange rate regime also underwent a gradual evolution. The managed floating exchange rate system broadly remained a crawling band arrangement as the margin associated with the foreign exchange transactions was increased from time to time.

In order to defend the managed float, the Central Bank raised its policy interest rates to unprecedented levels, which later proved not only to be an unsuccessful exercise but also a costly experiment, which largely contributed to the only negative annual real GDP growth rate of the country’s history of -1.5 per cent in 2001. This prompted the Central Bank to revisit its exchange rate policy. On 23rd of January 2001, the Central Bank took the major step of allowing the commercial banks to determine the exchange rate depending on the supply and demand of foreign exchange in the domestic foreign exchange market. With this move, the Central Bank refrained from announcing daily buying and selling rates of foreign exchange, thus allowing freer foreign exchange transactions. The change in the exchange rate regime resulted in an overshooting effect with the rupee depreciating by Rs.13 from Rs. 98 per US dollar within the first three days, but a relatively quick stabilisation of the exchange rate followed. As the use of monetary policy to defend the foreign exchange rate was no longer necessary under the floating exchange rate regime, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka was able to conduct monetary policy with an increased focus on achieving the Bank’s objective of price stability. However, maintenance of price stability came under heavy pressure under this regime whenever aggregate demand was excessive as a result of expansionary fiscal policies.