samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
A growing number of firms, not only machinery companies, have targeted the oil industry. Labour shedding in some sectors has freed up labour for other uses. Oil companies have shown the capacity and the willingness to pay. Tax rules have favoured investment spending. Earnings have been solid. The companies’ employees have been wage winners here in Norway (see Chart 3). A state-of-art oil service industry has emerged. New products and technological solutions have been developed. For many, the contracts on the Norwegian continental shelf have been a springboard to new export markets. There is a wide array of examples of company turnarounds. Let me offer one: The manufacturing company Øglænd in Rogaland, established by Jonas Øglænd from Sandnes as far back as in the 1860s, launched the bicycle brand DBS in 1932, which later became a household name in Norway. Today, the company, which is one of Norges Bank’s regional network contacts, is one of the world’s leading producers of suspension systems. Its customers are mainly oil and gas production companies. The company has more than doubled its turnover over the past three years. Around three-quarters of its sales are outside Norway. The oil and gas industry has been decisive for the strong growth in the Norwegian economy over the past 40 years. But the past 15 years stand out. From the end of the 1990s, the price of North Sea oil rose from about USD 10 per barrel to over USD 100 per barrel.

The structural changes described in it have come to pass. The resulting growth in prosperity was more difficult to predict. The development of an advanced oil service industry is an industrial adventure in its own right. We have extracted large quantities of oil and gas at very favourable prices, and have set aside a sizeable portion of the revenues – to the benefit of future generations. The oil age is far from over. But activity in the petroleum sector has passed the peak. In addition, we must be prepared for lower returns in the oil industry. The white paper also provides a glimpse into a time when belief in government intervention in the economy was far greater than today. That regulatory optimism has diminished significantly. We are left with an important recognition: The key to economic progress is the ability to restructure. We cannot rely solely on the sea to carry us forward: Let me again quote Kielland: “It is not true that the sea is faithless, for it has never promised anything...” Where our journey takes us is our own responsibility. Come what may. Thank you for your attention. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  12  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  13  14  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  15  16  BIS central bankers’ speeches
The Riksbank is also involved when the candidate countries present their "Pre-accession Economic Programmes" (PEP) for the EU countries. These PEP programmes are exercises where the countries attempt to analyse and present their economic challenges in the way they will in future, as  BIS Review 9/2002  5  EU members, present stability and convergence programmes and consult on economic policy within the framework of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines. Hopefully, the Riksbank will be able to contribute with analysis of economic activity and structural issues in these countries, not merely for our own forecasts but also in relation to the EU and ECB. What we can learn from the candidate countries Before I finish, I would like to go from speaking of what the candidate countries can learn from us to pointing out what we can learn from them. Several of the former planned economies are now in some areas better adapted to the EMU than today's EU countries. Several of them have, for instance, a flexible labour market and wage formation. This appears to have contributed to enabling the Baltic states to cope with the Russia crisis and the breakdown of the Russian market, without their reform efforts and growth coming to a standstill. This flexibility also makes them extremely well suited in this respect for a monetary union like the EMU. The preparedness to implement structural reforms also appears greater.

Under a fixed exchange rate regime the real appreciation takes place through higher inflation and real depreciation through lower inflation, while with a floating exchange rate it occurs through nominal appreciation or depreciation. A tight fiscal policy can counteract the extraordinary real appreciation due to capital flows. A strong central government budget also makes it possible to respond with an expansive fiscal policy if the capital flows are turned into outflows. However, this requires that fiscal policy has ample reserves. The convergence criteria for public finances in the EMU, particularly the target for a budget deficit no greater than 3 per cent of GDP, therefore function as sound targets for the candidate countries. Despite the recent criticism vis-à-vis the budget criterion I believe that 3 per cent is a sufficient margin for fiscal policy, as long as it is in balance over the cycle. Yet there are still risks in rushing to meet all of the convergence criteria – especially if EMU membership cannot realistically occur for several years. There is a discussion in academic circles on whether very low inflation figures, that is to say, much lower than most candidate countries have now, are really compatible with rapid growth and a fixed exchange rate. The export sector's rapid growth creates pressure on the domestic economy through the 'Balassa-Samuelson' effect and raises domestic prices, creating a 'natural' inflation. To then artificially press down inflation to very low levels could be overly ambitious.
GDP in Sweden Annual percentage change 5  5  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2  -2  -3  -3  -4  -4  -5  -5 -6  -6 00  01  02  03  04  05  Note. Broken columns represent the Riksbank’s forecasts. BIS Review 98/2009  06  07  08  09  10  11  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  13  13. Survey indicator Index 120  120  Survey indicator Meanvalue +/ - one standard deviation  115  115  110  110  105  105  100  100  95  95  90  90  85  85  80  80  75  75 70  70 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  Source: National Institute of Economic Research (NIER)  14.

The idea is that if the economy is hit by a shock which requires real wages to fall (like a negative productivity shock), this can happen through either (a) keeping prices fixed (i.e. zero inflation) and cutting money wages, or (b) fixing money wages and increasing the price level (i.e. positive inflation). The first path may involve significant unemployment when money wages are downwardly rigid. The second, by contrast, may deliver the same reduction in the real wages at a unemployment lower cost. See also e.g. Kim, J and F Ruge-Murcia (2009), “How much inflation is necessary to grease the wheels?”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 56. 5  Retail sales grew by 2.3% in the three months to January, the fastest since April 2002. Consumer confidence in the general economic situation is currently over 1 standard deviation above its historical mean and from mid-2014 has been around its highest level since May 1998. 6  More broadly, the evidence for consumption delay is not compelling. Bachmann et al (2015) find for the US that a one percentage point increase in expected inflation during the recent zero lower bound period reduces households’ probability of having a positive attitude towards spending by about 0.5 percentage points. Hori and Shimizutani (2005) find some evidence of lower price expectations being correlated with consumption delay in Japan, but the effects do not look large. Finally, consumption delay is less compelling for households who are financially constrained and whose consumption varies more strongly with current income.
Even in cases where the authorities managed to be innovative, perhaps to an extent not normally expected of bureaucrats, and did the right thing, there is always the easy, popular but legitimate question of why action was not taken earlier. The Political Process of Monetary Management 6. In Hong Kong, the grievances of the community are enthusiastically and effectively aired by politicians. Whether directly or indirectly elected, the politicians have the BIS Review 87/1998  -2-  mandate of the people and the people of Hong Kong are well served by them. But one of the peculiarities of the system of Hong Kong is that the politicians, although having the mandate of the people, do not actually have the authority to direct government policies. A consequence of this is that the Administration is always kept on its toes, much more so than in many other jurisdictions. There are lively debates on almost all issues of significance, not to mention those that are controversial. This obviously has the benefit of ensuring that the Administration performs to its best ability. But the inevitable disadvantage is simply that there can be too much of everything, to the extent of eroding rather than enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of government. But this is the reality of Hong Kong today and we all have to live with it. 7. The management of any public issue of significance involves first getting the technicalities right, then explaining them patiently and clearly to all those concerned, and then handling skillfully the politics surrounding it.

This also speaks in favour of a national monetary policy and against delegation. Consequently, in my opinion, the use of foreign money would not result in better money in our country, in the current situation. At this stage, you might object that, through the minimum exchange rate against the euro, the SNB has already, in point of fact, adopted foreign money and handed over its monetary policy to a foreign central bank. Such a view of affairs would be incorrect. The minimum exchange rate is a measure which we adopted in order to fulfil our mandate in the interests of the country as a whole. The world economy is currently in an extremely difficult situation and the minimum exchange rate allows us to maintain appropriate monetary conditions and secure our long-term capacity to act. The minimum exchange rate is therefore an expression of our national policy sovereignty and the SNB’s lived independence, not a sign that we have given up our autonomy. The power of monetary policy Despite the criticism of these four proposals, I attach importance to making two things clear. First, it is absolutely possible and, as history has shown, even probable, that over the course of time the situation could change in such a way that the assessment of specific points might change. However, whatever these changes might be, the aim of the monetary order should remain unchanged – to ensure sound money in the interests of the public at large.
It is not a threat - if anything it is a promise. It’s what our mandate from the Chancellor requires us to do for the very good reason that low, stable, inflation is both a necessary condition for and a reflection of overall macro-economic stability over the medium and longer term, which is clearly what we all want to see. Given the qualifications, it is not a promise on which we will necessarily deliver immediately. We start from a position in which inflation is somewhat below our symmetrical target, and there is little evidence at this point of significant inflationary pressure; wage pressures, in particular, remain relatively benign despite the robust labour market - and it is crucial that that should continue. That gives us a certain amount of time to assess the unfolding evidence on the evolution of both the external situation and the strength of overall domestic demand, though one can legitimately debate just how much risk we can afford to take by waiting. But if and when we do decide to act, you should see that as a sign of the strength of the economy rather than as evidence of weakness. Indeed my message to you this evening is that, after a difficult passage over the past twelve months, we can reasonably now look forward to more favourable offshore winds in the period ahead, opening the way to somewhat stronger and better balanced overall output growth, but with inflation remaining close to target.

Last year I pointed out that sterling’s exchange rate was at a 15 year low against the dollar, but close to its peak against the euro. In overall terms sterling’s effective Exchange Rate Index against currencies generally had been relatively stable - at around 105 plus or minus 5% - for most of the past 2-3 years. That pattern of  BIS Review 40/2002  1  exchange rates made life particularly difficult for the euro-exposed sectors or our economy, and, given that the eurozone represents over 50% of our external trade, contributed significantly to the imbalance within our economy. Happily, from our point of view, and indeed in the context of the global external imbalance, we have recently seen a significant strengthening of the euro against the dollar, and to a lesser extent against sterling, which will help to ease some of the earlier tensions. Sterling’s exchange rate has recently moved to two year high against the dollar and nearly a three year low against the euro. Sterling has consequently also weakened in overall, effective, terms, from some 107 some months ago to currently around 103 - which is still within the earlier range. It is frankly anyone’s guess whether the recent pattern of exchange rate movements will be extended, but what has happened so far, taken together with the improved prospect for global demand, suggests that the adverse external factors weighing down the UK economy over the past two years or so should now diminish.
Although technically these entail secured deposits with banks, they are not money holdings that get spent (on assets or goods), and are matched pretty well by secured (repo) loans to other parts of the financial system. The ‘OFI’ category is somewhat amorphous, including for example both private equity funds and Special Purpose Vehicles. Collectively, their holdings of bank deposits have been growing at an annual rate of over 40% for the past two years. It is extremely difficult to judge the macroeconomic significance of this, not least because no breakdown is available of the money holdings of different types of ‘OFI’. On the one hand, it may be uninvested cash, reflecting for example the wave of fund raising by the private equity industry. That is most definitely cash to be invested in the equity market, but such fund raisings are highly publicised and conceivably may already have been discounted in  13  ‘Other’ in the sense of not being a member of the monetary sector (commercial banks and building societies). 14  Chrystal K A and P Mizen (2001), ‘Other financial corporations: Cinderella or ugly sister of empirical monetary economics’, Bank of England Working Paper, No. 151. 15  The other intermediaries grouped with securities dealers include financial leasing companies and bank holding companies. BIS Review 2/2007  5  equity prices via M&A speculation. As for SPVs, they are used for all sorts of purposes. Some effect transactions within banking groups, and should ideally be netted off.

With headline inflation tangibly above target in the run up to the main, New Year wage bargaining season and with the market clearly expecting that policy would be tightened, a small increase in Bank Rate was, on balance, warranted to avoid any misperception that our reaction function had altered. Strategically, the significance of this account is in the uncertainty injected by structural change; in this case, from migration. Of course, there is a host of demand-side uncertainties: about consumption, export growth and so on. But they fit comfortably into the MPC’s framework of producing a conditional forecast of probability ranges around a central projection. The supply-side uncertainties are something else – much harder to calibrate and potentially going to how we read and act on the economy. Inward migration is just the most obvious reason the monetary transmission mechanism might have altered. In reviewing globalisation more generally, others have described how the short-run relationship between aggregate demand and inflation may be weakened by firms’ enhanced capacity to switch production between countries, including via outsourcing, in the face of capacity and cost pressures. As policy makers discuss these issues it could become a commonplace that, in such an environment, central banks would have no choice but to respond more aggressively whenever inflation deviates from target; that, compared with the past, we would need to make bigger changes in interest rates, since bigger shifts in demand would be needed to bring inflation back to target.
Such confidence is, in its turn, of fundamental importance in ensuring that the occupational pension system can perform its key economic role. This consists of giving people the certainty that the assets they have saved in their pension scheme during their working lives will actually be available to them in their old age. A good pension system makes it possible for people to reliably plan their future material needs, and fosters security for individuals and stability for society. It is therefore a key precondition for the prosperity and development of a modern economy. A healthy pension system is central to ensuring social cohesion and is one of the cornerstones of Switzerland’s success. With its three pillars – AHV, occupational pension schemes and private pension provision – Switzerland has for several decades operated a comprehensive and well-functioning pension system. Our pension arrangements have been envied abroad, which is also reflected in the relevant rankings. In recent years, however, our country has lost considerable ground in this discipline (cf. chart 1). Have we become worse, or have the others improved? Whatever one might think about such comparisons, it is in Switzerland’s own interest to do everything it can to ensure that the pension funds – as key players in the whole system of pension provision – are able to manage the numerous challenges facing them as effectively as possible. In what follows, therefore, I will look at two important and specific challenges: the ongoing low interest rate environment and the rise in life expectancy.

for economic growth, inflation, and the average achievable nominal return – were based on empirical figures that were wholly plausible in the 1980s when the occupational pension system was calibrated. For some years, however, interest on investments across all maturities has been exceptionally low. For a closer examination, it is useful to differentiate between the long and the short term. Let us first look at the development of long-term interest rates, represented here by the yields on Swiss, German and US ten-year government bonds since 1995 (cf. chart 2). There is a clear downward trend. The decrease in Germany – and therefore in the euro area – was even more pronounced than that in Switzerland. What are the causes? I would like to highlight some factors I consider particularly important. To some extent, this development is due to the fact that since the 1990s the efforts of central banks in the advanced economies to bring down previously high inflation rates have been increasingly successful. As a result, the markets deemed the central banks’ pledge to maintain price stability to be credible. Inflation expectations consequently became anchored at a much lower level than before. The amount of interest that investors would normally demand as compensation for future inflation thus also decreased. If this reduction in interest rates were to be taken into account accordingly in the aforementioned pension fund parameters, the lower return would not in itself be fundamentally problematic for the pension funds, as their invested capital would also be subject to less inflation.
Aside from QR codes, we have made a very good progress in terms of PromptPay, which is our electronic payment system and we have seen a very high uptake in usage of PromptPay, especially during the COVID crisis. The number of transactions per person per year increased and reached an all-time high. We have also extended to cross-border payments. We now have in place cross-border payments using QR codes with many of our neighbors such as Cambodia, Vietnam, as well as Japan. Most recently, we have connected our payment system, PromptPay, with that of Singapore, PayNow. This was the first global fast payment linkage and we have also seen a very satisfactory uptake on that front. Another opportunity for us in this area, building upon the digital infrastructure that we put in place, is mobile banking. We have seen a very rapid rise in the usage of mobile banking applications in Thailand. Thai people love their mobile phones and we have seen Thailand ranked number one globally in terms of usage of mobile banking applications for three years in a row. I think this is an example of opportunities that may arise and will come about as a result of putting in place the right kind of digital infrastructure to enable these things to happen. Aside from the initiatives I mentioned on the digital front, another important initiative that we have been undertaking is on CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency.

In fact, it appears that in the current environment, higher prices are being passed on more quickly – and are also being more readily accepted – than was the case until just recently. In conjunction with this, longerterm inflation expectations have also been moving upwards slightly over the past quarters. Furthermore, there are clear indications of wage growth gathering momentum. How is the SNB handling this situation? We already made our initial response to the impending inflationary pressure in the final months of 2021. Both inflation and our inflation forecast at that time were still at a very low level. At our monetary policy assessment in December, we announced that we would allow the Swiss franc to appreciate to a certain extent in nominal terms in order to reduce the inflationary pressure from abroad. The Swiss franc gained around 4% in nominal terms between autumn 2021 and spring 2022, making imports cheaper and so countering the general increase in prices. In June 2022, we then raised  Page 4/16  the SNB policy rate for the first time in 15 years, by half a percentage point to −0.25%. At the same time, we signalled that further interest rate moves may be necessary in the foreseeable future. With our policy rate rise, the Swiss franc appreciated further. The need for monetary policy tightening is shown by our conditional inflation forecast of June 2022 (cf. Chart 5).