samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
To provide you with some insight into how we work when we make projections for the Norwegian economy, it may be practical to use a tripartite approach: the short-term or current situation, the medium-term or projection period and finally what we call the long-term. The dividing lines are not clearly defined, but are to some extent overlapping as indicated in the chart. Knowledge about the current economic situation is absolutely essential to making projections of economic developments that are useful for monetary policy. We must form a picture of capacity utilisation in the economy and whether it is increasing or decreasing. We must also try to identify the driving forces or disturbances that influence developments. A macroeconomic model will be a useful tool in this connection. Nevertheless, thorough analyses of available economic statistics are the most important source when we are assessing the current situation. To obtain a good picture of the current situation, it is important to consider developments in context and to distinguish between genuinely new information and noise. There is always uncertainty associated with statistics and the quality can vary depending on the source. Frequency and the time from measurement to publication also vary considerably. Economic data are published with a time lag and are often revised. A very useful cross-reference and alternative information channel to official statistics is therefore our own regional network which consists of enterprises, organisations and local authorities throughout the country.

This assessment must also take account of the substantial uncertainty surrounding the calculation of the output gap, and of Norges Bank’s mandate which specifies that inflation shall be 2.5 per cent over time. The inflation gap and the output gap shall normally not be positive or negative at the same time further ahead. If, for example, both gaps are positive, a higher interest rate path would be preferable as this would bring inflation closer to the target and contribute to stabilising output. Depending on the initial situation for inflation and production, it may be difficult to meet these criteria simultaneously. How easy it is to meet these criteria will depend on the disturbances to which the economy has been exposed. There are also other important considerations when assessing the interest rate path. We must assess whether the interest rate path, at least in the next few months, results in acceptable developments also under alternative, but realistic assumptions concerning economic developments and the functioning of the economy. In other words, is the strategy robust? We must also evaluate the consequences for financial stability. Last, but not least, a successful monetary policy requires a reasonably good understanding of the state of the economy and its functioning. I will now discuss this in more detail. Analyses and models at Norges Bank The Executive Board’s assessments of various interest rate paths are based on projections of economic developments, supplemented by other information and discretion.
The first formal interest rate decision date next year will be Thursday, January 26. Icelandic economic conditions at any given time broadly correspond to what is going on elsewhere in the world. However, occasional tasks can differ and call for specific measures. This is what we see from the Central Bank of Iceland’s policy rate at the moment. It is not reflected anywhere else. The explanation is that the picture in Iceland is unique, and maintaining a low and stable inflation rate in the current climate would widely be thought an ambitious aim. First, the largest single investment programme in Iceland’s history is now under way, and Landsvirkjun and its foreign business partners are by no means the only investors planning major projects. Second, we are simultaneously experiencing the largest-ever overseas expansion of the Icelandic banking system, which has accumulated foreign debt on an unprecedented scale with accompanying capital inflows. Third, the Icelandic credit market has been sharply transformed, with an open invitation for everyone to join in. Fourth, tax cuts have been implemented or announced for the coming months. And to add the icing to the cake, wage earners are compensated for the inflation caused by the broad rise in their house prices which has taken place at no cost to them. This is the climate in which we aim to ensure that medium-term inflation will obey the principles set for it in the Central Bank Act and the joint declaration by the Central Bank and Government of Iceland.

Treasury markets comprise a wide range of products including foreign exchange, fixed income, derivatives and so on. The boundaries between various markets have become blurred alongside more innovative and sophisticated structuring of new products. Whether dealing, sales or back-office staff in treasury markets all require strong technical, up-to-date knowledge in order to cope with the rapid changes in treasury markets. In the discussions between the Treasury Markets Forum and ACI - The Financial Markets Association of Hong Kong on the design of the new membership scheme, we consider that there is a need to bring together qualifying practitioners from various treasury markets. This can facilitate the exchange of views among practitioners within the industry on the one hand and promote the professional standing of practitioners on the other hand. In addition, accredited educational programmes should be introduced to raise the professionalism of practitioners and provide training to those who are interested to join the industry. Following the active co-ordination among industry bodies, I am glad that the ACI - The Financial Markets Association of Hong Kong has successfully launched the new membership regime and made a major stride in raising professionalism of treasury market practitioners. While ACI - The Financial Markets Association traditionally is composed of professionals in foreign exchange market, today, it has expanded the membership to those engaged in other treasury markets (such as bonds and derivatives), encompassing dealing, sales, broker and back-office personnel.
Some of the world’s biggest banks, asset managers and insurers are already preparing for life after Brexit and steering their European operations away from London to our capital. Paris is already home to four of the eight 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  global systemically important banks in the euro area, in addition to being number one in the region in insurance and asset management. Recent regulatory initiatives have made Paris even more dynamic. Capitalising on the reform of Negotiable European Commercial Paper (NEU CP) in 2016, a number of very innovative projects have been launched: for instance, the French telecoms company Orange and the fintech SETL have jointly set up a new central securities depository (CSD) called ID2S for the NEU CP market, using blockchain technology. Paris is also at the heart of cross-border initiatives, making the European financial market more integrated. The market exchange operator Euronext is continuing to expand its federal model and in November 2017 acquired the Irish Stock Exchange. The CSD Euroclear is also committed to fostering common infrastructures, and is even looking beyond Europe with partnerships in the United States with DTCC or in Asia thanks to Bond Connect. Building on this comprehensive financial ecosystem, Paris has also been one of the principal supporters of the renminbi’s move towards internationalisation. As of today, Paris is indeed the leading continental European centre for deposits and bond issuances in RMB.

Denis Beau: Financial markets - driving innovation and connectivity Opening remarks by Mr Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, at the Paris Financial Seminar, co-organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Paris Europlace, Hong Kong, 16 January 2019. * * * Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to open this seminar jointly organised by Paris Europlace and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). A new year is usually the time when we regain confidence in the future and in our collective ability to prepare for it. ***  However there are many uncertainties weighing on the global economic outlook. In Europe, there are still many uncertainties about the outcome of Brexit negotiations and the vote over the withdrawal agreement. Caution requires that we all be prepared for a no-deal scenario. Public authorities and most importantly market participants have all prepared serious contingency plans to address and master the cliff-edge risks associated with such a no-deal scenario. As a result, we can expect that those risks will be appropriately managed, without financial stability implications, should such a scenario occur. Outside Europe, global trade tensions are also generating additional uncertainties. Protectionism can indeed be a temptation, but in my view it should not be an option. Let’s be clear: our economies are increasingly integrated, and research conducted at the Banque de France suggests that a rise in protectionism on a large scale (i.e. a generalised trade war scenario) would have a negative impact on global growth.
8  See, for example, Genre, V., R. Gomez-Salvador and A. Lamo (2005): “European Women: Why do(n’t) they work”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 454, March 2005. 9  For a further extension of this topic see European Commission (2004), “The link between product market reforms and productivity: direct and indirect impacts”, the EU Economy: 2004 Review. 10  See for example G. Nicoletti and S. Scarpetta (2003): “Regulation, Productivity and Growth: OECD Evidence”, OECD Economics Department Working Paper No 347, P. Cavelaars (2003), “Does Competition Enhancement Have Permanent Inflation Effects?”, Kyklos, 56 (1) and M. Przybyla and M. Roma (2005), “Does product market competition reduce inflation? Evidence from EU countries and sectors”, ECB Working Paper No 453. BIS Review 44/2006  3  changes in some services sectors and thus temporarily on aggregate inflation. Overall, a higher level of competition in the services sector would tend to support more efficient and flexible services markets, facilitate adjustment processes and increase the resilience of the euro area to economic shocks 11 . In this context, an internal market for services and the adoption of the Services Directive would constitute an important step forward. It would remove barriers to cross-border provision of services and make it easier to set up services businesses in other Member States. In the EU, some progress has already been made in improving the functioning of product markets. For example, several network industries, like telecommunications and air transport, are now fully or largely open to competition.

The EMU countries that are less dynamic and with lower growth potential think that they had to deal with higher interest rates than were suitable for them, owing to the fact that the more dynamic countries had a tendency for higher inflation than them. And this is also true. Both views are true. The lesson we should all draw is that, on one hand, the less dynamic countries have their work in terms of structural reforms: more privatisation, more competition, a greater weight of the private sector in the economy, etc. to increase their growth potential. And, on the other, the countries with more inflationary tendencies should, as I said a couple of weeks ago in Zaragoza, pursue their own structural reforms, reforming labour institutions, the rental market, etc. so that increases in demand, arising from relatively low rates, cannot generate inflation. The celebration of these ten years is taking place just as the global macroeconomic scenario has undergone a deep-seated change as a result of the financial crisis, leaving it covered in great uncertainty and powerful recessionary tendencies. Now, those who are against a single  2  BIS Review 24/2009  monetary policy underscore the uneven impact that changes in the world economy can have on euro area members, as these are deprived of the macroeconomic stabilisation instrument that national monetary policies provided. Once again, this is not an argument against EMU but one in favour of accelerating structural reforms.
This small share helps to explain why the pass-through of commodity prices into core measures of inflation has been very low in the United States for several decades. Third, the Federal Reserve’s success in anchoring inflation expectations has also been important in limiting pass-through. Since 1984, for example, when the Federal Reserve began to achieve success in driving down and then subsequently anchoring long-term inflation expectations, there has been very little evidence of commodity price pass-through into core inflation. In contrast, prior to 1984, when inflation expectations were much less wellanchored, pass-through did occur and, at times, played an important role in pushing underlying inflation higher. This leads to our final issue – the importance of inflation expectations in shaping the inflation outlook. Rising inflation expectations tends to push up inflation in a number of ways – by reducing the expected cost of borrowing at a given level of interest rates, by pulling forward buying decisions to beat future expected price increases, and by encouraging more aggressive price and wage setting behavior. In a world of unanchored inflation expectations, commodity price pressures would more easily be passed through into core inflation. Fortunately, inflation expectations remain well-anchored. This can be seen in all three major measures of inflation expectations. First, market-based measures of inflation expectations are generally well-behaved.

The economic activity expansion in the first quarter relied heavily on the industrial sector growth, while the agriculture and services sectors marked a positive but weak growth. By contrast, construction sector continued to contract. Available information on the second quarter suggests that the economy performed better, mainly reflecting the high fiscal stimulus during this period. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  From the demand components perspective, economic growth during the first half of the year owes mainly to higher exports and public spending over this period, while the contribution of consumption and private investments appear weak. Though monetary stimuli increased during the last quarter, uncertainties about the future contracted consumption and private investments. These uncertainties are reflected in a cautious behaviour of Albanian households and businesses and their reluctance to take risks. Their higher inclination to save and the lower degree of borrowing improve the private sector balance sheets but impact negatively the aggregate demand and medium-term economic growth. Performance of fiscal indicators in the first six months of the year reflected an expansionary fiscal policy, which was manifested in higher budget spending and fiscal deficit. This stance was more noticeable in the second quarter. The increase in budget spending impacted positively on the economic growth over this period, but the overall impact of the fiscal policy will depend on the degree of observing the budget indicators adopted for 2013. Public spending marked 12.2% annual growth in the first half of this year, influenced heavily by capital spending.
While impact analyses reveal that the reform would increase capital requirements in some jurisdictions, they also show that certain facets of the reform would lower them. Specifically, some of these latter facets have already been implemented via the European quick fix I mentioned earlier.14 The objectives of this second phase of the Basel III reform, which consist of balancing simplicity, comparability and risk sensitivity, remain wholly in place. Thus, after deciding to defer implementation by one year so as to increase banks’ operational capacity, all members of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) have committed to its full and consistent implementation on the new date agreed. The economy and financial system will thus have sufficient time to absorb the main effects of this crisis and to progressively rebuild their buffers, if they were used. Domestically, the coordinated supervision of the risks to financial stability has been strengthened in recent years through the creation of the Spanish macroprudential authority 14  For example, in relation to the digitalisation of the banking sector, this reform exempts from deduction from CET1 investment in software development, databases and database management; the related amortisation, however, must still be deducted. This is because such investment is considered a basic input for banks to pursue their activities amid the economy’s and society’s growing digitalisation, and for banks to be able to better compete with BigTech firms, which are software asset-intensive.

As the major interface between Europe and the rest of the world, London’s success is not a threat to other European financial centres. I have little doubt that euro activity in London will mean more rather than less euro activity in other European financial centres like Frankfurt, Paris, Milan or Amsterdam. And, conversely, I have little doubt either that what is good for those centres will be good too for the City. Mr. Chairman, I make no apology for concentrating my remarks today on the advent of the euro. It is an historic step; and it will affect the lives of all of us - throughout Europe, throughout the Mediterranean region, and across the world. It can be a powerful force for good through its impact on free trade and competition, and on economic prosperity. But it is not without its dangers. What matters now is that we should all do all that we can to maximise the potential benefits and minimise the risks. BIS Review 29/1998  ˝
First, in every national market there is the question of the dependence of the banking and financial sectors on core infrastructure such as telecommunications, power, water, sewer, and transportation. In all cases, it seems that it is not an everyday occurrence for representatives of these differing sectors to get together with financial sector representatives and discuss their mutual concerns. Yet, this must be made a priority if financial firms and their counterparties are to achieve comfort that their own efforts to prepare for Year 2000 will not be compromised by the failures of systems beyond their control. A representative of the International Telecommunications Union is a member of our External Consultative Committee. At our meeting earlier this month, he provided useful factual information on the preparations being undertaken by telecommunications firms and indicated that a further global survey and report on this topic is due to be completed soon. This is the type of information sharing that helps all parties understand the scope of the problem, as well as the efforts that others are undertaking. We intend to encourage further information sharing between the financial sector and core infrastructure providers at future meetings of the Joint Year 2000 Council and the External Consultative Committee. I would also strongly encourage such mutual cooperation on Y2K preparations within each national jurisdiction. Another issue that some participants in our Joint Year 2000 Council are concerned about in regard to preparations in their countries relates to the availability of human resources.

To meet commitments like these in the current low interest rate environment, some firms have an incentive to reach for yield by investing in excessively risky assets. Furthermore, with the costs of borrowing at historically low levels, other investors might simply decide that this is a good time to cheaply amplify the risk and return in their portfolios by taking on more leverage. One could reach the conclusion that historically low and stable interest rates pose a threat to financial stability. This creates a seeming paradox for policymakers. On the one hand, the existing large shortfalls in aggregate demand call for highly accommodative monetary policies and historically low interest rates. On the other hand, such policies have the potential to raise the likelihood of financial instability in the future. So, the questions that I’m often asked regarding these matters are as follows: Do the regulators and the Fed have adequate safeguards in place to mitigate this potential financial risk? If not, should the FOMC step away from what we thought was the best monetary policy with respect to our dual mandate? Should we discard our nonconventional tools and raise the fed funds rate in order to reduce the possibility of undesirable financial imbalances in the future? I don’t believe that such monetary policy adjustment is the right approach. I think the inference that persistently low interest rates pose a danger to financial stability is based on a narrow view of the economy.
Juks, R. (2018), ”Consequences of the e-krona for banks”. Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review, No. 3, Sveriges Riksbank. Kumhof, Michael and Clare Noone, (2018), “Central bank digital currencies - design principles and balance sheet implications”, Staff Working Paper, no. 725, Bank of England, May 2018. Meaning, Jack, Ben Dyson, James Barker, and Emily Clayton, (2018), “Broadening narrow money: monetary policy with a central bank digital currency”, Staff Working Paper, no. 724, Bank of England, May 2018. Rogoff, K. (2016), The curse of cash, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Sedlabanki (2018), ”Ráfkróna?, Central bank digital currency interim report.” 2018. Sveriges Riksbank (2018a), The Riksbank’s e-krona project report 2, October 2018. Sveriges Riksbank (2018b), Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review, Special issue of the ekrona, No. 3, Sveriges Riksbank. Söderberg, G. (2018) “The Riksbank's position as issuer of means of payment to the general public – background to and political debate on the banknote monopoly 1904”. Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review, No. 3, Sveriges Riksbank. Tobin, J. (1985) “Financial innovation and deregulation in perspective”. Key note paper presented at Bank of Japan. Ögren, A., and Edvinsson, R. (2014). Swedish money supply, 1620–2012. In R. Edvinsson, T. Jacobson, & D. Waldenström (Eds. ), Historical Monetary and Financial Statistics for Sweden, Volume II: House Prices, Stock Returns, National Accounts, and the Riksbank Balance Sheet, 1620–2012 (Vol. 2, pp. 293-338). Stockholm: Ekerlids Förlag. 9 [9]

However, it does not specify the size of the deviation from the target that will require such an explanation. Therefore, in order to clarify this mechanism and facilitate its operation, the Central Bank has set a symmetrical uncertainty band of 2 percentage points in both directions around the point target. It has been decided to keep the uncertainty band around the target at 2 percent for 2007 as well. The path consistent with the end-year target and the uncertainty bands defined for the end of each quarter of 2007 are shown in Table 1. In case the figures go outside the band, the Central Bank shall submit a separate report to the Government disclosing the reasons for the deviation and the measures to be taken for convergence to the target and share this report with the public. The path shown in Table 1 will also be used as performance criterion for the IMF reviews within the framework of the Stand-by program.