samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
On balance, I believe we have been making progress toward our goals, recognizing that a few issues still cloud the outlook. Most noteworthy is the fact that inflation continues to run well below our 2 percent objective. With respect to the economic growth outlook, the softness in third-quarter real GDP – which according to its initial estimate rose at only a 1.5 percent annualized pace – and the weakness of the manufacturing sector have raised concerns that the U.S. economy may be losing some forward momentum. Sharp reductions in oil and gas drilling activity and a loss of international competitiveness associated with the dollar’s appreciation over the past year have restrained factory output. Judging from historical experience, the impact of the dollar’s recent strength has the potential to be protracted, so that the trade sector probably will continue to be a drag on growth in 2016. Thus, the manufacturing sector is likely to continue to lag behind the rest of economy. But these negatives need to be set against the many positive aspects of the economic outlook. In particular, domestic demand continues to grow at a solid pace as increases in consumer spending, housing and business fixed investment all contributed to the third quarter’s 2.9 percent annualized gain in real domestic final sales. A large decline in the pace of inventory accumulation was the main reason why real GDP growth faltered in the third quarter.

Richard W Fisher: Containing (or restraining) systemic risk – the need to not fail on “too big to fail” Remarks by Mr Richard W Fisher, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, before the Market News International Seminar, New York, 6 June 2011. *  *  *  The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System. Thank you for that kind introduction. This discerning audience no doubt noted that despite being overeducated, I am not a formally trained economist. I do not have a Ph.D. in economics; those who do will correctly deduce that I am somewhat “dismal” in comprehending the arcana of “the Dismal Science.” After my undergraduate education in economics and my studies at Oxford, I took a different path. I earned an MBA and then went to Wall Street and into funds management before cashing out and taking to public service. My perspective on monetary policy and regulation is shaped less by theory and more by my experience as a market operator. I confess that in matters of monetary policy and regulation, I am often in the minority. This does not make me the least bit uncomfortable. The majority opinion is not always right; indeed, my experience as an investor has biased me to conclude that more often than not, the consensus view is the wrong view, even among the most erudite.
10 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, FOMC transcript and presentation materials, January 29-30,  2002. 11 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, FOMC transcript and presentation materials, June 24-25,  2003. 12 See, for example, Lars E. O. Svensson, The Zero Bound in an Open Economy: A Foolproof Way of Escaping  from a Liquidity Trap, Monetary and Economic Studies, Volume 19, Issue S1, pp. 277-312, February 2001; Günter Coenen, Athanasios Orphanides, and Volker Wieland; , Price Stability and Monetary Policy Effectiveness When Nominal Interest Rates Are Bounded at Zero, Advances in Macroeconomics, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2004; Ben S. Bernanke and Vincent R. Reinhart. 2004. Conducting Monetary Policy at Very Low Short-Term Interest Rates, American Economic Review, Volume 94, No. 2, pp. 85-90, May 2004; Klaus Adam and Roberto M. Billi, Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Volume 38, No. 7, pp. 1877-1905, October 2006. 13 Reifschneider and Williams 2000; Board of Governors 2002. 14 Gauti B. Eggertsson and Michael Woodford, The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy,  Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Volume 34, No. 1, pp. 139-211, 2003; Reifschneider and Williams 2000. 15 Ben S. Bernanke, Vincent R. Reinhart, and Brian P. Sack, Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An  Empirical Assessment, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, The Brookings Institution, Volume 35, No. 2, pp. 1–100, 2004.

This despite the fact that the economy was in the midst of a productivity-driven boom, the longest expansion on record, and the prevailing federal funds rate was 5.25 percent. These papers and the ensuing discussions and debates planted seeds that would germinate in research and policymaking. Central banks across the globe ultimately used variations of nearly all of the tools discussed at the conference. Indeed, the topics of interest rate policies, targeting asset prices, asset purchases, and negative interest rates are among the most prominent discussions in monetary economics today. Importantly, this research made its way straight to policymakers within a few years—a quick turnaround by central bank standards! In January 2002, Marvin, Dave, and I reprised our roles from the conference in briefings to the FOMC.10 And in June 2003, Vince Reinhart briefed the FOMC on alternative monetary policy approaches—including asset purchases and forward guidance—to mitigate the effects of the ZLB.11 This was followed by a flurry of further research by academics and central bank economists that delved deeper into these topics.12  Putting Research into Practice This research had important practical lessons for policymakers in the United States and abroad following the global financial crisis.
The chart shows the share of the central government’s net cash flow from petroleum activities that has been transferred to the Petroleum Fund. The Ministry of Finance first transferred capital to the Fund in May 1996. Since then, the central government accounts have shown a surplus each year and capital equivalent to the surplus has been transferred to the Fund. In 2000 and 2001, almost the entire cash flow was transferred to the Fund, while in the last two years the share transferred to the Fund represented about two thirds of the cash flow. The Petroleum Fund has become large, even compared with the biggest funds in the world. At end-2004, the market value of the Petroleum Fund’s international portfolio was 1 016 billion Norwegian kroner or 124 billion euros. The Ministry of Finance has defined a clear mandate for Norges Bank’s management of the Petroleum Fund. Norges Bank shall seek to achieve an excess return in relation to a benchmark portfolio. Norges Bank has developed principles of corporate governance. For the internally managed assets, Norges Bank has exercised voting rights at the general meetings since the beginning of 2003. The external managers have exercised voting rights for the assets they manage on behalf of the Petroleum Fund since 1999. For that portion of the portfolio that is under internal management, Norges Bank voted at 132 annual meetings on 1 541 items in 2004. Norges Bank voted against the management’s proposal on 18 per cent of the items.

Prior to these periods, the manufacturing sector’s competitive position had weakened. The fiscal rule is useful in that it gives weight to long-term considerations when addressing day-to-day economic policy challenges. The fiscal rule stabilises enterprises’ expectations as to competitiveness and the krone exchange rate. This can prevent abrupt and pronounced swings in the structure of the economy. If the government authorities disregard the rule, enterprises will lose an important reference. A policy rule can make matters worse if economic agents have drawn up long-term plans on a faulty basis.1 The current cost level in the Norwegian business sector is adapted to an expansion of the petroleum sector and a steady phasing-in of petroleum revenues into the mainland economy. Costs rose sharply from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s and reached a very high level. In subsequent years, costs have varied around this level. After a period, we will be able to cover a smaller share of our imports using current petroleum revenues and drawings on the Petroleum Fund. Competitiveness will then have to be improved – perhaps to around the level prevailing at the end of the 1960s prior to Norway’s emergence as an oil nation.2  The labour market Compared with other European countries, income formation in Norway has been fairly flexible. Wage growth has declined rapidly when unemployment has risen. This is why unemployment has not taken hold at a high level. The favourable results partly reflect the considerations underlying the wage settlements at a centralised level.
Bandid Nijathaworn: Financial globalization and emerging market economies Speech by Dr Bandid Nijathaworn, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Panel Discussion, Bank of Thailand’s International Symposium 2008, Bangkok, 8 November 2008. *  *  *  First, let me thank the organizer for inviting me to take part in this panel. A lot has been said in the last two days about financial globalization and emerging markets. We spoke about the challenge for monetary policy, the challenge for financial regulation, and the implications for capital flows management, and on this panel, we discuss the importance of having the right international financial architecture to respond to the global challenge. But more important at this time, I think the current global financial turmoil also offers a unique and important perspective for us to look closely at financial globalization, in terms of the inherent risk, the lessons that can be learned, and how emerging markets should go about managing the process of financial globalization. My remarks today will be on the practical challenge faced by emerging market economies like Thailand in managing the process of financial globalization. On this, I will focus on the financial sector and the implications that financial globalization has for the financial sector in emerging markets. A good starting point to discuss the issue is to look first at the lessons that can be learned so far from the current turmoil.

And, although we bring as much economic and statistical science to bear as we can, we know that our forecasts, and indeed our policy judgements, are subject to a range of error. They cannot be accurate to every last digit. We can't expect to hit the target all the time, but by consistently aiming to do so (and we do consistently aim to do so looking 2 years or so ahead - whatever you may have read in some recent media commentaries) we can hope to get reasonably close to the target on average over time. Given the uncertainties, which are well illustrated by the sudden - and no doubt to some extent erratic - jump in the RPIX inflation rate in the year to January of 2.6% announced this morning, the overall results over the past decade since the recession of the early 1990's have been encouraging. Whether that's a result of good luck or good judgement I leave to others to decide - I'm more interested in the outcome. Since the Summer of 1992, inflation, on the target measure has averaged just 2.6% - and has been more stable than at any time in our history. And it has been consistently remarkably close to target over the past 5 years. But the even better news is that stable, low, inflation has been accompanied by steadily increasing overall output and employment, and by a progressive fall, until very recently at least, in the rate of unemployment.
The banking system remains prudential in selecting the projects it finances, as a consequence of deteriorated loan portfolio quality and uncertainties surrounding the future outlook. Banks continued to maintain tight lending standards, appearing rather selective in assessing the business plans and meeting the demand for loan. Overall, the Bank of Albania assesses that creating a positive climate assists in recovering lending and the demand for loan. The Albanian banking system remains well-capitalised, liquid and capable of meeting the economy’s needs for credit. However, within the parameters of financial prudence, it should be forward-looking about its decisions and more flexible in providing financial support to Albanian business. Financial markets were characterised by a downward interest rate trend over the third quarter, associated with low liquidity pressures and reflecting the Bank of Albania’s easing monetary policy. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Increased interbank market activity suggests the increased efficiency in using this market and is a good premise for developing the overall monetary market in Albania. Over the period, the easing monetary policy signals in terms of lowering the government security yields were better transmitted. This transmission was favoured by completion of structural movements in the banking system and reduced government demand for funding. Deposit interest rates continued to fall as well, but as already reflected by the high deposit growth over this quarter, they did not restrain the increase in financial savings at the banking system. The easing of financial costs was not fully transmitted to the private sector credit segment during July-August.

Stefan Ingves: Swedish experiences of monetary policy with an inflation target Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Conference on Inflation Targeting, organised by Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the Central Bank of Hungary) at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 19 January 2007. *  *  *  First and foremost, thank you for the invitation to come here! The theme of my talk here today has a "practical" leaning. I will talk about the Swedish experiences of conducting an inflation-targeting policy and how our monetary policy strategy has developed along the way. Conducting monetary policy is in many ways a learning process. The Swedish experiences of the past decade or so provide a concrete example of how such a process may look. The Riksbank is one of the central banks that conduct monetary policy with an explicit inflation target. This is a group that has grown considerably in recent years. The main reason for this is probably that the experiences of this policy have on the whole been very good. In fact, so good that it has become an interesting alternative even for economies that are already functioning well. However, this was not the case at the beginning of the 1990s, when Sweden changed over from a fixed exchange rate to inflation-targeting and a floating exchange rate. We were then in the middle of a deep economic crisis and a situation where it was necessary to reform the entire stabilization policy framework.
This concept was put forward by Michael Dooley, David Folkerts-Landau and Peter Garber, who argue that a new world equilibrium has emerged and it is in the best interest of both the United States and China to continue financing consumption of American households with Chinese savings until Chinese economy reaches a status of a developed economy, so the new Bretton Woods can last for many years;  2.  global savings glut hypothesis was proposed by Ben Bernanke 4 , who postulates that the shock causing global imbalances originated from Asia as a result of excessive saving rates;  1  I borrowed this aeronautical comparison from a recent paper by Calvo G. and Talvi E. (2006) “The Resolution of Global Imbalances: Soft Landing in the North, Sudden Stop in Emerging Markets?”, CERES, Documentos de Trabajo. 2  This list is based on Rybinski K. (2006) “Global imbalances”, Ekonomista 4/2006 (in Polish).

10.  recently Ricardo Caballero 13 presented his theory that (financial) asset shortages are at the heart of the global imbalances problem, and his idea was also put forward by Raghuram Rajan 14 speaking recently on (real, fixed) asset shortages. Asset shortages hypothesis  5  Rajan R. (2006) “Perspectives on Global Imbalances”, Remarks by Economic Counsellor and Director of IMF Research Department at the Global Financial Imbalances Conference London, United Kingdom, 23 January 2006; and Rato R. (2006) “Shared Responsibilities: Solving the Problem of Global Imbalances”, Speech of the International Monetary Fund Managing Director at the University of California at Berkeley, 3 February 2006. 6  Greenspan A., Kennedy J. (2005) “Estimates of Home Mortgage Originations, Repayments, and Debt on One-to-FourFamily Residences.” Federal Reserve Board, Finance and Economics Discussion Series Paper 2005-41; Lansing K. (2005) “Spendthrift Nation”, FRBSF Economic Letter, November 2005. 7  Greenspan A. (2005) “Current Account” presentation at Advancing Enterprise 2005 Conference (London, United Kingdom), 4 February 2005; OECD (2004) “Economic outlook”, June 2004; Faruqee H., Laxton D., Muir D., Pesenti P. (2005) “Current Accounts and Global Rebalancing in a Multi-Country Simulation Model”, presented at the NBER conference, “G-7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment”, 1–2 June 2005; Chinn M. (2005) “Getting Serious about Twin Deficits”, working paper, The Bernard and Irene Schwartz Series on the Future of American Competitiveness, CSR No. 10, September 2005.
This means that the measures have probably achieved and are continuing to achieve greater demand for domestically-produced goods and services, higher employment and thus, ultimately, greater cost and price increases than we otherwise would have experienced. The monetary policy conducted last year can therefore be said to have contributed towards turning the development of inflation and inflation expectations around (see Figures 3 and 7). The positive effect of last year’s measures on inflation expectations is also suggested by the slight increase in what is known as inflation compensation – that is, the difference between the yields for nominal and real government bonds – in conjunction with the announcements of repo rate cuts and bond purchases that came as surprises. Standing prepared to make monetary policy more expansionary Inflation and inflation expectations are now higher than they were one year ago. But, over the autumn, the development of inflation was weaker than we predicted and the rise in inflation is still largely due to the krona being weak. If the rise in inflation is broken, confidence in the inflation target may be weakened. We are therefore prepared to do even more if it proves necessary to safeguard the inflation target. We still have many possible measures in our toolbox. Experiences from the past year suggest that cuts to the repo rate and repo rate path also work below zero and that purchases of securities form a good complement. We can do more in this style if we deem that inflation prospects are changing.

What I would like to say is that, in order to further facilitate Fintech development in Hong Kong, the HKMA has decided to launch two new initiatives today. Fintech Innovation Hub 14. First, I am pleased to announce that the HKMA will collaborate with the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) to set up the “Fintech Innovation Hub”. It will be equipped with all necessary system and support resources to enable players of the banking and payment industry to conduct proof of concept trials of products and services through the use of new technologies, and do it safely – as this controlled environment is separated from their internal systems. Also, the Fintech Innovation Hub allows regulators to provide early inputs to the trial works before the actual implementation. While some of the largest banks have built their own laboratories, this new Fintech Innovation Hub will cater for the big and small institutions alike such that the industry as a whole would be able to adopt new technologies more speedily and in a more collaborative manner. 15. Among its potential uses, this Fintech Innovation Hub, as a neutral testing ground, will be ideal for two types of activities. First, industry players can test new Fintech solutions which involve the collaboration of multiple parties and are intended to be commonly adopted in the industry. A good example is biometric authentication.
•  Let me finish with a few words on the development of macro-prudential frameworks across the globe. For the most part good progress has been made in setting up effective macroprudential frameworks at a national level. However, many emerging macro prudential risks are cross border in nature – for example the GFSR has identified global factors as having played an important role in the quadrupling of corporate debt across major emerging economies, much of which is in foreign currencies. The risk inherent in this build up of leverage has motivated calls for a normalisation of advanced economy monetary policy sooner rather than later – a global leaning against the wind. •  But tightening advanced economy monetary policy solely to discourage further borrowing could make the job of getting inflation back to target more difficult. So, just as using a targeted macroprudential tool is preferable to using monetary policy to tackle domestic financial stability risks, so too would it be preferable to use efficient and effective international macroprudential tools to target global risks to financial stability. The framework for international macroprudential co-ordination is currently still in its infancy, and there is much room for improvement by way of surveillance, design and implementation of global macroprudential tools. This perhaps is the next frontier for macro-prudential policy and an important one for the FSB and IMF to take forward given the potentially significant negative spillovers that might result. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3

In my opinion, fintech firms are at an early stage of development in which it is not yet clear which of them will become credible alternatives, so it is still early to say how they will evolve. In any event, the greater the likeness between their financial activity and traditional banking activity, the more they will be subject to requirements and controls similar to those of banks, tailored to the risk of the activity in question. That is to say, it is necessary to set fair rules of play ensuring neutrality on the basis of the risk involved and the activity carried out. 3 Final reflections In short, the Spanish banking industry, and other European institutions, face major challenges at a time of far-reaching transformation of traditional banking business. Regulatory reform, with the tightening of capital requirements and the introduction of the new resolution requirements that I have described, and the development of new technologies are two of the vectors of change. In this new environment, it is difficult to imagine that it will be possible to sustainably achieve the pre-financial crisis levels of profitability (in double digits). However, following the transformation undertaken in recent years and the progress achieved in terms of solvency and cleaning up balance sheets, the industry is today more resilient and in a better position to face these changes with confidence. In terms of efficiency, for example, Spanish banks are in a better position than the average institution supervised by the SSM.