samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
You have to make do with estimates, which in the nature of things are uncertain and therefore have to be interpreted with caution. Still, the available estimates do suggest that in Sweden the equilibrium level of unemployment rose in the early 1990s and is somewhere in the interval 4.5 to 7.5%, expressed in terms of registered unemployment.1 The OECD also concludes that the level has increased markedly in the 1990s and judges that in Sweden equilibrium unemployment is around 6%.2 Not everyone agrees, however, that equilibrium unemployment is markedly higher than before.3 But even though we cannot be certain about its exact level, an increase is indicated by the fact that 1  2 3  See e.g. Calmfors, L (1995), Will high unemployment in Sweden become persistent?, Swedish Economic Policy Review 2:1. Economic Surveys – Sweden 1999, OECD, Paris. See e.g. Åberg, R (1997), Är stigande jämviktsarbetslöshet huvudproblemet på arbetsmarknaden? (Is rising equilibrium unemployment the principle labour market problem? ), Ekonomisk Debatt 25:1. BIS Review 106/1999  4  otherwise the currently high unemployment would be acting as a strong restraint in wage formation. Instead, the wage level in Sweden is still rising somewhat faster than in our main competitor countries. Considering that the rate of registered unemployment is currently around 6% and thus inside the estimated interval for structural or equilibrium unemployment, this might suggest that the Swedish economy is relatively close to full capacity utilisation.

In its deseasonalized series, non-mining GDP fell by 0.8% from the previous quarter, its second consecutive quarterly decline. The performance of trade, which fell 2.8% in the quarter, stands out in this result. Entrepreneurial services were the exception, rising 1.1% in the period. With this, it continues with the growing trend that it has been showing for several quarters, explained by the outsourcing of activities. The October Imacec confirmed the downward trend of non-mining activity, with a seasonally adjusted 0.4% decline month-on-month (figure 5). On the demand side, in the third quarter, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) performed significantly better than expected. This result was driven by investment in renewable energies and other particular sectors. The latter included the impact of engineering works associated with the terminal phases of mining projects and one-off factors such as bus imports. In any case, the outlook for investment remains weak. The latest survey by the Capital Goods Corporation points to declining investment amounts during the 2022-2025 period. At the same time, business expectations remain pessimistic. The slow dynamism of the housing sector also stands out. However, long-term interest rates and local uncertainty levels have fallen in recent months, which could be of some help for the future path of investment (figure 6). Private consumption continued to adjust in the third quarter. It is worth noting the new drop in durable goods, whose deseasonalized series fell 3.8% with respect to the previous quarter.
10 They must also put measures in place to ensure that they will remain able to act in the event of a crisis and that the bank can be restructured or wound down in an orderly fashion. This second set of measures thus reduces the risks stemming from systemically important banks in that it strengthens the crisis resilience of such institutions while also enabling a restructuring or orderly wind-down. 5 6  7  8  9  10  The ratio of capital to total assets is known as the Leverage Ratio. The financial crisis showed that it is not only the amount of capital that is important, but also its quality. Basel III therefore also raised capital quality requirements. In particular, the regulation ensures that eligible capital can already be used to absorb losses before insolvency proceedings are initiated. This is the only way that such capital can act as a buffer and counter the threat of the bank having to cease operations. The international regulatory framework has also put in place further measures to reduce systemic risks in the banking sector. For example, the risk of contagion within the banking sector is to be reduced through more consistent measurement and control of concentrations of exposure to specific counterparties (e.g. other banks). The procyclicality of regulation is also addressed – in phases of excessive lending the regulator can set a countercyclical capital buffer. This increases the capital requirements for banks during upswings, releasing the capital again in downturns.

Together these measures will strengthen the resilience of the banking sector, which can surely only benefit our economy and enhance our prosperity. Allow me to conclude by taking this opportunity, also on behalf of my Governing Board colleagues, Fritz Zurbrügg and Andréa Maechler, to thank our employees for their hard work and dedication. We also thank you, our shareholders, for your loyalty to the SNB and your faithful support. Let me also thank our young guests from Gymnase intercantonal de la Broye in Payerne and Kantonsschule Schüpfheim in Canton Lucerne for their interest in monetary policy and the SNB. Thank you all for your attention. Page 8/8
This is because the Riksbank only lent money to the banks and did not, like the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of England, purchase bonds and other assets during the crisis.13 If the Riksbank had done so, this could have led to more serious problems when the time came to phase out the support measures. It is of course difficult to estimate the effects of the measures taken by the Riksbank in connection with the crisis as so many other things also had an impact on the course of events, not least fiscal policy and the measures taken by other authorities to preserve  12  The Riksbank also extended the types of collateral that could be approved for loans and provided liquidity assistance to two small banks, Kaupthing and Carnegie. 13  By only lending money, the Riksbank also avoided exposure to a substantial interest rate risk. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  financial stability. Nevertheless, it can be noted that the Swedish banks came through the crisis well. Total lending to households and non-financial companies continued to increase throughout the crisis. It can also be noted that the fall in production and employment was less than feared. Domestic demand has been kept up by the expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. Conclusions With hindsight, I think that we can draw two conclusions about the actions taken by the Riksbank in connection with the financial crisis. First, we did not see the crisis coming.

As trading position can be transformed swiftly through the use of derivatives and hence may not be reliable, regulatory focus has shifted to assess internal risk models, rather than the instruments held at a point in time. In addition to external regulation, the Group of Thirty in its 1993 study of derivatives made recommendations at strengthening risk-management techniques and procedures. Another industry initiative was JP Morgan’s decision to release its own proprietary risk-management model for general use. In addition, changing consumer behaviour resulting from aging population, for example, calls for new and sophisticated products like pension funds and long-term debt instruments. Also, consumers’ expectations are likely to be higher as they now have access to more choices from more diversified markets. Finally, de-regulation has occurred because old regulations have not prevented the massive losses incurred by worldwide bank failures. In many countries, the losses caused by bank failures have been as high as 15% of GDP, with bank losses in Japan and France at an estimated 8% of GDP. In the light of these heavy costs, governments around the world have begun to look seriously at the cost of regulation. The latest initiative include the Japanese Big Bang, which would be complete by 2000. Should the Central Bank also act as the Supervisor? There are several arguments in support of the assumption of the supervisory role by the central bank. The first is efficiency consideration.
Ardian Fullani: Albania’s economic and financial developments in 2011 Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the presentation of the Bank of Albania’s Annual Report 2011 to the Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Finance, Tirana, 30 April 2012. *  *  *  Honourable Chair, Distinguished Members of the Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen, *** Before starting my speech, I would appreciate your kind understanding about the fact that the period after the submission of the Report has enriched the 2011’s economic data inventory with new information. It is understandable why this information is not incorporated into the submitted material. In the following, I will address overall economic developments based on the latest information, trying to also identify the differences between the latest data and the version available to you. *** Our annual meeting on introducing Bank of Albania’s Annual Report remains a special pleasure for me. More than a legal obligation, the Bank of Albania considers this Report as an important step to enhance institutional transparency, foster accountability and intensify the dialogue with all economic policy-makers and stakeholders. Let me now start with an overview of main conclusions of the Report. The economic activity recorded positive growth rates, while the macroeconomic balances remained stable or were further strengthened. It should be emphasized that this activity was conducted against the backdrop of deteriorating global economic and financial situation in 2011.

The estimates incorporated the price increases associated with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with the knowledge we then had of how the conflict would unfold and its implications. While at the time inflation already appeared to be a global problem, it has since worsened, due to a protracted war, the spread of problems in international supply chains and transportation costs, and the effects of China's weak real estate sector and its zero Covid policy. On top of all this, there was further persistence in a context of significant inflationary surprises and heightened inflation expectations. Thus, we come to the end of the year with a sum of new shocks that were installed in our economy, which already exhibited important imbalances that needed to be corrected. During this period, financial markets have shown high volatility. At home, we have had to face it while immersed in a context of high uncertainty, which peaked in July. In that period, the local exchange market experienced important tensions in its price formation process, particularly in exchange rate derivatives. This led us to announce a foreign exchange intervention aimed at reducing the probability of significant distortions in the operation of other segments of the financial market. This year has not been easy, nor were the previous ones. In this challenging period, the Bank has continued to make progress in various areas.
The communiqué issued by the four Sponsoring Organizations at the close of the Round Table recommended that market participants from regions that have not yet vigorously tackled the problem should consider the need to invest significant resources in the short time that remains. The Sponsoring Organizations further recommended that external testing programs be developed and expanded and that all financial market supervisors worldwide should implement programs that enable them to assess the Y2K readiness of the firms and market infrastructures that they supervise. The Sponsoring Organizations urged telecommunications and electricity providers to share information on the state of their own preparations and encouraged market participants and supervisors and regulators to consider the need to develop appropriate contingency procedures. At the Round Table, a new private-sector initiative known as the Global 2000 Coordinating Group was announced. The aims of the Global 2000 effort are to identify and support coordinated initiatives by the global financial community to improve the Y2K readiness of financial markets worldwide. For example, current Global 2000 projects include the development of recommendations for financial infrastructure testing and guidelines for addressing Y2K compliance issues related to vendors and service providers. The Global 2000 Coordinating Group, which includes representatives from over 75 financial institutions in 18 countries, represents an extremely valuable private-sector attempt at cooperation on this important issue.

First, of course, is the fact that one cannot rely on a backup computer site for Y2K contingency if that site also uses the same software that is the cause of the Y2K problem at the main site. In some cases, it is impractical to build a duplicate software system from scratch simply to provide for Y2K contingency. In these cases, as a senior banker explained at one of our New York Y2K forums, contingency planning amounts to, “Testing, testing, and more testing.” Contingency planning can also be separated into components that are firm-specific and those that are market-wide. Each individual firm will need to develop its own contingency plans designed to maintain the integrity of its operations during the changeover to the Year 2000. The FFIEC has recently issued guidance to banks in the United States regarding the core elements of their own contingency planning.5 The Joint Year 2000 Council will also be developing a paper on contingency planning for the benefit of the global financial supervisory community. This paper will seek to address firm-level contingency as well as issues of market-wide contingency. 5  See www.ffiec.gov/y2k/contplan.htm BIS Review 56/1998  - 10 -  Market-wide contingency refers to the planning by participants and supervisors done to ensure that individual disruptions can be managed in ways that will prevent them from causing disruptions to critical market infrastructures.
As in the previous example, it will be more difficult for monetary policy to fulfil its task – in this case to raise inflation to the target – without the support of a more expansionary fiscal policy. If the task of fiscal policy is to stabilise public debt, monetary policy will receive such support. When government interest costs decrease, taxes will be reduced or expenditures increased, and this is also something that economic agents expect. Fiscal policy and monetary policy will then again be pulling in the same direction by interacting to raise demand and inflation.11 However, as the regime of an active monetary policy and a more passive fiscal policy has been applied in practice in recent decades, it is not clear that this will be the case. “Keeping public finances in good order” has often been equated with “making sure that debt does not increase”. A shrinking government debt, on the other hand, is generally perceived as something that is always positive and not as something that creates room for a more expansionary fiscal policy. However, from a macroeconomic perspective, such an asymmetry in the view of the task of fiscal policy is not entirely unproblematic.12  10 In an extreme case, it may not only be difficult but impossible. Interest rate increases become counterproduc-  tive and contribute to inflation rising instead.

William C Dudley: Reforming culture and behavior in the financial services industry - expanding the dialogue Opening remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the conference "Reforming Culture and Behavior in the Financial Services Industry: Expanding the Dialogue", Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 20 October 2016. * * * Welcome to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and to our third conference focused on culture within the financial services industry. It is encouraging to see all of you in attendance today—in particular, the many non-executive directors, representatives from the investor community, and foreign supervisors who have joined us to help broaden and deepen the dialogue. Thank you for your participation. As always, what I have to say today reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System.1 The evidence is pervasive that deep-seated cultural and ethical problems have plagued the financial services industry in recent years. Bad conduct has occurred in both investment banking and securities market activities as well as in retail banking.2 This has eroded the industry’s trustworthiness. This erosion impedes the ability of the financial services industry to do its job. That job is financial intermediation—to facilitate the efficient transfer of resources from savers to borrowers, and to help customers manage the financial risks they face. Verification—whether through regulation or internal controls—is an expensive substitute for trustworthiness.
In my speech today, I would like to focus on the ongoing reforms aimed at enhancing the mechanisms with which authorities can handle problems in banks and reduce the potential impact of failures, should they occur. First, I will briefly recall the main shortcomings of the current resolution regimes. Second, I will consider the international, European and national initiatives to cope with the challenges. Finally, I would like to say a few words about the future path towards an optimal arrangement for cross-border resolution. The main shortcomings of the current frameworks During the current crisis we have seen several government-funded bailouts and one case where, in place of a bailout, a disorderly collapse occurred with widespread effects around the globe. There are multiple reasons why no better alternative between these two extreme solutions was available in these cases. First, letting financial institutions fail was often not a feasible alternative from a legal perspective. In a majority of countries, only normal corporate insolvency proceedings were – and in many countries, still are – available to banks. However, limiting credit and liquidity losses in the case of failure may not be effectively ensured by using these mechanisms, because they were not designed to take into account the special nature of credit institutions. Second, even if a well-designed special bank resolution or insolvency regime is in place in a particular country, this does not guarantee that cross-border banks can also be dealt with effectively.

Thomas Jordan: Real estate, mortgages and monetary policy Speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the IAZI, Schweizer Immobilienkongress 2009, Zurich, 10 November 2009. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  There is a close interrelationship between real estate, mortgages and monetary policy. On the one hand, monetary policy impacts on the real estate and mortgage market. When the central bank reduces interest rates, this eases the burden on household and company budgets and fosters the demand for real estate. On the other hand, monetary policy also takes account of developments on the real estate market because these can affect economic growth, inflation and financial stability. Once again, the current financial crisis has thrown these interrelationships into sharp relief. Problems in a number of mortgage and real estate markets – in particular in the US and the UK – triggered the financial crisis and plunged the global financial system into a systemic crisis. This impacted on Switzerland’s financial stability and made it necessary to create the StabilisationFund for the transfer of illiquid UBS assets. The Swiss real estate and mortgage market played a positive role in various measures adopted by the SNB to handle the financial crisis. Swiss mortgages played a role in securing Swiss financial stability in the Limmat Pfandbrief transactions, whereby big banks improved their refinancing situation by issuing covered bonds.
The more complex and interconnected it gets, the more vulnerable it is when exposed to small, and localized, shocks. These may worsen and compromise the stability and integrity of the whole. This is what is now happening in Europe, as it happened before with subprime mortgages in the US. In both cases, problems of limited size – the Greek public debt in the case of Europe – have had a disproportionate impact because amplification mechanisms have occurred inside the financial system. In Europe, three separate dynamics have been at work. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  First, between solvency and liquidity of sovereign debtors. In times of turmoil, sovereigns, like financial institutions, can be either illiquid or insolvent, or both. In many cases, the distinction is blurred. When uncertainty is high, sovereigns face liquidity shortages, and they can only issue new debt at ever higher interest rates. This, in turn, creates doubts about their ultimate solvency, triggering a negative spiral. Good fundamentals are an absolute necessity, but not always a sufficient condition. Liquidity spirals, when allowed to develop, can lock a country, just like a financial institution, into a bad equilibrium. This process has clearly been at work in peripheral Europe, especially Spain and Italy, since the beginning of August. A second interaction occurs between sovereigns and banks. Both are perceived as closely linked by the market. Indeed, sovereign CDSs act as floors to bank CDSs. And, conversely, banks’ creditworthiness depends on their exposure to sovereign risk.

Mugur Isărescu: Meeting the challenges of volatility Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the "Meeting the Challenges of Volatility" Conference, organised by the Romanian Financial Analysts' Association (AAFBR) and Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) Romania , Bucharest, 27 March 2018. * * * Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, Good morning and welcome to the National Bank of Romania. Let me extend a warm welcome to our keynote speaker, Ms. Rachel Lomax, a trusted, longstanding friend of Romania. I am pleased to open today’s conference – Meeting the Challenges of Volatility, organized by two prestigious professional associations, the Romanian Financial Analysts’ Association (AAFBR) and Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) Romania, with the support of the National Bank of Romania. Here, at the central bank, we always offer a friendly framework for debate and interesting topics. I will not go into detail about today’s topic, as I am sure that the panelists of the three panels will bring to discussion important inputs regarding: Global markets volatility and potential risks for Romania (Panel I), Lending, regulations and capital flows volatility (Panel II), and How the fiscal volatility endangers economic growth (Panel III). Before introducing our keynote speaker, allow me to address a subject which is not part of today’s agenda, but is dear to our hearts. A hundred years ago, on the 27 th of March 1918, the union of the old province of Basarabia (Bessarabia) with Romania was created.