samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It is not something exceptional for the countries implementing inflation-targeting regime to experience significant deviations from the inflation target. What matters most here is to be able to explain the reasons for the deviation, to take necessary measures to ensure that the target could be attained again and to inform the public of the convergence period. If the Central Bank had changed its inflation target for end-2006 as 10 percent, it would have achieved the end-year target and would not have been liable to be called to account to the public. However, instead of changing the target, the Central Bank preferred to render account to foster its communication policy. Within this framework, the Central Bank will inform the Government through a new open letter in January 2007 and explain the reasons for overshooting the end-year inflation target, in addition to sharing its projections pertaining to the convergence process with the public. In conclusion, the Central Bank considers that frequent changes in targets are likely to have adverse effects on inflation expectations and pricing behaviors, which could damage the credibility of the future commitments. For this reason, it is important in the upcoming period that targets should be left intact as long as inflation is expected to converge to targets within a reasonable period of time. 2  BIS Review 1/2007  Transmission mechanism and control horizon Central banks in both developed and developing countries experience serious uncertainties regarding the lagged effects of monetary policy on inflation.

Churchill himself said that “a nation that forgets its past has no future.” Our banknotes are testaments to the outstanding achievements of the nation’s greatest individuals; they are repositories of the United Kingdom’s collective memory. That contribution will continue with the new £ which brings together the future, in the form of polymer and the most advanced security features yet, and Britain’s glorious history, in the achievements of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
However, even if interest rates did move up abruptly and the SOMA portfolio experienced realized losses, it would have no meaningful operational consequences for the Federal Reserve’s ability to implement monetary policy. These losses would not impair the FOMC’s ability to control short-term interest rates by paying interest on reserves or by draining reserves as needed. Accordingly, the Federal Reserve would continue to operate in the same manner that it otherwise would have in pursuing its economic mandate. What would be affected by unexpectedly large realized losses on the SOMA portfolio would be our remittances to the Treasury. All Federal Reserve earnings in excess of those needed to cover operating costs, pay dividends and maintain necessary capital levels are remitted to the U.S. Treasury on a weekly basis. Accordingly, any change to the income on the SOMA portfolio directly affects the amount of funds that the Federal Reserve remits to the Treasury. The unusually large amount of portfolio income realized of late has boosted those remittances considerably. If portfolio income were to decline going forward, whether toward more normal levels or toward unusually low levels, the amount of those remittances would adjust lower. 17 Ensuring our ability to remove policy accommodation While the potential risks around the SOMA portfolio will not hamper the implementation of monetary policy, the size and duration of the portfolio will have to be taken into account when considering the appropriate policy strategy.

Brian P Sack: Implementing the Federal Reserve’s asset purchase program Remarks by Mr Brian P Sack, Executive Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Global Interdependence Center Central Banking Series Event, Philadelphia, 9 February 2011. *  *  *  It is a pleasure to be back in my hometown of Philadelphia and to be invited to speak tonight at this event hosted by the Global Interdependence Center (GIC) and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The GIC has an impressive history of promoting public dialogue about monetary policy and other topics, and it is a privilege to be able to participate in that process. Tonight I will focus my comments on the implementation of the recent monetary policy decisions of the Federal Reserve and the associated implications for its balance sheet. As always, the views I will express are my own and do not represent those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or the Federal Reserve System. Unconventional policy decisions In the second half of 2010, the FOMC made two important policy decisions about the size and composition of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. In August, it decided to begin reinvesting the principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and mortgage-backed securities into longer-term Treasury securities, thereby keeping the amount of domestic assets held in the System Open Market Account (SOMA) portfolio unchanged at about $ trillion.
Such an approach would be a recipe for a regulatory framework that’s well-crafted, detailed and intricate... …but ultimately, irrelevant. Regulation of finance is a means, not an end. So it makes much more sense to define the outcome that regulation should achieve and to give regulators the tools to achieve it. Then they can be held to account for doing whatever it takes to deliver that outcome, even as circumstances change. The EU has, however, taken the first approach, putting a large body of rules in the equivalent of primary legislation. Those rules are inflexible and slow to respond as times change. As my colleague Sam Woods has argued, this approach follows from a goal of harmonising regulation across 28 countries.7 Given that, it would be an odd approach to follow outside the EU. And few non-EU countries have. Indeed, even as a member of the EU, the UK has taken the second, very different, approach. By tasking us with promoting a financial system that serves households and businesses in bad times as well as good, it overlaid EU rules with an outcome to be pursued. 7  See speech by Sam Woods (May 2019): ‘Stylish regulation‘. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  4  And that outcome is what the UK Parliament holds us to account for delivering, even as times change. That has given us the freedom and responsibility to move regulation with the times; to be agile. It’s a responsibility we take seriously.

1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  To help us achieve this balance, we emulated the Financial Technology Regulatory Sandbox introduced in some other countries to provide an avenue for industry players to pilot or test new solutions within a safe space. Here, industry players have the opportunity to trial new financial technologies that support sustainable goals. At the same time, we are able to better understand and observe market impacts and tailor our regulatory and supervisory response accordingly. To date, 19 solutions have been tested in the sandbox. Of this, over 60% have been successfully rolled out into full-scale production. The Bank has also introduced new digital bank licences and implemented a series of changes to existing regulations applicable to agent banks, microinsurance, and payment and remittance services to enhance financial inclusion and consumer protection. Secondly, we continue to support a meaningful role of the financial sector in helping households and businesses meet transition challenges. While we are encouraged by a number of financial institutions in Malaysia that have announced net-zero or carbon neutral goals, it is imperative for financial institutions to do more to support transition. We expect this to gain momentum with the implementation of the Climate Change and Principle-based Taxonomy for financial institutions that was issued by Bank Negara Malaysia in April this year. By shining a light on climate risk mitigation and adaptation activities, the taxonomy will strengthen incentives for both financial institutions and businesses to adopt practices that are aligned to climate goals.
Furthermore, developments in the domestic economy at the end of last decade were such that the stable exchange rate policy was gradually undermined. During the second half of the 1990´s, the Icelandic economy entered a period of high economic growth. Growth was initially well balanced and led by exports and increased investment in the private sector. But as it unfolded it became increasingly driven by consumption and investment in the non-traded goods sector, fuelled by a foreign financed credit expansion in the wake of intensified competition among lending institutions and a significant increase in credit availability. By 1998, signs of overheating were already increasingly visible in rising inflation and the ballooning current account deficit which climaxed in 2000 at 10 per cent of GDP. The Central Bank responded to the imbalances in the economy by tightening monetary policy. Through the effects of the tighter monetary policy, the exchange rate of the króna gradually appreciated as can be seen from Chart 1. In the spring of the year 2000 expectations in the market shifted for a variety of reasons; but concerns about the current account deficit and lower expectations of future economic growth were the most important. Subsequently the króna began to depreciate and continued to do so more or less uninterrupted, but on the whole in an orderly fashion, over a period of a year and a half until the end of November 2001. By that time, it had fallen from its peak by about a third against other currencies.

As a member of the European Economic Area Iceland is obliged to transpose into national law all existing and future EU legislation in the field of financial services. This has implied important changes in the financial system in Iceland. The EEA negotiations themselves intensified a trend towards liberalisation that started with the deregulation of interest rates in the mid 1980s and culminated in the liberalisation of the bulk of cross-border capital flows by 1995. Important rationalisation has also taken place in the Icelandic financial system. Until 1999, two of the main commercial banks were fully government owned and so were a host of so-called investment credit funds. The funds were unified in a single privatised institution which subsequently merged with Íslandsbanki in 2000 to become the then largest commercial bank. The withdrawal of the government from ownership of financial institutions was finalised in March 2003 when the government sold its last shares in the commercial banks. Already by mid April a decision had been taken to merge one of the two former government owned banks, Búnaðarbanki, with Kaupþing Bank ltd. The new bank will be the largest commercial bank in Iceland and one of the 10 largest in the Nordic countries. The privatisation of the credit institutions has thus already created ample opportunities for rationalisation and will continue to do so in the period ahead.
BIS Review 15/2007  19  force of market mechanisms. Taxes that require the polluter to pay and tradable emission quotas are important instruments. When the costs of reduced emission are to be distributed, it will be tempting for countries to act as free riders. Restrictions and taxes that only apply to one country or to a small group of countries do not solve the problem. There are important lessons to be drawn from international trade cooperation in the post-war period, which was also marked by strong conflicts of interest but still made headway through the period. It is still uncertain how serious the impact of gas emissions will be. But once the impact comes into full evidence, it may be too late to take corrective action. There is also the risk that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reaches such a high level that it exceeds critical values that cannot be reversed. The right approach is therefore to guard against events that may have serious consequences even if there is a small probability of the event occurring. Most of us already pay a certain amount every year to guard against the consequences of events we will hopefully never experience. The cost of curbing global warming can be looked upon as such an insurance premium. Higher transport taxes and increased electricity and energy prices are a small price to pay. 6  Conclusion  I opened by quoting from Rolf Jacobsen.

For example, there is a high level of employment protection legislation in Norway, Sweden, and Finland but not in Denmark. In Denmark, agreements between the social partners can stipulate firing rules. The negotiating position that employment protection offers employees can induce companies to go farther in safeguarding employees' interests in the event of restructuring. The social safety net – unemployment benefits and the more permanent benefit schemes – probably also make it easier to gain support for rationalisation. But this safety net has also become a pretext for not addressing the problems at hand. The increased use of our welfare schemes is increasingly becoming the Achilles’ heel of the Norwegian economy. Sickness absence has risen sharply in Norway and a steadily higher share of the working-age population is on disability benefit or rehabilitation schemes. Many choose to retire under contractual early retirement schemes at the age of 62, and these numbers will probably increase ahead. In Norway, close to 600 000 persons among the working-age population are outside the labour force and on benefit and retirement schemes. This accounts for 25 per cent of the labour force. Sweden has seen a similar development. BIS Review 15/2007  17  The sharp increase in benefits cannot be explained by the population’s state of health, which is steadily improving.
Speech  Embargo 26 October 2020, 4.30 pm  The importance of good framework conditions for the Swiss financial centre Lugano Banking Day  Thomas J. Jordan∗ Chairman of the Governing Board Swiss National Bank Lugano, 26 October 2020 © Swiss National Bank, Zurich, 2020  ∗  The speaker would like to thank Christoph Hirter for his support in preparing this speech. He also thanks Simone Auer and Alexander Perruchoud, as well as SNB Language Services. Page 1/5  Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that this important event can go ahead at the second attempt, despite the continuing exceptional circumstances. Of course, I regret very much that the audience cannot be physically present. Despite all the digital possibilities available to us now, direct contact with the general public and with business remains very important for the Swiss National Bank. Coronavirus has not only impeded the holding of this centenary celebration, it has also had a far-reaching impact on the economy and our social interaction. I am therefore particularly pleased to have this opportunity to congratulate the Ticino Banking Association in person on its 100th anniversary. As Chairman of the SNB’s Governing Board, I visit Ticino often and have meetings with representatives of the Ticino Banking Association on an annual basis – under normal circumstances. The SNB has had good relations with your association for many years. This is not surprising, since the Ticino financial centre has a long history, as this centenary anniversary proves.

The reform measures in the Payment Card Reform Framework (PCRF) implemented since 2015 have enhanced transparency and competition, bringing about a continued decline in the average merchant discount rates (or MDR). Merchants have benefited from lower cost of accepting card payments, with an estimated cost savings of about RM422.4 million from 2015 to September this year. Consequently, the annual growth of POS terminals has more than doubled from about 6.8% for the period between 2011 and 2014, to 17% for the period between 2015 and 2017. Key trends shaping our payment landscape today Since the Payment Forum in 2015, many developments have taken place in the payment landscape both domestically and internationally. Firstly, society has become increasingly digital and connected, driven by the Internet and mobile revolution. For a population of 32.1 million in Malaysia, there are 42.8 million mobile phone subscriptions while smartphone penetration stands at 70% and is increasing. Secondly, payment technology has become more advanced, scalable and increasingly low-cost. For instance, innovations in the area of merchant acceptance has lowered the cost for merchants to embrace electronic payments through the use of Quick Response (QR) codes. Likewise, the advancements in biometric and tokenisation technologies and the shift towards greater publication of Application Programming Interfaces have enhanced the ability of payment service providers to develop new use cases and deliver superior customer experience. Thirdly, the market players in our payment landscape have become more abundant, diverse and increasingly non-traditional.
For, while the EU has for fifty years brought peace and stability to the peoples of Europe, the Single Market and Economic and Monetary Union have created a congenial environment in which economies can grow and people prosper. BIS Review 110/2007  3

Transparency into counterparty risk should be greatly improved via disclosure requirements and the ability to aggregate trade information in trade repositories, and end user trading positions should be much better protected by segregation and portability requirements and a more robust financial market infrastructure. Although there is still much to do as part of this process, I’m optimistic that we are on the right road. We just need to continue to push ahead and not forget the lessons learned from the financial crisis. Thank you for your kind attention. I would be happy to take a few questions. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7
Historically, companies’ assets have tended to be physical and tangible, such as plant and machinery. But businesses and their assets are changing fast. Increasingly, businesses’ assets are taking on an intangible form, such as intellectual property, patents and goodwill. 45  On some estimates, intangible assets are already  41  As the data show suspiciously large rates of job churn between the bottom and top deciles of the firm-level productivity distribution, we strip those deciles out from our analysis here, and only look at the 2 nd to 8th deciles. Our description of ‘quartiles’ here is therefore not strictly the quartiles of the complete distribution. 42 For example, North (1990) and Haldane (2017). 43 Coase (1960). 44 Acemoglu and Robinson (2012). 45 For example, Haskel and Westlake (2017). 14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  14  larger than tangibles among UK and US companies. Protecting these intangibles from expropriation is every bit as important as for tangible assets. Fortunately, in international league tables the UK tends to fare favourably on those fronts, with a wellestablished rule of law and property rights, supporting investment and innovation. 46  There are other aspects  of UK’s institutional infrastructure which fare less well, however, in ways which might help to explain its productivity gaps. Let me focus on two: its diffusion infrastructure and financial infrastructure. A simple comparison of UK and German institutional infrastructures is revealing here. Germany has a long-established infrastructure to support innovation and its diffusion to German companies.

The top-decile of German and French companies have, by comparison, levels of productivity 80% and 60%, respectively, above the median. If we look more closely at companies in the top 1% or 0.1% of the productivity distribution, the scale of this success story becomes clearer still (Table 1). On average over the ten years to 2014, 1%-er companies experienced annual productivity growth of 8%. 0.1%-er companies have seen annual productivity growth of 12%. There is no evidence of a lost decade among these high-fliers. For them, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has already arrived. It is tempting to think these frontier companies are a tightly-knit bunch, geographically and sectorally. By and large, you should resist that temptation. Table 1 shows productivity growth over the past decade among the top 1% and 0.1% of companies, broken down by region and by sector. 10  There are some important  differences in productivity performance. Even among the 0.1%-ers, there are some wide regional variations in performance, with the East Midlands at the top (30% per year) and Wales at the bottom (0%). Differences across sectors are larger still. The upper tail of sectors such as transportation and storage and information has seen annual rates of productivity growth of 30 or even 40%. Among virtually all sectors, and across virtually all regions, however, upper tail companies have seen positive and healthy rates of productivity growth.
Therefore, it was forecast that inflation would fall below 2% as 2011 progressed and then rise back to target by the end of 2013. As always, it was emphasised that the outlook was uncertain – which indeed proved to be the case. So where do we stand now, a year later? I think the big picture is this: economic recovery has materialised, while stability has proven more elusive. GDP growth this year will be slightly over 3%, which is above the forecasts from a year ago, largely due to changes in inventories and a smaller-than-forecasted contraction in public consumption. GDP growth is projected at 2½% annually for the next three years. I wouldn’t be surprised if it proves higher for 2011, once final figures are in a few years from now. The most recent Monetary Bulletin contains a discussion of forecasts and forecasting errors, which shows that final figures on investment and GDP growth tend to lie above the first figures. Employment has been increasing, and unemployment has fallen. It is cause for relief that the Directorate of Labour’s analysis indicates that most people leaving the unemployment register at present are going back to work. On the other hand, my concerns from last year concerning the low investment level and relatively weak export growth have not disappeared.

So we have seen financial firms outsourcing functions like IT support, systems development and HR both within the UK and Europe and to India. That too seems likely to continue so further growth of trading and management in London may well not lead to proportionate growth in jobs. On current trends we might expect a greater concentration of high value, high skill jobs in London. Conclusion So back to my question: wave or persistent stream? The answer is, as you will have spotted, both. Readers of the Bank’s Financial Stability Report (next edition due next month) – or those that have read the financial news – will know that the financial markets have been buoyant recently; in particular the premia for risks in the credit market are very low and profit growth and bonuses have been spectacular. Some of this may well be the crest of a wave. However, for the reasons I have set out this afternoon, London is also benefiting from a longer lasting and a strong current. We may expect that cycle to turn at some stage – and London will be affected because of its international position. But there are good reasons to expect London to further enhance its position as a global financial centre in the long term. And that will have implications for the rest of the economy and the risks it faces. It will continue to affect the labour market, the housing market, and the distribution of wealth and income.