samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Indeed, GDP in the area was flat in the second quarter of this year, although this figure reflects transitory factors whose influence is still difficult to assess. In any event, most analysts predict weak growth in the euro area both this year and next, with highly uneven rates across countries and significant downside risks. Euro area inflation is ultimately moving at figures far removed from the 2% reference which, in the medium term, is the monetary policy objective for the area. With inflation rates  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  standing roughly at scarcely 0.5% and a macroeconomic scenario marked by sluggish demand, the dangers of a downturn in inflation expectations have become increasingly more patent, increasing the risks to recovery. The European Central Bank has responded to these risks with additional measures that have further accentuated the expansionary nature of euro area monetary policy, thereby placing itself apart from the trajectory initiated by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. At its June and September meetings this year, the ECB Governing Council adopted an array of expansionary measures which, once again, combine conventional and other exceptional and unconventional actions. On the conventional front, the ECB once again reduced its official interest rates. The main refinancing operations rate was cut to 0.05%, a level which technically marks the minimum possible bound for this type of interest rate. The marginal credit facility and deposit rates were cut by a similar amount (10 basis points) to stand, respectively, at 0.30% and –0.20%.

The new Law vests specific responsibilities in the SNB with respect to the oversight of payment and securities settlement systems. Up to now, our oversight of the SIC interbank payment system was based on a contractual relationship. As from next year, our responsibilities in this domain will be based on the Law and will extend to the oversight of all major payment and settlement systems. My colleague, Niklaus Blattner, will discuss this subject in more detail in his remarks. The new Law also provides that the SNB shall issue implementing regulations in the area of minimum reserves, statistics and the oversight of payment and settlement systems. The draft of an ordinance has already been submitted to the interested parties for consultation. In the field of minimum reserves and statistics we intend in principle to take up the provisions already existing in the Federal Law on Banks and Savings Banks and the Federal Law on Investment Funds. As regards the oversight of  BIS Review 58/2003  3  payment and settlement systems, we are advancing into totally new territory, where for the time being only the main principles have been defined. This implies pioneering work in the implementation. 4  BIS Review 58/2003
Lars Heikensten: Behind the granite walls up at Brunkebergstorg - monetary policy in practice Speech by Mr Lars Heikensten, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, to the Riksdag's Social Democrats, Stockholm, 21 March 2001. *  *  *  The theme for today’s seminar is monetary policy in practice. I find it extra stimulating because it is a subject I don’t often get a chance of talking about. While thinking about how to arrange what I want to say, I felt that, besides talking concretely about how we at the Riksbank go about assessing inflation, it would be a good idea to spend some time on some matters of principle. In that way I hope to lay a good foundation for the ensuing discussion. First I shall say a little about monetary policy’s purpose and our target. Then I shall describe how we make our assessment and how the Executive Board works. Before winding up, I shall also consider some issues connected with communication and transparency. ‘Hate inflation’ As we all know, monetary policy’s purpose is to safeguard low inflation. That has been the case in any event since the beginning of the 1990s. It became explicit, of course, when the Riksbank adopted an inflation target in February 1993. Since 1999, moreover, the Riksbank Act states that the objective of the Riksbank’s operations shall be to "maintain price stability". So why is this our objective?

A soft landing after one of the sharpest upswings ever would represent a success confirming beyond all doubt that the Icelandic economy is highly adaptable and can respond more quickly than larger and more cumbersome systems, and that the largest investment in the country’s history followed by restructuring of the banking sector and housing market has not proved too much of a challenge for economic policy. It would be going to far to call such an outcome a miracle, but it would certainly be satisfying. Because over this same short period, enormous assets have been built up in Iceland. The infrastructure of the economy, and know-how within it and in the main business sectors have all strengthened, and Iceland’s competitiveness and potential for expansion at home and abroad have improved enormously. The old cliché of Iceland’s undiversified economy which also happened to be a fact is a thing of the past.
In this Discussion Paper, we make clear that when we think about diversity, we focus on ‘diversity of thought’, also known as ‘cognitive diversity’. We are now reflecting on responses received with the intention to communicate these in due course. Our aim with DP 21/2 was to gather views on how we can most helpfully accelerate the pace of meaningful change across the sector. We see a clear link to our objectives: diversity helps bring a mix of views and experiences to the table; inclusion helps create an environment where these views and concerns can be aired and listened to. Research 2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  shows evidence of correlations between diversity and inclusion and positive outcomes in risk management, good conduct, healthy working cultures, and innovation. These outcomes directly contribute to the stability, fairness, and effectiveness of the firms making up the financial sector, including mutuals. In the same way, poor diversity and inclusion can lead to poor outcomes. The 2008 crisis, as well as other scandals, including the misconduct issues the London market faced more recently, highlights the risks of unhealthy cultures and groupthink, where views, actions, and decisions go unchallenged. This is not just a case of do as we say: the PRA and the Bank of England have plenty of room for improvement on diversity and inclusion, and have committed to make changes to achieve the same positive aims for ourselves that we seek in the wider financial sector.

We are working hard to build a diverse workforce because we believe it will allow us to build trust with the people we serve, and help us to make better decisions. We are striving to create a workforce that reflects the diversity of the society we serve, and we think diversity and inclusion go hand in hand. In order to achieve this, we have several initiatives in place that address various areas of diversity and inclusion. This year we renewed our diversity targets, set for the end-February 2028. These include the proportion of staff we want to be of a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background, and female, at various levels. We also considered how we expand our public commitments beyond gender and ethnicity. Our ultimate aim is also to work towards ensuring appropriate representation for other protected characteristics, such as disability and sexual orientation. At this point, as with many other organisations, we do not feel there is sufficient data available internally to support this and are working to address this over the next few years. This is an issue we have also noted in many other organisations in the financial sector, where data on the progress on diversity and inclusion across the sector is fairly limited. Firms have been recently contacted about participating in the pilot survey on diversity and inclusion.
All societies, whether open or closed, must find ways of ensuring that people are not excluded when technological progress makes old industries unprofitable. All societies also have a responsibility for production and consumption not having too great an impact on the environment since the welfare and health of future generations will otherwise be imperilled. We must be clear that development and collaboration are good. Almost everyone, including many of the poor in the world, has experienced great improvements in the past decades. In many respects, it is exactly the increased contacts and trade between countries that has contributed to it being possible to solve the problems that I have just mentioned. Growth in the industrialised countries has led to us being able to afford to conserve our environment, which most poor countries cannot afford to do. To reverse the trend - to attempt to isolate countries from one another - is not the way forward. Globalisation makes new demands I will now make some remarks on challanges specifically related to globalisation. Like all other development, globalisation is not without problems. These were clearly expressed in the severe economic crises that we have seen in recent years - in Mexico in 1994-95, in South-East Asia in 1997-98, in Russia in 1998 and in Brazil in 1999. These crises illustrate that increased trade and financial flows makes new demands public policy. Firstly, requirements increase on the national institutional settings - on laws, authorities and practices.

This means that we, together with the Ministry of Finance in the Government Offices, coordinate and conduct Swedish policy in this forum. This evening, I am intending to talk about globalisation - as an opportunity and a challenge. I am going to discuss what the International Monetary Fund is and the role that it has in an increasingly globalised world. To conclude, I will take up Sweden’s participation in the IMF, and what we can expect from the meetings in Prague next week. Globalisation and its benefits Before commenting on critical remarks often presented on globalisation, let me first begin by noting that prosperity in the world has improved dramatically during the past decades. Never before in history has the situation of so many people improved so much so quickly. Since the beginning of the 1980s, purchasing power per capita in the world has more than doubled. In the poor developing countries, this has meant that purchasing power correlated GDP per capita has increased by almost 350%. In the rich industrialised countries, the corresponding growth was 220%. In certain cases, developments have been particularly spectacular, not least in Asia. In 1975, six out of ten Asians lived in absolute poverty - under a dollar a day. Today, the figure is two out of ten. In China alone, the number of poor has fallen from 60 to just under 30% in less than twenty years. There are many factors that explain this development.
More broadly industrial production, exports, and retail sales figures appear to have improved, although they remain sharply negative on an annual basis. In addition the broad-based recovery in commodity prices also suggests that the global economy is on a path to recovery. However, despite this more positive outlook for the global economy, it is not clear that Africa has seen its worst days. For many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the ramifications of the  1  Source: IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) update July, 2009. Figures for exports reflect annualized percent change of 3 month moving average over previous 3-month moving average. BIS Review 128/2009  1  crisis are still working themselves through the system. Initially, financial markets rather than the financial system bore the initial brunt of the crisis in Africa, as economies experienced a sharp reversal of financial flows, and exchange rates depreciated sharply, and capital markets registered sharp declines in market capitalization and trading volumes. Thankfully there are clear signs that financial markets have now stabilized, with exchange rates appreciating and inflows of portfolio flows and FDI showing tentative signs of recovery. In Zambia, for example, between September 2008 and April 2009, the country experienced a negative portfolio inflow. Non-resident holdings of Treasury bills declined from around 16% of outstanding bills in September 2008 to zero by end March 2009. During this period the exchange rate of the Kwacha against the US dollar depreciated by around 60%.

Zambia already trades power within the SADC region, through the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). In the mining sector, Zambia is already seeing investment in value addition to raw materials being driven by the opportunities available in regional markets as close as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and as far away as Egypt. How does Africa respond to the loss of fiscal space that has robbed the Government of critical resources needed to build their economies by investing in human capital and physical infrastructure projects such as roads, irrigation schemes, and power plants? First of all it is important to recognize the extraordinary response of the international community, especially through the G20 group of countries, in mobilizing resources to address both the liquidity needs of financial markets and the fiscal challenges faced by Governments. A significant amount of this support has been channeled through the multilateral financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and the various Regional Development Banks, including our own African Development Bank (AfDB). The operating procedures and practices of these institutions have also been reformed to a significant degree – although it is true to say that it will take more time to change the organizational mindset and attitude of staff. In this regard, at the end of August and the beginning of September, Zambia received an SDR allocation amounting to $ 625 million that has augmented our reserves and provided a boost of confidence in our financial markets.
Moreover, the first round impacts of the recent hikes in end-user electricity and natural gas prices on end-2008 inflation are expected to be around 0.6 percentage points, which is higher than what we assumed in the previous Inflation Report. Meanwhile, considering the lagged impacts of last year’s drought and elevated prices of agricultural commodities in global markets, we now envisage that the price increases in processed food will persist for a while and the inflation in this item will stay at relatively high levels throughout 2008, albeit a slight decline. Upside revisions on the assumptions for food and energy inflation imply that it may take longer to bring headline inflation to 4 percent than envisaged in our previous Inflation Report. Therefore, in the absence of a significant correction in food inflation, headline inflation will most probably exceed the target level of 4 percent at the end of 2008. Forecast Range*  Medium-term Target  Uncertainty Band for 2008  Output Gap  2009-  2009-III  2009-II  2009-I  2008-  2008-III  2008-II  2008-I  2007-  12 10 8 6 4 2 0 -2 -4 -6 2007-III  Percent  Figure 15: Forecasts for Inflation and Output Gap  *The shaded region indicates the 70 percent confidence interval for forecast.

Figure 2: Contribution to End-Year CPI Inflation (Percentage Share)  Average of 2004-2006  2007  Food* 24%  Others 30% Food* 41%  Others 49% Energy 17% Tobacco** 10%  Tobacco** 10% Energy  * Food: Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages ** Tobacco: Tobacco products and Alcoholic Beverages Source: TURKSTAT, CBRT. Another major factor slowing down the disinflation process in 2007 was the adverse developments in energy and administered prices. The crude oil price in December 2007 was nearly 50 percent above the levels registered at the end of 2006. This development, together with the changes in special consumption tax on fuel products, led to a significant rise in prices of fuel-oil products in 2007. Meanwhile, another energy item, housing water prices, which is administered by municipalities, edged up in the last quarter of 2007, partly owing to the drought conditions. Overall, 1.6 points of the headline inflation resulted from the energy price hikes, where the contribution of administered component outweighs that of the oil price (Table 1). While food, energy and tobacco products displayed significant increases in 2007, the fast pace of disinflation in services and core goods excluding food, energy and tobacco in 2007, confirms that supply side shocks were mainly responsible for the breach of the uncertainty band (Figure 3). 2  BIS Review 20/2008  Figure 3: Subcomponents of CPI (Annual Percentage Change)  20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0  2006  Energy  Food*  Tobacco**  Goods Excl.
Thus, by markedly loosening the monetary reins, we aimed to trigger an easing of lending conditions and discourage investment in Swiss francs. The volume of lending in Switzerland continued to rise, albeit at a reduced pace, but credit lines granted to Swiss borrowers were now less used. To date, the state of the bank loan market reflects a drop in demand and a slight tightening of lending conditions in connection with the decline of the economy, rather than an actual credit crunch. On the other hand, we have noted a substantial deterioration in financing conditions for companies on the capital market due to the prevalent mood of uncertainty and the shortage of liquidity. This is why we decided, on 12 March, to intervene in those market segments where the imbalances were most pronounced. BIS Review 48/2009  3  In this delicate phase of worsening credit market conditions, our monetary policy strategy proved to be particularly well chosen. Unlike most other central banks, the SNB has made it its objective to stabilise a market interest rate – the three-month Swiss franc Libor, which serves as a reference for numerous commercial rates – rather than a rate reflecting central banks’ short-term refinancing conditions for commercial banks. By keeping the Libor well under control, we have managed to shelter the Swiss market from the kind of degradation of credit conditions experienced by markets abroad.

The total amount of our loans more than tripled, climbing from CHF 31 billion at the end of 2007 to CHF 101 billion at the end of 2008. In parallel, as a way of enabling banks to place their liquid means with the SNB in a form other than sight deposits, and of introducing a tool which would allow us to absorb large amounts of liquidity if need be, we issued SNB Bills for the first time on 20 October 2008. By the end of the year, the sum of SNB Bills issued had reached CHF 24.4 billion. Active Swiss franc liquidity management enabled us to hold the three-month Swiss franc Libor at the level targeted by our monetary policy. I shall return to this point later. Consolidating UBS In autumn 2007, the National Bank realised that Switzerland’s two big banks would be particularly badly affected by the financial market turbulence. At that point, we intensified our contacts with the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) (now the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA) in order to ensure ongoing monitoring of the situation at these two institutions. From spring 2008 on, in view of UBS’s growing vulnerability, we drew up a number of solutions to protect it from the consequences of a large volume of illiquid assets on its balance sheet. In autumn, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US led to liquidity drying up completely on the interbank market, UBS encountered increasing refinancing difficulties and was facing a substantial loss of funds.
We believe these policy actions, as well as those announced by the Minister of Finance in order to promote Chile as a Regional Financial Center, should greatly contribute to a more resilient financial sector, wider cross-border use of the Chilean Peso and a greater participation of non-residents in our FX market.   The Strategic Planning 2018-2022 of the CBC includes a thorough review of its FX regulation. Current FX regulations require most FX transactions to be executed through the “Formal Exchange Market” —which is comprised by banks and some stockbrokers— and to be reported to the CBC. These two elements have remained largely unchanged since the capital account was opened 20 years ago. Back then, re-imposing capital controls could not be ruled out, and that rationale underlies the somewhat cumbersome structure of the FX regulation. Currently, while capital controls are still part of the regulatory toolbox, re-imposing them could only be considered during an exceptional situation. Therefore, the CBC has decided to streamline its FX regulations and reduce the burden of compliance to the private sector, whenever possible, without affecting the quality of the statistical information or the capacity to act in an extreme scenario. The first part of this process, eliminating some of the existing reporting requirements, is about to be put out for public consultation. Page 13 of 20  Central Bank of Chile September 2019    Modernizing FX transactions goes beyond a review of existing reporting requirements and the structure of the regulation.

It also considers the review of long-standing policy definitions. One of those definitions is the restrictive regulation in terms of the currency denomination of FX transactions. The Central Bank’s Law establishes that FX transactions cannot be denominated in CLP unless authorized by the Central Bank. This faculty has been used only exceptionally, as it was seen as a tool to prevent the circumvention of capital controls. Consequently, for instance, residents cannot grant CLP denominated credits to non-residents (but they can do so in foreign currency). While this provision does not prevent transactions to occur, it adds transaction costs that may be preventing a wider cross-border use of the Chilean Peso. The CBC has implemented a free-floating exchange rate regime, in which the possibility of capital controls is extremely exceptional and even if applied this measure might not be effective to prevent circumvention. Therefore the CBC is considering the extension of present transactions that are authorized to be denominated in Chilean Pesos (bonds issued in Chile by non-residents, and transaction of foreign securities), as well as the related conditions to that authorization. Such as providing information to the CBC. This change of policy will be put out for public consultation by the end of this year.