samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Peter Praet: The ECB’s asset purchase programme – the impact so far Speech by Mr Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Eurofi conference, Luxembourg, 9 September 2015. *  *  *  The ECB’s expanded asset purchase programme has met with our initial expectations. First of all, it has strongly signalled the ECB’s commitment to deliver its medium-term price stability objective, which has in turn been reflected in an upward shift in inflation expectations at all horizons. In keeping with this, any second round effects on inflation from the steep drop in oil prices last year appear to have been forestalled, and the tightening of medium-term real rates we saw towards the end of last year has been reversed (though the path of real rates implied by markets has recently steepened noticeably). More generally, the signalling effect of the APP has been visible in solidifying business and consumer confidence underpinning a broadening economic recovery. The expanded APP, together with our credit easing package launched in summer 2014, has also had a positive impact on both market and bank credit dynamics. The cost of marketbased debt fell to historically low levels in the early part of 2015, and though it has risen in recent months, financing flows have remained robust. This implies a “first order” monetary policy effect from our interventions.

Mervyn King: Globalisation and relative price changes Speech by Mr Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, at a dinner for Kent Business Contacts in conjunction with the Kent Messenger Group/Kent Business, Kent, 16 January 2006. *  *  *  Two weeks ago Trafalgar Square was packed with revellers celebrating the New Year. A century ago it was crowded with hop-growers and pickers. On May 16th 1908 - “Hop Saturday” - around 30,000 people working in the hop trade travelled to London to demonstrate against unfair foreign competition and to demand the introduction of a tariff on imported hops. It was the largest demonstration in Trafalgar Square for many years. Special trains were laid on to London Bridge from where the demonstrators marched to Trafalgar Square, accompanied by bands playing and banners flying. According to the Times, “One of the most conspicuous banners bore the words: ‘And shall hops picked by Chinamen make England's hop trade die, here's 50,000 Kentish men will know the reason why’". Another, appropriately above the plinth of Nelson’s column, read “England expects that every hop shall pay a duty”. A resolution was proposed demanding the imposition of an import duty of 40 shillings per cwt on all foreign hops. Having carried the resolution, the assembled gathering sang "Rule Britannia", after which the massed bands played the National Anthem and a verse of "Auld Lang Syne". Colourful and moving though the occasion was, the decline of the hop industry was inexorable and inevitable.
The countries that have the weakest public finances in Europe are forced to implement tightening measures despite the weak state of their economies because the high level of debt is creating uncertainty about the ability of the countries to repay further loans. In Sweden, on the other hand, there is scope for active fiscal-policy stimulation measures if they were needed. 4  OECD Economic Outlook, November 2012; IMF WEO, October 2012. The surplus target is that public sector net lending should average one per cent of GDP over an economic cycle. 5  The fiscal-policy framework comprises a budget-policy framework, principles for stabilisation policy, principles for government intervention on the financial markets and principles for openness and transparency. In turn, the budget-policy framework comprises a surplus target for the public sector as a whole, an expenditure ceiling for the central government, and demands that the local-government sector should exercise sound financial management and have balanced budgets and a strict budget process. 6  Automatic stabilisers consist of the effects that arise when tax revenues and various grants and benefits adapt to the economic cycle without active decisions being made. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 6.

Second, as can be seen on the next slide, increasing excess liquidity has led to a notable decline in the share of trades backed by general collateral (GC), which is traditionally used to obtain funding for cash management purposes. This may suggest that proceeds from the sales of securities, together with the ECB conducting its main refinancing operations at fixed rate full allotment, have increasingly acted as a substitute for funding in the interbank market. At the same time, we have observed an appreciable increase in collateral-driven or specific repos. You can see this on the right-hand side. In other words, repos are increasingly conducted as a means to move securities among market participants, not primarily to raise cash.6 There might be several reasons for this. Smaller inventories held by market-makers after the crisis, for example, may cause them to source bonds in the repo market more often. Alternatively, short-selling activity may have increased, a phenomenon often observed at, or close to, monetary policy turning points when investors expect yields to rise. One factor that is likely to have contributed to the rise in special repos is policy-induced scarcity, however. This can best be seen when considering the German Bund market. Here, our purchases have absorbed a multiple of net issuance in recent years, meaning that we have actively reduced the stock of outstanding bonds held by private market participants.
The National Accounts show that productivity on average fell by 0.5 per cent in the first three quarters, compared with the same period in the previous year. The downturn was broad and covered almost all sectors. The Riksbank was therefore forced during the course of last year to revise down its short-term productivity forecast. One important explanation for the slowdown in the productivity increase is linked to cyclical developments. When the economic cycle has peaked, productivity usually slows down. The Riksbank assumed in the third and the year’s final Inflation Report in October 2006 that GDP would increase by 3.1 per cent in 2007 and that employment would increase by 1.1 per cent in 2007. In the most recent Monetary Policy Update published in December 2007 the GDP increase was calculated at 2.6 per cent and the increase in employment was calculated at 2.5 per cent for the whole year 2007 (see Figure 6). Employment has thus continued to increase more quickly than we had estimated, while GDP growth has slowed down. The fact that employment is increasing can thus be regarded as natural in this phase of the economic cycle, but the increase has been unexpectedly rapid, which is possibly a reaction to the weak growth in employment during the first years of the 2000s. There are also other factors that may have contributed to the severe slowdown.

), Edquist, H. and Wallgren, A. (2007), Tillväxt i otakt (Growth out of time), SNS Förlag. Sveriges Riksbank, (2007), Box: ”The Riksbank’s company survey”, Monetary Policy Report 2007:3. Öller, L-E., (2007), “Revisions of Production Data in the Swedish National Accounts”, Background Facts on Economic Statistics, 2007:2, Economic Statistics Department, Statistics Sweden. BIS Review 12/2008  7  8  BIS Review 12/2008  BIS Review 12/2008  9  10  BIS Review 12/2008  BIS Review 12/2008  11
The credit for this goes mainly to the Ministry of Finance. We, as a Central Bank, try to contribute to this process in the best possible way. The formal launch is a matter of decision by the government. I see no reason why this should not happen within the current month. Preconditions The third topic that I will touch on is: What are the conditions for the tasks I talked about to be successfully completed and thus to successfully complete the entire process of joining the euro area? The short answer to these conditions is contained, in my opinion, in one word: "consolidation" with three important dimensions – political, institutional and fiscal. 3/5  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  Political consolidation means a functioning parliament and a regular government with clearly defined and consistently implemented priorities, and joining the euro area must definitely be one of these priorities. Institutional consolidation means ambitious reforms to address the still serious institutional deficits in the country and achieve the much-needed institutional convergence. Perhaps biased, but I will give an example with the BNB. In 2014-2015, the Central Bank, and the banking sector as a whole, were the subject of sharp political attacks and heated political discussions. Among other things, one of the main reasons was precisely the institutional deficits in the banking sector. It was about both the state of banking supervision and the lack of an institutional framework for solving problems in the banking sector.

The country’s improved economic fundamentals and the resilient financial system have enabled the gradual pace of liberalisation of the FEA rules since 2003. A fact that is often over looked is that, during the recent crisis, contrary to actions undertaken by many, Malaysia had further liberalized the FEA rules to promote greater efficiency in the conduct of international trade, promote a conducive business environment and to allow the use of domestic currency in the settlement of trade with the country’s major trading partners. This is a timely measure, given the country’s strong linkages with the global and regional economies in particular, the Asian economies. The various measures put in place by the authorities have enabled Malaysia to be ranked as the Top 10 most competitive nation in the World Economic Report by IMD, Switzerland. On ease of doing business, FEA’s ranking had also improved significantly from 13th (which is one of the most problematic) in 2005/2006 to 2nd place (easiest for doing business) in 2009/2010 reflecting partly the stakeholders’ positive assessment on FEA to support the conduct of business in Malaysia. The country’s easy and facilitative regulatory environment including FEA rules, had also contributed to Malaysia’s recent upgrading from a “Secondary Emerging Market” to a “Advanced Emerging Market” status in the FTSE’s Country Classification Index, hence the potential increase in non-residents’ investments in Malaysia following the increase in Malaysia’s weightage in the index from the current level of 2.41% by June 2011.
Jean-Claude Trichet: European financial integration - the view of the ECB Speech by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, at the Eurofi conference entitled “Europe’s single capital market: time to tackle the toughest challenges”, Luxembourg, 10 March 2005. *  *  *  Introduction Ladies and gentlemen, It gave me great pleasure to accept the invitation to this conference, which addresses an issue of the highest importance to the ECB and the Eurosystem. With this in mind, I would like to express the ECB’s views on European financial integration. Let me start by reminding you that financial integration is achieved through an effective interplay of market forces in an environment of free competition, coordinated action by private actors and specific measures taken by public authorities. The ECB both supports and complements such steps. Our support for financial integration is not something we see as optional. On the contrary, we see it as an issue that is of great importance in the conduct of our own activities. Let me give the underlying reasons behind this stance. First, a well integrated financial system is pivotal to the smooth and effective implementation of monetary policy throughout the euro area. In this regard, I would also like to mention the ECB’s task of promoting the effective operation of payment systems, as well as its interest in the smooth running of securities settlement systems.

For example, in the securitisation market, originators need a two-layer structure to create pan-European transactions backed by well diversified multi-jurisdictional asset portfolios: first, assets must be securitised at the domestic level, and then, a pan-European vehicle backed by several domestic securitisation transactions must be set up. This is a complex procedure and incurs costs. I now turn to an important retail market, namely the mortgage credit market which represents in the EU an outstanding volume of around EUR 4 trillion. The lack of integration manifests itself here in numerous ways. In no national market can borrowers access the full range of mortgage products. Moreover, only a negligible portion of European mortgage credit is granted across borders, and the techniques for loan origination and servicing differ substantially from country to country. More than half of mortgage lending is still financed by retail deposits, although in recent years capital market instruments, such as covered bonds and residential mortgage backed securities, have gained in importance. These are important asset categories that can also be used as collateral in the Eurosystem’s monetary policy operations. Nevertheless, they still exhibit a high degree of heterogeneity across countries due to differences in their legal, tax and regulatory framework. BIS Review 18/2005  3  Given the size of the mortgage credit market, the costs incurred through the lack of integration cannot be ignored.
The Bank of Albania deems that though the cautious consumer behaviour has not made any direct impact on economic growth over this period, it has helped keep risk premia on track and has led to low long-term interest rates, thus contributing to boosting private investments. Looking forward, we deem that the fiscal policy should retain its orientation toward fiscal indicators sustainability, supporting Albania’s economic and monetary stability and being an important pre-requisite for a stable and long-term growth. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Foreign demand continued to support the growth of exports and economic activity throughout 2012. Trade deficit narrowed by 7.9% in the third quarter, reflecting mainly the good performance of exports. The latter increased by 17% in the third quarter, retaining the previous quarters’ positive trend. On the other hand, imports performed poorly, reflecting the low demand for consumption and investment. In the third quarter, imports recorded positive annual growth of only 0.7%. Performance of monetary indicators attests to moderate pressures on monetary inflation. The annualised broad money growth rate decelerated to 6.8% in September. Reflecting the sluggish domestic demand, economic agents’ demand for money has been low. The weak demand for money has been associated with a constantly falling contribution of funding from public and private sectors to increasing the monetary supply throughout 2012. Private sector’s contribution continued to slow during this month; its annual growth rate reached 4.2%, recording one of the lowest historical levels.

I want to thank you all for your support, trust and commitment, which has enabled us to reach this first step towards an integrated, more efficient, and harmonised post-trade market in Europe. In particular, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the national communities, namely the national central banks, the securities depositories and their clients, for their involvement and cooperation. Moreover, I would like to thank the 4CB (composed of Banque de France, Deutsche Bundesbank, Banca d’Italia and Banco de España) for developing and now also running the T2S platform. Let me also acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the people at the ECB who coordinated the implementation of the project. In particular, I thank Jean-Michel Godeffroy, who steered the T2S ship through sometimes stormy waters for many years, and Marc Bayle, who brought the ship to a safe harbour on 22 June 2015. And a special thanks to Ms Tumpel-Gugerell, who was the ECB board member in charge during the project’s inception. A popular saying is that “Two heads are better than one”. From the very beginning T2S has managed to unite the efforts of both the private and the public sector. T2S was not initiated by the market, but owing to its post-trade harmonisation agenda it has evolved into a marketdriven initiative which is supported by the public sector. In many ways it has been a unique project. First of all, no one was forced to join the T2S Community.
If the weakness in finance sector productivity has been a result of households and firms paying down debt – a process which has now largely run its course – then you might  Chart 5: Frequency of mentions of  Chart 6: Sectoral contributions to the  “productivity” in the Inflation Report  slowdown in productivity growth  Mentions per million words  Percentage  ICT  4000  2.5  Prof. & scientific  3500  Finance  2.0  Manufacturing  1.5  3000  Other  2500  Total  1.0 0.5  2000  0.0  1500  -0.5  1000  -1.0  500  -1.5  0 1997  -2.0  2001  2005  2009  2013  2017  1997-07  2008-09  2010-17  Difference (2010-17 minus 199707)  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  5  expect to see an increasing contribution from finance in the coming years, and perhaps also spillovers to professional services and other complementary industries.4 This would help underpin the pickup in productivity growth that we are forecasting at the aggregate level. I am less confident, because I put more weight on the view that pre-crisis growth in finance sector productivity was simply unsustainable. Much of the apparent growth in finance sector productivity before the crisis reflected profits on the risky lending that led to the crisis itself.

And the MPC have instituted an annual “supply stocktake” to enable us to have a regular, full and in-depth discussion of the subject. Although we are uncertain about the pace of productivity growth, one thing that does seem likely is that it will remain lower for the foreseeable future than it was before the financial crisis. This judgement is embedded in our Inflation Report forecasts, where we now assume productivity growth of around 1%. This compares with around 2% before the crisis, but is still up on the 0.6% average rate since 2016. The slowdown in productivity growth has been broad-based across the sectors of the economy. But it has been particularly pronounced in finance and manufacturing, to the point where they account for more than half of the overall slowing (Chart 6).
SPEECH DATE:  5 March 2018  SPEAKER:  Governor of the Riksbank Stefan Ingves  VENUE:  Expert Group on Public Economics, Stockholm  SVERIGES RIKSBANK SE-103 37 Stockholm (Brunkebergstorg 11) Tel +46 8 787 00 00 Fax +46 8 21 05 31 registratorn@riksbank.se www.riksbank.se  Monetary policy in a new environment∗ This is a year of celebration for the Riksbank. The major event is our 350th anniversary as Sweden’s central bank, which will be celebrated in different ways during the year. Furthermore, it is 25 years since the Riksbank announced its inflation target, which was a milestone in Swedish monetary policy. It also happens to be 20 years almost to the day since the Swedish Riksdag took the decision to strengthen the Riksbank’s position and, as part of this work, to create a Riksbank Executive Board with the responsibility for conducting monetary policy independently. 1 As well as being a reason to celebrate, anniversaries can also give us cause to pause and reflect on what has been, where we are and where we are heading. My intention here today is to perform just such a positioning exercise. A general reflection is that monetary policy internationally and in Sweden finds itself in an environment that in many ways differs from the one we have been experiencing for a long time. It is not merely a question of changes in economic activity.

For around a quarter of a million households, debt is 6 times greater than income or higher. High indebtedness linked to rising housing prices As most of the debt consists of mortgages, the growing indebtedness reflects the development in housing prices. Prices of detached or semi-detached houses have tripled in the last 20 years, while prices of tenant-owned apartments have increased at an even faster rate. The rapid price increase depends on several factors, in addition to the low interest rate level. The population and income have increased, driving up housing demand while new housing construction has lagged behind, apart from in the most recent years. The abolition of property tax is also a  4 See the article "The repo rate in the long run” in the February 2017 Monetary Policy Report, Sveriges Riksbank. 5 [13]  factor that might explain the growing indebtedness, as is the fact that an increasing number of households own their own home. 5 The rate of increase in lending to households is still on a high level. The Riksbank’s assessment of future developments is that overall household debt will not rise at quite such a high rate as in recent years, due to more subdued housing price growth. But debt is still expected to increase more rapidly than disposable income. So the debt-to-income ratio will continue to rise.
The EU, for example, is putting pressure on Switzerland and the United States to adopt equivalent measures to those contained in the proposed EU directive on savings taxation. It has gone as far as to suggest that it could impose sanctions and even hold up negotiations in other areas if Switzerland remains opposed to a deal on the exchange of information on the savings of EU citizens with Swiss banks. This stance is quite credible given that Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg have a vested interest in this matter and have declared that they will only support the new package if Switzerland, the 23 United States and other third countries agree to apply equivalent measures. As a matter of fact, since this package is a tax-related measure it can only be adopted on the basis of unanimity, which means that it cannot be approved without the support of countries such as Luxembourg. From the perspective of the current debate in Malta, the ongoing negotiations between the EU Commission and Switzerland do more than raise questions about the durability of bank secrecy regimes. More relevantly they cast doubt on the assumption that third countries are able to protect their immunity from EU decisions simply by virtue of their status as non-members.

This strategy has delivered considerable results. The króna has been relatively stable since mid-2009 and has actually appreciated a bit in recent weeks, although it has slid somewhat in the past few days. At the same time, the Central Bank stepped down its sales of foreign currency in support of the króna and has not intervened in the FX market since early November. In part, this is due to the fact that the króna was already very weak, and the underlying trade surplus has since provided the króna with a stronger foundation. But one cannot ignore the most important explanation: with the changes to the capital controls that were announced in end-October/early November 2009, and the expansion of the Capital Controls Surveillance Unit staff, the controls are finally working as originally planned. Most important here is the fact that the link between the onshore and offshore markets for krónur has been largely disconnected. This also appears in a significant drop in inflation. In the first quarter of 2009, price levels excluding tax effects had risen by nearly 17% year-on-year. The corresponding figure for the first quarter of 2010, however, is just over 6%. In the absence of further shocks that weaken the króna once more, there is a very good chance that inflation excluding tax effects will be close to target by the end of the year. The Central Bank has cut interest rates substantially.