samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Willem F Duisenberg: Changing fortunes - financing world growth Speech by Dr Willem F Duisenberg, President of the European Central Bank, at the 2003 Spruce Meadows Round Table, Calgary, 5 September 2003. *  *  *  It is a great pleasure for me to be part of this round table discussion today and I would like to thank the organisers for inviting me to share some thoughts with you on the topic of financing world growth. Since 2000, we have witnessed terrorism, war and declines in world equity markets, all of which contributed to increasing an already ongoing deterioration in confidence in most countries. Now with the end of the major hostilities in Iraq, the reduction in geopolitical uncertainties and lower oil prices, a gradual upturn in world economic activity is expected and it is important that policy-makers do all they can to support it. Given the breadth of this topic and therefore the strong temptation to overrun on my time allocation, I will focus on just two points. First, I would like to say a few general words about the roles and, may I add, limitations of monetary and fiscal policy in reviving global demand, and the importance of microeconomic policies in this respect, in particular the role of structural reform in increasing potential growth. Second, with the help of regional-specific examples, I would like to present some future challenges with respect to microeconomic policies and structural reforms in the world.

Monetary and fiscal policy, and structural reform The achievement and maintenance of strong growth implies a perspective that extends beyond shorter-term cyclical developments. Indeed, over the medium term, economic growth tends to be negatively affected by the considerable costs associated with inflation, and the prospect of stable prices is therefore a key factor of growth. By being strictly geared towards maintaining price stability in a credible and lasting manner, monetary policy makes an important contribution to achieving a high level of output and employment, and to sustaining growth. Confidence in lasting price stability removes the inflation risk premium on interest rates, ensuring low real interest rates, which in turn foster investment, growth and employment. Theoretical and empirical evidence clearly confirm that there is no long-term trade off between price stability and economic growth. Trying to use monetary policy to fine-tune economic activity or to gear it above a sustainable level will, in the long run, simply lead to rising inflation - not to faster economic growth. Fiscal policy also plays a key role in contributing to macroeconomic stability. Stable, sustainable and efficient fiscal policies exert a favourable effect on long-term growth performance. They stimulate savings, capital formation, employment and innovation. And they facilitate the task of the monetary policy-maker in maintaining price stability. Sound public finances should rely on automatic stabilisers, rather than discretionary fine-tuning, to dampen the cyclical fluctuations of aggregate demand.
The total value of our external trade in goods and services in a year is equivalent to well over 250% of our gross domestic product (GDP). 4. Businessmen engaged in these externally oriented economic activities would I am sure be acutely conscious of the currency risk arising from the many international transactions that they enter into. They would obviously prefer clarity and predictability in the exchange rates of the domestic currency against those currencies to which their business is exposed. They would, I am sure, prefer fixed exchange rates over floating exchange rates, unless they are in the foreign exchange business in which case it is understandable that they would prefer the greater volatility that comes with floating exchange rates. It is of course an uneasy feeling that profits might be eroded, or for that matter enhanced, by volatile exchange rates. One simply cannot plan one’s business ahead properly with such volatility. Under the circumstances, prudent businessmen have no alternative but to hedge their currency exposures at considerable costs. It would clearly be beneficial for those conducting externally oriented business if currency risks could be eliminated by a fixed exchange rate system that has credibility. I believe this is why Europe has largely been operating with fixed exchange rates, the benefits of which are so clear that we shall soon see the unification of European currencies as the Euro comes into being. And I would be surprised if some of the Asian economies which floated their currencies recently are not regretting it.

Last year, the Mainland of China ran a trade surplus of $ billion, equivalent to 4.5% of GDP. Foreign direct investment amounted to $ billion. Its foreign reserves are the second highest in the world. Its foreign debt amounted to only about 14% of GDP and consisting of mostly long-term loans from official sources such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, and the debt service ratio at well below 10% of exports. The fiscal deficit in 1997 was small at below 1% of GDP and the monetization of such deficits is now prohibited. My contacts in Beijing have told me that even on the basis of very extreme assumptions with the amount of foreign direct investments and the growth rate of exports being halved in 1998, there will still be a balance of payments surplus. In the circumstances there really is no pressure to devalue the RMB. 17. The stability or otherwise of the RMB, understandably, would appear to some observers to have implications for the Hong Kong dollar’s link with the US dollar, particularly given the economic closeness between Hong Kong and the Mainland of China. But this does not necessarily mean that the Hong Kong dollar will need to move in sync with the RMB, in the highly unlikely event that the RMB is devalued. The Hong Kong dollar is linked to the US dollar and not to the RMB. The economic relationship has always been very close between Hong Kong and the Mainland of China.
Stefan Ingves: Inflation targeting – the Swedish framework and experiences Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai, 15 November 2006. *  *  *  Let me begin by thanking you for the invitation. The theme of my speech today is the Riksbank’s monetary policy strategy and our experiences of inflation targeting. As you may know, the Riksbank belongs to the group of central banks that has a specific inflation target. This is a group that has increased in number in recent years. This of course reflects the fact that, on the whole, experiences of monetary policy with an explicit inflation target have been good. So good, in fact, that this policy has become an interesting alternative even for already well-functioning economies. When Sweden changed over from a fixed exchange rate to inflation targeting and a floating exchange rate in 1993, the situation was entirely different. We were in the midst of a deep economic crisis, where a total reform of the entire stabilisation policy framework was necessary. Monetary policy based on inflation targeting was at that time a relatively new phenomenon and there was considerable uncertainty as to whether it would work in Sweden. For those of us who were around during the crisis years, it is particularly pleasing to see how well the Swedish economy has developed over the past ten years, compared with the previous two decades.

One of the purposes of this was to illustrate that it was not possible for monetary policy to maintain inflation at exactly two per cent all of the time. Changes in the policy rate, known as the repo rate in the Riksbank’s case, are a blunt instrument with regard to steering inflation in the short term. It takes time before interest rate changes have an effect and monetary policy must therefore be based on forecasts of the inflation rate a couple of years ahead. In addition, there is uncertainty over how the economy functions. It is therefore impossible to parry all shocks that affect the economy and temporary deviations from target will therefore arise. The tolerance interval also provides scope for temporary deviations from target that may be justified with reference to the stability of the real economy. Let us say that a shock occurs that makes inflation deviate from target. By not aiming to restore inflation to target as quickly as possible, scope is created to conduct monetary policy in such a way as to dampen fluctuations in, for instance, growth and employment. However, for the inflation target to retain its credibility, the deviations cannot be permitted to become very large or prolonged. To create greater clarity, monetary policy is guided by the principle that the Riksbank’s ambition is normally to bring inflation back on target within two years. One might say that this two-year horizon is a restriction that the Riksbank has placed upon itself to maintain credibility for the inflation target.
As soon as the global economy has recovered sufficiently, interest rates will rise again. With all the concern about negative interest it is important to remember that when inflation is negative, real interest rates are higher than nominal interest rates. This is the case in Switzerland at the moment. If inflation is lower than the nominal interest rate, the end result is still an increase in purchasing power, even if an investment is not earning a nominal return. In the past, the rate of inflation has often been higher than the nominal rate of interest. In other words, in terms of real returns, there have certainly been times when saving was even less worthwhile than it is now; times, in fact, when savings lost value in real terms. Concluding remarks Ladies and gentlemen, I come to my concluding remarks. As you will have gathered from my comments today, the international environment remains extremely challenging for the Swiss economy and the SNB’s monetary policy. Interest rates worldwide have been very low for a long time. The after-effects of the financial crisis persist and are hampering global economic developments. At the same time, the Swiss franc is significantly overvalued and presents major difficulties for our economy. Nevertheless, I will venture to make two forecasts. First, that our economy will overcome these challenges successfully. Second, that negative interest will not become the “new  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  normal”.

Ardian Fullani: Monetary policy, from the past to the present Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the 10th international conference on “Monetary policy, from the past to the present”, Tirana, 26 October 2012. *  *  *  H.E. Prime Minister, Your Excellencies Ambassadors, Honourable Minister of Finance, Honourable Governors, Distinguished Guests and Participants, I am very honoured and privileged to open the proceedings of the Tenth Conference of the Bank of Albania. This conference is particularly important this year as it is organised in the framework of activities for the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Albania’s Independence and the 20th anniversary of the Bank of Albania. While retaining the scientific approach, the conference pays tribute to the endeavours made over the years in the monetary and finance aspects. In Bank of Albania’s view, the past is an essential element for the analysis and decisionmaking, and a requisite for theoretic or empirical research. At present, this is a necessity, a challenge that the economics world is facing. To scan, diagnose and cure the situation of the economy, a successful scholar would have to be able to read the human thought. Unfortunately, such a doctor does not exist. Therefore, in our days, the economic science is turning its attention to individual characteristics such as: history, ethnography and other national traits, considering them as substantial determinants for the stochastic process that leads the behaviour of economic agents.
1  https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2019/victoria-cleland-national-inclusion-week-launch-event-at-house-of-lords https://files.londonandpartners.com/business/resources/london-fintech-scene-2017.pdf 3 https://www.innovatefinance.com/news/uk-fintech-investment-flying-high-in-h1-2019/ 4 https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/Summary-UK-Payment-Markets-2018.pdf 5 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/report/2019/future-of-finance 2  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  2  Today, I will focus on how the Bank will support a more resilient, innovative and competitive payments system for UK households and businesses: we have a vision that payments will become cheaper, instantaneous and more seamless, including across borders. At the heart of this is the UK’s Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service which settles around £ of payments each working day, close to a third of the UK’s annual GDP. Not much business can be done without it, and most consumers are ultimately reliant on it. I will tell you shortly about our leading-edge work to renew this service, but this is not all we are doing. We are also pursuing a number of even more far-reaching strands which together have the potential to transform the current payments landscape. I want to share a few of these with you today. First, cross border payment is for many a long standing frustration - often badged as slow; inefficient and expensive for both financial institutions and end users. In 2018 we published a summary of our joint collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Canada to explore opportunities to make cross-border payments more efficient. But we want to take this further and play a leading role in supporting effective change in this area.

We have started new work to understand what the frictions are and how we can work with our central banking colleagues globally to push forward this agenda, to deliver prompt settlement in different currencies and empower private innovations in cross-border finance. Second, we will continue to champion the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) as a globally recognised and unique identifier for all businesses. The global LEI system contributes to many financial stability objectives such as improved risk management in firms, better assessment of micro and macro prudential risks, facilitation of orderly resolution, and enables higher quality and accuracy of financial data overall. In addition to financial stability benefits, LEIs provide valuable data and support anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism efforts. They could, if linked to portable credit files, improve access to the domestic and global financial system, support greater choice and competition for business finance. The LEI could also act as the unique identifier for a digital ID, which could help the two-step verification process required for a more secure system.
and which are available in TARGET 2, become available either as a participant or as an eligible party (ie through another payment service provider that is a participant) and in the Instant Payment Service (TIPS) in TARGET 2. The service provides the possibility of settlement in other currencies and is expected to make immediate payments in Swedish kroons in 2022 in TIPS. Part of the package of documents related to digital financial services published by the European Commission is a proposal for a Regulation on the operational sustainability of digital technologies, which contains requirements for risk management related to information and communication technologies in the financial sector, a proposal for a Regulation on cryptocurrency markets; and a proposal for a Regulation on a Pilot Regulation of Market Infrastructures Based on Distributed Registry Technology (DLT). The future development of regulations in the field of payment services is undoubtedly interesting and dynamic, but no less interesting and dynamic is the development in the current use of payment services in Bulgaria. The data for 2019 published by the ECB in September 2020, according to Regulation (EU) № 1409/2013 of the ECB on payment statistics, based on the information collected by the BNB for another year report a significant growth of payment services in Bulgaria. In this regard, some indicators can be highlighted, such as an increase in the number of electronically initiated credit transfers by 17%, an increase in the number of card payments made by 25% and others.

Policy rules, especially those with fixed values for r*, cannot capture all of the information that is relevant for policymaking. In particular, such rules do not capture the fact that the linkage between the federal funds rate and both financial markets and global conditions can be very loose and shift over time. This is a critical shortcoming because this looseness affects the stability of the relationship between monetary policy and economic outcomes. If the relationship between monetary policy, financial conditions and the real economy were tight and stable over time, then following a relatively simple and unchanging policy rule would likely generate acceptable results. However, if the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy is more variable and uncertain, as I believe it is, then monetary policy cannot be put on autopilot guided only by a fixed policy rule. As an example, one significant conundrum in financial markets currently is the recent decline of forward short-term rates at long time horizons to extremely low levels – for example, the 1-year nominal rate, 9 years forward is about 3 percent currently. My staff’s analysis attributes this decline almost entirely to lower term premia. In this case, the fact that market participants have set forward rates so low has presumably led to a more accommodative set of financial market conditions, such as the level of bond yields and the equity market’s valuation, that are more supportive to economic growth.
Irma Rosenberg: Monetary policy and the conditions for growth Speech by Ms Irma Rosenberg, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at an economics conference, Klippan (in the south of Sweden), 1 November 2004. *  *  *  Let me begin by thanking you for the invitation to come here and speak. The subject for this year’s conference is growth. This is a subject close to the hearts of economists and one that often crops up in debate. What factors determine economic growth in the long term, and what can be done to increase it? I intend to approach this question from a central bank perspective. Is it possible, for instance, for the Riksbank to use monetary policy to raise the level of long-term growth? Are there means of affecting growth? Long-term, or potential, growth is a many-faceted concept and I intend to begin by speaking about the prevailing theory with regard to links to monetary policy. I shall then go into more detail on the underlying determining factors behind the long-term growth rate and briefly describe trends in recent years. I shall also speculate on possible future developments and what can be done to improve long-term growth prospects. Long-term growth and monetary policy Let us start with Figure 1, where the blue line shows developments in real GDP in Sweden during the period 1950 to 2003. One can see that there has been a clear trend increase during these years.

The latest estimates predict a significant increase in public expenditure on pensions, health-care and long-term care stemming from the substantial rise in the dependency ratio. Even on the most optimistic demographic projections, this ratio is set to rise from 25% today to 50% by mid-century. In the case of the pension system, the 2011 and 2013 reforms included a number of adjustments that made it possible to significantly counteract the effect of the expected longterm increase in the dependency ratio. Nevertheless, the latest legislative developments have eased the implementation of these mechanisms with the postponement in application 11/14  of the sustainability factor until 2023 and, above all, the return to a system of annual pension increases in line with the consumer price index. According to the Banco de España's calculations, reintroducing this indexing system on a permanent basis would lead to an additional spending increment of more than 3 pp of GDP in 2050. Consequently, guaranteeing the financial sustainability of the public pension system will require additional measures on the revenue or expenditure sides of the system to offset this additional burden. Pending structural reforms In the context just described, characterised by the need to pass the baton to demand-side policies to underpin the current expansionary phase and boost growth potential, it would be particularly desirable to give more prominence to measures to correct the Spanish economy’s structural vulnerabilities and strengthen its capacity to adapt to future shocks.
In Norway, the Banks' Standardisation Office establishes the standards for payment services. The Banks' Payment and Central Clearing House (BBS) and EDB Fellesdata produce most of the payment services in Norway. In some areas, the two companies produce different kinds of services, while in other areas, they compete in the same market. This solution exploits economies of scale in the development and production of payment services. 6  BIS Review 66/2002  Reduction of risk in the payment systems Risks in payment systems have received increased attention in the 1990s, both internationally and here in Norway. An average of NOK 160-170 billion is settled in Norges Bank’s Settlement System every day. In addition, a number of banks settle transactions in Union Bank of Norway and Den norske Bank. If a bank is incapable of timely settlement, the settlement systems may be a source of financial instability. The settlement systems may also contribute to spreading liquidity and solvency problems. The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has established 10 core principles with which all systemically important settlement systems must comply in order to limit risk in the payment system. Norges Bank's assessments indicate that all the important bank-operated settlement systems in Norway that have been authorised, i.e. the systems operated by Union Bank of Norway, Den norske Bank, NICS (Norwegian Interbank Clearing System) satisfy these 10 core principles. 10.

BIS Review 66/2002  7  Despite these positive results, Norges Bank has decided to modernise the current settlement system because the existing system is complicated and tightly interwoven with other systems. This makes the settlement system vulnerable. Operation and maintenance of the current system also require relatively extensive resources. Following discussions with the banking industry about the division of responsibility and organisation of the Norwegian clearing and settlement system, it has been decided that the current division of responsibility will remain virtually unchanged. Banks will be responsible for gathering transactions and for netting and Norges Bank will be responsible for settlement. Norges Bank has decided to outsource the operational activities of settlement. We are currently preparing an invitation to tender for prospective partners. We will devote considerable attention to these issues in the future. We assume that we will have a definite plan for the site of our settlement operations by summer 2003, with implementation next autumn. International recommendations and work The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has established a separate Working Group on Retail Payment Systems. In September this year, the working group submitted a report on “Policy issues for central banks in retail payments”. 11.