samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
18  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  18  The Bank introduced last year “Knowledge Bank”. This is largely intended as an educational device, covering how the economy works and how central bank policies may be affecting it. It contains cartoons and videos as well as prose. It is targeted, explicitly, at younger age cohorts. Its reading score of 8 means it is capable of reaching almost half of the UK adult population. The Bank, in common with many other central banks, is making greater use of social media. As a two-way personalised, socialised, distributed communications medium, with high penetration among the young, it has real attractions. The Bank has a Twitter account with over 200,000 followers. Individuals do not have Twitter accounts and nor does the Bank have a cohort of Bloggers and Vloggers providing daily diaries of time spent at the central bank coalface. But it is early days. These are examples of layered and targeted content, the like of which a number of other central banks, including the Federal Reserve System, are investing. The Bank’s existing publications are now more flexible and layered in their length and content, potentially making them accessible to a wider audience (Chart 18). But this is clearly just the start. I shall resist the temptation to say it is going to be great. (b) Minding your Language  The changing nature of public language means central banks will need to adapt their own language to increase its penetration and reach with the general public.

In other words, during the course of the th  20 century central banks came to be seen as an essential building block of the nation state. 9  th  Accompanying this rise in the number of central banks through the 20 century was a rise, albeit not a straight line rise, in their stock of responsibilities. Prominent among these was responsibility for setting monetary policy. Latterly, this has gone by the name central bank operational “independence”. Even the word “independence” needs careful interpretation. As international practice has shown, there are various shades of independence, depending on who sets the objectives and instruments of monetary policy and how policy decision-makers are appointed and held to account. Indeed, there is now a small cottage industry measuring these various dimensions of central bank independence. 10  Nevertheless, on most metrics central bank independence in the setting of monetary policy has risen secularly and sharply over the past few decades. Until the 1980s, the number of recognisably “independent” central banks was relatively modest. On one often-used measure, as recently as 1981 there were still fewer than 50 independent central banks globally. 11  In the period since, the fraction of central banks with operational independence in the setting of monetary policy has sky-rocketed, rising from around a half in the 1980s to around 85% today (Chart 2). In a generation, operational independence has gone from nice-to-have to have-to-have. It has become an international norm, a statement of best institutional practice.
Without any doubt, the distinguished economists and practitioners who have actively taken part in this conference have been its most valuable asset. * Turning to the rapid credit growth that has been observed in CEE economies over the past years, the first question that comes to an economist’s mind is the following: do these developments pose a threat to the macroeconomic stability of the countries of interest? In order to answer that question, one has to ask another: what forces have been the decisive factors behind the rapid credit expansion? Several papers presented at this conference have sought to provide answers to these questions. One approach, followed by the papers 1 presented in the first session, has been to estimate the equilibrium rate of credit growth and check whether the actual growth has been below or above that equilibrium path. The decomposition of credit growth into a convergence and a boom component has shown that for most of the CEE economies, the former component has been dominant, i.e. the rapid credit expansion can to a large extent be attributed to a continuous improvement in the macroeconomic fundamentals and the initial low credit volume in these countries.

These conclusions reinforce the findings of the papers presented in Session 1, which I have discussed before, that the Baltic states and the South-East European economies have probably already reached or even overshot the equilibrium level of credit to GDP. The paper prepared by IMF economists, in turn, addresses the issue of sustainability by focusing on capital flows. Within a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, it analyses the short- and mid-term risks arising from the opening up to capital flows and alleviating of credit constraints for the case of a small converging economy. Both papers prepared by economists from international financial institutions and presented in Session 6 offer recommendations for policymakers in such economies, which can reduce vulnerabilities and risks in the face of rapid credit growth. Under such circumstances, it is crucial that macroeconomic policies do not add to the existing demand pressures – tightening fiscal policies is often a must-do – and that steps are taken to strengthen the health of the financial system. This can be achieved by tightening regulatory measures, raising prudential standards and enhancing supervisory coordination and cooperation, as well as by supporting a better understanding of financial risks by the general public, e.g. by means of public awareness campaigns.
Access to foreign credit is a prerequisite for export-driven growth. Moreover, deterioration in the banks’ position would adversely affect terms in the domestic credit market. Lending rates could rise and deposit rates could decline, impeding investment and delaying economic recovery. As soon as confidence in the Treasury and the financial system erodes, Iceland’s currency will suffer as well. In that instance, we would not be able to lift the capital controls as planned, after the Third Review of the IMF programme. Furthermore, the financial system would be poorly equipped to tolerate possible instability associated with capital account liberalisation. Finally, it is appropriate to bear in mind that financial undertakings’ scope to meet the needs of other individuals and firms would be drastically reduced. All of these factors show how vital it is to the public interest that the Central Bank and the Financial Supervisory Authority set forth general guidelines so as to maintain stability while matters of legal uncertainty are being settled. Other authorities and the legislature must also assess whether further measures must be adopted in order to remove all doubt. Ensuring stability is in our hands – all of our hands. We hope and expect that all parties will work together to achieve that goal. 2  BIS Review 91/2010

We aim to protect the system, not to keep in being unviable banking capacity …...” And, paraphrasing Mervyn King in 2007: “if the [authorities] underwrite any [risk] that threatens to damage the economy as a whole, it encourages the view that as long as a bank takes the same sort of risks that other banks are taking then it is more likely that their problems will be insured ex post.” Extrapolating, common principles for LOLR, MMLR and COLR might include that the terms must help prevent and contain crises; not incentivise imprudent behaviour; be timeconsistent, which is to say that they must be credible; and lead to an exit strategy. Elsewhere in the repertoire, we are clear, for example, that the costs of LOLR should fall to shareholders; and that the costs of deposit insurance should be recovered by levies on the banking sector as a whole. Building on that, one possible way through the COLR maze might conceivably be to establish, over the medium term, a regime where the eventual cost of any COLR would in some way be allocated back to the banking system itself rather than to the general taxpayer. If it is unavoidable that, instead of allowing banks to fail, the banking system occasionally needs to be rescued through injections of equity capital, “insurance” is in effect being extended to ordinary creditors generally and not just to retail depositors. The funding of that insurance would, perhaps, be extended in a similar fashion.
In the future, given the uncertainties associated with the impact of the crisis on firms’ and households’ credit quality and with the repercussions of gradually withdrawing the support measures, we must be alert to indications of latent credit risk and ensure an appropriate and timely coverage of such risk, in keeping with supervisory guidance. Ensuring suitable 14  risk coverage, while maintaining a flexible prudential approach, may make it easier to prevent any undue contraction in credit that could hamper growth in the new phase of economic recovery that we are entering. The impact of the pandemic has exacerbated some of the pre-existing structural challenges faced by the banking sector. These notably include the challenges associated with the cost of capital exceeding profitability, digitalisation and climate risk management. To address them, it is essential that banks continue to make efficiency gains, by cutting costs and making intensive more use of new technologies. To afford the European banking sector a greater chance of success in adapting to the longterm challenges, it would be highly desirable for the European Union to fully adopt the Basel III accord, complete the Banking Union and further develop the Capital Markets Union. This would enable the European banking sector to explore the synergies and benefits of diversification associated with potential consolidation processes at continental level. Thank you. 15

However, the market asks for more certainty and it may be that this must ultimately be provided in the form of a regulation. I would strongly urge the appropriate authorities to work on this issue so that the clarity needed at the European level can be provided. An additional European card scheme – which is as safe and efficient as the best performing schemes today – is a necessary element of an integrated and competitive cards market. New Year’s resolution number four: let’s innovate Europe is still a patchwork of national online markets, and Europeans are prevented from enjoying the benefits of a single digital market. Traditional payment instruments still dominate payments for e-commerce. However, they were not designed to cope with the needs of the online world and often cannot be used for cross-border transactions. Among these payment instruments, cash on delivery, credit transfers upon receipt of an invoice and the provision of card credentials to merchants play an important role. In all but a few countries, card transactions based on secure payment protocols and e-payments based on online banking are still in the minority or are only used for domestic transactions. We have to ensure that Europe does not lose any more ground in e-commerce, compared with the United States and emerging online markets. Therefore, there is a clear need for efficient, low cost, secure and readily available online payment solutions throughout Europe – and ideally beyond.
MAS is drafting separate rules to allow for venture capital investments by banks, and will consult them on these guidelines soon. The local banks have significant property holdings. This is partly because over the years the banks have grown together with the property business of their principal shareholders, and also because property has been seen as a good and safe investment in Singapore. Some of these property holdings were acquired many years ago, and have been kept on the banks’ books at book values which are well below their present market values. This has provided a comfortable cushion of reserves for the banks against uncertainties. But it has also failed to reflect the true cost of holding these properties and therefore reduced the pressure on the banks to optimise returns on assets. Property assets that earn competitive returns have their place as one component of the investment portfolio of the local banks. MAS will therefore allow the banks to hold properties, solely for investment purposes, and subject to a limit aimed at preventing excessive risk concentration. How much property a bank actually holds within these prudential limits is for its management and shareholders to decide. However, banks should not be engaged in developing or managing hotels or other properties, whether directly or through companies they control. Banks are not property companies. MAS will therefore require banks to divest all properties held for development, and shareholdings in property development companies beyond the portfolio investment limits.

MAS recognises that the insurance funds are different in nature from the equity of the company or the group because they belong to the policyholders and not the shareholders. Therefore in principle investments using the insurance fund should be treated separately from the investments of the company and the group. Nevertheless the insurance fund should also be used only for portfolio investments, and not for the purpose of controlling other companies in the group, especially nonfinancial companies, whether by itself or together with other investments by the group. Currently, some banking groups have used these insurance funds as the vehicle for owning and controlling their investee companies. For example, the bank itself may own only 5% of an investee company, but the insurance fund of the insurance company may own another 15%, giving a total stake of 20%. This is not satisfactory, because it presents the same problems of contagion, non-transparency and dilution of management focus as the bank itself investing directly in these companies. BIS Review 53/2000  6  MAS will study the appropriate investment limits of insurance funds for both bank-related and independent insurers. The limits set should protect the interests of policyholders through adequate diversification, and ensure that the investments do not amount to controlling stakes. These measures will be developed in consultation with the industry, and are expected to be finalised by the end of the year.
By improving the quality of relative price signals, our price stability-orientated monetary policy makes it easier for policy makers and European citizens to identify the areas in which structural reforms are most needed. Beyond safeguarding price stability,  3  Today, the services sector accounts for 70% of GDP, 68% of employment and 96% of the new jobs created, but only 20% of intra-EU trade. This discrepancy reflects not only the fact that services often have an intrinsically local character, but also the many barriers and obstacles still hindering the free movement of services within the European Union. 4  See P. Hartmann, F. Heider, E. Papaioannou and M. Lo Duca (2007), “The role of financial markets and innovation in productivity and growth in Europe”, ECB Occasional Paper Series, September, as well as ECB (2007) “Financial integration in Europe”, Frankfurt a.M: ECB. BIS Review 31/2008  3  there is nothing monetary policy can do to foster the growth and employment potential of our economies. The only modest contribution a central bank can make to structural reforms is to assess their impact, and communicate in a balanced manner and through different channels and fora its views on the expected effects of reforms to the public, thereby helping to build a constituency supporting reform packages. •  As to fiscal policy, let me first stress that I have doubts on the possibility to make a deficit limit contingent on the implementation of structural reforms by national governments.

And we expect subsidiaries to be capable of accreting a portion of their own capital, rather than being fully dependent on a drip-feed of capital from the parent, as this creates poor incentives and can become problematic if the parent gets into trouble. We expect high standards of governance (including clear accountability for the management of local entities via the new Senior Manager’s Regime) and risk management, consistent with these firms’ importance to the financial system. At this juncture we have chosen not to apply either domestic system wide stress tests or local capital buffers to reflect the systemic importance domestically of these institutions. We instead seek to develop close dialogue and greater information sharing with the home regulator on the stress exposures they see for the group as a whole, and to allow us to judge how these will affect the UK entity. All this is cooperation. But what about the risk that this coordination and insight might disappear, particularly in the event of stress? How do we create committed cooperation? In that event, the ability to set internal TLAC is key. By turning debt into equity in the event of stress, internal TLAC gives host supervisors the ability to upstream losses in bad states of the world and so creates a binding commitment to downstream capital from the group when it is needed. Together with supervisory cooperation internal TLAC ensures the home regulator is fully sighted on and committed to act to mitigate financial stability risks inside the host country.
In 2004, however, the krona did not appreciate to the same extent, but prices of imported goods continued to drop. To some extent this may reflect a lag in the pass-through of the krona’s appreciation but price developments for consumer goods in international markets have also been subdued during the recent economic slowdown. The weak imported inflation is also due in some measure to the fact that we have continually increased our share of imports from low-cost countries such as China and Poland. According to a first preliminary estimate by the Bank, this import switch to cheaper countries in general may have contributed to reducing the prices paid by Swedish importers by a couple of percentage points in 2004. This estimate is uncertain since in most cases there is no data available for how different trading-partner countries‘ export prices to individual recipient countries evolve, only their average export price. Nor is there data for our total imports from non-EU countries because all imports from these countries that reach Sweden via another EU country are registered in the statistics as imports from the EU. As a result, it is likely that this estimate does not measure the right price and probably underestimates the low-cost countries’ share of our total imports. So the effect of this import switch is probably somewhat understated. In the measure we currently use for international prices in our forecasting the concentration of low-cost countries is slightly smaller than that used in this estimate.

the competition situation both abroad and in the home market and developments in costs and profit margins for both producers and distributors. To better understand why inflation is so low, the next step is to analyse the various stages from the production or importing of goods until the goods are put up for sale to consumers in shops. Allow me to begin by looking at developments in the producer prices of domestic goods and in the prices of imported goods at customs, i.e. the prices paid by wholesalers in the distribution sector. I will then analyse how the path through the distribution sector can be thought to affect the final price of the goods that customers buy in shops, i.e. the price in the CPI. Producer prices of domestically produced goods The rate of increase for producer prices of domestically produced consumer goods has been very low since the beginning of 2003 but has risen weakly from 0.5 per cent to about 1 per cent in February this year (Chart 4). The main driver of a company’s production costs, and thereby the price of its products, is the costs of intermediate goods and labour costs. Intermediate goods costs in manufacturing dropped in 2002 and 2003, after which they increased by 2.3 per cent in 2004 according to the National Institute of Economic Research’s estimates (Chart 5). Product prices have by and large followed the cost developments for intermediate goods, even though changes in the costs of intermediate goods do not feed through fully to product prices.
Before Turner, landscapes were generally viewed as subjects unworthy in their own right; their role was merely to provide backdrop to the real action. Turner elevated the genre by showing how paint could not only convey the appearance of a place but also capture something of its spirit. Turner also used art to hold a mirror to the technological and social transformations happening around him. Masterpieces such as Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway captured the advent of the steam age. The Slave Ship reflected on the moral preoccupations of his times. The artistic developments that Turner pioneered resonated well beyond his lifetime, providing inspiration to the Impressionists and leading Mark Rothko to joke “This man Turner, he learnt a lot from me”. A  contemporary reviewer may have put it best when he placed Turner among ‘the masters whose day is not so much of to-day, as of “all times”’.1 Indeed, Turner’s legacy endures today through his influence on art for over two centuries, to the prize that bears his name to celebrate British contemporary art, to this magnificent gallery, the Turner Contemporary. Soon Turner’s work will feature on another 2 billion works of art – the new £ notes from the Bank of England. 1  The Champion, Newspaper Article, published 7 May 1815. 2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  2  Banknote design The new £ note celebrates Turner, his art and his legacy in all their radiant, colourful glory.

A small purple foil on the reverse side of the note echoes the spiral staircase at Tate Britain, which holds most of the Turner Bequest in the Clore Gallery. The main foil of the note contains an image of Turner Contemporary in blue. And the shape of the window around the foil is based on the Trafalgar Fountains, which are an iconic feature in the square outside The National Gallery where The Fighting Temeraire hangs. The purpose of design features like these is not simply to make the banknotes beautiful but also to strengthen their security. The new £ will be our most secure note yet, featuring several innovative elements. For example, rather than having a single foil element – the Turner Contemporary in blue – there is an additional foil in a second colour: the Margate Lighthouse in gold. And there is a second transparent element in the bottom corner of the note, inspired by the windows of Tintern Abbey, which was a popular tourist spot in Turner’s times and which he memorialised in another of his great watercolours in 1794. These security features are made possible by printing the new £ on polymer, rather than paper. Polymer banknotes also remain in good condition for longer, meaning the new £ will be safer, cleaner and stronger. 2  The self-portrait is currently on display in Tate Britain, and The Fighting Temeraire can been seen in The National Gallery. P. Ackroyd, Turner (Vintage, 2006) page 136. 4 See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4214824.stm.