samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In the area of foreign exchange, there would no longer be a need to provide marketmaking facilities once the euro becomes our domestic currency, or to retain the current foreign exchange facilities offered to government at their existing level. Our reserve management role, however, would remain; not only to manage our own reserves, but also to manage part of the ECB’s portfolio. Likewise, the Bank would retain its function as issuer of notes and coins and would thus have to meet the local demand for euro. It would also need to analyse suspected counterfeit euro notes and coins. Particularly important will be the Bank’s role in providing a channel for both domestic and cross border, high value payments by linking our payment system with the Eurosystem’s TARGET, as well as in operating a mechanism for the cross border delivery of assets for collateralisation purposes. The adoption of the euro will also integrate further Malta’s financial system with that of the euro area, so that the Bank’s financial stability and internal audit responsibilities will assume a cross border dimension because weaknesses in any one Member State could impact directly on the stability of the entire system. For example, we will have to cooperate closely with other central banks and the ECB to prevent the emergence of systemic crises. This will involve strengthening our institutional and analytical capacities to detect potential vulnerabilities in our own financial system.

For example, a higher deficit means an increase in the public debt of equal amount, and thus more annual interest to be paid out of recurrent revenue. Besides, for the reasons I gave earlier, a higher deficit translates into a wider trade gap (by an estimated Lm7.5 million in the above example). Proponents of more government spending should also bear in mind that even in the absence of the euro adoption factor, Malta would still have to abide by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). You might recall that even the British Government, which has no immediate plans to adopt the euro, was called to order by the EU Council some time ago because of its growing budget deficit. Then again, sound public finances are fundamentally a matter of economic common sense and prudence. So much so that in recent years there have been repeated calls on the government from all quarters to reduce the deficit and the public debt. Is it not strange, therefore, that just when headway is finally being made in this very direction, we hear calls for a reversal of this policy and for engineering what would at best be a short-term boost to growth? One should also bear in mind that Malta’s main challenge is to become more internationally competitive. In this respect, an increased fiscal deficit will not solve anything. Malta needs quality growth, preferably resulting from foreign direct investment, which brings with it capital, technology and markets.
We believe that preemptive and effective policy measures would help us to mitigate those challenges and guide our economy and the financial sector in the right direction and ultimately achieve the price, economic and financial system stability to create a conducive enabling environment to improve the living standards of our people. We stand ready to pursue policies and introduce any course corrections if they become necessary in today’s volatile and uncertain world. Before I conclude, it is my solemn duty and responsibility to convey my deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to several individuals and parties who constantly supported the efforts of the Central Bank. First and foremost, I am extremely grateful to His Excellency the President and the Honourable Prime 41  Minister for their leadership and guidance. I would also like to thank Honourable Minister of Finance for his support, especially to strengthen the independence of the Central Bank while ensuring the close coordination between the Ministry and the Central Bank. Further, I owe a special debt of gratitude for the ample support and fruitful discussions and inputs from the Members of the Monetary Board of the Central Bank. My sincere appreciation goes to Secretaries to the Treasury who served as ex-officio members of the Monetary Board during 2018. I am also grateful to Mrs. Manohari Ramanathan, Mr. Chrisantha Perera and Mr. Nihal Fonseka whose unstinting support, as members of the Monetary Board, was extremely invaluable and substantive.

Platforms such as this contribute to the rich marketplace of ideas that will spur us to think of innovative policies and effective ways to implement them. Tackling the issue of affordable housing requires us to be creative, proactive and holistic in our solutions. This will require collaboration and commitment from all parties involved; policymakers, the private sector, developers and the public at large. It will not be easy, but it is necessary for us to build a better future not just for our families, but for our future generations. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
I have already spoken about the general prerequisites needed for a financial market to flourish. Within the scope defined by the operating conditions mentioned, market players are basically responsible themselves for what they do or don’t do. Their prime concern is to stay solvent at all times by adopting sound business practices and putting an effective organisation in place. To prevent problems from occurring, the responsible bodies at the individual banks must be able at all times, and with a minimum of delay, to accurately assess their risk situation and to take rapid and appropriate action. Of course, it is never possible to rule out the possibility of an individual bank running into difficulties. In such cases, a solution must first be sought through the market. Solidarity among the other market players should provide a “first line of defence”. Seeking funds from the central bank can only be contemplated in the last instance - hence the expression “lender of last resort”. Obtaining credit from the central bank presupposes that the liquidity requirements are only temporary. If the solvency of a BIS Review 26/1998  -4bank is in peril because of a threat to its capital, the problem is a matter for the supervisory authorities and possibly for the state itself. In practice, the boundary between liquidity and solvency problems can be a fluid one. In my view, it is important for everyone involved not to lose sight of these principles which are in fact quite simple.

The last BIS Review 26/1998  -2of these factors - the general welfare of the population - is dependent precisely on the creation of the appropriate economic framework I mentioned earlier. I should add that this task can only be accomplished if a sufficient number of citizens actively help in shaping developments. This is especially the case in the sphere of fiscal policy. In the wake of extremely dynamic growth, public budgets have grown considerably in all developed countries over the past few decades. While the original purpose of this spending was to meet a pressing and legitimate need such as in the area of social security - there has been a growing disparity between the claims made on the public purse and the willingness to generate the necessary resources. Today, we have reached a point where this trend needs to be reversed. However, neither rules and regulations nor government ordinances can achieve this alone. Instead, we have to take small but persistent steps to rectify the situation both from the spending and the revenues side, and - not least of all - to improve productivity. Because such ongoing measures need the backing of the community, the chances of success tend to be greater in smaller communities than in larger ones. Our experience suggests that a federally structured society based on direct democracy is well suited to achieving the interaction between economic and political stability I have just outlined.
John C Williams: The economic outlook - the “new normal” is now Remarks by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at The Economic Club of New York, New York City, 6 March 2019. * * * As prepared for delivery Thank you for the kind introduction. It’s a great pleasure to be here today and a huge honor to be joining the board of the Economic Club of New York. This institution has been an essential forum for debate for many decades, and I sincerely hope today will be no exception. I’m going to start with a spoiler: At a certain point during this speech I will talk about interest rates. I imagine that if I don’t, you’ll feel you’ve been shortchanged. So before I get going, I’ll give the usual Fed disclaimer that the views I express are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Open Market Committee or anyone else in the Federal Reserve System. R-star Now that’s out of the way, I want to take you back a long time ago, to a galaxy far, far away.

In everything that we do, we need to consider all the information, and exercise data dependence and flexibility, as we navigate the course ahead. 1 See John C. Williams, Interest Rates and the ‘New Normal’, Remarks to the Community Banking in the 21st  Century Research and Policy Conference, St. Louis, Missouri (October 5, 2017), and Kathryn Holston, Thomas Laubach, and John C. Williams, Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest: International Trends and Determinants, 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  Journal of International Economics, Volume 108, Supplement 1, pp. S59–S75 (May 2017). 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches
The appreciation of the Singapore Dollar led to a negative foreign exchange translation effect of $ billion. The Singapore Dollar strengthened 4% against the Pound Sterling, 5% against the Euro, and 9% against the Japanese Yen. Total expenditure increased to $ billion, due mainly to higher interest expenses on domestic money market operations. CONCLUSION In conclusion, let me return to where I started – inflation. The current bout of inflation will eventually end. Question is: how long will it take and how much will the economy have to slow down. Taming inflation is like trying to slow down a speeding car on a gentle slope. It takes a combination of forcefulness and calibration. If you do not depress the brakes early enough or hard enough, you cannot break the speed momentum – likewise, monetary policy needs to act early and decisively. But if you jam the brakes too hard, the car may skid or even topple over – the economy may go into a recession. So you have to pump the brakes progressively, to gradually slow down the car to a more sustainable cruising speed. This is why central banks all over the world tighten monetary policy in a series of well calibrated steps and closely monitor the impact of their actions before deciding on the next step. And that is exactly what MAS too is doing. Which is why we are not going to say anything about what we might or might not do in October!

By the middle of the 19th century, aggregate real wages were rising in the US and UK. Yet despite increased demand for their services, unskilled workers do not seem to have shared in this pay rise. Higher demand for their services was more than matched by increased supply, both from child labour and from displaced artisans as they moved down the skill spectrum (Clark (2010)). As a result, their pay appears to have flat-lined. At the high-skill end, the supply of workers was also increasing as some workers skilled-up (Clark (2010), Wallis (2014)). Despite that, there is evidence the skill premium for clerks and other professionals rose through the 19th century. The net effect of these complex shifts was thus to widen the distribution of wages between skilled and unskilled workers (Katz and Margo (2013)). Income inequality rose. The pattern of labour’s share of the national income is also interesting. This appears to have fallen in the first part of the 19th century (Allen (2009)), as Chart 21 illustrates. Workers do not appear to have enjoyed the early fruits of the Industrial Revolution. That perhaps explains why David Ricardo entered the fray at this time. In the event, these concerns proved ephemeral. With a lag, the rising tide of productivity and incomes lifted all boats, whatever their level of skill. Inequalities in wages started shrinking and labour’s share of income began to rise, returning to their levels at the end of the 18th century.
What I had in mind was the period from 2011 and a few years onwards when inflation in Sweden was unexpectedly low and periodically below the inflation target by quite a wide margin. Once inflation had undershot the target for a while, long-term inflation expectations also began to fall. In addition, there were signals from the labour market parties that the inflation target was no longer a given starting-point in wage negotiations. In other words, a risk began to arise that confidence in the inflation target would weaken to such an extent that the target would no longer function as an anchor for price-setting and wage formation. As is well known, we eventually managed to reverse the development and bring up inflation to the target again, but it took a long time and required a very expansionary policy, as well as a slice of good fortune. An important reason for inflation being so low for so long was the debt crisis in Europe which hit after the financial crisis and which most analysts had not seen coming, at least not with so much force and so soon. It slowed down the recovery that had begun and caused economic activity to deteriorate again, dragging down inflation in the process. The Riksbank underestimated the inflation effects, but we were far from alone in doing so.

Even though our inflation forecasts are in line with the target, but we act and communicate in a way that can make it unclear how important we consider the inflation target to be – and in the worst case do this on repeated occasions – economic agents will sooner or later start to doubt our intentions. If such doubt takes hold, inflation expectations in the economy may start to fall. Economic agents may start to expect lower inflation than 2 per cent even in the long term, and ultimately also begin to incorporate this into their economic decisions. In this case, a self-reinforcing process arises leading to average inflation “getting stuck” at too low a level. But would this really be so problematic? Yes, I think it would be. That I am such a committed advocate of the inflation target is not about me considering the 2-percent target to be “holy”, just for the sake of it. It is about it not only being important from an economic perspective that inflation does not rise too high, but also that it does not fall too low. I have often discussed the arguments for this, but they are worth repeating. There are above all two aspects that I think make it important to maintain confidence in the inflation target of 2 per cent and which indicate that the target should not be lower. One is that, when average inflation is too low, it becomes more difficult for wage formation to distribute the resources in the economy efficiently.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Singapore’s dynamically changing landscape Speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the opening of One Raffles Place Tower Two, Singapore, 18 September 2012. *  *  *  Wee Ee Cheong, Chairman, OUB Centre Limited, Mr Henry Kok, General Manager, OUB Centre Limited, Distinguished guests, Good evening. It is my pleasure to be invited to officiate the opening of a new twin skyscraper in Raffles Place – One Raffles Place Tower Two. It is part of the continuing rejuvenation of the cityscape at Raffles Place, which continues to be at the heart of businesses and commerce in Singapore. Raffles Place – a continuing history of new blended in old Raffles Place has indeed been a continuous story of the new inserted in the old, as it emerged from being a humble docking location for small boats and ships in the early 1800s, to become a thriving centre of regional commerce and now a global business and financial centre. On 8th August 1988, OUB Centre, now called One Raffles Place Tower One, was opened by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who was then Prime Minister. He had noted the building’s quality design and distinctive workmanship. It was also an icon for Singapore at the time, as the building went on to be recognised as the tallest building in the world outside of the United States. Designed by Kenzo Tange, One Raffles Tower One still remains amongst the tallest three skyscrapers in Singapore.

However, the number of new work permits has not increased year-on-year over the past quarter. More labour has been imported to meet the labour requirement on aluminium and power sector projects, but it has increased in other sectors as well. Private sector wage settlements agreed in the first half of 2004 were broadly uniform and their cost effect more or less consistent with the inflation target. The settlements are in force for four years but may be renegotiated at the end of 2005 and 2006 if inflation moves out of line with the target and the increased wage costs that they imply are not adopted across the labour market in general. This is one example of the importance of keeping inflation as close to target as possible later this year. When Iceland moved onto an inflation target, this involved abandoning the fixed exchange-rate regime and allowing to the króna to float in the market. Experience has shown that, in a climate of unrestricted cross-border capital movements, it is impossible for a central bank to control the exchange rate. Central Bank interest rate decisions admittedly affect the nominal exchange rate, but many other factors operate as well. Thus it is totally unrealistic to insist that the Central Bank should keep the exchange rate at a certain level and find the right combination of interest rates and exchange rate, whatever that may be. To do so, the Bank would either need to abandon its inflation target or impose foreign exchange restrictions, which of course is unrealistic.
Different economic policies and policy areas, such as fiscal policy, labor market policy, structural policies to improve competition, etc., can be distinguished according to their objectives, the policy instruments that are suitable for achieving the objectives, and the authority or authorities controlling the instruments and responsible for achieving the objectives. Monetary policy in the form of flexible inflation targeting has the objective of stabilizing both inflation around the inflation target and resource utilization around a normal level. The suitable instruments are under normal circumstances the policy rate and communication, including possibly a published policy-rate path and a forecast of inflation and the real economy. In times of crisis, as we have seen during the current crisis, other more unconventional instruments can be used, such as fixed-rate lending at longer maturities, asset purchases and foreign-exchange intervention to prevent currency appreciation. The authority responsible for monetary policy is typically the central bank. Financial-stability policy has the objective of maintaining or promoting financial stability. The available instruments are under normal circumstances supervision, regulation and financialstability reports with analyses and leading indicators that may provide early warnings of stability threats. In times of crisis, there are instruments such as lending of last resort, variable-rate lending at longer maturities, special resolution regimes for financial firms in trouble, government capital injections and so forth. The responsible authority or authorities vary across countries. In some countries it is the central bank, in other countries there is a separate financial supervisory authority, sometimes the responsibility is shared between different institutions.

Woodford, Michael (2007b), “Forecast Targeting as a Monetary Policy Strategy: Policy Rules in Practice”, in Koenig, Evan, and Robert Leeson, eds., From the Great Moderation to the Great Deviation: A Round-Trip Journey Based on the Work of John B. Taylor, forthcoming. BIS Review 16/2010  9
Throughout the world we can now see examples of how banks and other financial institutions have facilitated the funding of the development of the rest of the economy, and how at the same time they have enabled savers to obtain returns on their savings and to allocate desired expenditure efficiently between the present and the future. Of course, there have been shortcomings, mistakes and disasters along the way, where market failures have impaired efficiency or where banks have collapsed as a result of poor judgement or of circumstances beyond their reasonable anticipation or control; but such experiences are found in all areas of economic activity. Despite, however, the evident benefit from having an active and efficient financial sector, there have remained people at different times in history who have been sceptical of the intrinsic worth of banking as an economic activity contributing to aggregate welfare. This attitude has often reflected a presumption that activity only has merit if it delivers tangible output – food, clothing, cars, clearly consumable services such as television programmes, and so on. But this belief contradicts the evidence of the contribution which efficient finance makes to the economy, and the necessary role which it plays. Even the strictest communist regimes of the twentieth century found it impossible to dispense entirely with banks, even if, as a result of fantastic accounting and rotten economic policies in general, the banks mostly ended up bankrupt and depositors penniless.

The essential raison d'être of banking is that an economically advancing society needs effective intermediation between savers and borrowers, and mechanisms for making payments efficiently. As already noted, the initial basic intermediary function of providing deposits and loans expanded subsequently into the organisation of alternative channels of intermediation such as bonds and equities (these activities may be conducted in some jurisdictions outside the narrowly defined banking sector, but the distinction is not material in the present context). Although it is human nature for savers to complain that the returns are inadequate, and borrowers that costs are extortionate, in the marketoriented economies competition in financial intermediation has mostly been quite intense, and most of us would probably agree that this has worked to the increasing benefit of customers on both sides of the balance sheet. Meanwhile, the provision of payment services has developed markedly at both the wholesale and retail levels. Banks are at the centre of this activity, typically supported by the central bank as ultimate provider of liquidity. In fact, whereas many other types of institution may nowadays be involved in lending money or providing avenues for savings, banks themselves remain firmly at the core of the payments system. A sound and efficient payments system is acknowledged to be a prerequisite if an economy is to realise fully its potential.