samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Between 2000 and 2008, Greece and Ireland posted cumulative labor productivity growth rates, as measured by the output per employee, of 14.7% and 10.2% respectively. Both significantly outpaced that of Germany (6.1%). This is exactly what you would expect in an integrated economic and monetary area and this process should continue in the future, provided that appropriate policies are implemented. Economic convergence will therefore boost growth and support the return to debt sustainability. It is true that, looking at nominal developments, a different picture emerges. During the same period, nominal wages grew by a total of 42% in Ireland and 52% in Greece, compared with only 7.4% in Germany. There has to be a regime change in the way in which nominal wages and prices are set in some parts of the euro area. As central bankers, we have been putting forward this argument for years. Strong reforms are now being pushed in labor market legislation as well as in wage determination in the public sector in many countries. What about banks? I would like to end with a few words about the banking sector. Revenues for the twelve biggest European banks grew, in aggregate terms, by 8.6% in 2010 (as compared to 2.5% for the main US banks). As a result, European banks’ Core Tier 1 ratios stood at between 8.5% and 15.3% at the end of 2010 (corresponding numbers for US  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  banks were between 8.4% and 13.3%).

Vittorio Corbo: Conditions and prospects of the Chilean economy Speech by Mr Vittorio Corbo, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, at a Conference organised by the Exporters' Association of Manufacturers and Services (ASEXMA), Santiago, 25 July 2007. *  *  *  The world economy The world economy continues along a prolonged and robust expansionary phase that started in 2002. This expansion has been especially dynamic in the past four years, with an average annual growth rate of 4.9%, reaching 5.4% in 2006, the highest growth rate in over thirty years. Projections by Consensus Forecast, weighted by purchasing power parity, place growth for this year at 4.9%. If they prove correct, this will be the best five-year period since the early nineteen seventies. To put it in perspective: long-term annual growth of the world economy runs close to 3.5%. World growth is now not only high but also more balanced in comparison with previous years. The American economy is slowing down, reflecting the correction in the housing sector while, in contrast, the euro zone, Japan and emerging economies are gaining strength. The correction of the housing sector in the US, with a 16% plunge in investments in housing the first quarter of 2006 has resulted almost in a whole percentage point less aggregate growth. The adjustment has been deeper and lengthier than forecasted. In addition, the set of housing indicators show that the correction is still under way.
The banking system’s stage of development and the FDI flows in economy have mutual influences on each other. Hence, if Albania attracts stable and long-term FDI flows in the following years, their impact on the further development of the financial system will be considerable. Furthermore, the demand for banking products both from domestic and foreign companies will grow. 4  BIS Review 102/2007

Concerning the macroeconomic aspect, a number of factors contributed to inflation at this period, with various degrees of intensity and opposite directions of action. Upward inflation pressures were generated mostly by conjunctures of raw material and primary commodity  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  prices in international markets. Imported inflation was transmitted directly to increased consumer goods prices in Albania. It exercised additional pressures on production costs and inflation expectations, but these second-round effects remained controlled. Furthermore, the negative output gap continued to exercise downward pressures on prices balancing, in part, the effect of foreign price increase. The expansion of economic activity continues to be below the potential of the economy, leaving unutilized capacities in the labour and capital markets. Under these conditions, inflationary pressures from the real sector of the economy remain controlled. This is reflected also on the base inflation performance, which, although upward, remains anchored within the Bank of Albania’s medium term inflation target. Moreover, monetary indicators generated contained inflation pressures, reflecting also a prudent monetary policy of the Bank of Albania. In March, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania decided to increase the key interest rate by 0.25 basis points, to 5.25%. This decision was made in response to added inflation pressures of foreign origin. It aimed at retaining the anchoring of economic agents expectations on inflation and minimising secondround effects. Even after this increase, domestic monetary conditions remained stimulating and provided the economy with the appropriate support at this stage of its development.
These provisions were designed to ensure long-lasting credibility to the euro from its outset, by, in particular, sheltering monetary-policy from external pressure. The credibility of the ECB is reflected in low, medium and long-term inflation expectations. And this credibility was already high at the start of Economic and Monetary Union. I well remember that at that time some observers argued that the quality of the euro as a new currency would converge only towards a sort of an average of the legacy currencies, rather than to the benchmark set by the most credible ones. What happened is that, all along the yield curve, the euro area’s market interest rates became aligned with the lowest market rates prior to the euro. The euro area’s 300 million inhabitants benefited immediately from the best possible financial environment, from the credibility that had been built gradually in certain parts of the euro area over the previous decades, without losing a single basis point. Nominal and real interest rates have remained at those low levels ever since. They have also consistently reflected a high degree of consonance between the ECB’s policy intentions on the one hand and the market understanding as regards the course of policy on the other. In other words, the level of predictability of policy - a highly regarded sign of transparency for a modern central bank - has been elevated by any international standards. Indeed, predictability and transparency go hand-in-hand.

The need for structural reforms While EMU has been highly successful in restoring and furthering macroeconomic stability in its founding members, a number of economies in the euro area still have to undertake important actions to fully realise the advantages of a stable single currency. Structural economic impediments in a number of participating countries reduce employment opportunities and hold back the creation of real income compared to the pace that would be attainable, were available resources put to their most efficient uses. Insufficient productivity growth - coupled with unfavourable demographic trends - in turn undermine the sustainability of social security systems. In many countries these systems incorporate relatively generous provisions for insiders to the disadvantage of younger and more deprived cohorts of citizens. It is therefore widely recognised that a much better functioning of the labour markets, together with reforms of social security and protection, and the timely completion of the single market of goods and services, including financial services, would be significantly needed to improve the prospects of the euro area. In this respect, the ECB has very much welcomed and supported the impetus given by the Lisbon European Council to the economic reform process. The diagnosis of the situation that emerges from the Lisbon discussions is pertinent and unambiguous. As pointed out by a recent report written under the auspices of European Commission2, it is time for the European Union and its members to translate words into actions, especially in areas such as job creation, investment in research, and liberalisation of services.
Figure 2 – Study of Economics  Per cent of total population at each age  1%  4%  1%  Undergraduate level  A-level  GCSE  Sources: HESA, Joint Council For Qualifications, ONS and Bank Calculations Notes: We do not include pre-GCSE in this chart as the share of taught PSHE that includes economics will be variable across schools, and PSHE itself is non-statutory. This chart does not include Scottish qualifications. 17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  17  References  Acemoglu, D and Robinson, J (2012), Why Nations Fail, Crown Publishing Group. Akerlof, G and Shiller, R (2009), Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, Princeton University Press. Angrist, J, Azoulay, P, Ellison, G, Hill, R and Lu, S (2017), ‘Economics get out more often: Using extramural citations to assess economic scholarship’, available at VoxEU.org. Aral, S and Nicolaides, C (2017), ‘Exercise contagion in a global social network’, Nature Communications, Vol. 8, No. 14753. Bailey, M, Cao, R, Kuchler, T and Stroebel, J, (forthcoming), ‘Social networks and housing markets’, Journal of Political Economy. Bank of England (2014), Inflation Report, February, pp. 12. Bank of England / TNS (2017), ‘Inflation Attitudes Survey’, available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/other/nop.aspx Blackaby, D and Frank, J (2000), ‘Ethnic and Other Minority Representation in UK Academic Economics’, The Economic Journal, Vol. 110, No. 464, pp. 293-331.

Waves of financial innovations from new players, but also from incumbents on the market, create massive changes in the financial industry. In this light, the highlight of the conference is embracing changes, that is opening doors to financial innovations in the payment landscape, while preventing disruptions to the financial markets and to the overall financial stability. New wave of digitalization can have wide ranging positive effects on the economy – it spurs innovation and productivity, transforms public and private services, contribute to higher financial inclusion by reaching underserved households and overall, improve wellbeing of the society as information, knowledge and data become more widely available. Benefits go hand in hand with challenges to jobs and skills needed, to taxation, financial markets, and invite new thinking on how to preserve fundamentals such as privacy and security, as well as how to preserve monetary and financial stability. Financial innovations, underpinned by digitalization, have a potential to gradually reshape the financial sector. “The Pulse of Fintech” report of KPMG1 shows that Fintech investment globally more than doubled during 2018, and reached $ billion. In addition, while new startups sprouted across emerging fintech subsectors, highly mature areas like payments saw some consolidation through mergers and acquisitions of big developed players. Reports also show that highest number of fintech service providers are in the payments, clearing and settlement category, thus, giving them the potential to gradually undertake a paradigm shift in the payment landscape.
As I said, the performance of the economy in the third quarter was similar to that of previous quarters, so it continued to grow between 2 and 2.5 percent annually. This result revealed a deeper than expected decline of natural resources, particularly mining, due to production downtime associated to the fall in the copper price. The performance of the other sectors was somewhat better, namely construction and some services. As for domestic demand, it is still growing weakly, although a little more than we foresaw in September. The increase in gross fixed capital formation, where specific factors combine, such as high imports of transport equipment, and stronger residential housing construction, is worth noting. Private consumption kept a growth rate of around 2 percent annually (figure 3). The performance of domestic demand reflects that business and consumer confidence indicators remain pessimistic, despite the resilience of the labor market and that GDP growth, while slow, has stabilized. The cost of domestic funding is still low by historical standards, partly reflecting the expansionary stance of monetary policy. Nonetheless, with the sole exception of mortgage loans, credit growth in real annual terms is still limited (figure 4). The baseline scenario assumes that GDP will grow between 2 and 3 percent in 2016, a lower range than forecast in September. This projection continues to estimate that the economy’s potential growth (i.e., the non-accelerating-inflation growth rate) lies around 3 percent. Accordingly, we believe that output gaps will exhibit limited growth in 2016 and will begin narrowing towards 2017.

Inflation and energy prices In these ways the losses in credit markets are already contributing to slowing growth; the questions are by how much and for how long? The danger that they could turn a necessary modest slowdown into a deeper and more painful downturn is clear and, of course, that would dampen inflationary pressures. That was a key factor in my decision to vote for a cut in rates in November and December. But the current situation is complicated by emerging upside pressures on prices. This inflationary pressure is coming largely from outside the UK, reflecting in part increased demand from countries like China where output growth has been both rapid and commodity intensive. That has led to renewed strength in commodity prices (Chart 11), with oil rising as high as $ a barrel and some agricultural foods reaching record highs in dollar terms. This has already increased the prices of imported goods, and that effect has been amplified recently by the fall in sterling. In turn, it is putting upward pressure on the sterling prices set by domestic producers for crude oil and wholesale gas and electricity. And, in contrast to the past, demand from emerging economies may mean that commodity prices prove resilient to slowing growth in the industrialised economies. The appropriate monetary policy reaction to upside pressures on prices coming from outside the economy (such as an energy price shock) depends on how households and businesses react to that shock – in other words, on so-called “second-round” effects.
(4) Oliver Blanchard and other authors, in their paper “Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy” stated: “With the neglect of financial intermediation as a central macroeconomic feature, financial regulation and supervision focused on individual institutions and markets and largely ignored their macroeconomic implications. Little thought was given to using regulatory ratios, such as capital ratios, or loan-to-value ratios, as cyclical policy tools.” By analyzing the reasons we came up with many lessons, which it has delivered up to this moment. For some of the questions there is already a global consensus. For others, it still has to be constructed. For some questions there is a general consensus, but the devil is in the details and therefore there are and there will be confronting opinions that demand time for adjustment until they become operative and applicable. What lessons could be, at the moment, more relevant? I. There is an agreement that a global crisis in a highly interdependent world needs a global response. A global response needs global institutions, a global economic and financial architecture. Current institutions have proved to be insufficient and inefficient. Generally, the structure of that global architecture is already drawn and its shaping is moving in a good direction.

Caruana Jaime, “The great financial crisis: lessons for the design of Central banks” (2010), (Speech given at Colloquium in honour of L.Papademos, ECB, Frankfurt). 5. Carosio Giovanni, (2010), “Financial Stability and Macro-Prudential Supervision: Challenges for Central Banks” (OeNB – 38th Economic Conference). 6. Geraats M. Petra (2010), “Price and Financial Stability: Dual or Duelling Mandates?” (Paper for the 38th Economics Conference of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank). 7. Greenspan Alan (2010), “The Crisis” (Second Draft paper). 8. Hannoun Herve (2010), “Towards a Global Financial Stability Framework”, (speech prepared for 45th SEACEN Governors Conference, Siem Reap province, Cambodia). 9. Haldane G. Andrew (2010), “The $ billion question” Bank of England. BIS Review 90/2010  9  10. Krugman R. Paul, The Return of Depression Economics and Crisis of 2008. 11. Miles David (2009), Bank of England, “The Future Financial Landscape”. 12. “Macroprudential instruments and frameworks: a stocktaking of issues and experiences” (CGFS Papers, No 38, 2010). 13. Orphanides Athanasios (2010), “Monetary Policy Lessons from the Crisis” (Paper for the 38th Economics Conference of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank). 14. Tarullo K. Daniel (2010), “Financial Regulatory Reform” (remarks given at the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum, New York). 15. White William (2009), “Modern Macroeconomics is on the Wrong Track”, (Finance and Development, December 2009). 10  BIS Review 90/2010
As a result of the krona having weakened and the price of gold having risen, the value of the gold and foreign currency reserve has increased. This increase in value on the assets side corresponds on the liabilities side to an increase in the revaluation account (Figure 15). 3  14  The credit multiplier is usually defined as the ratio between the money supply and the monetary base; see also the box Unconventional measures and the risk of inflation in the Monetary Policy Report, October 2009, Sveriges Riksbank. BIS Review 160/2009  Figure 15 Capital and revaluation account SEK billion 160  160 140  Revaluation account Own capital  140  120  120  100  100  80  80  60  60  40  40  20  20  0 jan-08  0 apr-08  jul-08  okt-08  jan-09  apr-09  jul-09  okt-09  Source: The Riksbank. The Riksbank’s assets are managed to provide a good return. The return over the past fifteen years has been around 7 per cent a year. As a result of the assets normally consisting mainly of gold and foreign assets, the return in Swedish kronor can vary substantially from year to year. The weakening of the krona during the financial crisis has paradoxically meant that the Riksbank’s results have improved. In addition, the Riksbank’s results have been positively affected by the lending to the banks. Some of the profits are paid as dividends to the Treasury.

This meant that it became expensive and difficult for the banks to fund themselves. In this situation the Riksbank began to lend money to the banks at longer maturities to secure their funding. During three months in autumn 2008 the Riksbank increased its lending to the banks by more than around SEK 450 billion. To begin with the Riksbank granted loans in kronor at three-month and six-month maturities, but gradually the maturities were increased to twelve months. Lending at a variable interest rate has declined over the past six months, but has been supplemented by the previously-mentioned lending at a fixed interest rate of almost SEK 300 billion (Figure 7). Figure 7 The Riksbank’s lending in SEK and USD SEK billion 600  500  600  SEK, Commercial paper USD SEK, variable rate SEK, fixed rate  500  400  400  300  300  200  200  100  100  0 Jul-08  0 Oct-08  Jan-09  Apr-09  Jul-09  Oct-09  Source: The Riksbank. The Riksbank has also granted loans in US dollars. During the crisis there was a shortage of dollars around the world and the banks experienced difficulty in obtaining funding in dollars. At most, lending in dollars corresponded to around SEK 250 billion in spring 2009. Since then the banks’ interest in borrowing dollars from the Riksbank has declined.
The Euro-Summit on 15th December 2017 resulted in a renewed political commitment to foster further progress on EMU´s architecture during the first semester of the present year. The aim was to trigger the necessary discussions and achieve material progress in the 3/5  months preceding the closure, in spring 2019, of the current legislature of the European Parliament. Our political leaders assigned priority to the completion of the Banking Union, with the establishment of a common fiscal backstop for the Single Resolution Fund, and the introduction of a common European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS) with eventual full risk mutualisation. Both are essential elements to severe the links between banks and sovereigns and to bolster the ability of the area to deal with large macroeconomic shocks. The development of the Capital Markets Union is surely another key project that deserves to be mentioned at the top of the political agenda. Leaders also agree on the need to reduce risks in banks’ balance sheets, including –but not only- the stock of non-performing loans, which is still too large in some jurisdictions. Current proposals to create Sovereign Bond-Backed Securities (SBBS) could contribute to reduce current home-bias in bank´s sovereign holdings if accompanied by regulatory reforms that ensure acceptance by investors. But these reforms should be carefully calibrated to avoid hindering liquidity and price formation in sovereign bond markets. But there are other issues that will require more time to agree and to put in motion.

In this context, we currently find ourselves at a crossroads in what refers to the pace of the governance reform agenda. Despite evident progress since the peak of the crisis, the building of a more cohesive monetary union, as proposed in the Van Rompuy’s Report of June 2012 (the so-called Four Presidents’ Report) and in the Juncker’s Report of June 2015 (the so-called Five Presidents’ Report), is, we all know that, a very difficult task. As a matter of fact, there has been no significant step forward since the establishment of the Single Resolution Fund in June 2014. Recently, several initiatives have attempted to re-launch the debate on the future of euro area’s governance, including, in December 2017, the European Commission’s report on “Further steps towards completing Europe's Economic and Monetary Union: A roadmap”, or, in January of the present year, the Center for Economic Policy Research’s report on “Reconciling risk sharing with market discipline: A constructive approach to euro area reform”, which, as many of you probably know, we discussed in a recent seminar here at the Banco de España. The package of reform measures put forward by the EC cover a broad set of issues, from the completion of the Banking Union and the design of mechanisms that reconcile market discipline and risk sharing to the establishment of a European Union Finance Minister. The panelists today will share their views and analysis on these central issues. Let me briefly reflect upon them.