samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
I am certainly not going to argue against more transparency (except in the very special case of the market operations of central banks). More openness from SWFs may help to alleviate concerns in recipient countries – and thus reduce protectionist pressures. And it may improve the dissemination of information to market participants and to their own citizens. I know many SWFs are working with the IMF to produce a voluntary code of conduct that is based on best practices for the governance and transparency of sovereign wealth funds. For example, it would be helpful if all sovereign wealth funds were transparent about their overall strategies, objectives and broad investment guidelines. Norway’s Government Pension Fund is a good example in this respect. But there should be a level playing field applied to all investors. The case for greater transparency applies to other investors too. SWFs may take some comfort that they are not being singled out and that there are equally powerful pressures for transparency on hedge funds and private equity investors. In this respect, two recent initiatives are particularly welcome. First, a report under the chairmanship of Sir Andrew Large – my predecessor as Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank – on voluntary standards, including on disclosure, for hedge funds. And, second, a report by Sir David Walker – a former Executive Director of the Bank – on guidelines for disclosure and transparency by private equity funds. 10 And transparency should not be one sided among countries.

In this context, the Governing Council again stressed that the degree of forecast uncertainty tends to increase with the length of the projection horizon. Turning to the monetary analysis, recent data confirm the gradual increase in underlying growth in broad money (M3). The annual growth rate of M3 increased to 4.1% in January 2015, up from 3.8% in December 2014. Annual growth in M3 continues to be supported by its most liquid components, with the narrow monetary aggregate M1 growing at an annual rate of 9.0% in January. The annual rate of change of loans to non-financial corporations (adjusted for loan sales and securitisation) was –0.9% in January 2015, after –1.1% in December 2014, continuing its gradual recovery from a trough of –3.2% in February 2014. The three-month cumulated net lending flows were positive in January for the second consecutive month, compared with sizeable net redemptions still recorded a year ago. Despite these improvements, the dynamics of loans to non-financial corporations remain subdued and continue to reflect the lagged relationship with the business cycle, credit risk, credit supply factors and the ongoing adjustment of financial and non-financial sector balance sheets. The annual growth rate of loans to households (adjusted for loan sales and securitisation) increased further to 0.9% in January 2015, after 0.8% in December 2014. Our recent monetary policy measures should support a further improvement in credit flows.
Minouche Shafik: “Passthrough Efficiency in the Fed’s new Monetary Policy Setting” Remarks by Ms Minouche Shafik, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking of the Bank of England, as a discussant of “Passthrough Efficiency in the Fed’s new Monetary Policy Setting” by Mr Darell Duffie and Mr Arvind Krishnamurthy, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium “Designing resilient monetary policy frameworks for the future”, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 26 August 2016. *  *  *  Accompanying charts can be found at the end of the speech or on the Bank of England’s website. I would like to thank Grellan McGrath for assistance in preparing these remarks. Introduction Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this paper, which brings together many of the themes of this timely and important conference. Interest in the pass-through of central banks’ policy rates has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent times, as the Federal Reserve begins to tighten policy in the presence of a vast amount of reserves created by quantitative easing, and as other central banks loosen further by moving their policy rates to new record lows. Of course the Bank of England is in the latter camp. This month the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) – of which I am a member – voted to introduce a package of measures to support the necessary adjustments of the UK economy as it responds to the decision to leave the European Union.

Third, the Single Resolution Authority should have an institutional set-up that allows for independence, sufficient operational capacity and a robust accountability framework with effective judicial protection against resolution decisions ex post. The Commission is currently assessing the options for the institutional anchoring of the Single Resolution Authority. I am looking forward to its proposal, which will need to ensure these three essential features. Thank you for your attention. I am now at your disposal for questions. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
And that, of course, is exactly what we do in fact do - using the vast array of official economic statistics and financial market data, all the publicly available and some private surveys and commentaries, as well as a wealth of anecdotal and structured survey evidence that we collect BIS Review 71/1998  -3-  ourselves, through our 16 non-executive directors, through the frequent visits which MPC members make around the country, and through meetings in London, and through our network of 12 regional, information-gathering and disseminating, agencies with their 7000 industrial contacts throughout the United Kingdom. And we openly display the facts as they are available to us, as well as our analysis and our conclusions, regularly through the publication of the minutes of our monthly meeting and in the quarterly Inflation Report. So when people say to me that the economy is headed for recession, I’m interested in comparing the evidence on which they base their views with our own evidence, and I want to know whether or not they are also saying that they expect us to undershoot the Government’s inflation target. Let’s just for a moment turn down the noise and look at some of the relevant facts as they relate to the economy as a whole. Since the economy started to recover from recession in the spring of 1992 - some 6½ years ago - overall output has grown at an average rate of about 3%.

There are also many doubts about the structural damage wreaked by the crisis on the productive system, particularly in those sectors and countries most affected and where it is proving most persistent. In these circumstances, international cooperation is, in my view, all the more important. Healthwise, the crisis will clearly not be resolved until immunity against the virus has been achieved in all countries. On the economic front, divergences in the rate of recovery may be particularly harmful for economies that are in a more vulnerable situation. A premature 1  tightening of international financial conditions could pose a serious obstacle to the efforts of recovery of those economies with limited space for their national policies. And that could delay their recovery and, ultimately, also adversely affect the global economy. Thus, in accordance with the communication approved by the International Monetary and Financial Committee last week, international cooperation is crucial both for accelerating vaccine production and for making distribution affordable and fair for everybody. In the economic arena we must also maintain the stimulus measures for as long as necessary, adapting them to countries’ changing circumstances, until the recovery has taken root. Only then may these stimuli be cautiously withdrawn. The current juncture is, in fact, a particularly timely one to give fresh impetus to multilateralism, where the multilateral institutions have a crucial role to play.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Turning to jobs, data for the second quarter of 2011 indicate that businesses in the region, on balance, expanded employment at a more rapid pace than the nation. Still, the number of jobs being created each month is not enough to sustain a robust recovery. Given the slow recovery of employment across much of the region, unemployment rates have edged up in most places. June’s unemployment rate of 8.0 percent in New York State and 9.5 percent in New Jersey remain unacceptably high. While Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate has fallen sharply in recent months, it is still particularly elevated at 14.9 percent. One factor that remains a drag on overall employment growth in much of the region is the weakness of the public sector. As we have discussed at previous press briefings, our state and local governments continue to cut jobs more sharply than governments elsewhere. The recent exception to this trend is Puerto Rico. While the island sustained deep cuts in government jobs in 2009 and 2010, a recent increase in this sector was a key reason for Puerto Rico’s relatively strong job growth in June. Overall, the weakness of the public sector continues to pose a risk to employment growth throughout our region going forward. Another potentially troubling development for the region is the recent weakness in the financial sector. The finance industry, which had begun to recover late in the cycle, appeared to be showing signs of expansion when we last met.

Groshen, Erica L. 2011. “Temporary Layoffs during the Great Recession.” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics Blog, April 6. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
During periods of high network traffic, the average transaction time can take anywhere from 30 minutes to many hours. Transaction fee is also high and can spike up suddenly from time to time. The average fee per transaction in December 2017 was $ To put the matter into proper perspective, electronic payments, using either balances kept by commercial banks at central banks or retail payments using commercial bank balances, typically take a few seconds and cost a fraction of the transaction fees in Bitcoin transfers. Store of value: Crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin have displayed very high volatility in value. Crypto-currencies have no intrinsic value and are not backed by any institution or body regarding its value or purchasing power. Their price and thus value are determined solely by the supply and demand forces prevailing at the time, which can fluctuate sharply depending on the appetite of the participants. It is true that in some countries, there has been high volatility in the value or purchasing power of their (b) money, too. However, one must bear in mind that this kind of volatility normally happens in times of crisis or in jurisdictions that have rather bad macroeconomic, fiscal or monetary discipline. But for Bitcoin and most other crypto-currencies, their volatility seems to be structural in nature and the market dynamics that determine their price or value is rather opaque and hard to discern.

Svein Gjedrem: Monetary policy and wealth management Address by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), to the Board of Directors of the National Insurance Fund, Oslo, 14 March 2002. This address is based on assessments presented at the press conference following the monetary policy meeting of Norges Bank’s Executive Board on 27 February 2002, and on previous addresses. Accompanying charts can be found on the Norges Bank’s website (www.norges-bank.no). *  *  *  The guidelines for economic policy were revised last year. The expected real return on the Government Petroleum Fund is hereafter to be used over the central government budget, and monetary policy is to be oriented towards low and stable inflation. Economic agents can act on the assumption that low and stable inflation will be a constant feature of economic policy. Wide variations in the price level make it more difficult to predict the real content of agreements and budgets. Unexpected fluctuations in the price level may easily lead to fluctuations in the real economy and instability in financial and property markets. High and variable inflation also leads to an arbitrary redistribution of resources and income. Hence price stability is the best contribution monetary policy can make to economic growth, prosperity and appropriate distribution. Low inflation is the objective, and the interest rate is the instrument. Commercial and savings banks have accounts with Norges Bank, and the Executive Board decides the interest rate on these.
The Term Funding Scheme, for instance, launched in 2016, was  I described the evolution of the monetary policy toolbox in more detail in my recent speech “The monetary policy toolbox in the UK”. In practice the assets we buy through QE sit on a separate balance sheet, the Bank of England’s Asset purchase Facility (the APF), which is indemnified by HM Treasury. This has important institutional and financial implications which I’ll come on to cover, but does not affect its use as a monetary policy tool. 8 9  4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  4  intended to reinforce the pass-through of the August 2016 cut in Bank Rate to what was then a historically low level. Our current Term Funding Scheme with additional incentives for SMEs is intended to reinforce the transmission of the March cut in Bank Rate to 0.1% while also supporting Figure 1: A summary of the Bank’s balance sheet tools  Taken from the Bank of England Markets and Operations Guide, which gives full detail on all our balance sheet tools. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  lending to the real economy, particularly to SMEs. More recently the Bank’s response to Covid has included a Covid Corporate Financing Facility, launched jointly with HM Treasury, designed to lend cash, funded by reserves, directly to large companies, supporting their cash flow while leaving the banking system to focus on lending to smaller businesses.

However, trade flows among the 13 countries, only amount to 10% of global trade, hence there’s much room for further growth especially as our countries are increasingly inter-connected. 13. We from the public sector have created financial highways to link up our vibrant economies and have found ways to finance physical roads and highways. To recapitulate my message: •  2  Financial integration within ASEAN is targeted to support the large markets of goods, services and financial products in the region. Financing economic activities of ASEAN needs not only strong but also interlinked banks and  BIS central bankers’ speeches  financial institutions. Financing opportunities grow significantly when expanding these linkages to the Plus Three countries. Firms can tap on to various modes of financing in equities and bond markets to expand their businesses to match the growing trade and investment flows. •  The other area is on infrastructure development: While the barriers of tariffs have fallen, trade among us cannot flourish if we are constantly facing infrastructural bottlenecks. The ADB has estimated that Asia has a demand for infrastructure to the tune of $ 8 trillion over ten years. This is where the Asian Infrastructure Fund and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank come into play to address these bottlenecks and open up vast potentials for development and trade beyond the AEC to Plus Three. Through this, a new regional logistics-based sector is about to take shape. 14.
Chart 3: Network of cross-references in the regulatory framework (provisions for UK deposit-takers, 2007 and 2017)  2007  2017  Note: Each node represents a provision, and each edge (line between nodes) represents cross-references between provisions. For 2017, we also show the legal source for each provision: CRR (yellow nodes), Rulebook (blue), EBA Technical Standards (red) and Supervisory Statements (green). The source for the 2007 network is the FSA Handbook (only prudential provisions for deposit-takers). For visual clarity, only nodes with at least one edge are displayed, and edges on the plot are unweighted, i.e. they do not show the number of cross-references. One way to put numbers on this is Google’s PageRank algorithm, originally designed to measure the centrality and importance of individual web pages. Chart 4 compares PageRank scores for the provisions in the 2007 and 2017 banking frameworks: you can see that connectedness increases most for the most central individual provisions. The full consequences of using and changing a handful of core rules are inherently broader in this new regulatory architecture. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  8  Chart 4: PageRank network centrality measure (provisions for UK deposit takers, 2007 and 2017)  Note: PageRank summarises the centrality of a node within a network. In this case, it counts the number and quality of cross-references to a provision to estimate how important the provision is. More important, i.e. more central, provisions are likely to get more direct and indirect links from other provisions.

We are now looking at that question and have an open mind on it. But in a way the more interesting thing the robot brought back to us was not these findings, but simply a clearer picture of what the gradient is for small firms which we are therefore publishing today for the first time. Here it is: Chart 1a: Thresholds in UK prudential regulation, translated onto an assets/deposits basis (deposit-takers)  4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  4  Chart 1b: Thresholds in UK prudential regulation, translated onto an assets/deposits basis up to £ (deposit-takers)  Sources: CRR, BCBS, EBA Technical Standards, PRA Rulebook, Supervisory Statements, and Statements of Policy. Note: Only includes thresholds that are either set using assets/deposits values, or can be translated into assets/deposits values. Assumes average size of transactional accounts of £ The y-axis corresponds to the number of thresholds below the £ value for assets/deposits on the x-axis. I’d like to know what people think about this gradient. To me, the basic gradient looks OK. It feels about right that most of the carve-outs are for firms below £ in assets – once you reach that size, you are a fair-sized bank in a UK context and should expect to meet the great bulk of the rules. And within the £ area the slope does not look particularly troublesome.
“The Large Scale Asset Purchases had Large International Effects”, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper #2010-018D. Rajan, Raghuram (2013). “A Step in the Dark: Unconventional Monetary Policy after the Crisis”, Andrew Crockett Memorial Lecture, Bank for International Settlements, 23 June. Tucker, Paul (2013). “A New Regulatory Relationship: The Bank, the Financial System and the Wider Economy”, Speech at the Institute for Government, London. Woodford, Michael (2012). “Methods of Policy Accommodation at the Interest Rate Lower Bound”, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium, Jackson Hole. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5

–  The public finances should be managed with an eye to the nature and extent of risk exposures elsewhere in the economy. –  It is the precise pattern of capital flows, and the resulting composition of the resulting balance sheets, that matter to the stability of the financial system. All macro policymakers – monetary, macroprudential and fiscal – should, therefore, pay attention to the national balance sheet; and to the pattern of gross as well as net capital flows. –  But, in doing so, we and our peers must avoid financial protectionism just as a previous generation learned to oppose trade protectionism. And we must not leave anyone thinking that we can eradicate economic problems. 26  The IMF’s most recent spillover report on the UK can be found at http://www.imf.org/ external/pubs/ft/scr/2011/cr11225.pdf. That report concluded: “the size and interconnectedness of the UK financial sector make it a powerful originator, transmitter, and potential dampener of global shocks. The stability and efficiency of the UK financial sector is, therefore, a global public good requiring the highest quality supervision and regulation”. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Conclusion Around the Western world, excess indebtedness became legion during the opening years of the last decade. US subprime mortgages, perhaps the most egregious although by no means the largest example, became the straw that shattered the camel’s back. In this metaphor, both the “straw” and the “camel” are balance sheets.
Through our duty to ensure the safety and soundness of the financial system, we aim to preserve depositors’ savings, to promote the circulation of credit, and ultimately to protect the health and growth of our economies. Indeed, we cannot alleviate poverty, we cannot promote economic growth unless our banks are well managed, our financial systems stable, and our markets transparent and open. That the health of an economy depends to a great degree on whether its banks are financially sound and well managed is certainly not coincidental. Banks are charged with critical public trust to safeguard the public’s wealth and to serve as a source of credit to consumers and businesses alike. When banks fail to discharge these tasks responsibly, the costs to society can be high and the impact on the economy devastating. At the same time, the duty for supervisors to promote the safety and soundness of the banking system entails achieving a delicate balance. Ensuring the prudent management of banks does not mean that we should hinder their growth or profit. Rather, the supervisor’s job is to promote the responsible pursuit of opportunity and innovation. Likewise, it cannot be our job to prevent every bank failure, for some failures remove poorly managed banks from the market and encourage other banks to improve their management as well.

5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  And its performance against that remit can be assessed month in month out with published inflation numbers. It can be held to account easily for delivering Parliament’s good intentions. If only it were quite so simple in financial stability. The creation of the Financial Policy Committee required two major challenges to be overcome to ensure we remained citizens in service. But overcome them we have. Let me describe how. Challenge 1: the difficulty of specifying a clear mandate  At the heart of this difficulty is a trade-off between stability and growth. A stable financial system is resilient to a range of bad shocks. It doesn’t respond to them by causing further material economic harm. But beyond a point at least, raising that resilience hampers the ability of finance to take risks and drive investment and growth in the good times. It’s possible to over-insure. So there is a balance to be struck. And it is right that Parliament should decide where it should be struck. However, a target like: “make sure the system can withstand a repeat of the 2008 recession and no more” wouldn’t work. Such a target wouldn’t be fit for purpose all the time or for all of the financial system. For some parts of the system, whose failure might not cause much economic damage, such a target might be too severe. At some times, such as after a credit boom, such a target might be too loose.