samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Against this background, in March the ECB Governing Council decided not to change benchmark interest rates and repeated its commitment to continue net asset purchases at a monthly pace of € billion until the end of December 2017 or beyond, if necessary, and,  3/9  in any case, until a sustained adjustment is seen in the path of inflation consistent with its medium-term objective of a rate of close to but below 2%. The monetary policy measures of recent years have resulted in a significant improvement in financing conditions, which has been particularly visible in the case of the Spanish economy, both as regards the low cost of new funds and the gradual normalisation of lending conditions. This reduction has been particularly significant in terms of the cost of financing public debt. Performance of and outlook for the Spanish economy The Spanish economy grew 0.7% in the last quarter of 2016 and the latest indicators show that the growth rate in the opening months of 2017 could have been slightly higher. According to the Banco de España's projections published at the beginning of April, GDP growth is estimated to be 2.8% in 2017 as a whole, which is somewhat lower than in 2016, but continues to be significantly higher than the euro area average. Turning to its composition, domestic demand remains the main engine of economic growth. Household consumption remains robust, underpinned by the improvement in the outlook for employment, and favourable developments in household disposable income and in lending standards.

If we want the overall labour force to grow and the share of foreign workers to be stable, then we have to allow net immigration. That’s the bottom right of the triangle. If we want zero net immigration and the foreign worker share to be stable, then we have to accept zero labour force growth. That’s the top of the triangle. The trilemma represents the constraints. I’ve put them in rather stark terms, to reflect vividly the trade-offs we face. Collectively, as a society, we have to decide which corner of the trilemma we want to be at, or which corner we want to be close to. I’ll argue later on that we may be able to soften these constraints and reach more balanced outcomes. But the fundamental constraints and choices implied by the trilemma are real. 5 / 17  BIS central bankers' speeches  Are there ways to escape the trilemma? Or at least soften its hard constraints? There are two solutions that have often been mentioned. First, an increase in fertility. Second, an increase in resident labour force participation rate. A recovery in Singapore’s TFR is the best and most lasting solution that we can have, but its positive effects on labour force will only occur in the very long run. So here’s another thought experiment: Assume our TFR rises steadily from the current level of 1.2 to 2.1 (replacement rate) over next 15 years. Obviously, it will have an immediate impact on resident population and its effect will cumulate over time.
It is expected that by 2025, the number of older people in Thailand will account for 20% of the population and exceed the number of children under 15 years old. In an ageing society, banks that are able to cater to the needs of older population and tailor their products to accommodate changing demands would be successful. The next trend, urbanization, happening in many East Asian countries, brings both challenges and opportunities. According to the World Bank Research that just came out early this year, almost twelve million people in Thailand now live in urban areas; about ten million live in Bangkok alone. The number seems low for the area outside Bangkok because of the strict definition of urban areas employed by the World Bank. The same research also says that, cities outside Bangkok are growing at a much faster rate, and some cities such as Surat Thani have more than doubled its population in ten years. Urbanization results in increased purchasing power and fuels domestic demand. More infrastructure investments such as housing, electricity and transportation will be required. This is where the financial sector can contribute and benefit from the development. The trend towards regionalization poses a fourth challenge as well as an opportunity for the banking sector. With the commencement of the AEC in 2015, competition will intensify, benefiting those prepared to pursue opportunities across borders.

Moreover, as our population is ageing fast, we should all start to save for retirement now, and I strongly encourage banks to develop and promote more products to satisfy this growing customer segment. There is also a growing class of older people who have too little knowledge or weaker capabilities to manage their own financial wealth after retirement. This is another area that banks can help. For SMEs, which contribute significantly to employment in Thailand, we need to work together to promote their access to funding. This calls for a joint effort between the government, banking sector, and SMEs to improve available information and its flow. In this regard, as bankers, such as guests here today, are close to the SMEs, see their account movements, and provide financial advice you will play a key role here. I believe there are a lot of rooms for banks to provide funding for SMEs, both directly and indirectly, perhaps through more innovative products that can benefit from banks’ own information and more collaboration between banks. Equity financing, including venture capital, for SMEs will also be promoted in our plan. In my opinion, innovation and entrepreneurship of SME, which need supports from banks, is one of the most important drivers for Thailand to overcome the middle-income trap. As for large corporates, Thai conglomerates now operate in multiple countries, and as their businesses grow, they would require more cross-border services to meet their needs.
Given abundance of water resources in the country, as earlier alluded to, the potential for development of hydro-power for both domestic and exports is quite high. Current estimates show that the country’s hydropower resource potential stands at 6,000 mega watts (MW) while the installed capacity is somewhere around 1,715.5 MW. These estimates are a testimony to the great potential this sector has. I am aware of several investment plans that ZESCO has put in place and which are aimed at exploiting this potential. Ladies and Gentlemen, the opportunities identified above do not just happen. Zambians must make a conscious effort to exploit the opportunities identified. We must not view Government efforts of promoting investments opportunities as meant for foreigners only. To facilitate long-term planning for the productive sector, the Bank of Zambia will continue with measures that would achieve and maintain low and stable inflation and interest rates as well as a relatively stable exchange rate. This would provide a foundation for value addition in industries such as agro-processing, manufacturing, construction, and tourism, which is key to sustainable development. It is imperative that as a country, we move from being raw materials producers only to value addition in a stable macroeconomic environment. Apart from appropriate monetary policy and prudent fiscal policy, the stability in the foreign exchange market is important in achieving low and stable inflation. The objective of the Bank in this respect would be to achieve a non-volatile but competitive exchange rate.

The good news in the United States means that we are better able to handle bad news from Europe. With that said, the exposures of U.S. banks climb sharply when one also considers their exposures to the core European countries and to the overall European banking system. U.S. money market mutual funds, in particular, have significant European holdings. This means that if the crisis were to broaden further and intensify, it would put pressure on the capital and liquidity buffers of U.S. banks and other financial institutions. Third, severe stresses in European financial markets would disrupt financial markets here, which could harm the real economy. Stress in the financial markets causes banks to more carefully husband their balance sheets. When that phenomenon occurs, the availability of credit to U.S. households and businesses becomes constrained. Such conditions could also cause equity prices to fall, impairing the value of Americans’ pension and 401(k) holdings. This would damage the U.S. recovery and result in slower output growth and less job creation. At a time when U.S. unemployment is very high, this is a particularly unacceptable outcome. In the extreme, U.S. financial markets could become so impaired that the flow of credit to households and businesses would dry up. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  U.S. dollar swaps In today’s globally integrated economy, banks headquartered abroad play an important role in providing credit and other financial services in the United States.
12  This judgment was adjusted down from around 2% in June 2018, reflecting revised estimates of the effective lower bound for Bank Rate. See https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2018/june-2018.pdf 7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  7  Chart 7: Market-implied start date for QT  Source: Bloomberg and Bank calculations Note: Grey areas indicate where the forward OIS curve never reaches a level consistent with MPC guidance on QT. Waiting for the exit: (b) Delivering our policy goals in the early phase of QT  Our job on the Bank executive is not to decide when to start QT, but to be ready to execute it when asked to do so, and in a way that ensures that the Bank balance sheet continues to deliver all of our objectives. Specifically, that means that we must be able to: maintain control of short-term interest rates; keep the balance sheet flexible enough to meet the financial stability needs of the system (whether through liquidity insurance or opening up the balance sheet to new participants as the financial sector evolves); and remain ready to implement unconventional monetary expansion if the economy were to deteriorate. Just as QE increased the quantity of central bank reserves, QT will reduce it. In the early stages of QT, whilst reserves are still plentiful, the Bank’s policy goals are likely to be best met by maintaining the current floor system. But a floor only works when there is a sufficient supply of reserves.

At an appropriate moment during the QT process, we proposed to switch from using a simple floor system to a framework in which we allow reserves holders to determine how many reserves they need. Under this approach, the Bank would stand ready to lend reserves, at Bank Rate, in unlimited amounts against high quality collateral, through periodic Open Market Operations (OMOs) during the QT phase. Such an approach does not seek to ‘oversupply’ reserves in order to maintain a floor system, and so avoids the need to estimate the point of reserves scarcity. The Bank’s balance sheet should naturally be somewhat smaller under this system than it would be under an ‘ample reserves’ floor. That’s partly because we would not need to build in a buffer to account for uncertainty over the true level of the PMRR. But it’s also because the balance sheet cost for banks obtaining reserves via OMOs is likely to require there to be a degree of reserve scarcity before banks will participate.24 As a result, the quantity of reserves should settle within the PMRR, where some reserves scarcity is evident. See for instance ‘Observations on Implementing Monetary Policy in an Ample-Reserves Regime’ by Lorie K. Logan, at https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/speeches/2019/log190417 24 Because they are secured funding transactions, OMOs will involve a leverage exposure, and will be subject to haircuts, which lower the value of reserves lent relative to the collateral supplied.
It is well known that the process of transition will entail two types of risks to the financial system: (i) on the one hand, the physical risks caused by the direct effects of climate change, as a result of the gradual increase in temperature, or more frequent or more severe climate events such as storms, flooding or natural disasters; (ii) on the other, the transition risks, which refer to the potential effect on specific bank borrowers of the regulatory measures aimed at sustainably transforming the economy, technological changes, and changes in customer behaviour and preferences driven by greater environmental awareness. This leads me to the second element: the contribution of banks to the transition of the economy. Of course, if banks incorporate climate-related risks into costs and capital, they indirectly become “facilitators” of change, by reducing the cost of financing of activities that 3/5  contribute most to the sustainable transformation of the economy, while at the same time discouraging more polluting activities. At the same time, we should stress that the change of production model will also entail opportunities for economic agents, which banks and companies should seize. By way of example, to achieve the EU's 2030 targets agreed in Paris, it is estimated that, for the EU as a whole, there is a need to fill an investment gap estimated at 260 billion EUR per year.

2/5  I say they are all stakeholders because, when it comes to this planet, everybody living on it is a stakeholder. I believe this is groundbreaking because, when an issue is as global as this one, there is a tendency to go precisely in the other direction. It is too easy to dilute personal and corporate responsibilities, find excuses and carry on without changing anything substantial. The message we are receiving is that this is not the time to look for excuses. The writing is on the wall: it is time for action. Of course, whatever a person, a municipality, a region or even a country can do to combat fight global climate change is quite futile if the rest of the world stays the same. But the message today should be that each of us must do our bit, large or small, without looking at what others might or might not be doing. I am here today, precisely, to talk about doing “our bit”. The contribution that the financial sector can make to this global struggle is no silver bullet, but it is an important one. It is clear that finance is not regarded as a polluting sector. That, at least, is a positive development in these difficult times for banks´ reputation. Traditionally, the companies dependent on oil products have been those most affected by the environmental regulations resulting from international agreements. In fact, we should admit that the financial sector’s involvement in this battle has been rather limited.
All wars are different – in terms of their scale and duration, their location and their impact on the world around them. Instead, we must brush up on our possible knowledge of history and try to see if there are past historical episodes from which we can learn something for the current situation. It is of course also important to study the available literature on the economic consequences of war to see whether it is possible to find common denominators that can give clues regarding the situation that has arisen. What I intend to do today is to first briefly review what research literature has to say about the connection between war and inflation. Then I will look back at previous episodes when war was associated with rising inflation in Sweden and draw some conclusions from this. Finally, I intend to say something about how I view  * I would like to thank Mikael Apel for his work on this speech, Johan Almenberg, Anna Breman, Bul Ekici, Char-  lotta Edler, Rebecka Hallerby, Stefan Ingves, Åsa Olli Segendorf and Anders Vredin for valuable comments and Elizabeth Nilsson for translation. 1 [14]  the current situation from a monetary policy perspective. As usual, it is my personal views that I am expressing. War often leads to inflation The fact that war and inflation often go hand in hand has been known for a very long time.

These considerations largely explain the easing of monetary policy in the US and in Europe since last autumn. The fact that we reduced interest rates by different amounts, and that they remain at different levels, is explained by differing assessments of the prospective impact on the pressure of overall demand, taking account of our own particular starting points. But the general nature of the response was driven by essentially similar considerations. Managing this global imbalance will be a considerable challenge for policymakers over the next few years; and helping to finance it – including helping to finance re-emerging markets – will be a considerable challenge for international bond markets. The fact that you are all here – and in evidently good form – after the past remarkable year suggests that you have strong nerves. You may well need them again in the period ahead. But think of it this way. By the time we meet again for this great Congress next year, Y2K will be behind you – and if you have survived that, you can survive anything! I wish you all possible success. *  *  *  BIS Review 17/1999
180  International Liabilities  160 140 120  100 80 60 40  20 0 Region  CEE 2007-2005  2012-2008  SEE Baltics 2015-2013  Source: International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics. Data from the balance of payments statistics used as an indicator for the capital inflows in the region point that overall capital flows have continued, but at a much slower pace compared to the pre-crisis period. The slowdown is visible in the most recent period, as well. Thus, during 2013-2015 the capital inflows for the region on average amounted to around 12 % of GDP, compared to a cumulative growth of 38 % of GDP in 2008-2012 and 67 % during 2007-2005. The largest slowdown is observed for the CEE group of countries, where capital inflows almost stalled. Chart 8: Components of capital inflows, cumulative change in p.p.

Increasing corporate sector leverage in the euro area has also begun to raise questions about the likelihood of an adverse turn in the credit cycle and its possible consequences for the financial system. BIS Review 69/2007  3  Although closely related to business cycles, credit cycles are also driven by the criteria applied by banks and other investors when extending credit. By this yardstick, a long period of inertia in bank lending standards since mid-2004 and the persistent tightness of credit spreads suggest that euro area firms have not been facing financing constraints (as shown in the chart on the right of slide 8). On the contrary, as banks placed greater emphasis on the so-called “originate and distribute” business model, new opportunities have emerged for other financial institutions to acquire exposures to credit. This development has further improved firms’ access to bank credit. Euro area household sector Turning to the euro area household sector, the pace of net borrowing by the household sector has slowed since spring 2006, but has remained at high levels (see the chart on the left of slide 9). There have also been signs of moderation of house price inflation in a number of euro area housing markets. The risk of potentially disruptive property price declines in the future appears limited in the euro area as a whole, although differences continue to exist among individual Member States.
At the same time, companies were shifting from just-in-time to just-in-case supply chain management systems. Similarly, the European Investment Bank’s Investment Survey 9 found that half of US companies and one-third of EU ones have reacted to the recent trade disruptions by focusing more on the domestic market. Meanwhile, the McKinsey survey of supply chain leaders worldwide10 found that, last year, 81% of firms adopted dual-sourcing strategies for raw materials (up from 55% in 2021). In other words, the response seems to be moving more in the direction of increased diversification – in terms of suppliers and final demand, and both internally and externally rather than reshoring, at least for the time being. This diversification may, in fact, generate greater macroeconomic stability and less volatility. Second, and linked to the above, countries (including China and the United States) have started to prioritise safety over efficiency. 8  Lagarde, C. (2022). “A new glo bal map: Euro pean resilience in a changing wo rld”. Keyno te speech at the Peterson Institute fo r Internatio nal Eco nomics, April. 9  Euro pean Investment Bank Investment Survey, 2022. 10  Alicke, K., E. Barriball, T. Fo ster, J. Mauho urat and V. Trautwein (2022). Taking the puls e of s hifting s upply chains. McKinsey. 4  A case in point is the “friend-shoring” concept as a strategic objective in the United States, while Europe aims to double its share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2030. Companies are also reacting.

For example, according to the European Investment Bank Investment Survey, the share of EU firms putting effort into shortening their supply chain increased from 10% in 2021 to 20% in 2022, while that increase was from 20% to 30% in the US. And around 40% of German companies are trying to reduce their dependence on Chinese inputs. This increased security is likely to lead to less risk-sharing capacity between countries and higher transaction costs. Third, to the extent that international trade is negatively affected by geopolitical factors, a trend towards regionalisation will also emerge, as a mechanism to continue to enjoy the benefits of globalisation but on a smaller scale. As an illustration, in 2022, 44% of global companies were developing regionalised supply networks (up from only 25% in 2021). Evidently, some of the above-mentioned trends may well imply a further slowdown of the globalisation process beyond that observed in recent years, or even result in deglobalisation pressures. The EU response In response to these challenges, the EU has recently been launching a series of policies within the so-called Open Strategic Autonomy agenda: an emerging set of regulatory, structural and fiscal policies that seek to address the EU’s economic vulnerabilities arising from geopolitical considerations. Under the framework of Open Strategic Autonomy, three types of policies have been proposed to reduce the EU's vulnerabilities. A first set of measures aims to assess supply chain dependencies and vulnerabilities and increase the resilience of the European industrial system.