samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
So far, over 140 firms have signed up for the scheme, and have borrowed over £ in total, some of which has already matured. Firms’ borrowing capacity in the scheme is more than three times that level (Chart 10), helping to underpin confidence – and complementing the Government-run schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption and Bounce Back Loan (BBL) Schemes, which together have lent a further £ Central bank facilities are generally designed to support, rather than replace, market mechanisms – and here too the CCFF has brought benefits. First, CP issuance under the scheme has been at least three times larger than the size of the pre-Covid-19 sterling CP market – and nearly three quarters of CCFF firms have set up a CP programme since applying. So the CCFF has helped to deepen the CP market, with potentially lasting benefits. And, second, the normalisation of conditions in core markets, coupled with the restart of the MPC’s sterling corporate bond purchases on 7 April and similar schemes operated by the ECB and Federal Reserve, has allowed many larger firms to return to private debt markets, reducing the need of some to draw on schemes like the CCFF. Indeed, UK firms’ debt issuance has been running materially ahead of the average in previous years (Chart 11). In addition to the CCFF, the Bank also opened the borrowing window for the new Term Funding Scheme with additional incentives for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (TFSME) on 15 April.

Seven Moments in Spring: Covid-19, financial markets and the Bank of England’s balance sheet operations Speech given by Andrew Hauser, Executive Director, Markets  Bloomberg, London 4 June 2020  I am grateful to Gregory Kidd for his help in writing this speech, and to Andrew Bailey, James Benford, Christine Boykiw, Ben Broadbent, Nicholas Butt, Rohan Churm, Victoria Cleland, Amber Evans, Michael Foster, Richard Gordon, Sarah Hall, Andrew Harley, Ronan Hodge, Al Hughes, Lance Jones, Adam Newell, Will Parry, Rhys Phillips, Jo Place, Eugenia Planas, Dave Ramsden and Tim Taylor for their advice, comments and guidance. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  Introduction  I have always had a funny feeling about Friday the 13th – and 13 March 2020, Mark Carney’s last day in the office as Governor of the Bank of England, was no exception. Two days earlier, on Wednesday 11 March, the Bank and HM Treasury had launched an unprecedentedly comprehensive package of measures to respond to the rapidly growing economic consequences of the spread of Covid-19. Hailed globally as a shining example of how monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies could work together to reinforce one another, the combination of interest rate cuts, government spending, cheap funding and capital easing measures seemed sure to stabilise markets and restore some muchneeded confidence to households and businesses. So it cannot have been hugely welcome when, on Friday morning, with the removal vans waiting outside, I suggested the Bank’s Governors needed to meet again before the weekend.
Svein Gjedrem: Monetary policy - the importance of credibility and confidence Address by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of the Norges Bank, at the Annual National Meeting of the Association of Economists, held in Gausdal on 25 January 2001. *  *  *  Introduction The primary responsibility of monetary policy is to contribute to nominal stability. Nominal stability creates a more favourable operating environment for economic activity, and the prices of goods and services will be better conveyors of information. Consequently, changes in the distribution of income and wealth as a result of variable price inflation are avoided. Nominal stability is important to developments in the real economy, and is the most valuable contribution monetary policy can make to economic growth. Using this as a starting point, I would like to speak today of the importance of confidence and credibility with regard to monetary policy. I will also evaluate the monetary policy that has been conducted for the last couple of years in relation to the guidelines for monetary policy and our interpretation of them. Expectations and confidence Expectations regarding the future play a large part in all economic activities. Enterprises make decisions on production volume, investments, hiring and prices on the basis of expectations concerning future demand, prices and costs. Households make purchases on the basis of their expectations with regard to future income, wealth, prices and job security. Chart 1 illustrates a possible relationship between households' assessment of prospects for the future and their consumption.

The hallmarks of such a high communication level are curiosity about the other person’s views and the ability to broaden one’s views or change one’s mind as a result of discussion with others. This type of communication normally requires a high level of professional  18  This outcome assumes that each member of the group singly is more likely to arrive at the correct conclusion than the wrong one. 19  See James Surowiecki (2004): The wisdom of crowds. Little, Brown, London, pp. 3–4. This example was also cited in the speech “Uncertainty in macroeconomic policy making: art or science?”, which Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, gave on 22 March 2010, and is available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/news/2010/034.htm . That we both use this example may not be a coincidence. I received my copy of The Wisdom of Crowds from Dr. John Llewellyn. Llewellyn and King were fellow students at Cambridge. 20  See Alan S. Blinder and John Morgan (2005): “Are two heads better than one: An experimental analysis of group versus individual decision making”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 37, no 5, pp. 789–811 and Alan S. Blinder og John Morgan (2007): “Leadership in groups: a monetary policy experiment”, CEPS Working Paper No. 151. 21  Alan S. Blinder (2008): “On the design of monetary policy committees”, Norges Bank Working Paper, 2008/6. BIS Review 147/2010  5  competence, mutual sympathy and trust and a large degree of openness. The potential reward is better decisions by the group.
Therefore we are of the opinion that the so-called “corrective arm” of the Pact must preserve the nominal anchor of 3%. The Stability and Growth Pact requires simple and transparent rules in order to facilitate effective monitoring; to provide an effective deterrence against unsound policies; and at the end of the day, to provide an anchor for long-term expectations, which only the clarity, simplicity and credibility of the framework can offer. In this respect, the wording of the Treaty and of the regulations of the Stability and Growth Pact is appropriate in its current form and in our view should not be changed. The historic EU enlargement The introduction of the euro as a stable single European currency was not the last challenge to be faced by the ECB and the European Union in general. The recent enlargement of the EU has been an expansion of the European Union of exceptional historical dimension. The ten new countries represent 75 million people and their GDP is up to 4.8 % of the former EU 15. This enlargement and its anticipation has provided significant new opportunities for trade and investment. These effects are visible in the enhanced degree of economic integration between the new and the old Member States. Trade integration is very substantial. For example, the share in the previous 15 Members’ total exports and imports that is accounted for by the 10 new Members States now stands at around 12-13 % - an increase of some 50% since 1995.

Capital integration has also increased dramatically over recent years, as the share of the new Member States in the previous Members’ total FDI outflows amounts to around 12 %. But both economic theory and empirical records lead us to believe that more is to come. Lower trade costs and an increase in competition associated with the enlargement of the European Single Market can have a significantly positive impact on growth in the European economy as a whole. Some economic studies point to an increase, ceteris paribus, of 0.8 % of the EU GDP over the next ten years. 4  BIS Review 59/2004  But accession has also been a powerful catalyst of domestic change for the countries that have entered the Union. Many of these new Members have made remarkable progress in recent years, especially in terms of macroeconomic stabilisation and structural reforms. There still remain, however, important challenges. The task at hand is to advance real convergence. Safeguarding and, where necessary, enhancing domestic conditions of macroeconomic and financial stability is an important institutional precondition. In particular, locking in inflation at low levels, preserving the soundness of the financial sector and making determined efforts towards fiscal consolidation are all of the utmost importance. Enlargement of the EU will lead to an expansion of the euro area at some time in the future. The main aim of the Eurosystem in this process is to ensure that the monetary integration of the new Member States proceeds in a smooth manner and in line with the Treaty provisions.
A positive factor is that the rate of increase in lending to households has slowed down recently following the very high rates of increase we saw in the years before the financial crisis. Housing prices have also levelled out recently. Both monetary policy and the mortgage cap have probably played a role in subduing lending to households. 2 However, the debt ratio, that is debt as a percentage of disposable income, is still very high and higher than in many of the countries that have had problems in recent years as a result of substantial falls in housing prices (see Figure 12). A high level of household indebtedness can have serious consequences. When the households have large debts they become vulnerable. For example, a substantial fall in housing prices could give rise to extensive debt consolidation on the part of the households, which would risk leading to weak consumption  1  Since the monetary policy decision in October, we have also received the National Accounts for the third quarter. These figures show that growth declined somewhat, approximately in line with our assessment in October. 2  The mortgage cap was introduced as a general recommendation from Finansinspektionen in the autumn of 2010. In simple terms, it imposes a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 85 per cent when purchasing housing. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  demand and high unemployment. Ultimately of course this would also lead to the risk of higher loan losses at the banks and risks to financial stability.

The CPIF is the CPI with a fixed mortgage rate. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Figure 18. Repo rate Per cent, quarterly averages 5  5 September October  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0 06  08  10  12  14  Source: The Riksbank  BIS central bankers’ speeches  15
Global integration is not the solution to all our problems, but acting to restrict it or to insulate us from its consequences would damage our capacity to grow and to adapt to change, and these costs would make it harder, not easier, to deal with our longer-term challenges. To the extent we are reluctant to remove restrictions or subsidies in the United States, we make it easier for the forces in other countries to block reforms from which we would benefit. The world has a lot of experience with the costs and benefits of protection, and the balance of judgment on those questions has not significantly changed even with all the changes that technology and policy have brought to global trade. Economies that are more open have generally seen more rapid growth, both in incomes and in employment. Economies that are less open have generally grown less rapidly. Openness itself, of course, is not enough. Our capacity to adapt to change depends in part on the effectiveness of government policy in a range of important areas. Education seems the most obvious of these, but policy in health care, in public infrastructure, and many other areas will also play an increasingly important role in determining the relative strength of the U.S. economy in this more integrated world.

As a result, we hope that the forward guidance on the monetary policy stance of the Bank of Albania will be adequately understood by all market agents and the public. Banks and entrepreneurs should use this opportunity to boost their activity resting assured that the central bank will continue to sustain and support their activity. In addition to the monetary policy easing, the Bank of Albania has paid special attention to the reform in the financial sector and the prudent supervision of the banking sector. The Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Ms. Yellen, in a statement not long ago leaves no doubt about the necessity of reforms in the financial sector, I quote “... a sine qua non for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.” From the perspective, in cooperation with the Parliament, government and other public regulatory entities we have undertaken a series of legislative and regulatory initiatives, aimed at creating incentives for the recovery and assurance in lending. Thanks to the reforms we have undertaken during this year, we have started to reap the first positive results as regards the situation of the non-performing loans. As a result, the ratio of the non-performing loans fell for the first time after almost seven years of continuous rise. The write off of loss loans, as I have explained in previous statements, was the finalisation of joint inter-institutional efforts.
But I would like to devote the main part of my presentation to five initiatives that I believe regulators - as one of the sources of information demands on the industry - can take to contribute to ensuring that financial information can be generated, transmitted and used in the most efficient and effective way, to the benefit of stakeholders and interested parties, in today’s complex financial markets. In doing so, I will draw on my experience as the Governor of an EU central bank with prudential supervisory responsibilities, and also as the current Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The importance of financial information So, why is information so important? Quite simply, because information is the fabric from which financial markets are made. Let me elaborate on this statement. In economic terms, an efficient market is defined as one in which prices reflect all available information. Extrapolating this, we can say that the efficient functioning of financial markets requires that the prices within those markets reflect all the information on the financial asset being traded. For markets to be efficient, therefore, it is necessary that sufficient information flows with sufficient speed. However, information is neither created nor transmitted spontaneously. First, it must be generated. Then, it must be transmitted to users, through the appropriate channels and in the appropriate format and presentation. These users, in turn, must incorporate the information into their own decisionmaking processes. This is a process which clearly implies costs, both in terms of time and resources.

At the same time, supervisors will benefit from easier exchange of information. And the framework offers the flexibility to incorporate future modifications with lower costs. Overall, these positive effects should lead to higher quality in the information flows generated. I should say at this point that neither of these projects has been easy. If you consider that the European Union is currently made up of 25 countries, you can well imagine that the starting situation was complex, with each country requiring its banks to submit different information. In fact, the differences were not limited to the definitions used by each Member State, but also related to the reporting systems, and the technologies and formats used. But I would argue that it has been a very worthwhile initiative, and one that will reap benefits for years to come. 3  Increased reliance on business information  Let me turn now to the third element that I believe is important for success. I believe that regulators should put increased reliance on information generated and used by institutions within their own business. Let me set the context for this remark. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that, over recent years, the Basel II initiative has driven a paradigm shift in regulatory attitudes. Regulation used to be something that was rather imposed on institutions “to be complied with”, and seen by them as completely separate from their own internal business processes, and therefore an additional cost.
Svein Gjedrem: Uncertainty, economic models and monetary policy Address by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Centre for Monetary Economics/Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, 17 September 2007. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The address is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 15 August, Monetary Policy Report 2/07 and on previous speeches. *  *  *  I welcome the opportunity this time to discuss with you at the Centre for Monetary Economics certain themes that are not related to the most newsworthy economic policy issues. I will discuss the following three themes: •  the role of monetary policy  •  our view of economic models as a basis for interest rate setting  •  and finally, measuring inflation and uncertainty linked to the rate of inflation at a given point in time  Let me start by discussing the role of monetary policy. The primary objective of monetary policy is to ensure that inflation expectations are low and stable. Expectations of low and stable inflation provide a nominal anchor. Economic agents’ inflation expectations influence the decisions they make today. Our experience – and the experience of other countries – shows that without a nominal anchor we cannot achieve stability in employment and output.

In addition, both house prices and debt accumulation are affected by structural changes in capital and credit markets and by changes in lending willingness, demographic trends and migration patterns. It is difficult to determine to what extent house prices have risen as a result of structural changes and wealth gains and to what extent house prices have been pushed up by expectations of a continued high rise in house prices. Developments since the beginning of the 1990s may have engendered expectations that house prices will only continue to rise. This may have increased house purchases for pure investment purposes and induced younger buyers to enter the housing market earlier than otherwise. The pronounced fall in  4  BIS Review 102/2007  saving over the past few years indicates that households take greater chances. The housing market may have been in a state of euphoria. We can influence house prices through the interest rate, but if the interest rate had been increased to a markedly higher level in order to curb house price inflation, the krone would have been significantly stronger and CPI inflation significantly lower. Yet it is low and stable inflation that is the operational target of monetary policy. There is symmetry here as well. Should house prices fall sharply, we will in interest rate setting concentrate on dampening the effects on inflation and overall activity in the economy.
There are three frameworks that The government has a revenue  Page 2 of 17  enhancement-based  Fiscal  Consolidation  Program  which  is  intended to bring the budget deficit down to 3.5% of GDP by 2020. The Central Bank is putting in place a Flexible Inflation Targeting framework which is intended to bring about monetary policy formulation which is pro-active and forward-looking. Today’s interest rates, i.e. when setting interest rates today, the full passthrough effects of the transmission does not have full effects in the system for about twelve months. So, in setting interest rates today we have to have an educated view of what inflation is going to be in twelve months’ time. In the past, we tended to do too little too late. We allowed the  economy to overheat and then we would move. This is why we have had big fluctuations in our interest rates which have made business planning very difficult. We are trying to put in place a framework which will now enable us to set forward-looking, pro-active monetary policy, which should smooth out these sharp fluctuations in interest rates. They will still go up and down, but you won’t get the spikes and troughs that we have had in the past, if we are able to implement the flexible inflation targeting regime properly. That’s what we are trying to do. Equally, on the exchange rate, in the past, we tried to defend an over-valued exchange rate.

This was especially so between 2000 and 2016, wherein GDP increased by a compounded annual growth rate of 10.4%, while exports grew only 4%. Page 5 of 17  Sri Lanka’s economic growth during the past decade or so has mainly been generated by the expansion of domestic demand, rather than increased exports. The tradable sector, that is Imports and Exports as a percentage of GDP, declined from nearly 80% to 45% from 2005 to 2015. As a Small Open Economy you simply  cannot do that. The problems were compounded by a heavy recourse to foreign commercial borrowing for projects with low returns. That is what has led to the debt problems and many of the other difficulties we are having. When compared with regional peers and competitors, Sri Lanka’s export performance has lagged behind significantly. The Export Value Index presented by the World Bank shows the extent to which Sri Lanka’s export sector has been lagging in comparison to its regional counterparts, during the period from 2000 to 2015. Sri Lanka has only increased its exports by 1.9 times in that period 2000 to 2015, while Vietnam and Bangladesh have increased by 11.2 times and 5.1 times respectively. Even South Korea and  Thailand which have a much higher base, increased their exports by 3.1 times, whereas we, as I said only recorded a 1.9.