samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Secondly, when inflationary problems loomed in the past, inflation expectations – amongst businesses, households and in financial markets – increased, both signalling and bringing about the incipient rise in inflation. Today, we appear to enjoy well-anchored inflation expectations, which will affect price-setting behaviour in the ways I have touched on. Indeed, modern economic models of various kinds – inside and outside the Bank – tend to assume policy credibility, anchoring mediumterm expectations. If that were so, the medium-term outlook for inflation would be assured. In fact, credibility is not something that can just be assumed. It has to be achieved, and continually reachieved, by policymakers – through our actions, and reasoned explanations of them. For that reason alone, policy inevitably remains a judgmental process – not one mechanically tied to a particular model, but one that draws on a wide range of inputs, including the insights of our business contacts. Learning is, accordingly, inherent in our mission. Over the next few years, if the economy escapes being buffeted by shocks, we will learn quite a lot. In the meantime, notwithstanding the uncertainties, we have to make judgments and explain them.

I have just explained how we are currently addressing this issue ;    In the longer run, ageing and slower innovation may push up saving rates and bring down the return on capital. Therefore, the ultimate response to the risk of secular stagnation is to improve the return on investment, thus pushing the natural interest rate back into positive territory. Again, this is not only a European problem. But we do have difficulties in this regard. Structural reforms are not easy. Many, however, are currently being implemented. France, although at too slow a pace, is reducing taxes on labour and has somewhat improved labour market flexibility. Adjustments efforts conducted by several countries, especially in Southern Europe, are starting to pay off. Competitiveness gaps between Northern and Southern Member States have been reduced, notably through real wages decreases in countries like Spain or Portugal, which are exporting more and more. This builds the way for a healthy growth in peripheral countries, which are experiencing a trade surplus of 2% of their GDP on average, and a moderate public deficit, taken down to 3%. III. Short-term policy challenges and responses  The main challenge, of course, is low and declining inflation, with inflation expectations in the euro area drifting downward at short to medium-term horizons. This prevents adjustments in relative prices, – an important mechanism to eliminate gaps in competitiveness – and increases the risk of outright deflation, should a negative shock occur in the future.
Jean-Pierre Roth: Review of the Swiss economy in 2008 and the outlook for 2009 Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the General Meeting of Shareholders of the Swiss National Bank, Berne, 17 April 2009. *  *  *  Mr President of the Bank Council Dear Shareholders Dear Guests The financial crisis, which first emerged in August 2007, continued to spread during 2008. From mid-September on, the situation deteriorated sharply. Growing uncertainty about the stability of the financial system gradually paralysed the money market. Most industrialised countries implemented relief packages for banks with the aim of improving their refinancing conditions, cleaning up their balance sheets or strengthening their capital base. In fact, the crisis led to an unprecedented level of government intervention. Far-reaching guarantees were granted, major corporations were put under state control, and a substantial amount of risk was transferred from the private to the public sector. The difficulty of implementing our monetary policy The waning ability of the financial markets to function properly posed problems for the implementation of our monetary policy. The prevalent mood of uncertainty created a strong appetite for liquidity, and yet the seizing-up of the interbank market hampered the supply in Swiss francs. In view of these two factors, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) had to resort to some exceptional measures. From the start, the uncertainty engendered by the financial crisis led to a surge in demand for liquidity by both banks and the public in Switzerland.

The number of individuals affected by short-time working was rising fast at the beginning of the year, and unemployment is increasing at a regular pace. This trend is likely to persist in the next few months since the leading indicators of labour demand are falling sharply. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the signs of improvement observed abroad will be gradually transmitted to the Swiss economy. From the second quarter, the decline in exports is likely to slow down. However, growth figures will probably remain negative over the next few quarters due to the weakening in domestic demand as well as the reduction of inventory levels. For 2009 as a whole, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) continues to forecast a reduction in GDP of between 2.5% and 3%. These figures are still relatively moderate by comparison with other countries since Switzerland benefits from the broad diversification and relative flexibility of its economy. Even so, I wish to stress that the risks attached to our forecast are clearly skewed to the downside. Changes in monetary and financial conditions How have monetary and financial conditions developed since our last assessment in March? Let us begin by looking at movements in interest rates on the money and capital markets as well as currency movements on the foreign exchange markets. On the money market, three-month Libor moved down, but not as far as we would have liked. Its decline was checked by the level of risk premia, and it currently stands at around 40 basis points.
High oil prices may also have contributed to curbing the growth rate. GDP growth in important European countries has been low or negative for some time. In the Netherlands, GDP has fallen for three consecutive quarters, and Germany has recorded a contraction over the last two quarters. France’s GDP showed growth in the first quarter and a decline in the second quarter of this year. For the euro area as a whole, preliminary figures show that GDP fell by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter. Some consumer and business confidence indicators have recently shown signs of improvement, and the EU Commission’s estimates point to a slight increase in growth in the next few quarters. There are, however, no clear signs of an imminent and rapid recovery. The key rate in the euro area has been reduced to 2 per cent. Interest rates are expected to remain at 2 per cent to the end of 2003, before rising slightly next year. International business cycles affect the level of economic activity in Norway through a number of channels, including the interest rate differential and the krone exchange rate. Subdued economic growth internationally and high growth in Norway resulted in a wide interest rate differential between Norway and its trading partners. This made it very profitable to invest in the Norwegian krone, and the krone exchange rate appreciated. The appreciation of the krone and high wage growth led to a considerable deterioration in the competitiveness of Norwegian enterprises.

We will be having six rounds of talks each year with business and community leaders concerning financial developments in their enterprises and industries, with about 200 visits in each round. The selection of contacts represents the production side of the economy, both industry-wise and geographically. In the course of 2003, the number of contacts in the network will rise to about 1000 persons. These individuals will be contacted once or twice a year. Kunnskapsparken in Bodø conducts the contact meetings in Region North. In general, our contacts in Region North reported at the end of August and the beginning of September that developments continue to be sluggish. The fishing industry is still experiencing difficult times, even though some enterprises have reported a slight increase in demand for certain species and products. Companies supplying goods and services to the fisheries and aquaculture sector are experiencing a decline in demand and output and a number of companies only have a few service orders. The household service sector is reporting a small increase in demand, whereas companies’ demand for services is generally stagnant or falling slightly. The public sector is reducing the number of employees, while retail trade and the construction sector are planning a slight increase in the number of employees. The rise in costs in the last few years has not fed through to prices due to intense competition, both from abroad and from other market participants in Norway. Instead, enterprises has reduced activity and implemented extensive efficiency- enhancing measures.
At the beginning of this century economists like Irving Fisher were already emphasising the importance of following not just consumer prices but also asset prices. Some decades later, the tradition from Fisher was taken up by Alchian & Klein in what has became a well-known paper from 1973. CPI can be seen as a measure of “current service flow prices”. Asset prices in turn measure “future service flow prices”. A weighted index consisting of CPI as well as asset prices could serve as an inter-temporal indicator of living costs. The underlying idea was that such an index could contribute to a monetary policy aimed at price stability. The authors argued that if the central bank concentrates solely on the development of consumer prices, monetary policy may be either too contractive or too expansionary, the reason being that consumer prices usually react more slowly than asset prices to a contractive or expansionary impulse from monetary policy. There is then a risk of monetary policy having a destabilising tendency. Alchian & Klein found, however, that the construction of such an index was rather difficult in practice; but they did underscore the importance of monetary policy’s taking the development of asset prices into account. Recently, Charles Goodhart drew attention to what is now the twenty-five year old paper by Alchian & Klein; he, too, sees difficulties involved in a weighted index of consumer and asset prices. The conclusion is probably that asset prices should not formally be included in the target variable for monetary policy.

Fourthly, the central bank’s ambition to steer asset prices directly could perhaps pave the way to a much larger bubble in the future. In other words, can safeguards against financial bubbles and an absence of subsequent economic consequences lead to a moral-hazard type of phenomenon among the market participants? Circumstances must evidently be very special to warrant central bank action to counter asset price bubbles if there is no concurrent upward pressure on consumer price inflation. BIS Review 58/1998  -6-  It is also reasonable that the central bank presents a clear case for such a course of action and does so before such a special situation arises. The Riksbank has started a biannual series of reports on the financial system’s stability. The idea is to draw lessons from our recent experience of a bank crisis and be in a position - should the need arise in some distant future - to discuss any policy measures that might be called for in the event of a risk of financial instability. This could also be done in our Inflation Reports. The situation today in Sweden is very different from the 1980s. Asset prices have been rising steeply since 1994 but indebtedness did not turn upward until quite recently. This suggests that the risk that the banking sector will experience significant problems in the event of a fall in asset prices is relatively small today. However, we must continue to monitor risks in this field in the years to come.
The Congressional Budget Office currently projects such additional borrowing to average $ billion annually over the next ten years. 5  Interestingly, Treasury bonds were traded on the New York Stock Exchange during the late 1910s and early 1920s, as the market grew with wartime financing needs. However, trading migrated to an over-the-counter market in the first half of the 1920s, in part because institutional investors, who were becoming an increasingly important part of the Treasury’s investor base, found it a more efficient means of transferring risk. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The interdealer Treasury market has undergone significant changes over its life and looks very different now than it did in recent decades. One obvious change is technological. As early as the mid-1970s, dealers would use brokerage screens as sources of aggregated information on the best bids and offers, but through the 1990s they continued to conduct transactions through voice channels. This practice began to change around the turn of the twenty-first century, when electronic means of transacting began to grow. Now, of course, nearly all trades are conducted electronically in the interdealer market, with transactions occurring via computer systems Another important change in the interdealer Treasury market relates to the issue of access.

For example, the recommendations include maintaining better change control processes for designing, testing, and introducing trading technologies and algorithms. Additionally, they emphasize the importance of ensuring that risk management, clearing, and settlement processes are robust to challenges presented by the speed, sophistication, and potentially large gross trading volume associated with very rapid execution. The updated best practices also emphasize the importance of avoiding automated trading strategies that create a false impression of market price, depth, or liquidity. While the possibility of such trading practices has always existed, electronic trading provides more efficient tools for this type of behavior, and might also give some participants the false impression that it is easier to hide such behavior. Finally, the enhanced best practice guidance recommends that market participants who represent a material share of daily trading consider the impact on market liquidity before making abrupt changes to automated systems or trading strategies. This last recommendation is an important addition to an existing best practice that calls for market participants to manage large positions with care. Whether a firm has a large position, or represents a sizeable share of market activity, it has the responsibility to help support market functioning and liquidity. Making significant changes to either such a position or trading activity could disrupt market functioning and liquidity if not done with care, and the TMPG calls for such positions and activity to be managed with particular vigilance. I would like to thank the TMPG for its continued excellent work in improving market practices.
At the latest Economic Policy Symposium held in Jackson Hole a couple of weeks ago, in a very stimulating paper, Eric Leeper set out a long list of questions that he felt should be addressed by researchers in order to fill the large knowledge gap in the field of fiscal policy and guide it closer to scientific analysis and away from its current state of alchemy. 1 Tonight I would like to add a couple of issues to that list, which are partly related to the international dimension of fiscal policy (often ignored by US academics). I will try to inspire our academic colleagues to give more thought to some issues which are key to the functioning of the global financial system and about which policy-makers often do not have sufficient understanding to inform their actions. The legacy of the financial crisis One feature of the financial crisis that has become apparent only at a relatively late stage has been the dramatic and widespread increase in public debt, especially in advanced economies. I will focus on this legacy and its implications for both the global financial system and the global economy as a whole. First, regarding the global financial system, high levels of public debt in major advanced economies are likely to have a non-negligible impact on financial market conditions over the next few years. We have seen in some cases how financial markets react to delayed fiscal consolidation, at times in a rather non-linear fashion.

There are also many indications that the covariance between Sweden and the euro area will increase further if we join the Eurosystem, as trade and integration with the euro countries would be strengthened. Increased trade and greater openness to the outside world have positive effects on the development of growth and incomes. In my opinion, the European integration of which EMU forms a part should not stop at the borders of the EU, but be the first step towards greater global openness. Conclusion I have today accounted for the current monetary policy situation in Sweden and the assessments that formed the basis for our decision last week to leave the repo rate unchanged. A low inflation rate (2%), which is the target for monetary policy, does not in itself create good growth and welfare; it should rather be seen as a fundamental condition to ensure that other parties - trade and industry, organisations, government and parliament - are successful in working to improve Sweden’s economy by various different means. In other words, it is an extensive and complicated interplay that will determine how well a country’s economic potential is realised. The Riksbank does its best to ensure that monetary policy provides a contribution here. Thank you for listening! 1  EMU commission of enquiry report SOU 1996:158. BIS Review 37/2002  7  1.
Any attempt to reform this system, by reducing the imbalance between real income and fixed farm threatened to destabilise relations between the King and the vitally significant administrative class of sheriffs and other royal officials upon whom the King’s political stability depended. As a result, the Kings’ preference was to find other ways of raising the cash. 7  Latimer (ibid.). As Latimer says, “[b]etween 1198 and 1206, sheep prices, wine prices and the price paid by the exchequer for its regular supply of cloth all indicate a steep and sustained increase.”  8  Harvey (ibid.). Henry II had paid his knights 8d per day: King John was handing over 2s or 3s, an increase of about 275%. 9  Less directly, one can infer from evidence on the exercise by manorial lords of their options to take cash payments from their villeins (peasants), instead of forcing them to work the land, that the going rate for unskilled farm labour must also have increased. 10  Assuming those increases occurred over the six years Latimer identifies as the period of significant inflation. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  surprisingly, the quantitative information on the thirteenth century money supply is of very poor quality, imputed, as it has been, from archaeological finds of cash hoards.

This process of careful study and discussion proved highly valuable during the development and implementation of inflation targeting in decades past, and will be equally valuable in the present debates. Thank you. 1 See Federal Reserve to review strategies, tools, and communication practices it uses to pursue its mandate of  maximum employment and price stability, November 15, 2018. 2 Shigeaki Fujiwara, Yuto Iwasaki, Ichiro Muto, Kenji Nishizaki, and Nao Sudo, Developments in the Natural Rate  of Interest in Japan, Bank of Japan Review 2016-E-12 (October 2016); Kathryn Holston, Thomas Laubach, and John C. Williams, Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest: International Trends and Determinants, Journal of International Economics, Volume 108, Supplement 1, pp. S59–S75 (May 2017); Thomas Laubach and John C. Williams, Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest Redux, Business Economics, Volume 51, Issue 2, pp. 57–67 (July 2016); John C. Williams, Monetary Policy in a Low R-star World, FRBSF Economic Letter 2016–23 (August 15, 2016). 3 Carlos Carvalho, Andrea Ferrero, and Fernanda Nechio, Demographic Transition and Low U.S. Interest Rates,  FRBSF Economic Letter 2017–27 (September 25, 2017); Marco Del Negro, Domenico Giannone, Marc P. Giannoni, and Andrea Tambalotti, Safety, Liquidity, and the Natural Rate of Interest, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2017. 4 John C. Williams, The Future Fortunes of R-star: Are They Really Rising? FRBSF Economic Letter 2018–13 (May  21, 2018).
Ardian Fullani: Overview of Albania’s latest monetary and economic developments and outlook Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, on the Monetary Policy Decision of the Bank of Albania’s Supervisory Council, Tirana, 25 June 2014. *  *  *  The Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania reviewed and approved today the monthly Monetary Policy Report. Based on the most recent economic and monetary developments in Albania, and following the discussions on their outlook, the Supervisory Council decided to keep the key interest rate unchanged, at 2.50%. The Council considers that the gradual transmission of earlier interest rate cuts to the financial markets will provide adequate monetary conditions for inflation to return to target over the medium term. Let me now proceed with an overview of the economic developments and key issues discussed at today’s meeting. *** Annual inflation rate was 1.6% in May, slightly down from the previous month. Inflation fell due to the reduction of health care prices, while prices of other items in the basket recorded low volatility. As with previous months, annual inflation continues to be determined by unprocessed food prices, which contribute around 88% to its final rate. From the macroeconomic perspective, the performance of consumer prices continues to reflect weak inflationary pressures, both from the domestic economy and the external sector. The negative output gap does not favour an increase in employment and wages, leading thus to a low increase of other production costs.

Let me therefore pose another question: has the use of these credit risk transfer mechanism helped to distribute risks, making the financial environment a safer place? On the plus side, credit transfer mechanisms can “redistribute” risks, as default losses would be absorbed by a larger number of investors than otherwise. Some of the losses may be borne by sophisticated players (such as hedge funds or some institutional investors) who are well diversified and can better bear the losses. Credit transfer mechanisms also allow banks (via credit derivatives) to improve their own risk management and enable them to diversify their risk profiles. However, the use or risk transfer mechanisms can contribute to opacity in the distribution of risks, especially once risks are transferred to unregulated entities (i.e. non-banks). This could lead to bunching of risks in particular areas. Additionally, the use and constant innovation of credit risk transfer mechanisms has allowed risk to take on more complex forms, making risk less traceable. My final point will be on the resulting challenges to central banks of small open economies. Central banks need to understand how globalization affects three main objectives: (1) the domestic inflation process, (2) the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, and (3) financial stability. Let me point out at the outset that empirically, there is still some disagreement to the extent of each effect. First of all, it has been argued that the domestic inflation process has been largely changed by trade globalization.