samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Mr Duisenberg reports on monetary policy in the euro area Speech by the President of the European Central Bank, Dr Willem F Duisenberg, at the New Year’s reception organised by the Deutsche Börse, at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Frankfurt/Main, on 25/1/99. Thank you for the invitation to speak at this New Year’s reception. 1999 is a special year: the year in which the euro was launched, and the year in which it will have to become a stable currency. This is the challenge which lies ahead. The introduction of the euro was a very happy event for all involved. The euro is present on all major financial markets around the globe. Currency trading in euro has commenced and for three weeks now shares have been denominated in euro on most European stock exchanges. Although not yet embodied in the physical form of new banknotes and coins, there is no doubt that the new currency is set to play an important role, both in the euro area and beyond. The euro is a symbol of the achievements of Europeans in the pursuit of common goals. It is unprecedented in European history. After years of intensive preparations and successful efforts towards convergence, the single monetary policy for the entire euro area is being determined by the European Central Bank (ECB).

Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: Facing the crisis in Europe Opening address by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the Conference in memory of Luis Ángel Rojo, Madrid, 21 February 2012. *  *  *  Good morning, and many thanks for having accepted our invitation to participate in this Conference in memory of Ángel Rojo. Presiding over this tribute by the Banco de España, to which Ángel Rojo devoted much of his peerless personal and professional calibre, and in which he developed many of his analytical and intellectual contributions, is frankly a privilege I would have preferred never to have taken up. It was in the Bank where he was able to successfully transform macroeconomic thought into economic policy design and implementation, heightening the reputation of the Bank itself and no doubt contributing to enhancing the well-being of Spaniards. The Bank wanted this tribute to be as solemn an occasion as the key role Ángel Rojo played within it merits, and that it should be worthy of the deep impression he made and the valuable legacy he bestowed upon us, which all his followers have sought to preserve. Fortunately for future generations, the guiding principles of his thinking as Governor can be found in numerous written texts taken from conferences and speeches that greatly impacted Spanish society and the economic policy debate in a singularly important phase for the modernisation of our economy.
Old dogs, like me, have been required to learn new tricks. Prior to the Covid crisis, an estimated extra 5 million people in the UK were expected to have a digital skills deficit by 2030.15 The switch to home-working is likely to have made inroads into this deficit. This means there are good grounds for thinking any hit to productivity from home-working may lessen over time and could plausibly even reverse sign. Studies prior to the Covid crisis estimated that between a third and a half of the tasks we do in the office could effectively be done at home.16 With between a third and a half of the workforce home-working, the Covid crisis has taken us to that point, involuntarily, at warp speed. These research findings broadly chime with my own experience. I do not know whether working from home has affected my productivity, which is never easy to measure at the best of times. Early on, as I juggled new ways of working and home-schooling, my personal productivity probably suffered. For what it is worth,  12  For the UK see TUC (2019) and for the US see Barrero et al (2020a). Fillippo et al (2020). 14 Alon et al (2020), Cui et al (2020), Andrew et al (2020). 15 ISC (2019). 16 Dingel and Neiman (2020), Boeri et al. (2020), Adams-Prassl et al. (2020).

Our future will be secured if we remain relevant. Thank you. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
First, the earnings that Federal Reserve returns to the U.S. Treasury Department each year are likely to fall in the future, as rising short-term interest rates narrow the gap between what the Federal Reserve pays on its liabilities—primarily currency and bank reserves—and what it earns on its portfolio of Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities. In recent years, the Federal Reserve’s remittances to the Treasury have averaged about $ billion per year, far above the $ billion average prior to the Great Recession. Although the precise trajectory of future reimbursements is highly uncertain, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that Federal Reserve payments to the Treasury will drop from around 0.6 percent of GDP in fiscal 2016 to 0.3 percent of GDP by 2026. Second, the Treasury’s debt-service costs will likely grow as interest rates rise and the amount of outstanding debt held by the public continues to increase. While net outstanding Treasury debt held by the public has risen to $ trillion from $ trillion over the past decade, annual debt-service costs have only increased very modestly. Looking ahead, the CBO’s baseline projection is that debt-service costs will rise from 1.4 percent of GDP in fiscal 2016 to 2.6 percent of GDP in 2026. Third, the retirement of the baby boom generation will put significant upward pressure on Social Security and Medicare expenditures.

What I have in mind here is putting in place stronger, more robust automatic fiscal stabilizers that would provide income support during economic downturns. By reducing fluctuations in disposable incomes, these types of fiscal actions would stabilize aggregate demand, thereby limiting the risk of monetary policy getting pinned at the zero lower bound for an extended period and the need for extraordinary monetary policy measures. I favor automatic, rather than discretionary, fiscal actions because they would typically go into effect more quickly and would be better anticipated. Expectations matter greatly in affecting economic behavior. For example, if the economy were to weaken, the anticipation that strong fiscal stabilizers would kick in to support incomes should lead workers to be less fearful about losing their jobs, and businesses to be less concerned that demand for their products might fall precipitously. This, in turn, would make workers more confident that they could sustain their spending, and would make businesses more confident that they could keep workers on their payrolls. What type of fiscal stabilizers would be most effective? I would turn first to those that Congress has implemented on a discretionary basis during past economic downturns, such as extensions of unemployment compensation and cuts in payroll taxes. For example, when the unemployment rate climbs, extensions of the duration of eligibility for unemployment compensation could be triggered automatically, helping to stabilize household income.
Janet Yellen, who’s the Chair of the Federal Reserve, has talked about the headwinds that have been slowing down the U.S. economy. One of those headwinds is exactly what you’re talking about, the fact that people are locked into homes because their homes are either underwater, the value of the homes are less than the value of their mortgages, or because their credit-rating was damaged during the Financial Crisis because people lost their jobs, and so their credit-rating was impaired. And so that’s really the reason why we’ve been so delicate and so slow in actually raising interest rates. It’s partly exactly what you’re talking about. Dr. Olajide Oladipo: Thank you. Audience Member: Good morning. Thank you for being here. One of the things that we’ve been looking at here in Southeast Queens is the establishment of CDFIs, additional CDFIs to support the growth and the access to capital of small businesses. Would you comment a little bit about what do you see as the future of CDFIs going forward in this economic climate, and any suggestions that you would have to support us in doing that? Thank you. 11 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  President Dudley: Well, I guess I sort of think of CDFIs as doing God’s work in some ways because the hardest thing for someone with a really good idea and starting a small business is to get that initial bit of capital to establish a track record.

I wanted to ask you, do you think the removal of the Dodd-Frank Act would be productive for the economy? And if so, why? President Dudley: So removal of the Dodd-Frank Act be productive for the economy? I’m going to give you a little bit more nuanced answer. I don’t think it’s a question of either the Dodd-Frank Act or no Dodd-Frank Act. I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to the world we were in 2006, 2007, because that financial system led to the worst financial crisis that we’ve had since the Great Depression, and as you know the economy suffered greatly. The unemployment rate climbed over 10%. So clearly, we don’t want to go back to that. But at the same time, is the Dodd-Frank Act as it exists today perfect? I doubt it. What I tell people is we really want to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What we want is a system where we have banks with adequate capital, adequate liquidity – number one – so the probability of a large bank failing is a lot lower today than it was back in 2006 and 2007. Number two, we want a system where if a large bank were to get into difficulty, we have the ability to resolve it in a way that it doesn’t threaten to take down the rest of the financial system.
Mindful of the importance of consumer protection, the Bank of Thailand already issued a regulation requiring financial institutions to disclose information, especially on effective interest rate and fee charged, financial position and operating results, so that customers can make well-informed decisions. Additionally, financial institutions will be required to have in place clear procedures for handling customer complaints. On a system-wide scale, the authorities will introduce a deposit insurance scheme in place of the existing blanket guarantee to ensure protection of retail consumers. BIS Review 22/2004  3  3. Supervisory concerns and challenges  I have already touched on regulators’ concerns that directly affect consumer benefits. Now allow me to go through the concerns and challenges of retail banking from a wider perspective. First, we are concerned for those considering jumping onto the booming retail credit bandwagon without having sufficient skills and resources to capitalize on the key drivers of this market segment. Second, the risks inherent in credit extension, which have to be adequately monitored and managed. Third, the one that directly concerns us, regulators, - how to achieve a balanced objective of financial institution stability and fostering development, competition and level playing field. Drivers of retail banking business The gaps of financial services provided by financial institutions in Thailand reflect untapped opportunities in the retail sector awaiting those having the capability to fill in these gaps. The opportunities are open to banks with the right business models for the identified niche markets.

And the Australian terms of trade have risen by 40% since 2000, providing a substantial boost to the growth rate of real incomes. Nothing could be more damaging to the prospects of developing and developed countries alike than the abandonment of further trade liberalisation. But protectionist sentiments are abroad again, even with high employment rates around the world. In Europe they are concealed as cries for “national champions”; in Latin America as populism; in the United States as complaints about unfair competition. But the damage that protectionism can wreak is clear – the experience of the Great Depression should be enough to ring alarm bells. If that is to be avoided and we are to maintain widespread support for an open international trading system, it is in all our interests to establish clear rules for what we will and won’t do in areas where our  2  BIS Review 126/2006  decisions affect stability elsewhere. And if those commitments are to be upheld, we will need international institutions. The role of international institutions was thrown into sharp relief last week by the visit to Beijing of the new US Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, and a high-level team for a “strategic economic dialogue” with the Chinese Government.
Wholesale CBDC refers to the settlement of interbank transfers and related wholesale transactions in central bank reserves. [2] But some misinterpret “wholesale CBDC” to mean any large-value payment in central bank money, regardless of who is making and receiving the payment. Second, there is a widespread misconception that wholesale CBDC does not yet exist. In fact, central bank money has been available in digital form for wholesale transactions between banks for decades. This misconception is fuelled by the commonly held assumption that wholesale CBDC needs to be operated using DLT. But wholesale CBDC is not synonymous with DLT, as it can be based on any digital technology. In the euro area, the Eurosystem offers banks the possibility of settling wholesale digital transactions through its TARGET Services using a centralised ledger. [3] Third, wholesale CBDC is sometimes seen as a substitute for retail CBDC. But in reality they complement each other by addressing the different needs of different users. On the wholesale side, central banks supply the ultimate means of payment for financial institutions, which helps to reduce risks in the financial system. On the retail side, providing the public with highly convenient and secure means of payment helps to underpin confidence in money by enabling private forms of money to be converted, at par, into risk-free central bank money. [4] Wholesale and retail CBDC projects also differ in several ways. To begin with, they have very different starting points.

Similarly, a majority of SMEs in Africa are unbanked and access to finance is a major obstacle. Only 20 percent of African SMEs have a line of credit from a financial institution. This gap provides abundant opportunities for those who are willing to tap into very promising African financial market by providing Shariah-compliant financing facilities to the retail and SME clientele. Islamic microfinance facilities can also enhance financial inclusion in Africa. The role of Government and the central bank. The government has an important role to play. Any new industry requires harnessing and nurturing. Government’s commitment is key but commitment must commensurate with substantive action. For new entrants to the Islamic financial industry, sovereign sukuk issuance by government would be a bold and strategic move. Naturally, the private sector will follow suit as there is already readily available pricing benchmark. In the first quarter of this year, 81 percent of the USD31 billion new issuances in the global primary sukuk market were by sovereign and quasi-sovereign issuers. Several more debut sovereign issuances are in the pipeline including issuances from United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and countries in Africa, namely South Africa, Tunisia, Mauritania, Senegal and Oman. Our own experience in 2003 showed that the private sector would start issuing their own sukuk once the government had shown the lead. The act of government issuing its own sovereign sukuk is the single most important initiative to prove its commitment to Islamic finance. Start with local currencies and follow up with non-domestic currencies when the timing becomes suitable.
Nobody seriously disputes that a collective strategy involving more structural reforms in some countries including France, and more public investment in others including Germany would make for a better policy mix for sustainable growth and employment in Europe. Second, the Finance Minister would be responsible for supervising the implementation of the collective strategy, using adequate instruments to provide symmetric incentives. Negative incentives would include the existing sanction mechanisms, and could be broadened in contractual procedures, already put forward in the 2013 Franco-German contribution on EMU, or in Chancellor Merkel’s 4 “binding reform contracts” proposal. A positive incentive could be for instance the access to a euro area ”Convergence Fund”, through which Member States could benefit from common funding. Third, the Finance Minister would be responsible for implementing centralized crisis management. A Finance Minister for the euro area would naturally be in charge of overseeing European Stability Mechanism operations. Last, while moving towards further integration, the Minister could be given the authority for managing a euro area Convergence Fund, progressively evolving towards a euro budget. Further integration and democratic accountability should move forward in parallel. These institutional changes obviously require a new Treaty. 3  Marcel Fratzscher, Lessons for Europe from German Monetary Union, DIW Economic Bulletin 27.2015  4  Angela Merkel’s first parliamentary speech of the third term, December 18 2013. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  A legitimate institution with genuine admin.

Credibility and anchored inflation expectations require that we do not give credit to the past “toothpaste” view of monetary policy – contractionary policy cannot fight inflation once it is out – nor symmetrically to the current “string” view of monetary policy – whereby accommodative policy cannot fight deflation. So, our results have to be judged over the medium term. We are only fifteen months after the real start of QE in the Eurozone but we can already see some positive effects. According to Eurosystem staff assessments, without the APP (Asset Purchasing Program) inflation would have been negative in 2015, more than half of a percentage point lower in 2016, and around half of a percentage point lower in 2017. If we pursue our program, what should we expect down the road? The US Federal Reserve has shown us the way, taking a series of very important steps to increase monetary stimulus even after it brought its policy interest rate to zero. The Fed issued forward  2  2  C. Romer and D. Romer “The Most Dangerous Idea in Federal Reserve History: Monetary Policy Doesn’t Matter” American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 2013, 103(3): 55–60. BIS central bankers’ speeches  guidance to signal a protracted period of low interest rates and began QE. The US logically leads the way as it was the first epicenter of the Great recession. The US QE began in November 2008 and core inflation troughed in October 2010.
It is crucial to ensure that the models that drive CCPs margin requirements are robust, conservative and do not act pro-cyclically. This is an area that, as a supervisor, we look at closely. The second is to develop further the arrangements for the recovery and, if necessary, resolution of CCPs. I will cover this in the next section. 17  EMIR RTS Article 45.2 requires CCPs to secure not less than 95% of cash collateral with highly liquid financial instruments, thereby limiting the amount of cash CCPs can hold unsecured. 11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  11  And the third, and perhaps most important, is to develop within CCPs the culture of the ‘systemic risk manager’ - responsible not just for managing the risks to the firm but also managing the risks to the system more broadly. CCP management, with encouragement from supervisors and regulators, have made significant progress in strengthening their governance and risk culture. But as the reforms are implemented, as greater use is made of CCPs, as they become more important as a systemic shock absorber, CCP’s management and boards will need to continue to up their game. And we will continue to hold them to account in doing so. Regulators and Supervisors  Regulators and supervisors will need to up their game also as the importance of this infrastructure grows. As I noted at the outset, the international standards – the CPMI-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructure - were developed by central banks and regulators in 2012.

These global pipes increase efficiency, lower costs to the real economy and reduce risk. And because they are in essence global, we will have to find co-operative ways to manage the changing risks they present in order to maintain the benefits that they provide. 17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  17
In the case of the eurozone, that is the European Central Bank. The pros and cons of such cooperation were outlined in detail in a report published by the Central Bank in autumn 2012, and I do not have time to cover them here. 1 If we continue with our own currency, the question of exchange rate policy arises: should the króna be pegged against one currency or a basket of currencies, should it float freely, or should it be somewhere in between? If the exchange rate is pegged, it is not possible to apply monetary policy to mitigate economic fluctuations by responding to shocks. The adjustment will therefore take place more through fluctuations in employment and output and less through fluctuations in real wages than is the case with independent monetary policy and a flexible exchange rate. What do we want in this context? A good stylised example of how independent monetary policy and a flexible exchange rate could mitigate the impact of shocks on employment and output can be found in the most recent issue of Monetary Bulletin, which describes what would happen if the past few years’ improvement in terms of trade should reverse with  1  http://www.cb.is/publications-news-and-speeches/publications/special-publications/specialpublication-7/  9  a reduction in marine product prices. 2 There are many things to consider in this respect. Experience shows that in small, open economies with unrestricted capital flows and a freefloating currency, the exchange rate has a tendency to fluctuate excessively and irregularly, with possible negative implications for financial stability.

It is also possible that, in addition to the distribution  8  of the costs and benefits of the reserves, which is built into the current regulatory framework for the financial interactions between the Treasury and the Central Bank, ways could be found for banks and even other financial institutions to participate in the cost of financing the reserves, as these institutions enjoy the benefits of them, including better credit ratings and lower foreign financing costs. The worst that we could do in this context would be to sacrifice the long-term benefits of price stability and economic equilibrium in order to increase the Central Bank’s profits in the short-term. The monetary policy framework I would now like to turn to two related topics: the pros and cons of independent monetary policy, on the one hand, and possible changes to the monetary policy framework and implementation, on the other. I must be brief because the clock is ticking, but I am more than willing to answer questions about this and other points later on. “Is independent monetary policy too costly?” is the topic of this meeting. Presumably, the question implied is whether the benefits of such monetary policy are outweighed by the costs. To my mind, this question can hardly be answered without reference to the various options available because we must have some sort of currency regime, and all of them have pros and cons. If there is a currency union, it is the monetary policy of the union’s central bank that carries the day.