samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We think that the inflation rate will reach its trough this quarter. For 2016, we expect average inflation of −0.5%. As you can see from the chart, inflation will move back into positive territory in early 2017. These forecasts assume that the three-month Libor remains at –0.75% over the entire forecast horizon, that the Brent crude oil price remains at USD 50 per barrel and that the Swiss franc weakens. Again, our forecasts show that the current period of negative inflation is temporary. Nevertheless, even temporarily negative inflation rates are undesirable. Yet they cannot always be avoided – especially during phases of strong exchange rate appreciation. What matters is that inflation expectations remain firmly anchored and that monetary policy is able to ensure medium-term price stability. Medium and long-term inflation expectations are still positive. This can be seen in various surveys of inflation expectations, and is confirmed by discussions between the SNB’s delegates for regional economic relations and company representatives from different sectors of the economy. Thus, we do not expect sustained negative inflation, let alone a deflationary spiral. Concluding remarks This brings me to the end of my speech. Earlier this year, the SNB took some far-reaching decisions: It discontinued the minimum exchange rate against the euro, and lowered the negative interest rate on sight deposits significantly into negative territory. These measures were necessary to promote adequate monetary conditions for the Swiss economy, and to ensure the SNB’s ability to provide medium-term price stability in the future.

In the market for private sector bonds, interest rates fell as well, but not by as much as government bond yields, reflecting the greater substitution opportunities for corporate bond investors. While the introduction of the negative interest rate caused interest rates on the money and capital markets to decline, mortgage rates did not decrease to the same extent. Indeed, for long-term mortgages, interest rates are slightly higher than they were at the beginning of the year. This is because banks’ refinancing costs have not fallen to the same extent as money market interest rates. As a result, banks’ interest margins have come under pressure. 1 To partially offset this effect, banks have raised their mortgage interest rates. As yet, therefore, fears that the negative interest rate might contribute to stronger growth in mortgage lending have proved unfounded. 1  This affects the banks’ “liability margin”, which is the difference between the interest on maturity-matched alternative funding sources and the interest on deposits. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The Swiss economy in a difficult environment So far, I have spoken mainly about exchange rates and interest rates – that is, monetary conditions in the Swiss economy. I would now like to turn to the real economy. Switzerland is a relatively small open economy. 2 In general, this means that international developments matter a lot to Switzerland. However, during the global recession of 2009 and the sluggish recovery that followed, the Swiss economy proved to be surprisingly resilient.
Svein Gjedrem: Monetary policy and cyclical developments Speech by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at a meeting hosted by Sparebank 1 at the University Center, Svalbard, 22 April 2004. 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 21 April, Inflation Report 1/04 and on previous speeches. The Charts in pdf-format can be found on the Norges Bank’s website. *  *  *  In many countries, the conduct of monetary policy is delegated to the central bank. In Norway, the responsibility for interest rate decisions was delegated to Norges Bank in 1986. The mandate for the conduct of monetary policy was laid down by the Ministry of Finance in the Regulation on Monetary Policy of 29 March 2001. The operational target of monetary policy as defined by the Government is inflation of close to 2.5 per cent over time. The target is symmetrical - it is just as important to avoid an inflation rate that is too low as an inflation rate that is too high. The inflation target provides economic agents with an anchor for inflation expectations. It influences their decisions concerning saving, investment, budgets and wages. Experience shows that there is no long-term trade-off between lower unemployment or stronger economic growth and higher inflation. The task of monetary policy is to provide a nominal anchor. The inflation target is such an anchor.

Debt accumulation is also affected by the business cycle and interest rate changes. Household credit demand is closely linked to developments in the housing market. Home-owners with dwellings that have risen in value can make use of the opportunity to take up new mortgage-secured loans, freeing up home equity to finance consumption and other investments. House prices in Norway have on average risen by 9 per cent annually between 1995 and 2002. House prices have also increased considerably in other countries. A sharp and sustained rise in house prices might contribute to high credit growth even after prices have levelled off. Since only a portion of the housing stock is sold each year, there will for a long period be some dwellings that are sold at a higher price than when they were last sold. This has contributed to sustaining the high level of growth in credit to households in Norway even after the rise in house prices moderated through 2002 and into 2003. It is easiest to sell dwellings in the largest cities and some specific areas are particularly attractive. Residential property is now a fairly liquid and attractive investment. A persistently high rate of increase in house prices may in isolation engender expectations of a further rise and may thus prove to be  6  BIS Review 23/2004  self-reinforcing for a period.
Responding to the unprecedented shock of Covid It has become almost a cliché to describe Covid as an unprecedented shock. But with no comparable global events since the 1919 Spanish Flu outbreak, this really is a one-in-a-hundred year event. The necessary restrictions on activity that were put in place to contain the pandemic have had no counterpart in living memory. And the economic effects were similarly unprecedented – UK GDP fell 22% in the first half of this year, the largest fall in nearly 400 years (Figure 3), with similar, near-simultaneous falls seen across the world.The fiscal and monetary policy response, in the UK and elsewhere, has been similarly unprecedented. The UK Government launched a substantial, innovative and necessary programme of fiscal measures, with a particular and understandable focus on the labour market, as well as schemes to support the flow of finance 2  The BIS Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS) report on unconventional monetary policy tools, available at https://www.bis.org/publ/cgfs63.htm, provides an informative overview of the range of unconventional policy tools used in the aftermath of the crisis, along with an assessment of their benefits and side-effects. 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  3  Figure 3: The UK has seen its deepest downturn in nearly 400 years  Figure 4: The MPC’s asset purchases in March were carried out at record pace  Historical UK GDP  Weekly gilt purchases  to companies, involving the Bank where appropriate.

The European Commission recently estimated that the single market has brought about an increase of 2.75 million extra jobs and an extra increase in welfare of € per head in 2006, corresponding to a 2.15% increase of the EU’s GDP over the period 1992-2006. 12 However, much remains to be done, in particular in some market services sectors. The extension and deepening of the EU internal market remains clearly a priority as regards further financial market integration, the pursuit of effective competition in the energy market and the implementation of the Services Directive. The growing economic importance of services 13 suggests that improvements in European living standards are likely to depend especially on a high degree of competition and on productivity improvements in the services sector. Let me now focus more specifically on the financial sectors. Financial integration is indeed of key importance for the ECB, given the relevance for the conduct of the single monetary policy. The process of European financial integration is gradually taking place and considerable progress has been made for instance in capital markets and wholesale banking. However, the retail banking sector appears to have not yet reached its potential, and competition seems insufficient in this area leaving European consumers unable to take full advantage of the benefits of the EMU and the Single Market. 14 This seems also to have constrained, to some extent, the economic performance and development of these sectors in the euro area.
I dare say that the Swedish general public know more about the Riksbank’s monetary policy now than when it was controlled by elected politicians. And this is how it has to be. As I said before, openness is a prerequisite for independence. Sometimes, I come across fantastic ideas about the Bank’s independence, but when I explain the situation, I often meet understanding for the Riksbank’s new position. What I have talked about primarily concerns how we handle the duty to maintain price stability. The changes that took place at the beginning of 1999 were, as I said earlier, occasioned by the demands made by the Maastricht Treaty on the monetary policy decision-making process, which made necessary a new Riksbank Act. The Riksbank’s conduct of monetary policy is also what usually gives rise to discussion. As long as the payment systems function, financial stability is not threatened and access to cash means of payment is good, there is no reason on the part of the general public and the media to focus attention on this issue. The Riksbank will only be called to account if problems arise, although the Bank devotes considerable resources to these areas under normal conditions too. The Riksbank is responsible for the supply of cash For about a year now, an independent subsidiary, PSAB, Pengar i Sverige AB, has been responsible for the operational cash management in Sweden. The Riksbank still has overall responsibility for cash supply, of course, but we now exercise this largely by carrying out supervision of PSAB.

The opportunity, primarily for banks and other financial institutions, is to find ways to leverage Zambians in the diaspora to use remittance services that will both be profitable for the banks and will also provide them and their families with greater financial access. I thank you for your attention. 2  BIS Review 2/2010
First, the notable increase in risk premia, in a very sharp pendulum swing, has surely over-corrected the abnormally low levels reached in summer 2007, so these levels will foreseeably not be regained when conditions in the international financial markets return to normal. Second, the persistent difficulties in obtaining funding on the wholesale markets, which are also unlikely to regain the rate of expansion seen in the past, have led to notably heightened competition for new deposits, particularly time deposits, the cost of which is higher than that of other alternative sources of  BIS Review 52/2009  3  funding. Lastly, it should be recalled that in a setting of low interest rates, the cost of bank deposits has a floor, and this also contributes to the narrowing of margins. For these reasons, the net interest margin will foreseeably come under downward pressure in an environment in which it is not, and will not conceivably be, offset by increases in the volume of activity. Fees and commissions fell slightly in absolute terms. Firstly, analysis of the various components of fee and commission income shows that those directly related to more traditional banking activity have, in line with their lower rate of expansion, grown more moderately. Secondly, Spanish deposit institutions have been marketing non-bank financial products and securities services to their customers, which has generated significant fees and commissions. However, the data for December 2008 reflect a fall in fee and commission income from business of this type.

It is most appropriate he should be our first Keynote Speaker given his profound knowledge on the topics to be addressed in this conference. Among his recent honours, I would recall that last year he received the 2016 Bernácer prize at the Banco de España as the best European economist under the age of 40 working in macroeconomics and finance. His keynote speech today will focus on “Central bank swap lines”. Ricardo, we are very grateful to have the opportunity to exchange views with you again in our institution. The floor is yours. 5/5
2  BIS Review 25/2006  We thus endeavour to attain the inflation target within a two-year time perspective, under normal circumstances. In certain cases, however, we may need to have even greater flexibility than the twoyear perspective allows. If the economy were to suffer very large supply shocks, for instance, in the form of structural changes that have a major effect on inflation, or if extreme situations such as war or natural disasters occur, the process of bringing inflation back to the target may need to take even longer to avoid excessive strain on the real economy. In this type of situation it would be even more important that there was confidence in the inflation target. However, flexibility must not be allowed to undermine the nominal anchor. If confidence were to fail, we would be forced to act more strongly and would not have the same possibility to consider the real economy. Thus, the objective of monetary policy is to maintain price stability. However, it is possible to give consideration to the development of the real economy. This does not mean having a target for growth or employment. Instead, this type of consideration is made possible by the way in which we have chosen to formulate the principles for attaining the inflation target. However, it assumes that there is sufficient confidence in the inflation-targeting policy.

But compensation plans bear some degree of responsibility as well. Annual bonuses that reward immediate book value without reflecting tail risk to the organization reinforce short termism. Changing the time horizon for compensation will be a significant feature of meaningful cultural reform. 10 Conclusion The principal benefit to a financial services firm in having a strong ethical culture is the avoidance of bad banker behavior. Bad banker behavior often leads to enforcement actions that can carry significant monetary fines, that can inflict destructive damage to the organization’s reputation, and in the worst case, that can cause the death of a franchise (recalling that all financial services firms depend upon public confidence to survive). A strong ethical culture also attracts the best and the brightest personnel, who will seek out the bank as the place to build a career doing high quality work, for fair compensation, with people they like and respect. As for those with whom the bank does business, they may come to see the organization as customer focused, looking to serve them well, and not turning them into the next “profit opportunity.” Finally, from the perspective of the supervisory community, an industry comprising personnel who have a strong ethical culture will be a safer and sounder industry, certainly safer and sounder than an industry full of miscreants. This could be a powerful factor toward financial stability. Thank you for your kind attention. 7  Christine Lagarde, “Economic Inclusion and Financial Integrity,” Address to the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism,” May 27, 2014.
This is based on significant differences that exist, between the core-crisis countries and the countries affected by contagion, in the relative strength of the economic fundamentals, the state of the banking sector, and the perception of risk by investors. However, beyond the initial recovery, sustained economic decoupling will be difficult without a major restructuring in the sources of growth which, in the case of Asia, calls for a reorientation of the growth driver from exports to domestic demand. Making this transition safely in this era of globalized finance will be the next important challenge for emerging markets in Asia. In the past ten years, the share of domestic demand in the region’s GDP fell by 6.3 percentage point, and the share is now 12.3 percentage point below its peak in 1994. Moving the ratio back will require major restructuring in both the demand and the supply sides of the economy, which needs to be supported by policies that redirect economic incentives from savings to domestic consumption and investment. Such task is gigantic. Chief amongst the polices needed to support this transition will be the development of the region’s financial system, to ensure an efficient intermediation of savings into productive investment. This is really the key issue where the challenge and the constraint to economic decoupling lies. One of the prime reasons underlying the current global imbalance is the limited capacity of the financial systems in emerging markets to generate investment from their local savings.

For instance, with this crisis, we witness a breakdown in the key assumptions that form the basis of our thinking about the efficiency and the self-correcting nature of markets which, for a long time, underpin the rationale for globalization, liberalization, and deregulation. These assumptions are now being challenged. Next, in this crisis, the most damage comes from the most regulated sector of the economy, notably the financial sector. What we saw is that, even with regulation in place, the sector surprisingly exhibited important failure in risk management discipline across a variety of institutions and players, including banks, institutional investors, credit-rating agencies, and regulators. On this, a better way to manage risk to support the process of international financial intermediation still needs to be worked out. And finally, the global economy has never before been put in a position that it might have to deal with the consequences of the  BIS Review 92/2009  1  massive policy response that have been put in place both on the fiscal and the monetary fronts. These 4 consequences are the known unknowns, and the approach we choose to address them will importantly influence the direction that global finance will take going forward. Given the focus of this conference is on the stake of emerging economies in the international financial system, let me share with you briefly how emerging economies in Asia so far have managed in the current crisis, and how we see the direction of global finance evolving.
This is why inflation did not shoot up and financial stability indicators were normal during the new spirals of oil price fall in August-September 2015 and December 2015 – January 2016. The floating exchange rate also allowed us to save gold and currency reserves, a cushion for the national economy. The second one is a moderately tight monetary policy, which allowed us to drag inflation down and move towards the 4% target by the end of 2017. In spring 2015, inflation came up to 15.0%, stood at 12.9% as of the end of last year, now it is 7.3%, and we expect a 5-6% inflation by the year end. When deciding on the key rate we always consider the economic environment. Therefore, after a dramatic key rate hike to 17% in December 2014, we were cutting it to 11% in the first half of 2015 and subsequently suspended the reduction as inflation risks had grown. On 10 June, the latest Board meeting decided to cut the key rate to 10.5%. Our monetary policy is guided by strategic priorities, consistency and adherence to market methods. We relied on conservative forecasts in our decision-making; unfortunately, it was a reasonable thing to do during the whole of 2015. As a result, we have managed to preserve confidence in the financial system, and the alarming assumptions that capital flow can be restricted or the printing press can be launched are no longer taken seriously. The third one is special measures of temporary or limited nature.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  5
François Villeroy de Galhau: How to develop a “financial Eurosystem” post-Brexit Closing remarks by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at theEurofi High Level Seminar 2019, Bucharest, 5 April 2019. * * * Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to be in Bucharest today to conclude this Eurofi High Level Seminar. I am grateful to D. Wright and D. Cahen for offering me the opportunity to give this keynote speech... but perhaps less grateful about the theme they asked me to address: “Opportunities for developing EU autonomy in the financial area post-Brexit”. We are still faced with great uncertainties, and Brexit is and remains bad news, not only for the United Kingdom, but also for Europe. This unchartered territory has nevertheless the merit of making one thing very clear: it costs dearly to leave the single market. So we are still hoping for the best, but we have to prepare for the worst: a no-deal Brexit and all the risks it implies. This will be my first point today. Then, your theme obliges us to look ahead, beyond Brexit: Europeans should use the demands created by the current context to build a more integrated “financial Eurosystem”, and add some pillars to Europe’s financial sovereignty. **  I. Preparing for the risks It has been – first and foremost – the responsibility of the financial industry itself to prepare for the consequences of Brexit, starting with the loss of EU passporting rights.

Supervisors both at national and European levels have encouraged and monitored the implementation of contingency plans. Up until now, most major players have taken the necessary steps, but some concerns linger regarding the preparedness level of the smaller players, particularly electronic money and payment institutions. On the other hand, public measures have been taken to deal with the specific risks of a no-deal Brexit that could threaten financial stability or consumer protection. The temporary and conditional recognition of British CCPs should prevent cliff-edge effects, as well as temporary waivers on mandatory clearing and bilateral margin exchange for a limited category of products. Member states have also adapted their domestic regulations or are planning to do so. In France, legislation has been enacted ensuring contract continuity for cross border activities and an extended access to UK settlement systems. II. Building a financial Eurosystem Let me now turn to the heart of my topic. The unfortunate reality is that Brexit leaves us no other choice: we must now reshape the European financial system and develop its autonomy. The euro area can already build on strong assets: an effective monetary Eurosystem, the legal framework for a single financial market and essential components of a Banking Union. However we do not, as yet, have a “financial Eurosystem”, made up of stronger pan-European financial institutions and market infrastructure. Let’s be clear: there will not be a single City for the continent, but rather an integrated polycentric network of financial centres, with specialisations based on areas of expertise.