samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In addition, we must look beyond the banking sector and make progress in developing a capital markets union to enhance further the scope for cross-border private risk-sharing. It is also essential to prevent imbalances from developing into future crises. We need a new convergence process based on the capacity of our economies to withstand shocks and recover from them quickly. This implies not only establishing a more robust financial system; it also requires stronger governance of structural reforms and tighter control of national fiscal policies. To ensure that Member States can adjust to economic shocks, whatever their size, once we achieve greater convergence we will also need to add a layer of fiscal stabilisation at the European level. Taken together, these steps towards completing Europe’s economic and monetary union would help the euro area not only to survive, but also to thrive and prosper. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Svein Gjedrem: Experiences with inflation targeting in Norway and other countries Speech by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Centre for Monetary Economics/Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, 7 June 2005. The speech does not contain assessments of the economic situation or current interest rate setting. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The  Charts in pdf-format can be found on the Norges Bank’s website. *  *  *  Monetary policy’s most important task is to provide the economy with a nominal anchor. Through history this task has been accomplished in different ways. All of them have not been equally successful. Five hundred years of Norway’s inflation history nevertheless show that price stability is normal and that high inflation is a phenomenon of wartime and years of social distress as well as a phenomenon of the 1970s.1 The economic policy of the 1970s and parts of the 1980s contributed to wide fluctuations in output and employment and high and variable inflation. It was gradually recognised that monetary policy’s most important task is to ensure low and stable inflation. Throughout the 1980s, monetary policy was oriented towards reducing inflation. Norway and a number of other countries chose a fixed exchange rate as a target for monetary policy. The fixed exchange rate was chosen to provide the economy with a nominal anchor.
It is no easy task to build this type of mechanism into our models, or even the part of the analysis based on assessments. Allow me to alter the time perspective somewhat and assume that a loan-driven bubble in the property market has burst and had serious consequences for the rest of the economy. There are some questions that I would like to be able to give the “right” answer to if I were standing in this situation looking back over the developments leading up to it, perhaps looking back a year. Would we then be able to claim with certainty that our interest rate policy did not contribute to developments becoming unbalanced and getting out of control? Would we be able to say with certainty that we did not suspect that these developments were untenable and that there would soon be a collapse? And would we be able to say with certainty that conducting a slightly stricter monetary policy than was justified by the forecasts had not helped? I consider it essential for the credibility of every central bank to be able to provide good answers to these questions. And for me it is natural to also take into account the type of factor I have now spoken about – that is so difficult to quantify – when I assess what is the best-balanced monetary policy. Other weapons than the interest rate are probably more effective with regard to preventing loan-financed house price bubbles from building up.

For example, we will not entertain attempts at fishing for banking information and other spurious requests. As with all major international financial centres, customer confidentiality is a cardinal principle of our financial sector. It will only be lifted by a Singapore court order and only if the safeguards set out in the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act are met. These provisions do not shield criminal activities. Singapore will continue to participate actively in the fight against crime, money laundering and terrorist financing. Going forward, we will work to deepen the sharing of knowledge and practices with jurisdictions that approach us for assistance through training programmes. We believe that we can make contributions on economic and financial issues, particularly those pertaining to the region. For instance, our unique monetary policy framework has proved to be sufficiently robust and flexible to cope with shocks in the external environment. We are keen to share our experience through research papers, policy dialogues and seminars with developing countries which are experimenting with intermediate exchange rate regimes. IV. Conclusion  Let me conclude. I have outlined our priorities for the next five years. Our emphasis is on action. We must translate the seminar findings and conclusions into a set of practical initiatives and implement them. We must be prepared to take calculated risks and adapt as we go along. This will require not just hard work and dedication, but also a spirit of openness, inquiry and enterprise. I am confident that together we can achieve our goals for MAS and Singapore.
Unemployment Percentage of the labour force 10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0 04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  14  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  7. Inflation Annual percentage change 5  5  CPI CPIF CPIF excluding energy  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2  -2 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  14  Note. The CPIF is the CPI with a fixed mortgage rate. The data are updated with new outcomes after the publication of the July Monetary Policy Report. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  8. Repo rate with uncertainty bands Per cent, quarterly average 8  8 90% 75% 50% Outcome Forecast  7 6  7 6  5  5  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0 04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  14  Source: The Riksbank  BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  9.

Over the same period, to the fourth quarter of last year, GDP growth averaged just under 3% a year which is well above most estimates of our trend rate of 2¼%-2½%. GDP has in fact grown for 38 successive quarters which is the longest period of sustained quarter-by-quarter growth we have enjoyed since quarterly records began in the UK in 1955. BIS Review 10/2002  1  Employment has increased steadily from a low point of 25 ½ mn people in the Spring of 1993 to its current level of 28 mn. And the rate of unemployment fell from a peak of over 10½% on the LFS measure to around 5% last summer; while on the claimant count measure it fell from some 10% to just over 3%, which meant that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit, at under 950,000, was the lowest for 26 years. Now some of you - given what's happening to your own businesses - are probably thinking that I must come from a different planet. And yes, we do have a problem. Once you look beneath this apparently benign surface of the economy as a whole, you find very substantial differences between many internationally-exposed sectors of the economy - including particularly many manufacturing businesses - which have recently been having a really tough time, and other businesses largely serving our domestic market which have been doing pretty well.
If Sweden had had a system of recurrent reviews of the policy objective, the at times almost surprisingly heated debate over recent years would probably have been more balanced. The issues raised in the debate had then been publicly examined in these reviews in an objective and scientific way, and it would have been clear that the Riksbank is not “running its own race”, decoupled from its remit. To motivate the policy conducted by a central bank, it is of course significantly easier to rely on a review of the remit from at most just a few years ago than, as in Sweden’s case, on a system that was determined more than 25 years ago and whose status and meaning today seem unclear to many. I think that a procedure of regular reviews of the remit could also be a way of counteracting the forces in many parts of the world looking to make central banks  16 Giavazzi and Mishkin (2006), Goodhart and Rochet (2011) and Goodfriend and King (2016). 17 James Bullard, Head of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has expressed similar thoughts, see Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (2019). 18 Bank of Canada (2016). 10 [21]  less independent. It would make it clearer that central banks act based on the remit they have and do not just do as they please, which seems not to be such an unusual opinion these days.

In June, the Riksdag supported the proposal and called on the government to appoint as soon as possible an inquiry into the consequences for the payment market of digitalisation and the declining use of cash, and the roles of the state and the private sector on this market. The Government Offices are currently in the process of drafting the inquiry’s terms of reference and reviewing its staffing. The inquiry will probably be able to start work in early 2020. So far, there are perhaps not so many lessons to be learnt from this as we are very much in the middle of an ongoing process. One possible lesson is that it is not just crises and macroeconomic paradigm shifts that require analysis, innovation and adaptability at a central bank. Changes in the payment system can also do so, even if they occur less frequently. Another lesson is that the payment habits of the general public can change very quickly once the prerequisites are in place. In just under ten years, dramatic developments have taken place in the way Swedish people pay for things. Between 2010 and 2018, the proportion of Swedes who used cash for their last transaction decreased from about 40 per cent to 13 per cent, and it will probably continue to fall. My vision of the Swedish payment system in the future Before I round off, allow me to elaborate on an issue that I am particularly passionate about.
Nevertheless, increased productive capacity of oil suppliers and technological progress, which will enable us to decrease our reliance on oil over time, should dampen the impact in the medium run. I have so far outlined the main challenges on the external front. But the key question remains: how will the Bank of Thailand meet these challenges and attain the goal of ensuring low and stable inflation as well as a resilient, well-functioning financial sector that is able to intermediate efficiently between savers and investors? This leads to my second point. Before we grapple with global imbalances and high oil prices, we must first realize that the key factors underlying these challenges are largely beyond our control. They arise from the complex economic interactions on the global scale. However, the central bank can attempt to contain the adverse impacts of these external shocks on the domestic economy by preserving domestic monetary and financial stability. This is, of course, easier said than done. Rapid changes, whether from within or without, typically bring forth tension and necessitate tough decisions in trading off short-term pain for long-term gain. The recent surge in oil prices is a case in point. High oil prices have had two adverse effects: pressure on prices and a drag on economic growth. Tightening interest rates is the Bank of Thailand’s primary method of fighting inflation. However, high interest rates would burden firms and households already trying to cope with high oil prices. Domestic demand would be adversely affected.

First, I would like to draw your attention to the benefits and challenges of globalization from the perspective and actual experience of Thailand. Second, I want to identify the main challenges of globalization and how to meet them. And last, I would like to conclude with a discussion of how Thailand should position itself in order to reap the benefits of globalization while avoiding its pitfalls in the long run First, I wish to emphasize that globalization brings both opportunities and challenges to small open economies. Thailand is no stranger to this reality and successive administrations have shown strong commitment to supporting the progress of global economic integration. Nevertheless, we should also put the issue of benefits and challenges of financial and economic globalization into a proper perspective. I would like to do this by examining the experience of Thailand during the past two decades. Over the past twenty years, it is an undeniable fact that globalization has brought substantial gains to Thailand. The evidence is all around us. International trade and investment have boomed. Thai exports expanded by over 11 percent per year during the same period. Our large and vibrant export sector sends goods all over the world. And, in turn, Thai consumers enjoy goods from all corners of the globe. On the investment side, healthy joint ventures and foreign investment abound. Interaction at the person-to-person level has also grown, underlying the fundamental importance of the sharing of knowledge and skills between nations.
The current account deficit in the US is now close to 5% of GDP, a post-war record. It is sustainable as long as foreigners are prepared to finance it. So far, the profitability of new investment opportunities in the US has attracted capital inflows to finance higher investment, which in turn has led to a strong dollar. If expectations about higher productivity growth prove well-founded, then US businesses and families will gradually repay the debts they have incurred, and the current account deficit will subside, with an adjustment of the dollar accordingly. Although the imbalances will unwind, they will do so slowly, allowing the US economy to recover from its present slowdown. But if there were to be a reappraisal of the extent to which productivity growth had increased, then a more sudden downward adjustment to spending could result. In such circumstances, the imbalances would unwind more rapidly, leading to adjustments in asset prices, both in stock markets and exchange rates. That would imply a much bumpier ride for both the United States and the world economy in the months ahead. Clearly, there have been some downward adjustments to stock prices in the US over the past year. But their scale has been limited, and there does, at least so far, appear to be no significant reappraisal of the impact of new technology on US productivity growth.

The PRA agrees with longstanding and justified concerns raised by the industry on the sensitivity of the risk margin to interest rates, and its overall quantum when interest rates are low. The Government’s April Consultation Document[9] lays out reform proposals. The potential impact of these reforms can be significant. For general insurers, we believe that a roughly 30% cut in risk margin can be justified, similar to the impact on EU firms of reform proposals made by the European Commission. This outcome would therefore ensure no disadvantage on competitiveness grounds for GI firms. For life insurers, given the longer term nature of the insurance risks and the presence of closely matched assets, we believe that a greater reduction of around 60% is possible – but only if the FS is also reformed to better reflect credit risk retained by life insurers. Simultaneous reform of both risk margin and MA can also correct a potential distortion in the current framework that has become apparent over time. Namely that, broadly speaking, under the Solvency II regulatory regime, some long term insurance risks – in particular, longevity risk – appears to have been highly-capitalised, relative to credit risk. This has created an environment where life insurers have been retaining less and less insurance risk, but acquiring additional credit risk, including counterparty credit risk. This trend has become more evident since Solvency II came into force, and raises questions about the effectiveness of the regime, in terms of both competitiveness and in mitigating risks to our statutory objectives.
And third, globalisation leads to imbalances of democracy and sovereignty, leading many to lament a loss of control and to lose trust in the system. As Dani Rodrik has argued, there is a trilemma between economic integration, democracy and sovereignty. 26 Common rules and standards are required for trade in goods, services and capital, but those rules cede or, at best pool, sovereignty. To maintain legitimacy, the process of agreeing those standards needs to be rooted in democratic accountability. Much will be required to create a more inclusive, sustainable globalisation but part of the solution is a more flexible and open trading system for services and for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Freer trade in services can help to resolve external imbalances.27 With barriers to services trade currently up to three times higher than those for goods, the Bank estimates that eliminating this differential could reduce the excess deficits of the US by up to one third and of the UK by up to one half. Freer trade for SMEs and services would spread the benefits of global markets much more widely than traditional, more multinational-based free trade in goods. SMEs employ 60% of workers. More women work in services than men. The digital revolution28 could help to ensure trade is available to the smallest companies as well as the largest. And freer trade in services could help rebalance the trilemma from prescriptive supranational rules to more differentiated, national approaches to achieve common outcomes. The post-crisis reforms of financial services offer a model.

Private sector credit growth has averaged less than 3% in the UK, US and the euro area over the past decade, generally less than nominal GDP growth. Aggregate debt servicing ratios are below historic averages, in part due to low equilibrium interest rates. Although there are pockets of risk, heat maps that mechanically bring together several credit measures remain relatively cool overall (Chart 7) – though aggregates can hide important pockets of risk that can amplify negative shocks, and, as I’ll discuss, it is a different picture for China. See Reinhart, C, Rogoff, K, (2010), Growth in a Time of Debt, American Economic Review. For example, see Bridges, J, Jackson, C, McGregor, D (2017) Down in the slumps: the role of credit in five decades of recessions, Bank of England Staff Working Paper N. 659; Borio, C, Drehmann, M, Xia, D (2018) The financial cycle and recession risk, BIS quarterly review; Taylor, A, Schularick, M (2012) Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008, American Economic Review; Aikman, D, Bridges, J, Kashyap, A, Siegart, C (2018) Would macroprudential regulation have prevented the last crisis?, Bank of England Staff Working Paper N. 747. 15 There are various definitions of a credit boom in the empirical literature – for a brief summary see Gorton, G, Ordoñez, G (2019), Good Booms, Bad Booms, forthcoming in the Journal of the European Economic Association.
Before I do that, I should first like to update you on the state of our economy as the painful adjustment process draws to a close and as clear signs of economic recovery emerge. I should also like to address some of the concerns – unnecessary ones, in my view – that still seem to be clouding the view of Hong Kong from outside. The recovery Those of you who heard me in June last year may well be a little sceptical about any advice from me on the outlook for the Hong Kong economy. Although I was under no illusion about the less prosperous times that lay ahead, like many at the time I was perhaps a little too sanguine in my assessment about the impact that the Asian crisis would have on Hong Kong. However, the temptation now for many is to go to the other extreme: to be very cautious in making predictions about the future and to acknowledge signs of recovery only very reluctantly. This is understandable when we are still only just moving out of our sharpest recession on record. Yet even the pessimists would now, I think, acknowledge that the storm signals are down, the clouds are thinning out, and there are shafts of sunlight in the distance. I speak only metaphorically, of course.

We are now aware of the importance of these issues and I am fortunate enough to have witnessed first-hand the work being done in all areas – governmental, regulatory and social – to mitigate this problem and build a more just and sustainable society. Because, as the scientists remind us, there is no time to lose. 26  In line with the conclusions drawn by other bodies such as the NGFS which show that the impacts in terms of GDP of taking no action or acting too late would be more negative than following the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 policy. ngfs_climate_scenarios_for_central_banks_and_supervisors_.pdf.pdf 27  https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap132.pdf
Again WAIFEM’s courses in Econometric Modelling and Forecasting is a welcome initiative to bridge capacity gaps. •  Understanding the macroeconomy Finally, liquidity forecasting cannot be effectively done without sufficient understanding of the macroeconomy, stance of demand management policies and outlook for the future. All this constitutes the environment in which forecasting takes place. BIS Review 45/2007  3  4.0  Conclusion  In this address, I have sought to sensitize you about some of the critical issues in liquidity forecasting. I believe that the expert faculty placed at your disposal, will give you an exhaustive treatment of the subject matter. At this juncture, permit me to express our sincere appreciation to Messrs Simon Gray and Tony Smith of the Centre for Central Banking Studies of the Bank of England and the UK Treasury Department, respectively for taking up our call to facilitate this course. I would like to take the liberty to invite you to avail yourselves of this opportunity provided by this course. Once more I enjoin you to feel at home here in Freetown and enjoy the warmth and hospitality of our people. On this note, it is my singular honour and privilege to declare open the Regional Course on Liquidity Forecasting for Monetary and Fiscal Management. I thank you for your attention. 4  BIS Review 45/2007

I have been lucky to have also had the unconditional support of my family, who has had to endure the heavy burden that this responsibility has placed on our lives. It is true that I would have liked to end my term with an inflation rate within the target range. Sadly, some circumstances beyond our control have made it impossible. But I am certain that this is a temporary phenomena and that the Central Bank is very well prepared to comply with its price stability objective. On my part, I leave with the satisfaction of having contributed to the strengthening of this institution, so transcendental for the development and the welfare of the Chileans, to make it more credible, robust and efficient, but also more human, to earn prestige for our country and at the same time make it a great place to work in. BIS Review 149/2007  3  Here we have people of the top level, individuals with a long trajectory and also with promising future. I ask you now to continue strengthening this institution to raise it to ever higher positions. I am grateful for all the support that the Board has given me throughout my period as Governor; I thank every manager, head of department and all the staff, from the highest to the lowest rank, for your patience, but above all, for the appreciation and affection you have shown me, especially in these last days.