samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
From one perspective, the unconventional nature of monetary policy around the world adds little that is fundamentally new to the challenges that face EMEs. Today’s monetary policies simply represent a way of easing that was necessitated by hitting the zero lower bound here and elsewhere. Central bankers have managed differences across countries in cyclical positions and policy stances many times in the past. This time should not be fundamentally different. But, from another perspective, we have less experience operating with unconventional monetary policy, we have been in this regime for a long time and this creates more potential uncertainties. These uncertainties put a premium on clear communication among central  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  bankers as well as between central bankers and market participants. In my view, an important fact is that the large scale asset purchase programs undertaken in the United States and elsewhere have dramatically shrunk the size of bond risk premia globally. This new set of monetary policies affects financial asset prices in a different way compared to changes in short-term interest rates, and we should be humble regarding what we claim to understand about this distinction. Looking ahead, it seems likely that markets will remain focused on those vulnerabilities that they might have ignored prior to the taper tantrum in 2013. The greater premium on strong fundamentals, policy coherence and predictability will likely remain. Although we will undoubtedly experience further bumps in the road. I think we can remain generally optimistic about the prospects for adjustment.

William C Dudley: The global implications of diverging monetary policy settings in advanced economies Panel remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Sixth High Level Conference on the International Monetary System: Monetary Policy Challenges in a Changing World, Zurich, Switzerland, 12 May 2015. *  *  *  It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to participate in today’s conference. In keeping with this session’s mandate, I will focus my remarks on the global implications of U.S. monetary policy normalization – paying particular attention to the potential implications for emerging market economies (EMEs). I put the focus here because these economies were greatly affected in 2013 during the so-called “taper tantrum” and many of these economies have been under stress from the weakness in global commodity prices. As always, what I have to say today reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or the Federal Reserve. But before I get to the implications for EMEs and what the Fed should do or not do to mitigate the impact, a few words on the timing of normalization. To be as direct as possible: I don’t know when this will occur. The timing of lift-off will depend on how the economic outlook evolves. Since the economic outlook is uncertain, this means the timing of liftoff must also be uncertain.
Mugur Isărescu: Convergence towards euro enlargement Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the European League for Economic Cooperation’s (ELEC) Monetary Conference, National Bank of Romania, Bucharest, 4 June 2019. * * * As prepared for delivery Your Excellency Baron Snoy, Dear members of ELEC, Ladies and gentlemen, It is a pleasure for me to open this ELEC Conference, which is the 9th taking place in Romania and hosted by the National Bank. It all started in 2011 with “Renewable energy and transport infrastructure in the Black Sea Region”. One year later we talked about “Eastern Europe and the EMU: finding the optimal path for introducing the euro”. In 2013, there was the 3rd edition of the Danube Financing Dialogue. The following year the dialogue focused on “Agriculture and environmental protection in Central and Eastern Europe and their contribution to growth and employment”. In 2016, we discussed “How the EU can generate a virtuous circle in the Black Sea Region – the case of food and energy security” and in 2017 we debated on “the challenges for Eastern Europe in the present turmoil in the EU and EMU – persevering in the reforms and investing for the future”. The topic of the last year, “Convergence towards euro enlargement”, is approached again today, which is more than welcome, given the importance attached to this issue. The debate on convergence and euro adoption is broad-based and complex. The topic has been addressed in yesterday’s dinner speech by Academician Daniel Daianu.

Allow me to also extend a word of gratitude to Radu Deac, the Chairman of ELEC Romania since its establishment, for his steady contribution to promote Romania in Europe and Europe in Romania. It is not that the Eurozone does not have its own problems, yet the strengthening of its governance framework is what one may call “work in progress”. It is our duty, I think, to keep believing in the European project, as the only valid one for securing peace and prosperity on our continent. As I have previously stated, whenever obstacles emerge, I cannot help recalling the words of Jean Monnet, one of the EU founding fathers: “Europe will be forged in crises and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises”. I trust that this Conference, which has a lot of outstanding panellists, will address those problems as well. Among the speakers, I am particularly pleased to see Jeffrey Franks, another old friend of Romania, with whom we had a fruitful co-operation in the past. On this note, allow me to finish and wish every success to the works of this conference. Thank you. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
I expect GDP growth to be around 2-1/4 percent this year, moderately above my estimate of the long-run sustainable growth rate for the economy. In my past speeches, I often mentioned the fact that we’re nearing the longest expansion on record. Well, as of this month, I can finally say that we’ve reached that milestone. The economy has been growing for 121 months—a little over 10 years. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  While this is undoubtedly good news, the headline data mask a more nuanced economic picture. Consumer spending has been an important driver of growth, and the most recent readings have been very positive. However, other signs point to slowing growth. In particular, the latest indicators suggest that business fixed investment has softened and that manufacturing production is in decline. And the outlook for growth outside the United States has dimmed, which will weigh on demand for U.S. products. This mixed picture is mirrored in the employment data. On one hand, the unemployment rate, which stands at 3.7 percent, is near the lowest we’ve seen in 50 years. On the other, job growth has slowed this year relative to last year’s pace. Finally, turning to prices, the latest data show that underlying inflation is 1.6 percent, below our 2 percent goal. The major challenge with inflation that’s persistently lower than 2 percent is that low inflation feeds into inflation expectations.

Growth is concentrated in the largest cities like New York and San Francisco, and those who benefit the most are those who already have high incomes.2 A large part of this is because current economic conditions favor highly skilled workers who tend to flock to cities. These big metropolitan areas are successful, but they also suffer from some of the starkest wage inequality in the country. By contrast, upstate New York is less unequal, but the disappearance of manufacturing jobs has held back growth. More equal wage growth is only good news if people have jobs. But many have found themselves in the position of leaving the area in which they grew up to look for work. The Albany area has bucked this trend. The mix of colleges and universities specializing in innovative subjects like nanotechnology, and high-tech businesses, alongside its position as a state capital, has created a real economic success story. I know there are a lot of students in the room, and choosing SUNY was a wise move. Investing in an education that equips you for the future will pay off over the long term. The Tale of Many Economies So what can the Fed do about this complex picture—the tale of many economies I’ve talked about today? 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  Monetary policy is an important tool, but it alone cannot address all the economic issues that we face.
A further lesson from the financial crisis was that the turbulence on the financial markets could entail the policy rate quite simply not having an impact on the interest rates charged to companies and households. In this context various forms of credit easing became appropriate. The Riksbank cut its policy rate by 4.5 percentage points to 0.25 per cent between October 2008 and July 2009, at the same time as the forecast indicated that it would not be raised again until the middle of 2010. Other measures taken by the Riksbank included the fixed-rate loans, loans to the banks with longer maturities, which contributed both to raising the credibility of the interest rate forecast and to improving the impact of the policy rate on the interest rates charged to households and companies. However, unlike other central banks, the Riksbank did not make any asset purchases. 21 As you know, the global financial crisis was followed by a debt crisis in Europe. For the Riksbank, the need for further general stimulation became relevant during the aftermath of the European debt crisis. During 2014-2015, inflation was so low that there was a risk that confidence in the inflation target would be undermined (see Figure 3). As I mentioned earlier, it is just as important to prevent inflation from falling too low as to prevent it rising too high if one is to retain price stability.

Perhaps it is because we now find ourselves confronted by a pandemic and climate change, and relying greatly on original thought, and scientific innovation, that Turing's values and achievements resonate so strongly with us today. Banknote character ‐ speech by Andrew Bailey | Bank of England  Page 2  Banknote features And we’ve tried to reflect those many achievements on this new note, which I’m very pleased to now unveil. Turing is perhaps best known for his code breaking work at Bletchley Park during World War Two. Here, far from being the solitary genius he is sometimes caricatured as, Turing led a team of codebreakers who designed a machine which could be used to decipher German military codes, something once thought impossible. This machine was known as The Bombe, and the technical drawings for it are featured here on the note. Until Turing and his colleagues invented this machine, British Intelligence had employed codebreakers to crack these German cyphers manually. But the sheer complexity of the codes meant they had little success. The early computers which Turing helped design would decipher some of these codes in as little as 15 minutes, giving the allied forces an invaluable military advantage. Historians have credited this work that Turing led at Bletchley Park, with shortening the war by as much as 2 years, saving many millions of lives in the process. But Alan Turing’s contributions to the field of computing start even before his wartime efforts.
In addition, we will consider the question of how settlement should be structured in central bank money in accordance with our second principle, and take a look at the SNB’s planned projects in this area. Finally, we stress that the seamless integration of tokenised money with existing and new payment and settlement systems is particularly important, especially if DLT and tokenisation become mainstream. This would satisfy the third principle. Forms of money Turning to the first question, in what form should central bank money be used for the settlement of token transactions? The table on slide 8 gives an overview of possible forms of money that could potentially be used as a means of payment in token transactions. On the top level, we differentiate between privately issued money and government-issued money, i.e. central bank money. On the second level, we differentiate between book money and token money. Token money is a new, DLT-based form of money. Like book money, it can be issued by both private issuers and the central bank. In the latter case, it is referred to as a central bank digital currency – CBDC for short. Depending on the user, a distinction can be made between retail CBDC and wholesale CBDC. Wholesale CBDC would correspond to a tokenised form of sight deposits held by commercial banks at the central bank. Retail CBDC, on the other hand, would be available to the general public; it would essentially be tokenised cash. Examples of private token money are tokenised account balances at commercial banks, and stablecoins.

In DLT, the term ‘atomic settlement’ is used in this context. Settlement in DLT systems raises issues similar to those for settlement in an RTGS system, just the other way round. Central bank money existed as a secure means of payment before the introduction of the first RTGS systems; what was lacking for a long time was an appropriate settlement mechanism. This was provided by RTGS systems introduced from the 1980s. With DLT, the situation is reversed: A secure settlement model in the form of atomic settlement is designed to be in place from the outset. The unresolved question with DLT systems is which means of payment are the most appropriate. 5  By ‘conditional’ we mean a secure settlement based on the principle that the delivery of assets occurs if and only if payment is made (‘delivery versus payment’, or DvP). Page 7/11  The SNB is open to DLT and the token ecosystem and its potential for efficiency gains and risk reduction. At the same time, however, DLT can introduce new risks into the system. It could fundamentally change the role of financial intermediaries, and thus the architecture of today’s financial system. If we are guided by the three principles, it should help limit the risks. Token transactions require stable-value, generally accepted means of payment. We will now show you which private and government-issued forms of money qualify under principle 1 within the two-tier financial system.
This is as should be expected because society, through Government, has chosen the degree of inflation control and provided guidance via the remit on how it should be achieved. Second, the nature, scale and persistence of the shocks affecting the economy matters for the trade-off that is pursued at any given time. Consider the case of commodity price shocks. For the most part, these pass through to the level of consumer prices relatively quickly – changes in petrol prices being one example. Once these shocks have been reflected in the price level, the inflation rate, which is the change in the price level, would typically return close to its baseline path. In this case, monetary policy makers may be more inclined to ‘look through’ the direct, temporary effects of commodity price shocks on inflation, which means they do not intend to engineer output gaps to offset the inflationary effects in response. Because, over the short term, inflation would be allowed to vary while the real economy remained relatively stable, an observer would thus infer a higher value of lambda. This may be less the case for inflationary shocks of a more persistent nature, such as those arising from movements in the exchange rate. 23  When shocks have persistent effects on inflation over the policy horizon,  the monetary policymaker may have to balance them with surfeits or shortfalls of activity around potential.

Empirical studies indicate that companies only change the price of goods once or so a year, on average. 2 This could be due to various costs linked to changing the price, for example, printing new price-lists. It could also be due to a fear of losing market shares if the price is raised. 3 If the prices are not changed at all, the effect of the weaker SEK/EUR exchange rate will be that the profit margins for the Swedish cheese importer fall. 4 In this case, sales can be maintained, but profits will fall. The company can also choose something in between these two cases, that is, raise the selling price by between 0 and 15 per cent. The outcome of this will depend on several different factors, such as the currency in which the purchase price is set, to what extent similar substitutes whose purchase price is not affected are available and whether the change in the exchange rate is expected to be lasting or temporary. These factors affect the pass-through of the exchange rate to inflation. What effects can a change in the exchange rate be expected to have on the economy as a whole? The pass-through of the nominal exchange rate on prices is a large area for research. In particular, researchers have studied how much a change in the nominal exchange rate will affect import prices.
VOLATILITY IN THE FUND’S VALUE Let me now turn from expected returns to the return volatility that must be expected when different equity allocations are applied. The most common measure of risk in financial markets is standard return deviation, i.e. return volatility around the average. The standard deviation of the fund’s benchmark portfolio is determined by two factors: equity return volatility and bond return volatility, and the degree of covariance between the two asset types. Chart: Equity allocation and volatility Volatility is lower for bonds than for equities. As illustrated by the straight line in the chart, this means in isolation that portfolio risk increases with the increase in equity exposure. There is a pattern in our data showing that the standard deviation for equities has over time been two to three times higher than for bonds. The analyses do not support estimates that differ from those of ten years ago for equity risk relative to bond risk. Equity and bond returns do not move in tandem. As a result, bonds reduce the variation in the fund’s value in addition to the contribution from lower volatility. For a given equity allocation, portfolio volatility will be smaller the lower the correlation between equities and bonds is, as illustrated by the dashed curves in the chart. The blue curve assumes a degree of positive correlation between equity and bond returns. This means that although bond and equity price often covary, this is not always the case. For the purple curve, we have assumed that the correlation is negative.

The aim of these purchases is to improve the functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism, which is still adversely affected by the financial market segmentation induced by the crisis. Progress in the internal process of adjustment The turnaround in the Spanish economy would not have been possible had the internal process of adjustment not been sustained and deepened. Thus, in 2013, there was progress in correcting the imbalances in terms of competitiveness, fiscal consolidation, private-sector debt and financial system reform. I shall briefly discuss each of these developments. Competitiveness and correction of the external imbalance The continuity of the ongoing moderation in labour costs and prices allowed further gains in competitiveness to be built up during 2013. On the indicators available, based on unit labour costs, the gap opened up since Spain joined the euro area is expected to have closed. The internal devaluation process is exerting a favourable effect on our foreign trade. The year ended with our first current-account surplus since 1997. That said, our continuing excessive dependence on imported energy and the persistent deficit on the incomes balance, owing to our high external debt, stood in the way of an even bigger improvement. Fiscal consolidation Turning to public finances, once the extraordinary effects of the aid to financial institutions is excluded, the year 2013 closed with a deficit of 6.6% of GDP, 0.1 pp above the objective set, in a macroeconomic environment marked by cyclical weakness and by higher interest payments.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Benjamin Friedman went to Harvard University with the intention of studying law, but soon realised that economics suited him better. He pursued his studies at Harvard and at Cambridge University in England. Early in his career, Ben worked for various entities of the Federal Reserve System and at Morgan Stanley. In 1972, at the age of 25, he was appointed assistant professor of economics at Harvard University. Ben has remained a loyal faculty member at Harvard for five decades, including a three-year spell as the chairman of the economics department. Page 2/4  When Ben recently celebrated 50 years as a professor at Harvard, many of his former students travelled from all around the world to attend the occasion. The interaction with his students has been of utmost importance to Ben, and he would remain in contact with them for decades following their graduation. A number of these former students today occupy leading positions in academia, central banking and government. This shows that Ben has been not only an outstanding researcher, but also an influential teacher of economics. Spending 50 years in the same place is not as unusual as one might think, at least not when we consider some of the great Enlightenment thinkers Ben so deeply admires. Take Immanuel Kant, who developed his philosophy without ever leaving his hometown of Königsberg. According to legend, Kant became such an integral part of the city that people would set their watch by the time he left his house for his afternoon walk.

Prasarn Trairatvorakul: Thailand in the new regional and global financial landscape Speech by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Thailand General Council and Networking Dinner, Bangkok, 30 September 2014. *  *  *  Good evening distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be here today, to address honorable members of Thailand International Chamber of Commerce. Thailand International Chamber of Commerce has made an important contribution to our nation in two main ways. At home, the organization helps develop awareness among members on future trends of business. In the international arena, the International Chamber of Commerce ensures member’s participation in the formulation of trade and investment policies. On this occasion, I would like to express my appreciation for the hard work that you have done throughout the past fifteen years and the strategic function that your organization will continue to serve in a more dynamic environment going forward. Today, I would like to share with you my perspective on how Thailand could prosper in the new regional and global financial landscape. Let me offer an analogy. Imagine yourself embarking on an important challenge, perhaps a new job with demanding responsibilities. Naturally you may feel a little nervous, since there is no guarantee that the new venture will be a successful one. A transition to a successful career consists of three stages.