samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
L’objectif final du marché unique ne pouvait être atteint tant que des obstacles monétaires continuaient d’entraver la libre circulation des biens, des services et des capitaux par le biais de coûts de transaction et de risques de change intrinsèques. Demain, nos concitoyens bénéficieront de tous les avantages liés à l’utilisation d’un même instrument monétaire dans tout le continent européen, comme c’est le cas aujourd’hui des Américains sur tout le territoire des États-Unis. Les avantages de la monnaie unique sont nombreux. La monnaie unique réduit l’incertitude et facilite les décisions d’investissement et de production. Elle permet une juste comparaison des prix à travers l’Europe et réduit les coûts de transaction. La zone de la monnaie unique sera caractérisée par la stabilité des prix et un faible niveau d’inflation. Ces facteurs, à leur tour, maintiendront et renforceront la confiance tout en procurant à l’économie européenne un environnement financier favorable. La simple existence de la monnaie unique permet d’emprunter davantage de capitaux dans de meilleures conditions, sur des marchés plus larges, plus profonds et plus liquides. 3. La mise en place de l’euro couronne parfaitement le processus de l’UEM étant donné qu’elle est fondée sur le respect strict des critères de convergence et sur la stabilité des prix. La convergence des États membres vers les meilleures performances économiques en est la conséquence. Selon un dicton français, il ne faut pas bâtir sur le sable. C’est pourquoi le traité de Maastricht a institué des critères de convergence auxquels les pays doivent se conformer durablement pour participer à l’Union monétaire.

How will we make payments, what will our means of payment be, and what kind of payment system will we be using? Our common goal must be that Norway has an efficient and safe payment system, today and in the future. That we have confidence in the means of payment we use, that we base our infrastructure on cost-efficient common solutions, and that we together can safeguard the interests related to efficient payments, personal privacy and security. There are numerous challenges to be faced. The best course of action is for businesses to come together and agree on good common solutions. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
Svein Gjedrem: The economic outlook and monetary policy Speech by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at SR-banken, Stavanger, 18 March 2005. The speech is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 16 March, Inflation Report 1/05 and on previous speeches. The text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The  Charts in pdf-format can be found on the Norges Bank’s website. *  *  *  The Norwegian economy is growing at a solid pace, and there are prospects that growth will remain high in the year ahead. The recession was mild after the preceding expansion culminated two and a half years ago. The higher rate of cost inflation in Norway relative to other countries was broken without production being impacted to the same extent as during the recessions in the early 1980s and around 1990. One of the main reasons for this is probably that low inflation in the 1990s and the current monetary policy have anchored expectations of low and stable inflation among economic agents. The need to bring down inflation was the main reason why New Zealand, the first country to do so, introduced an inflation target for monetary policy at the end of the 1980s. Canada, the UK, Sweden and Australia followed suit later in the 1990s. Inflation targeting has gradually become the normal monetary policy system in developed economies. In Norway, the Government introduced an inflation target in 2001.

BIS Review 136/2008  9  higher inflation without lower unemployment in the long term. Credibility hinges on the active use of the interest rate to attain the target. The lawyer and economist Michael Woodford has pointed out that in order to keep your word it is not enough to make a promise today and keep your word tomorrow. 37 When making interest rate forecasts, we must also take into consideration the promises made yesterday. Only then can we fully use expectations to stabilise the economy optimally. This is referred to as monetary policy from a timeless perspective. 38 My understanding is that a person will likewise both look backward and forward when interpreting the laws of a society. It is Norwegian court practice for judges to consider precedent effects and case law when interpreting legislation. Today there is general consensus that price stability is not only the best contribution that monetary policy can make to economic stability over time, but perhaps also the only promise the central bank can actually deliver. 6. Today’s financial crisis  These days the world is in the throes of a severe financial crisis – the deepest crisis since the 1930s. Many foreign banks have suffered large losses and a sense of fear is prevailing. We are entering a global economic recession. The authorities are taking action to restore confidence in the financial industry. Macroeconomic policy measures are aimed at limiting the crisis-related effects on the real economy.
Like yours, our country is based on a high value attributed to the individual and on democracy. Our state is a bottom up - rather than a top down construction. We trust our citizens - who are often called to vote on important matters, including on those relating to taxes. We trust them when they keep their army rifle, with a full round of ammunition, at home. We trust citizens when they file their tax forms, and we trust them when they undertake financial transactions. Sure, there are occasional abuses, and these are prosecuted with determination to the full extent of the law. We do not believe, however, that these cases can be used to justify switching over to a system where big brother breathes down our neck. Swiss people would not comprehend - and indeed they would not support - any initiative aimed at throwing out financial privacy principles simply because some dishonest people have taken advantage of them, any more than they would accept giving up medical secrecy because of a few cases of health insurance fraud. Nor could the Swiss understand - or accept - that the foreign clients of our banks be treated any differently, i.e. without the same amount of due trust and respect. But - and this is important - banking secrecy is not absolute. It is simply not true that Swiss banks maintain secret numbered accounts whose holders are not known to anyone.

In our view, the responsibility of the banker should prevail over an automatic reporting of transactions exceeding a certain amount. Tracking down criminal money is even more difficult than identifying money laundering operations. The financing of criminal activities does not require large amounts and the ex ante identity of a criminal is not a source of pertinent information. Furthermore, funds used in the financing of terrorism, unlike cases of money laundering, very often are legally acquired. It is therefore crucial that financial intermediaries in both the banking and the non-banking sectors thoroughly verify their client relationships in order to identify suspicious circumstances. In this connection, strict observation of the “know-your-customer” principle is again of key importance. Switzerland does not hesitate to offer international co-operation in judicial matters and to block incriminated assets. Following the decision of the United Nations to apply sanctions against the Taliban regime in 1999 and 2000, we blocked a certain number of Afghan bank accounts and froze the assets belonging to persons listed by the Sanction Committee of the United Nations. To date, 76 accounts are frozen with a total of 42 million Swiss francs. In the United Kingdom and in Switzerland, the authorities and the banks themselves are fully aware of the utmost importance of successfully warding off criminal funds. We all realise that money laundering is not only morally unacceptable, but that it also clearly undermines the public’s confidence in our financial centre.
I am also confident that the Federal Reserve is well prepared, both operationally and analytically, to identify, understand, and address unforeseen circumstances over normalization as directed by the FOMC. Finally, by accomplishing all these things, I am confident that the FOMC’s policy normalization plan should help promote the ongoing economic expansion. Clearly, the 2013 taper tantrum should leave any observer cautious in assessing a central bank’s ability to normalize its balance sheet smoothly. Those of us who work at the Federal Reserve certainly were. I believe the FOMC’s plan carefully takes into account the range of potential explanations for the taper tantrum, in particular through its emphasis on gradualism and predictability. Early signs on this front are encouraging, with financial market volatility around recent balance sheet announcements quite modest relative to what we saw in 2013. It’s much too early to declare success. However, should this stability continue, I believe the FOMC’s approach may offer useful lessons to other central banks which anticipate reaching a time of transition in their policy stance. In particular, the FOMC has aimed to provide as much transparency as it can in an effort to underscore its intent to achieve an uneventful normalization of the balance sheet. I believe that this level of transparency has been of great importance. 1 I would like to thank James Egelhof for his assistance in the preparation of these remarks, Adam Biesenbach  and Romen Mookerjee for their assistance with data, and colleagues in the Federal Reserve System for numerous insightful comments and suggestions.

One of the problems in Europe now is low productivity, which is caused by the fact that we are not investing enough in education, R&D and public infrastructure. But public infrastructure is not a stabilisation instrument. When you start building a road, for instance, the project is delivered much later, when the business cycle may have already turned. But education and R&D are levers that have to be used. And at the same time I think it’s important that we look at the composition of taxation and its impact on long-term growth and productivity. Do you mean it would be better to have lower taxation on labour, compensated by other areas of the tax base? It depends; there is no single recipe. But you can’t take the tax structure that we have now as a fait accompli. You should use a combination that takes into account new elements, such as climate change. All these aspects have to be taken into consideration. That is why fiscal policy is very relevant; it’s not only the nominal deficit that matters. So when you and President Draghi go to Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings, you might have concepts to share with the ministers in this respect? Sure, when we go to Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings we are fully coordinated, also on fiscal policy matters. Italy and Spain were trading at very similar levels during the crisis. Today the BonosBTP spread on 10-year maturities is over 180 basis points.
Although their financial systems and economic activity have begun picking up, they have been unable to significantly reduce their high unemployment rates and their large output gaps (figure 3). In addition, growth prospects are poor and, as we have seen in recent weeks, each piece of information that is disclosed may put substantial volatility on the market’s evaluation of the strength of the economic recovery. Furthermore, their financial fragility hinders the possibility of a strong come back. The financial situation of households and governments is complex because of their high degree  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  of indebtedness. Therefore, it is unlikely that their domestic demands will become a source of output expansion. Thus, the basis for faster growth lies, for now, on the demand from the rest of the world. Their weak currencies are consistent with this. In this scenario, another paradox arises. Germany, the strongest economy in the European Union, whose example the peripheral countries should follow, has been one of the biggest winners in this conjuncture. Its fiscal rigor and productive strength as one of the world’s greatest suppliers of capital goods have been boosted by a relatively weak euro. If Germany did not share the common currency, the Deutschmark would be without a doubt the strongest in the world, quite above the equivalent of 1.4 US dollars per euro. Belonging to a fragile monetary union has given it the benefits of a relatively weak currency, which has been an important factor of its fast expansion.

However, the euro area equity market has been growing progressively at an average rate of 10% per year, since 1999. The share of equities in European investment funds has increased by 3 points since 2002 and amounted to 27% in 2006, while the proportion remained stable in the United States at 45%. As regards asset management, we observe that since the launch of the euro in 1999, Europe has caught up the United States in terms of the world-wide distribution of investment fund assets. The United States and Europe hold the largest market shares in the world, at 50% and 33% respectively. 2. In this context, what are the key advantages offered by the Paris financial center as a market and a services provider ? The recent launch of the euro has given a big boost to our financial center and leveraged our structural strengths: concentration of headquarters of big companies, innovative entrepreneurial development in fund management (fixed-income and sophisticated guarantee funds) and strong knowledge of mathematical finance, that is the base for French leadership in derivatives and riskbased models. Innovation and expertise had and still have for the future a very positive impact on both the bond and equity markets. Consequently French investment banks are very well ranked in European activities.
Pension plans that had placed funds in AIG guaranteed investment contracts, or GICs, which function much like deposits in a bank, would have experienced significant losses, losses that would be passed along to retirees or to others whose aspirations to be retirees would surely have been changed. BIS Review 73/2010  1  And these indirect consequences of an AIG bankruptcy would not have stopped at the U.S. border. AIG was global in scope. It conducted its operations in more than 130 countries, and across various parts of the financial industry, insurance as well as banking. The damage from an AIG filing would have been felt from the farms of Iowa to the streets of San Francisco to the far off corners of the world. The unplanned and chaotic bankruptcy of this trillion dollar financial conglomerate (especially a day after Lehman’s filing) would have been a global catastrophe. That catastrophe did not happen. More than a year and a half later, it is easy to forget the level of panic and fear that gripped the world during the week of September 16, 2008. A bankruptcy of AIG would have fueled the fear, much as gasoline fuels a fire. And let us not forget what Federal Reserve and Treasury officials have said many times in testimony – we did not have the necessary tools, such as legal authority for a special resolution regime, with which to limit the damage of an AIG collapse. We also did not have the luxury of time.

They have also been the focus of testimony before a number of committees in Congress, including Secretary Geithner and Thomas Baxter’s January 27,  4  BIS Review 73/2010  2010 testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committees. A summary of the salient facts, however, follows. As part of the November 2008 restructuring, Treasury invested $ billion in newly issued Senior Preferred Stock of AIG under its TARP authority. 2 In connection with that investment, the Federal Reserve modified the terms of the Fed Facility to be more sustainable: The maturity of the Fed Facility was extended to five years (due 2013), the maximum amount available was reduced from $ billion to $ billion, and the interest rate and commitment fees were reduced. The Fed Facility remained secured by substantially all of AIG’s assets, and the company continued to be required to apply proceeds of asset sales to permanently repay any outstanding balances under the facility. At the same time, the Board approved the establishment of an additional lending facility that would provide a permanent solution to the AIG securities lending program’s losses and liquidity drains, thus eliminating the need for the Securities Borrowing Facility. Under the new facility, the New York Fed extended approximately $ billion in secured, non-recourse credit to a special purpose limited liability company, Maiden Lane II, in which AIG would hold a $ billion first-loss position. Maiden Lane II then purchased, at market prices, RMBS with a par value of $ billion from certain AIG domestic insurance company subsidiaries.
A £ note may also have had a symbolic meaning to her, as it was the amount she was paid by publishers Crosby and Co. for her first novel, Susan. 2  Just as a £ banknote might have evoked memories for Jane Austen, so does money serve as a collective 3  memory for a country and its people. Our banknotes have cultural as well as economic value. Through the characters on our banknotes, we celebrate the breadth and depth of achievement across the United Kingdom, in fields ranging from literature to the visual arts, science and statecraft. Once she replaces Charles Darwin on the £ banknote this September, Jane Austen will sit alongside Winston Churchill on the new £ Adam Smith on the £ and Boulton and Watt on the £ Around the end of the decade, Smith will be replaced on the £ by JMW Turner. These individuals have advanced British thought, spurred innovation, exerted exceptional leadership, and more generally helped to shape this diverse society and forge our common values. 4  As the “mother of the great tradition of the English novel”, Jane Austen’s place in this august group is assured. Sir Walter Scott’s praise for Austen’s “talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with” is a sentiment that those reading her work today would recognise and endorse.

Conclusion Our banknotes serve as repositories of the country’s collective memory, promoting awareness of the United Kingdom’ glorious history and highlighting the contributions of its greatest citizens. That tradition continues with the new £ As Austen herself advised us “You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.” Today, we look forward to the launch of the new £ note, graced by Jane Austen, as we look back to her life and celebrate the joy she has brought, and is yet to bring, to all those who read her work. 7  The advantage of using the engraving, rather than the original portrait, is that it has sufficient detail that it can be used without requiring any alterations to the image. 8 This image is from a drawing by Isabel Bishop (1902-1988), who illustrated E. P. Dutton & Company’s 1976 edition of Pride and Prejudice. 9 Miss Bingley, Chapter XI. 10 Other features of Bank of England banknotes that aid the visually impaired include the tiered sizing of different denominations and bold numerals. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  4
It is therefore necessary to supplement the analysis by using different measures of underlying inflation. Most central banks do this, including the Riksbank. The arguments in favour of using various alternative measures of inflation mainly concern understanding and illustrating which components have a lasting effect on prices. Inflation is often affected by temporary shocks which we do not try to counteract with monetary policy. In such a situation it is appropriate to highlight different measures of inflation to analyse and illustrate both what has already happened and what is expected to happen in the future. To describe price trends and justify monetary policy decisions we therefore make use of various measures of underlying inflation when necessary. Different measures are more suitable than others on different occasions. For example, it has recently been important to demonstrate how important energy and food prices have been for developments in the CPI. We also wish  BIS Review 73/2008  1  to be able to analyse and describe inflation adjusted for the direct effects of our own policy. Our most important tool for doing this has so far been the measure known as the CPIX. Thus, it is often valuable to use different measures of underlying inflation, not least because it makes it easier to see what factors are driving the CPI. It is quite natural for us to work in this way internally in our analyses. But it can create some problems in our external communication, particularly if a certain measure is given a long-term prominent role.

It can create uncertainty as to how the inflation target is defined in practice. Until one year ago I myself sat “on the outside” and monitored the Riksbank’s policy making. And I must confess that I thought it was a little unclear which measure of inflation the Riksbank actually used in formulating its policy. This was connected with the prominent role the CPIX had played in the Riksbank’s analysis and rhetoric. The CPIX – how it began The CPIX is a measure of inflation that has been around a long time. It was included in the predecessor to the Monetary Policy Reports, “Inflation and Inflation Expectations in Sweden”, which was first published in October 1993. At that time the measure was known as UND1 and as now it was adjusted for the direct effects of indirect taxes and subsidies and mortgage interest expenditure. At that time the krona had recently depreciated heavily and this had an impact in the form of a one-off increase in import prices. The measure therefore initially made adjustments for changes in import prices as well. The reason given then for adjusting for interest costs was that the financial turbulence in autumn 1992 had led to temporary effects on inflation. Some years later other reasons made it important to adjust for interest costs. During the second half of the 1990s the Riksbank cut the repo rate substantially, from almost 9 to below 3 per cent.