samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
EMU requires a sound legal basis to foster the credibility of the changeover to the single currency. The Madrid European Council asked the Commission to prepare a draft Council regulation on the legal framework for the use of the euro. This regulation is of the utmost importance. Market participants need legal certainty, not only as regards the new instruments in euro, but also as regard the continuity of instruments denominated in the former national currencies or in ECU. Besides financial markets, legal certainty is also important for citizens, as the emergence of a new currency is inevitably, at the first stage, a source of uncertainties. In this respect, technical preparatory work on the legal framework for the use of the euro is almost achieved. The European regulations that have been drafted and should be endorsed by the European Council in Amsterdam clearly state that the euro will be the BIS Review 63/1997  -6-  currency of the European monetary union as from the 1.1.1999 . As a consequence, the national currencies, in particular notes and coins, will continue to circulate during a transitional period, as subdivisions of the euro. Two other key elements are that the changeover will ensure the continuity of existing contracts denominated either in national currencies or in ECU and that the ECU will become the euro at a rate of 1 to 1. Besides legal security, EMU will reinforce monetary stability in Europe. The Maastricht Treaty provides for a monetary framework very similar to that prevailing in Germany and in France.

BIS Review 63/1997  -2-  Both countries had first to rebuild the whole economy in 1945, in a period when sacrifices were difficult to impose on populations. Germany tackled these disturbances rapidly and efficiently. The monetary reform implemented in 1948, aimed at definitively eradicating inflation, paved the way for monetary stability and economic prosperity. A new currency - the Deutschemark - was introduced, and a strong and independent central bank was founded. France followed a similar strategy with the creation of the “nouveau franc” or “new franc”, whose nominal value was 100 “anciens francs” or “old francs”. This reform contributed to stabilizing the French currency, which did not experience any devaluation for ten years. In 1971, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the currency instability which followed convinced European Governments that an exchange rate system had to be set up. The first experience, known as the Snake, was not completely successful, but was the first step towards a common monetary destiny between European countries. As far as economic foundations are concerned, our two economies have been increasingly interlinked for decades. First of all, the various obstacles to foreign trade in Europe have been progressively lifted. Indeed, the Treaty of Rome signed in 1957 aimed at creating a common market. The removal of all sorts of barriers to trade proved nevertheless difficult to achieve. That is why the European authorities felt that another step was indispensable, and signed the Single Act in 1987.
While communications land, trust is built. This is true to an increasing degree, as the model of trust-building among the public of the past – anonymised and centralised – has been replaced by one which is instead personalised and distributed.37  As institutions used to communicating in a centralised, anonymised way, this shift in trust-building poses new challenges for central banks. Like many public institutions, central banks have historically been better at talking than listening, better at public understanding than understanding the public. Building trust has required central banks, counter-culturally, to engage with far more diverse audiences using different media. Prior to Covid, I spent several years visiting left-behind parts of the UK listening to groups with whom the Bank had not traditionally engaged – workers, charities, community and faith groups. This is the economics of wandering around or “deep hanging out”.38 These visits were one of the most rewarding things I have ever done professionally, a unique source of intelligence on the economy or “folk wisdom”.39 My only regret was committing to visit every county in the UK before having first counted them (there are loads). 35  Haldane (2017b). Haldane and McMahon (2018), Haldane, Macaulay and McMahon (2020) and Bholat et al (2019). 37 Botsman (2017). 38 Geertz (1998). 39 Haldane (2018a).

With more than 2,500 Indian companies, 2,300 Chinese companies, and 2,000 Australian and New Zealand companies in Singapore, corporates have made Singapore their location of choice to tap into this growth. However, Singapore’s value transcends our physical proximity to the fastest growing regions of the world. Indeed, Daiwa’s extensive commitments and new activities in Singapore is the best testament of our successful efforts to create the best possible business environment. It highlights recognition of our stable and trusted environment, supported by reliable infrastructure, highly educated workforce and consistent and transparent government policies. To further enlarge the market, Singapore has forged important linkages to the rest of the world. We have built up a network of Free Trade Agreements with many of our key trading partners such as Japan, the US, India and Korea. Discussions are ongoing with the Gulf region and China for greater market access for Singapore-based entities. A Connectivity Agreement between Singapore and Vietnam will amongst others, deepen collaboration in financial services, and promises greater opportunities for businesses from both countries. Conclusion On this note, I would like to convey my heartiest congratulations to Daiwa Securities Group on your 35th anniversary in Singapore. The future of the region continues to shine bright and I encourage all to leverage on Singapore to tap into the region’s growth. I wish everyone a wonderful evening ahead. Thank you. 2  BIS Review 72/2007
Page 7/8  these outgoings, either benefits could be decreased or the period of benefit payments could be shortened. We do not express any preference as to which of these mechanisms is used. Making such a choice always involves a delicate balancing of interests, which is a matter for political circles rather than the SNB. Under these circumstances, however, it is clear that there is unfortunately no easy, universal solution. Adjusting to the realities of the investment world and demographic change comes at a price. And something else is also clear: in a pension system like ours, in which the key parameters are defined in nominal terms, this price will keep rising until such time as the problems are tackled. But holding on to the status quo also comes at a price. For example, we are seeing a rise in redistributions from young to older insureds, which was never intended by the system. This is also why the term ‘lifestyle’, as used in the relevant article of the Federal Constitution, targets purchasing power rather than any nominal quantity. Workable solutions can be found At the start of my talk I drew your attention to an international ranking of pension systems (cf. chart 6). In other countries, too, the population enjoys rising life expectancy while savers bemoan the low interest rates. Denmark and Sweden, for example, which are now ranked several places ahead of our country, have implemented far-reaching and thus painful measures to stabilise and modernise their pension systems.

Apart from monetary policy, the SNB has other ways of contributing to system stability. The law clearly specifies that the instrument of monetary policy is directed at ensuring price stability. In other words, using monetary policy to promote the stability of the banking system while accepting the possibility that the objective of price stability might not be fulfilled, would be inadmissible. What is more, any gain in the stability of the banking system at the cost of price stability would be temporary, at best. Experience has shown that, in the long term, the absence of inflation is a necessary pre-condition for stable banking systems. Finally, the paper points out that the SNB is already including system stability considerations in its monetary policy decision-making process, and is examining the possibility of utilising synergies between system stability and monetary policy more extensively. Naturally, there are many more challenges with respect to the relationships between system stability and monetary policy. One of these challenges is liquidity management at commercial banks. It is apparent that liquidity standards that are desirable in terms of the public interest may be more exacting than those pursued by banks in their own private interests. Like other central banks, the SNB is currently looking more closely at the examination of existing liquidity standards. In this area, it is working with the SFBC and engaging with the central banks and supervisory authorities of other important international financial centres in information-exchange and opinion-building activities. BIS Review 7/2006  1
A number of banks, for instance in China, have already started testing digital currencies. We may talk of a global technological revolution in central banks which will create a new form of money. What are the differences between a digital ruble and the currently existing cash and non-cash money forms? Firstly, a digital ruble is an obligation of the Central Bank, and not of commercial banks, which makes it similar to cash rubles. For those holding digital rubles, this implies that they will preserve this money, whatever happens to their banks. Secondly, a digital ruble enables faster and more reliable payments and settlements. We are currently exploring several models to design a digital ruble which organise the interaction between customers, the Central Bank and commercial banks differently, but all the models have these advantages. These are faster, reliable and secure payments. To a certain extent, a digital ruble also blurs the distinction between cash and non-cash payments. We are studying the option of launching offline payments with digital rubles via special-purpose wallets, but this is a challenging issue. This will enable people to pay with digital rubles even where there is no internet connection and they do not have cash. For companies operating in such localities, in remote areas, this option will reduce cash turnover costs. Of course, a digital ruble may also create new risks, and we are closely exploring them.

You shouldn’t see this as too accurate a prediction of the future path of monetary policy; rather it’s what is right today for our current level of inflation, for the state of the economy and for growth. Low rates provide an incentive to diversify savings, but, as we all know, this raises important challenges. Therefore, without claiming to have any clear-cut answers, I’d like to suggest three avenues worth exploring in this important debate. 1  Gross average over four quarters. 2  Risky assets are defined here as debt securities, listed shares, unlisted shares and other equity interests, shares in non-money market funds, shares in pension funds and shares in unit-linked life insurance products. Risk-free assets include cash, sight deposits, term deposits, shares in money market funds and shares in eurodenominated life-insurance products. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  II  We need to act in two main areas, while taking one essential precaution. a) First we need to gradually pass the decrease in interest rates through to the returns on risk-free investments. This is why I proposed lowering the interest rate on new French housing savings plans (PEL), which since yesterday has been set at 1.5%; it’s also why we need to continue lowering the returns on life insurance savings invested in eurodenominated funds, in addition to the cuts already announced this year. b) The second focus for action is the development of new savings products.
It is important for the Riksbank’s financial stability task to assess households’ ability to pay and whether the collateral taken by banks and mortgage institutions in the form of houses and apartments risks  6  BIS Review 62/2006  declining in value. In my speech today, however, I am concentrating on the role played by inflated asset prices and indebtedness with regard to developments in demand and thereby price stability. In the period between 1995, when the upturn began, and up to today, Swedish households’ debts and house prices have increased by almost three times as much as household incomes. The rates of increase have not yet been subdued and this year both house prices and household debt have increased by 13 per cent on an annual rate. On average, household debts now amount to 130 per cent of disposable incomes, which is as high as prior to the property crisis in 1992. In the long term, it is reasonable to assume that house prices will not increase at a more rapid rate than incomes. Studies show that if house prices increases deviate from income growth, the discrepancy tends to be corrected. When we assess the rate of increase in Sweden over the past 10 years, however, we must bear in mind that the upturn began in the mid-1990s, from a very low level following the crisis years at the beginning of the 1990s.

However, despite progress in recent years, Spain’s share in some potentially very dynamic markets is still low and faces major challenges, in a world of growing competitive pressures and the globalisation of production channels. Nor should it be forgotten that our economy’s dependence on energy and capital goods imports and the high net payment of income to the rest of the world, as a result of high external indebtedness, are a permanent constraint as regards achieving the surpluses on current and capital account that are needed to deleverage our economy. Institutions and financial policy for the internationalisation of Spanish companies Internationalisation calls for a series of financial services in which the banking industry plays a central role. These services can be grouped into two major categories: operations geared to mitigating the risk of transactions, namely guarantees and insurance; and those geared to providing liquidity or financing to companies. On the data available, regarding the importance of banks in financing international trade, banks participate directly in approximately one-third of global trade. On one hand they offer financing, usually short-term in nature, which responds to the exporter’s or importer’s liquidity or working capital needs. They also offer coverage for risks through guarantees or insurance, ensuring the successful completion of transactions for the customer. Moreover, the extension of coverage for credit risk facilitates – albeit indirectly – access to financing by reducing risk on the company’s balance sheet and, consequently, reducing the financial cost of the transaction.
Paul Tucker: National balance sheets and macro policy: lessons from the past Speech by Mr Paul Tucker, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, at the Society of Business Economists’ Annual Dinner, London, 28 February 2012. *  *  *  The spectre hanging over the world economy these past years – the drag on our recovery – has been deleveraging. Around the world, households, some firms, banks, governments, whole economies are acting to reduce their debt overhang. By selling assets, cutting spending, deferring investment. What gets delevered – as the ugly phrase goes – is a balance sheet. Balance sheets became stretched. Sectorally. Nationally. Through much of the industrialised West. The idea of over-borrowing, of overstretched balance sheets, is hardly novel. Economists are taught about the importance of stocks of debt; about “budget constraints”, beyond which a borrower’s expected future income, their wealth, is insufficient to service and repay their accumulated debts. But, by and large, economic commentary focuses on flows – the path of output, consumption, and investment and the current account balance. I exaggerate, of course – not least because cumulative flows create stocks. Nevertheless, it is salutary to remind ourselves that less than a decade before our crisis broke, we – the West – had been preaching to emerging market economies (EMEs) the necessity of monitoring, and even managing, the national balance sheet. That was in the wake of the Asian and Latin American financial crises of the 1990s.

Sub-prime borrowers defaulted because they were living beyond their means: their stock of debt exceeded their ability to repay. The shattered camels were bank (and shadow bank) balance sheets around the world. Government balance sheets buckled next as they sought to sustain demand and employment. What should financial policy and monetary policy be doing right now? With credit conditions so tight, it has been asked whether the Financial Policy Committee should be employing macroprudential tools to ease regulatory constraints on banks, with the aim of encouraging them to loosen lending conditions, helping recovery and so reducing threats to stability from default risk. The FPC concluded at its September 2011 meeting that such a step would in fact be counterproductive, endangering stability and jeopardizing recovery. Given their precarious starting position when the crisis broke, the capital adequacy of UK banks is still being rebuilt. Worse still, the lingering threat of a severe crisis in the euro area leaves banks operating in an extraordinarily risky environment. While in other circumstances it might have been possible to relax capital requirements if the worst had passed, it is not a sensible course when the worst might still lie ahead. In current circumstances, gradually building resilience through retained earnings is best for stability and recovery, because it helps preserve the capacity to lend “the day after tomorrow”. This leaves monetary policy with its classic role of underpinning demand. Here and elsewhere, central banks have injected extraordinary monetary stimulus.
19  For instance, Arrowsmith et al (2013) examine the prevalence of bank forbearance  across the small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector, finding the effect to be small. The same study finds a potentially larger impact of monetary policy on company failure and productivity. 20  That said, it is  important to note that employment was also higher as a result of looser monetary policy, with potentially smaller crisis-related scarring effects on labour markets. 13  Chodorow-Reich (2014), Greenstone and Mas (2012) and Edgerton (2012) for the US, Amiti and Weinstein (2013) for Japan, Paravisini et al (2015) for Peru, Bentotila et al (2013) for Spain and Franklin et al (2015) for the UK. 14 Bahaj et al (2016). 15 Riley et al (2015), Barnett et al (2014). 16 For example, Newman et al (2015), Hoekman et al (2004). 17 Barnett et al (2014), Broadbent (2012), Hseih and Klenow (2008), Calligaris et al (2016). 18 For example, McGowan et al (2017) and Pessoa and Van Reenen (2014). 19 Cette et al (2016), Reis (2013), Gopinath et al (2015) and Gorton-Ordones (2015). 20 See also, Broadbent (2012). 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  (d) Slowing Innovation  Some economists believe that the type of technological progress behind productivity growth over the past two centuries may not continue at the same pace in the future.

But, with accelerating inflation in the economy as a whole, the effect would have been tantamount to real exchange rate appreciation, which would in any event have damaged their competitive position and so provided at best only short-term relief even to them. And it would not in that case be possible to reverse that effect through exchange rate adjustment. The fact is that there are no easy answers or ideal solutions to the one-size-fits-all problem at the Eurozone level, without substantial - and sustainable convergence between our economies, although coping with such tensions as may emerge within the Eurozone - with or without the UK - is likely to be easier in a context of structural, supply-side, flexibility and adaptability in labour and product markets. Now, many people in the Eurozone acknowledge these concerns. But they are inclined to argue that if a country participating in the monetary union were to find itself in an unsustainable situation, and given that it would have no macro-economic way out - through exchange rate adjustment, or independent monetary policy action, or fiscal stimulus beyond the limits of the Growth and Stability Pact - and given limited labour migration or fiscal redistribution at the pan-European level - then it would have an overwhelming incentive to undertake the supply-side reforms which have proved so BIS Review 71/2000  2  difficult to introduce up until now.
I therefore really appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's discussion on assessing monetary policy. I have today chosen to highlight a very fundamental question with regard to assessing monetary policy; is it really necessary to interpret inflation that deviates from target as a failure for monetary policy? It is clear that short-term deviations do not necessarily imply failure. But how should we regard a deviation from target that persists for a longer period of time, perhaps several years? Here I take as a point of departure the changes in the supply side of the economy that have occurred in recent years in a number of countries, including Sweden and Norway, where inflation has for a period of time been below target. I will, however, begin with a more general description of my views on the assessment of monetary policy and how we in Sweden work to create the conditions for a good and fair assessment of monetary policy. Assessing monetary policy When discussing and assessing central banks’ target fulfilment, it is important to base the assessment on a realistic picture of what monetary policy actually can and should achieve. To make the most correct assessment possible, it is therefore necessary for central banks to have a clear analytical framework to produce the material on which decisions are made. Similarly, it must be quite clear which principles have been used as a basis for monetary policy decisions and on what information the conclusions were based.

They do not usually base their forecasts on an unchanged interest rate. The new assumption makes it easier to assess the forecasts, as the conditions are normally more realistic. The fact that we have chosen to make this change can be partly regarded as a result of academic research, and also partly because this assumption appears to have worked well for other central banks that have chosen to base their forecasts on assumptions other than a constant key rate, such as Norges Bank and the Bank of England. Basis for assessment So much for our monetary policy strategy, which is what I believe we should be assessed against. Let me now say a few words about the basis we supply for assessment. The analysis work on which the monetary policy decisions are based is published in the form of Inflation Reports. These contain analyses of the determinants of inflation and forecasts for inflation developments over the coming years. They also contain analyses of why deviations from target have arisen or are expected to arise, given a particular monetary policy stance. The Inflation Reports thus contribute to spreading knowledge about the Riksbank’s assessments and thereby make it easier for external parties to follow and understand monetary policy. Moreover, we want them to encourage discussion of monetary policy issues. So far we have published four Inflation Reports a year, but we have now decided to reduce the number to three.