samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
There has been a lot of concern about the Chinese economy for obvious reasons – it having become the second largest economy in this world. And among many regional economies, it is now their most important trading partner. So, if the Chinese economy catches a flu, we will all feel the effects of its sneezing. Having said that, the Chinese economy will continue to grow and the policymakers there seem to be determined in ensuring that it does. Implications to Malaysia Malaysia will certainly benefit from the more positive growth environment, especially given the better growth of its major trading partner economies. The Malaysian economy is  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  projected to grow by 4.5–5.5%. This outlook is supported by the strong growth of 6.2% in the first quarter of 2014. The outlook has improved due to better external demand conditions. After growing by only 2.4% in 2013, Malaysia’s exports have grown by almost 13% so far in 2014. For a small open economy like Malaysia, and others like it, the experience of the crisis and the years since has certainly brought home the vulnerabilities and risks of being integrated with the global economy. But, I believe that it has also highlighted our dependence on the global economy and the need to be even more integrated with the global economy. At the risk of a slight diversion, allow me to elaborate a bit on this point.

Moreover, in those European countries and regions where competitiveness has been lost in the past and/or the unemployment rate remains too high, it is important that wage increases do not fully exhaust productivity gains in order to provide incentives for firms to create additional jobs. In this respect, sufficient wage differentiation is also required to improve the employment opportunities for less skilled-workers where there is high unemployment for this category of employees. The extent to which an increase in nominal wage growth leads to upward pressure on inflation depends crucially on trend labour productivity growth. Under normal circumstances, stronger labour productivity growth would justify an increase in nominal wage growth, thus allowing wage earners to participate in economic growth without adding to inflationary pressures. But, for the same reason, without sustained improvements in labour productivity, higher nominal wages would not lead to improvements in real purchasing power, but undermine job creation and fuel inflationary pressures. Against this background, the ECB’s Governing Council considers that, features enforcing wage rigidities and leading to nonoptimal wage setting – in particular indexation of nominal wages to the consumer price index – should be avoided. This is particularly accurate in this period where the euro area economy is currently in a juncture which is dominated by exogenous price shocks and uncertainty about the outlook of the real economy. Headline inflation which has been pushed up by external pressures on energy and food prices, is today significantly above 2% in the euro area and even higher in Spain.
John C Williams: Monetary policy - a "data dependent" approach Remarks by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the New Jersey Bankers Association's Economic Leadership Forum, Somerset, New Jersey, 18 January 2019. * * * As prepared for delivery  Introduction Good morning everyone. I wish every conference I went to had such an incredible opening— Joe’s certainly a hard act to follow. I have a son who’s a very talented artist, but he didn’t get those genes from me. So I’m going to stick to what I know—monetary policy. Today I’ll talk about the economy, how I’m assessing the outlook, and what that means for monetary policy. It’s early in the day, so I’ll try and keep the recitation of facts and figures to a minimum. But I know there are a lot of bankers in the room and that the direction of interest rates plays a vital role in your business, so, rest assured, I won’t skimp on that topic. Given that I’ve promised to talk about interest rates, before I say another word I’ll give the standard Fed disclaimer that the views I express are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Open Market Committee or anyone else in the Federal Reserve System. The Dual Mandate I want to start this morning by reminding everyone what the goals of the Federal Reserve are.

It’s easy to think of the Fed as just setting interest rates, and of course that’s a major part of what we do. But we do so in order to achieve two goals set by Congress: maximum employment and price stability. In Fed-speak it’s called the dual mandate. There are serious debates taking place amongst economists and policymakers about what maximum employment actually looks like, and they probably deserve another speech of their own. But I promised not to deluge you with numbers, so I’ll focus on a few highlights. The unemployment rate last year averaged just under 4 percent, the lowest such annual figure since 1969. The latest jobs numbers also showed very strong growth, with over 2.6 million jobs added last year. The ongoing strength in the labor market has led to encouraging gains in wages. No matter how you cut it, the labor market is strong, consistent with our maximum employment goal. When we say price stability, our goal is to keep inflation around 2 percent.1 Those of you who are of my generation will remember the runaway inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Obviously that’s something we must avoid repeating. But the challenge of more recent years actually hasn’t been too high inflation. Instead, it’s been inflation that’s persistently too low. Over the past decade, inflation has more often than not come in below our goal. But things are looking better.
Karolina Ekholm: Monetary policy and the exchange rate Speech by Ms Karolina Ekholm, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at a meeting, Stockolm, 12 January 2010. * * * I intend to begin today by talking about the background to the monetary policy decision made by the Executive Board of the Riksbank on 15 December last year and how I viewed the economic situation. The main part of my speech will focus on the Riksbank’s assessment of the krona exchange rate. I intend to discuss the role played by the exchange rate in a small, open economy like Sweden’s, and the difficulties in forecasting the exchange rate. The current situation and the monetary policy decision As you probably know, the Executive Board decided at our meeting on 15 December to hold both the repo rate and the forecast for the repo rate unchanged in relation to the previous monetary policy meeting in October. I shall not go into details regarding the forecasts on which our decision was based, but I will focus on some specific questions that have been important for the stance I took. The world economy has improved recently, and this benefits developments in the Swedish economy. Our most recent assessment contains an upward revision to the forecasts for GDP and employment, both in Sweden and abroad. However, I see a number of risks relating to international developments in the period ahead.

Steps are currently being taken in this direction via public and private sector solutions, but these remain essentially ad hoc and not part of a well-established framework for maintaining and restoring, when needed, levels of capital commensurate to the needs of the European banking sector. Second: a European framework for micro-prudential supervision A more comprehensive European-wide understanding of systemic risks needs to be complemented by an effective micro-prudential supervisory framework to monitor and prevent these risks. This implies a more consistent set of regulatory and supervisory rules across Member States, together with stronger rules and practices for co-operation between supervisory authorities on cross-border groups, both in normal and crisis situations. In this context, the European Supervisory Authorities have been allocated a significant set of competences related to rule-making, enforcement of rules and co-ordination of supervision. All together, through these tools, the ESAs are expected to develop a single “EU rulebook” which is enforced consistently throughout the single financial market. This should address a major weakness in the current framework, namely the divergences across countries in key regulatory elements – for example the different components of regulatory capital used across Member States. Furthermore, the ESAs have the power to take legally binding decisions addressed to national supervisors or, in case of non-compliance, to specific financial institutions if warranted by financial stability considerations. These powers can be triggered by a breach of EU law by supervisors; disagreement between national supervisory authorities in cross-border situations; and the declaration of an emergency situation by the Council.
The UK’s progress on resolvability Speech given by Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking  At the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales 26 February 2021  With thanks to Anika Duggal and Amy Lee for their assistance in preparing these remarks, and to Bank colleagues including Andrew Bailey, Adam Cull, Andrew Hewitt, Sasha Mills, Michael Salib, Ruth Smith, Tom Smith and Sam Woods for their many helpful comments and suggestions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  Thank you for inviting me to come to speak at the virtual ICAEW. I can’t think of a better venue for my first speech on resolution – particularly because of the vital role which the accountancy profession plays in some of our key resolvability judgements and safeguards, which fundamentally underpin the credibility of the regime. The Bank of England is the UK’s Resolution Authority; within the Bank I took on Deputy Governor level responsibility for resolution a year ago. It has been a fascinating time for me to take on this important responsibility, allowing me to contribute to the ongoing shaping of our resolution regime as it develops towards its immediate goal. That goal, a strategic goal for the Bank, is ending ‘too big to fail’ by making sure the firms we supervise can fail in an orderly way no matter their size. Put more practically we committed to Parliament that major UK banks should be resolvable by 20221.

Caleb M Fundanga: The Bank of Zambia and the insurance industry Speech by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the end of year cocktail party for the Zambia State Insurance Corporation Limited clients, Lusaka, 1 December 2004. *  *  *  The Master of Ceremony The Registrar - Pensions and Insurance Authority The Board Chairman-Zambia State Insurance Corporation The Board Chairman-Zambia State Insurance Pension Trust Fund Madam Managing Director - Ms Muyenga Distinguished Invited Guests Ladies and Gentlemen Good Evening! I wish to thank the Managing Director of Zambia State Insurance Corporation Limited - Ms Muyenga, for inviting me and my wife to be the Guest of Honour at this end of year cocktail party. Despite the fact that the Bank of Zambia is not directly associated with the insurance industry, this function gives me a rare opportunity to say something about the relationship between the Bank of Zambia and the insurance industry. In the past few years, the Bank of Zambia has taken keen interest in the operations and performance of the insurance companies and pension funds. This is because insurance companies and pension funds have a direct impact on macro-economic variables, since most of them are leading players in the Government securities market. Whenever the Government wishes to raise funds, it is these institutions together with commercial banks that provide them.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: The Malaysian bond market Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Launch of AmBank's Malaysia Corporate Bond Handbook Commodity Murabahah House, Kuala Lumpur, 18 August 2009. *  *  *  It is my pleasure to be here today on this occasion of the launch of the Malaysia Corporate Bond Handbook. The handbook, which is the first comprehensive guidebook for bond investors, is an initiative that will contribute towards improving the visibility and the development of the Malaysian bond market. Our bond market continues to be dynamic, with continued new developments that enhance Malaysia's position as a centre of origination for securities. In addition, a deeper and more liquid domestic bond market is also important for the development of a vibrant regional bond market which would in turn allow for a part of the savings in the region to be recycled and re-invested in the region. Growth and development of the Malaysian bond market The Malaysian bond market has experienced significant transformation over the recent decade and is now well positioned to have a more significant role to support the changing requirements of the economy in our next stage of development. Initiatives introduced by Bank Negara Malaysia to spur the development of the domestic bond market started as far back as 1986. The establishment of Cagamas Berhad, the national mortgage corporation was the first institution that the Bank established as part of the efforts to develop the domestic bond market.

In short, it looks as if events in financial markets are beginning to affect the terms offered to retail borrowers. This should act as a brake on consumer spending and investment. But the size of this effect is highly uncertain, partly because so far it seems to be focussed on certain groups. Much may depend on whether recent developments shake consumers’ confidence in future income growth and employment – and so far that does not seem to have happened. What about possible longer term effects on the price and availability of credit? Over the past three years, competition and financial innovation have put steady downward pressure on the rates at which banks have been prepared to lend, at any given level of Bank Rate. Between 2003 and the beginning of this year, 2-year-fixed mortgage rates fell by around 50bps relative to the wholesale interest rates they are usually priced off. This is one reason why credit has gone on rising so strongly, despite increases in official interest rates. At this stage, we can only speculate about what will happen next. My guess is that over the next 3-5 years, we will see a sustained – though not necessarily complete – reversal in these trends, as banks re-appraise the risks around certain business models and complex financial instruments. This would increase the cost of credit to final borrowers, for any given policy rate.
And all are competing for business in a way unthought of a few years ago witness the competition between LIFFE and Eurex for the long and short ends of the euro yield curve. The latest score in that particular England:Germany match is one all. No doubt German supporters think this score-line would have been a fairer result on Saturday night, given the balance of play! 1  BIS Review 51/2000  Role of technology But the common factor in all of these developments is technology. Physical trading floors for exchanges are fast-disappearing, particularly on this side of the Atlantic, replaced by virtual floors with trading conducted electronically. And exchanges are utilising their markets and system expertise to become trading system providers as well as market operators: OM has been a leader in this field for some time now, and LIFFE has announced some exciting plans - the creation of - fittingly enough “LIFFE.com” and its recent tie-up with Cap Gemini. On balance, these developments must be in investors’ interests. They reduce costs, improve access and allow exchanges to respond quickly and effectively to users’ changing needs. But they also present a number of challenges. To move from a trading floor, with its mix of locals, brokers and market makers, to an electronic order book, undoubtedly changes the dynamics of a market. For regulators, remote trading also brings some difficult challenges. Technology does not respect national boundaries; nor does it recognise different jurisdictions.

Luis M Linde: Situation of and challenges facing the European and Spanish banking industry following the start-up of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) Opening address by Mr Luis M Linde, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the 10th Banking Industry/IESE (Escuela de Negocios de la Universidad de Navarra) Meeting, Madrid, 10 December 2014. *  *  *  I much appreciate Professor Juan José Toribio’s kind invitation to me to participate in this 10th Banking Industry Meeting. In my address I shall review the situation of and the challenges facing the European and Spanish banking industry following the start-up of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). Since the height of the tensions in mid-2012, the position of the Spanish banking industry has improved notably. This improvement has been due to a series of factors, ranging from far-reaching changes in European institutional arrangements to common monetary policy measures and, no doubt, to the reforms in Spain. Clearly, however, the improvement cannot be explained without recalling the changes made in our banking system. Recapitalisation, restructuring, downsizing and reform of the savings bank sector have spearheaded the Spanish banking industry reform and have contributed to correcting the imbalances that had built up. The improvement in Spanish banks was substantiated by the interim assessments made by the European (the ECB and the European Commission) and international (IMF) authorities until the European Union’s financial assistance programme for the recapitalisation of Spanish banks was successfully concluded in January this year.
In our case, total productivity – the variable that seeks to approximate the level of efficiency of the economy and which depends, among other factors, on the effects of technological improvements and on the efficiency of the institutions and the regulations in place within an economy – worsened significantly during the years of expansion prior to the crisis, posting slightly negative rates as from 2000. Despite some improvement as from 2008, linked to the disappearance of unproductive firms, Spain continues to post significantly lower productivity growth than the average for the developed economies. There are simplistic analyses that would seek to explain these developments by resorting to singular and even anecdotal macroeconomic aspects; but the factors that appear to lie behind our mediocre productivity performance are varied and complex. Apart from the fact that Spain has significantly lower levels of technological capital than other developed countries, factors are often cited such as the high costs and administrative obstacles facing business start-ups, the low level of competition in certain sectors and the small size of our companies. Low productivity can also be related to some of the labour market aspects I referred to earlier, such as the disconnection between remuneration conditions and the specific situation of each firm, and labour market duality, which hamper the reallocation of resources across companies and human capital accumulation decisions. Conclusions To conclude, allow me first to refer to the situation of the euro area, and then to the Spanish economy, on the road to recovery from the crisis.

Peter Pang: Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation retail bond issues Opening remarks by Mr Peter Pang, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Executive Director of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited, at the Signing Ceremony for the Retail Bond Issue under the HKMC's Retail Bond Issuance Programme, Hong Kong, 1 September 2006. *  *  *  Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation, I welcome you all to this signing ceremony for the new retail bond to be offered to the public next Monday. Five years ago, in October 2001, the HKMC introduced a mechanism to offer retail bonds through placing banks. This move received very warm welcome from both the banking sector and retail investors. So far, we have issued eight retail bonds for a total amount of $ billion. Two major factors are behind the success of the HKMC's retail bond issues. First it is our strong credit rating. In fact, our credit rating has recently been upgraded by S&P’s to AA with stable outlook and by Moody's to Aa3 with positive outlook. Secondly, the HKMC meets the needs of retail investors through continual product innovation. On this occasion, we again bring some new features to our retail bond issuance. Apart from issuing two-year notes in Hong Kong Dollar and in US Dollar, we are introducing a new 10-year Hong Kong Dollar Zero Coupon Bond.
Therefore, we still cannot define the high growth rates observed in the last three years as sustainable growth. It should not be forgotten that strategies, which initiate growth and those, which achieve the sustainability of growth differ. . In this framework, the achievement of sustainable growth in our country requires more comprehensive and radical reforms. Now, I will explain the measures to be taken by outlining the reasons for the failure to achieve sustainable growth. The main reasons behind the failure in achieving sustainable growth include a large underground economy, the inadequacy of domestic savings and capital accumulation of the private sector, the fact that increases in productivity may not be permanent due to deficiencies in institutional governance, problems concerning the quality of labor supply, poor relations between the banking sector and the real sector and the inadequate tax system. According to predictions made in studies, the extent of the underground economy in Turkey ranges from 16 to 50 percent. As we cannot impose taxes on the underground economy, the state takes heavy losses. Moreover, the underground economy causes inefficient utilization of the country’s resources and creates unfair competition. That is why it is of the utmost importance that policies aimed at the registration of the underground economy are carried out at once. The domestic savings rate of our country is very low compared to that of both developing and developed countries. Actually, what lies beneath this fact is Turkey’s low-income level.

At this point, it is important to underline once more the damage caused by high inflation in order to remind us why should do everything in our power to stick to the price stability objective. This is especially important in an environment where the benefits of overcoming inflation are not yet fully understood. The consequences of failure to maintain price stability, in other words, the damage caused by inflation, can be clearly seen in our country both in society and in the economy, as is the case in all countries that have experienced high and chronic inflation. High inflation, one of the main reasons for poverty, depravation, unfair distribution of income, and the economic instability environment it creates has been one of the most influential impacts of inflation on society. The legacy of inflation on poverty, depravation and the unfair distribution of income have been clearly felt by society. Another effect of high inflation, which manifested itself in the short-term in society, is that of immoral behavior. High inflation led to moral corruption in our country. While Turkey ranked low in fields such as infrastructure, education, health and the fair distribution of income in international development indicators, it ranked high in indices of corruption. Another factor worth mentioning in this context is the relationship between high inflation and political instability. Shortsighted policies by political instability and the resulting inflation as a result have  BIS Review 36/2005  1  featured several times in economic literature.