samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
BIS central bankers’ speeches  17  Appendix Figure 1: The OECD Better Life Index  Source: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/  Figure 2: OECD Better Life Index – UK Summary  Source: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/  18  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 3: Examples of activities which do and do not count as volunteering under the definition given by the International Labour Organisation Classed as “volunteering” Working in a soup kitchen cooking meals for the homeless Serving on a neighbourhood clean-up committee Serving as an usher or otherwise working on behalf of a religious organisation Providing unpaid legal advice at a legal services agency Providing marginally paid foster-care services on a short-term basis Sewing a blanket for a sick neighbour  Lies outside the boundary of “volunteering” Cooking meals for one’s own children Cleaning one’s own house or yard Attending a religious service Receiving payment for legal advice or assistance Providing foster-care services on a long-term basis Sewing a blanket for a sick household member  Source: ILO (2011), Manual on the measurement of volunteer work (adapted). Figure 4: Estimates of the extent of formal volunteering in the UK in 2012  Hours (billions per year) Proportion of the sample  Total (at least once per year)  Of which frequent (at least once per month)  2.29  2.12  44%  29%  Source: ONS (2013), “Household Satellite Accounts: Valuing Voluntary Activity in the UK”. Underlying data from the Community Life Survey.

It is for this reason that – in our opinion – the responsibility for the countercyclical capital buffer for domestic lending must lie with the SNB. The National Bank must be able to decide when the buffer is activated and how high it should be. It goes without saying that it would do so within legally defined limits. The same should also apply to the activation of loan-to-value ratios and affordability criteria for mortgage loans. All of these instruments are closely linked to monetary policy. Within the context of the implementation of the TBTF regulations, the systemically important banks will have to be determined. This is because the more rigorous capital and liquidity requirements are only intended for these banks. And because emergency liquidity assistance is also reserved for systemically important banks, the decision as to the systemic importance of a bank has a direct impact on the SNB in its function as lender of last resort. These decision-making powers, too, must therefore be placed in the National Bank’s hands. This proposed solution should give the SNB the formal responsibilities it needs in order to fulfil its mandate in the area of financial stability in a preventative manner. In many countries, a transfer of banking supervision to the central bank is currently the subject of intensive discussion. In contrast, the National Bank is by no means calling into question the separation of banking supervision and central bank activities with the solution presented here. This separation has worked for Switzerland.
11 Latimer notes that “…between the middle of the twelfth century and the middle of the thirteenth century there was an enormous increase in the quantity of silver coins in England.” As well as the possibility of a general increase in the European silver supply (especially with the opening up of the Harz silver mines in eastern Germany), it is likely that silver inflows to England in particular were boosted as the counterpart to a sizeable private trade surplus – probably resulting, especially, from the success of the wool trade with Flanders. Over several decades, these silver inflows were likely to have much more than offset the “public sector deficit” as silver leaked out to pay for the protection of Normandy as well as the occasional trip to the Holy Land. As a result, the balance of payments was probably in surplus for years, with the consequent increase in the silver money supply going unsterilised. Even to a thirteenth century Englishman, global monetary conditions mattered. Would Britain’s constitutional history have been different had King John lamented: A Central Bank! A Central Bank! My Kingdom for a Central Bank!? He needed one because other factors reinforced monetary developments, including the usual suspect – financial innovation. Specifically, developments in the common law made land an increasingly liquid asset, and therefore one capable for the first time of being used as a store of wealth.

The average pace of  Not only are the effects sizeable, but, on past experience, they are potentially protracted. The impact of sterling’s 25% depreciation following the onset of the financial crisis on import prices was one factor that contributed to high inflation throughout 2008–12. The potential for these effects to be persistent highlights their relevance at the policy horizon. 29  To paraphrase one of my predecessors at the Bank of Canada, Gerry Bouey, we didn’t abandon the lower bound; the lower bound abandoned us. 30  See Office for Budget Responsibility (2015), Economic and Fiscal Outlook, July; and IMF (2015), World Economic Outlook. 31  Based on data on short term money market rates, starting 1718. See Hills, S, Thomas, R and Dimsdale, N (2015) “Three Centuries of Data - Version 2.2”, Bank of England. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  tightening since the adoption of inflation targeting in 1992 was around 50 basis points per quarter. It would not seem unreasonable to me to expect that once normalisation begins, interest rate increases would proceed slowly and rise to a level in the medium term that is perhaps about half as high as historical averages. In my view, the decision as to when to start such a process of adjustment will likely come into sharper relief around the turn of this year. That said, the path is much more important than the precise timing of the first rate increase.
Mervyn King: Monetary policy developments Speech by Mr Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, to the Institute of Directors, St George’s Hall, Liverpool, 18 October 2011. *  *  *  Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Surrounded by the magnificent architecture of St George’s Hall, we are reminded of the benefits and the costs of exposure to the world economy. Built at the peak of Liverpool’s mercantile fortunes, the Hall, and the other magnificent buildings of the cultural quarter, exhibit the prosperity derived from openness to trade. Indeed, tonight is the anniversary of a grand banquet held here on 18th October 1860 to celebrate the opening of the public library and museum building that stands opposite. Its construction had been financed by the guest of honour at the banquet that evening, William Brown, whose statue stands in the Hall today. Brown had profited from transatlantic trade both as a merchant and by establishing a bank which financed trade – at the time a risky business. In those days, finance and trade supported each other, and the city prospered. But the subsequent history of St George’s Hall, which fell into neglect in the last century, illustrates Liverpool’s vulnerability to changes in the rest of the world. The British economy too has enjoyed the benefits of globalisation. Now we are seeing some of the costs, as they play out in a global financial crisis.

We must use the gravity of the global crisis to provoke a bold response. We acted together in 2009; we can do so again. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
With continued wage moderation, fiscal consolidation and the implementation of long overdue structural reforms to labour and product markets, an extended period of sustainable economic growth is possible - provided that the single monetary policy remains resolutely committed to the maintenance of price stability, taking the necessary prompt action to address inflationary pressures as they emerge. The ECB is strongly committed to this task. The successful introduction of the euro did not occur by accident. Rather it was the result of a long and painstaking preparatory process. This process started in Basel, under the aegis of the Committee of Central Bank Governors. The Committee of Governors was central to the preparation of the Statute of the ESCB and the Maastricht Treaty and, after the signing of the Treaty, undertook the initial groundwork for the move to Monetary Union. After its creation in 1994, the European Monetary Institute, as the institutional precursor to the ECB foreseen in the Treaty, took over the preparatory work. These preparations drew on the accumulated experience of central banks throughout the world, but - of course - especially those in the euro area. In this sense, the long history of the Banque de France that we are celebrating today - as well as the experience of other central banks - has directly contributed to the success of the ECB during its short initial existence. In my remarks this morning, I will discuss some of the lessons drawn by the ECB from the rich history of central banking.

The Federal Government and the central bank of the USA have channelled funds worth over 787 billion dollars into banking and the private sector. In the European Union, the fiscal stimulus amounts to 1.8% of GDP and to 225 billion euro. Banks have received direct support and state guarantees in the amount of 393 billion euro. Such massive intervention has put brakes on the rate of recession. The past couple of months' stabilisation in the global economy has come at a high price. Major economies face rapidly expanded fiscal deficits and central banks' balance sheets and total volume of base money have promptly increased. Therefore it cannot be said for sure whether the current "green shoots" refer to a new growth cycle. Only structural reforms and maintaining confidence in fiscal and monetary policy can help the economy out of the crisis on a more permanent basis. When speaking about this year's forecasts, the EU economy as a whole is expected to undergo a 4% recession. Small economies which are more dependent on exports and international capital flows suffer from the crisis disproportionally more. Sweden and Finland, our close neighbours, can expect a recession of up to 4.7%. As we know, the global financial crisis and the collapse of markets caused serious difficulties to several new Member States.
Second, the “riskiness” of a bank’s activities and the liquidity of its funding can change suddenly and radically as market expectations shift. This means that what appeared to be an adequate capital or liquidity cushion one day appears wholly inadequate the next. Indeed, the Achilles heel of the Basel regime is the assumption that there is a constant capital ratio which delivers the desired degree of stability of the banking system. After the experience of the past two years, and a decade or more in which capital ratios fell and leverage ratios rose to historically unprecedented levels, banks need more capital to persuade investors to fund them. A larger buffer gives new creditors greater comfort that their claims will be met in future, without resort to the public purse. And rather than pay out dividends or generous remuneration, banks should use earnings to build larger capital buffers. But how much larger? We simply don’t know. A higher ratio is safer than a lower one, but any fixed ratio is bound to be arbitrary. One way of dealing with this problem is to require banks to take out insurance in the form of “contingent capital”, that is capital in a form that automatically converts to common equity upon the trigger of a threshold that kicks in before a bank becomes insolvent. If a bank’s regulatory core tier 1 capital – common equity – remained above the threshold, nothing would happen.

But if the regulatory core tier 1 capital fell below the threshold then the contingent capital would automatically be converted to common equity. When bank failures impose costs on the rest of the economy, it is reasonable to insist that banks themselves purchase a sufficient degree of insurance in the form of a large capital cushion available automatically before insolvency. Such contingent capital instruments are very different from instruments, such as subordinated debt, which banks have been permitted to count as capital under the Basel regime, but which do not provide a reliable capital buffer until too late – after the bank has failed. So at present the taxpayer is providing capital that is exposed to future losses rather than investors in debt-like capital instruments of a troubled bank. Whether investors would be willing to provide contingent capital on the required scale would depend upon the price, but at least the cost would fall where it belongs – on the banks. 2  BIS Review 129/2009  So the first approach to the “too important to fail” problem might be made to work with a requirement for contingent capital. It is worth a try. But it has three drawbacks. First, banks still have an incentive to take really big risks because the government would provide some back-stop catastrophe insurance.
For instance, on the housing front, it will be important to ensure that program design and funding recognize that our region has a wide variety of housing types – including multifamily and public housing – that are in need of repair post-Sandy. In other words, one-size-fits-all solutions may not work well here. Past studies suggest that reconstruction spending provides a powerful stimulus to local economies, both in its direct effects and its associated multiplier effects. Thus, I expect that reconstruction will provide a similar sizeable boost to our regional economic activity, and one that is likely to continue well into 2013. All this analysis must be viewed as early and provisional. Putting all the factors together, at present I expect that economic activity in our region was adversely affected in October and November, but will show a noticeable rebound starting in December. In addition to the economic costs in terms of lost activity there are, of course, the costs in terms of human suffering to the millions of people who were adversely affected – above all those who lost homes and loved ones, but also the many others who were cold and without power for days on end, spent hours getting to and from work, waited on long gas lines, and experienced the stress of not knowing what lies ahead. We are also tracking the impact of Sandy on schools and students. In New Jersey, 60 percent of schools were closed more than one and a half weeks.

Averagesize farms continue to be relatively small, thus restricting the development and growth of average productivity, or differently known as “the economies of scale”. There are many reasons behind this. We can mention the inheritance of the communist system and the separation of land after its collapse. As it was stated above, the lack of a normal land market also due to ownership problems, naturally plays an important role in establishing larger farms and, consequently, more competitive ones. These problems also affect the agricultural sector-bank relationship and the lending activity at home. The recent data show that lending to the agricultural sector accounts for 1.25% of total lending to businesses, on average. It is a considerably low figure, which should raise our concern, considering that this sector contributes by one/fifth to the gross domestic product. I believe that there are two reasons driving the banking system to be reluctant to finance different projects in this sector. First, risk classification and categorisation for credit to agricultural sector is a commitment different from the other activities. The lack of formalisation, even for matters such as regular maintenance of information and statistics  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  about ownership, and financial statistics, damage the farmers’ credibility from the early steps of lending. I find that there is room for prudential intervention by public institutions, not to condemn farmers, but to better prepare them and assist them in formalising their business.
While in normal times, economies can adjust gradually and tolerance for deviations for a charted path may be higher, a stressed environments is characterized by a very low tolerance to risk, shorter time horizons and powerful feedback loops with financial markets. The recent experience of fast-shifting conditions for some emerging economies that were caught in the ebbing tide of capital movements is in stark contrast with the slow-motion of monetary policy in advanced countries, which is also a source of theoretical puzzles and information challenges. Acknowledgements To guide our discussions on these issues over the next two days, we can rely on a distinguished group of economists that have joined us to present and discuss issues concerning inflation dynamics and monetary policy. I would especially like to thank Gonzalo Castex, Jordi Galí, Diego Saravia, and Joaquín Fuenzalida for putting together the program, and Carolina Besa, Paloma Navarro, and María José Reyes for helping with the organization. I wish you all a fruitful discussion and a pleasant stay in Santiago. ***  4

It therefore gives me great pleasure today to launch the Consumer Education Programme for the insurance and takaful industries. This represents an important step in the ongoing evolution of the development of our financial system. Indeed, this also represents a part of the overall efforts to promote market integrity and consumer protection over the whole spectrum of banking, insurance and takaful activities in the market. For consumers to fully realise the benefits of increased opportunities available in this continuously changing financial environment, consumers need to be in a position to actively manage their financial assets while at the same time safeguard their financial future. The public response to the launch of the Consumer Education Programme for the banking sector early this year has been most encouraging. To date, more than two million visitors have accessed the Bank Negara Malaysia’s “Banking Info” website and more than 360,000 booklets have found their way into the hands of consumers. The launch of the Consumer Education Programme for the insurance and takaful industries today will be part of this on-going effort to enhance the ability of consumers to understand and draw meaningful comparisons of alternative financial products and make betterinformed decisions in financial planning. In formulating a consumer education strategy, the distinct features of the insurance industry have been taken into consideration to meet the information needs of insurance consumers. Insurance contracts are essentially formed on the basis of disclosures made by prospective policyholders about the risks to be insured.
Chart: Important role for Norwegian gas But Norwegian oil and gas production will, most likely, remain profitable for quite some time. The supply of clean energy is still limited. Today, coal accounts for a large share of global energy demand. Demand for natural gas may increase as countries move towards a greener economy. In Germany and Poland, phasing out coal faster than planned is being discussed. Norwegian gas can play an important role in a transition phase. There is still global demand for oil and gas. If we reduce production on the Norwegian shelf earlier than planned, other suppliers are ready to take over. The climate impact of an earlier reduction would therefore be marginal, while the costs to Norway would be substantial. The oil industry has been an economic engine for Norway for close to 50 years. The revenues from this industry have improved the welfare of today’s citizens and the citizens of tomorrow. The spillover effects from the oil sector to the wider Norwegian economy are substantial. Throughout our country there are oil-related jobs to be found. More than 10 percent of all employed persons in Norway are either directly or indirectly working for the oil industry. 3 Innovation and skills development in the industry have also benefitted other sectors. The oil industry has been through a demanding period of personnel cuts, cost savings and rationalisation. The restructuring in the industry that was already underway became even more pressing when oil prices collapsed in 2014.

It is almost impossible to imagine today’s welfare level without the specialisation brought about thanks to a world of open borders. Norway exports a limited range of goods and services to the world market. This allows us to finance imports of numerous finished goods, which are cheaper than if we had manufactured them at home. Labour is thereby freed up for use in education, health and other services. Access to capital and technology abroad has enabled us to develop new industries based on domestic natural resources. Hydropower and the oil industry are prime examples. We now invest our petroleum wealth in capital markets. The Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) allows Norway to take a share in global value added. We need other countries – more than they need us. The foundation for today’s global trade cooperation was laid in the years following the Second World War. Institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank fostered closer economic cooperation between countries. The ratification of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) marked the beginning of a gradual reduction of tariff barriers, which culminated in a rulebased, multinational trade system under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO). 1/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  History has shown that the trend towards a more open and liberal world order can reverse, as seen in the interwar period. This may now be happening again. Brexit, the UK’s exit from the EU is the first major setback for European integration in several decades.