samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
While facing numerous and difficult challenges, the country has continued to produce university and college graduates of international standards year in year out. This situation would not have been possible, had it not be for the past tremendous contributions and personal sacrifices made by a number of citizens under the guidance of leaders who had great foresight and fortitude. The dedication and ingenuity of our teachers and lecturers both in the past and today, have also massively contributed to the economic development we have achieved to date. I have no doubt that our nation needs more of such outstanding and dedicated citizens at all levels of society to take our country’s development to a higher level. Mr President, as we speak, Zambia’s economy is facing numerous challenges emanating from the global financial turmoil. As you are no doubt aware, the crisis has already resulted in a reduction in commodity prices including that of copper. The Zambian foreign exchange market has also been partly affected as is reflected in the volatility and weakening of the Kwacha exchange rate in the recent past. The result of all this is lower Government revenues and more expensive imports which would in turn culminate in higher inflation. Unfortunately, for a low income country like Zambia, lower Government revenue entail lower spending on social amenities including Education and Health. High cost of goods and services also mean that most of our citizens would not afford to educate their families.

Caleb M Fundanga: Supporting education in Zambia Remarks by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Masomo Education Foundation Scholarship Presentation, Lusaka, 21 November 2008. *  *  *  • The President, Masomo Education Foundation, Mr. Chisanga Puta-Chekwe • Hon Members of Parliament present • The Chairman, Selection Committee, Dr Silane Mwenechanya • Managing Director of Barclays Bank (Z) Ltd, Mr Zafar Masud • Representatives from the University of Zambia • Mr. John Mwanakatwe • Representatives from the Canadian High Commission in Zambia • Members of the Press • Distinguished invited guests • Ladies and gentlemen It is an honour and privilege for me to officiate at this scholarship award presentation. I am most humbled because I am the second ever guest of honour to grace such an event following, a distinguished academician who officiated at the fist ceremony. This is someone who has inspired a lot of Zambians including me to be what we are today. He was one of the first Zambians to graduate with a university degree and has not looked back thereafter. He has continued to inspire and encourage others to climb the education ladder to the top. Ladies and Gentlemen, let us all stand and recognize the presence of one of Zambia’s finest academician, lawyer and writer, Mr. John Mwanakatwe. Ladies and Gentlemen, in the short history of post independence Zambia, we can take pride at the achievements scored in the area of education, thus far.
14  Sources for these data include the United Nations (from the oil-for-Food program) and the Central Bank of Iraq. 8  BIS Review 5/2004  clearly a consequence of the evolution of the actual and expected money supplies in the two territories. Given the monetary and fiscal policies pursued by the Saddam regime, the rise of the Swiss dinar against the Saddam dinar is, perhaps, understandable. But what is less obvious is the path of the Swiss dinar against the US dollar. Chart 4 shows the Swiss dinar-dollar exchange rate from 1997 onwards. Chart 4: The Swiss Dinar/Dollar exchange rate, Jul 1997-Oct 2003 0  Swiss $  5 10 Swiss $  15 20 25 30 35 Jul-97  Jul-98  Jul-99  Jul-00  Jul-01  Jul-02  Jul-03  Source: United Nations, Central Bank of Iraq  After fluctuating in the early 1990s, the Swiss dinar rose sharply against the US dollar from the middle of 2002 as the prospect of an end to the Saddam regime increased. It rose from around 18 to the dollar in May 2002 to about 6 to the dollar by the beginning of May 2003 when the war ended. That appreciation reflected expectations about (i) the durability of the political and military separation of Kurdish from Saddam-controlled Iraq and (ii) the likelihood that a new institution would be established governing monetary policy in Iraq as a whole that would retrospectively back the value of the Swiss dinar.

Mervyn King: The institutions of monetary policy Lecture by Mr Mervyn King,1 Governor of the Bank of England, at the American Economic Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, 4 January 2004. The references can be found on the Bank of England’s website (www.bankofengland.co.uk)  *  *  *  President, Ladies and Gentlemen, To have one central bank governor address you today may be regarded as a misfortune, but to invite two looks like carelessness! It is a great honour to be invited by this year’s President-Elect, Marty Feldstein, to deliver the Ely lecture. Marty has been my teacher, mentor, colleague and friend for over thirty years, and I never cease to be amazed by the energy and imagination which he devotes to the study of economic problems. I got to know Marty during my time as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard in 1971. The Kennedy Scholarships form one part of Britain’s national memorial to President Kennedy. The other part is an acre of land, now American territory, at Runnymede. At the ceremony to open the Runnymede memorial in 1965, Prime Minister Harold Wilson remarked about President Kennedy that “his eyes were on the horizon, but his feet were on the ground”. Almost thirty years earlier Richard T. Ely published his autobiography entitled “Ground under Our Feet”. Whereas I found the experience of coming from Europe to the United States intellectually liberating and exhilarating, a hundred years earlier Ely found academic freedom by making the reverse journey.
“Does Inflation Targeting Matter?” Ball L., Sheridan N. in: ”The Inflation-Targeting Debate” Bernanke B.S., Woodford M. (2005). BIS Review 57/2006  7  outcomes (lower costs of stabilising inflation, decreased influence of price shocks and output shocks on inflation, thereby - decreased effect of past inflation on the current inflation, which reduces inflation persistence) 24 . Empirical research also suggests that the DIT strategy facilitates stabilisation of longterm inflation expectations 25 . An additional result of dissemination of the DIT strategy is elaboration of standards of communication in conducting the monetary policy (announcements of decision-making authorities, inflation reports and published inflation projections), which facilitate contacts of the central bank with the external environment (the financial market and the general public). It may be speculated that these standards make the interpretation of the decisions made by the central bank easier for foreign investors, which should, under the huge cross-border capital flows, increase the effectiveness of the monetary policy in stabilising inflation. Re 6) As mentioned before, the process of globalisation is a serious challenge for central banks. Following the increase in human workforce relatively to the capital resource, the pay of the workforce has gone down, and so did the costs of manufacturing of many goods and services. Setting fuel prices apart, whose increase is also brought about by globalisation, inflation in many countries remains very low, whereas a strong increase in the global labour supply mitigates the possibility of occurrence of the second-round effects i.e. wage increases in response to a rise in current inflation.

On the basis of the current level of oil prices and oil price futures, annual inflation rates  BIS Review 23/2007  1  are likely to fall during the spring and summer before rising again towards the end of the year and then most likely hovering again at around 2%. The new ECB staff macroeconomic projections foresee annual HICP inflation averaging between 1.5% and 2.1% in 2007 and between 1.4% and 2.6% in 2008. Compared with the December 2006 Eurosystem staff projections, the upper bound of the range projected for inflation in 2007 is somewhat lower, largely reflecting the fall in oil prices. By contrast, the projected range for inflation in 2008 is slightly higher, largely on account of the anticipated stronger economic growth, which could exert more intense pressure on factor utilisation and factor costs. In this context, let me remind you of the conditional nature of these projections, which are based on a series of technical assumptions, including market expectations for future short and long-term interest rates as well as for oil and nonenergy commodity prices. At the policy-relevant medium-term horizon, the outlook for price developments remains, in the Governing Council’s view, subject to upside risks. These relate to the possibility of renewed oil price increases and additional increases in administered prices and indirect taxes beyond those announced and decided thus far.
Given the effects of monetary policy normally assumed, the difference in inflation and employment would have been marginal. For monetary policy to bring inflation much closer to the target level, a radically different policy would have been necessary. For instance, the Riksbank would probably have needed to cut the repo rate quickly and substantially a couple of years ago rather than making the gradual cuts that were implemented. It would have been difficult to justify this type of monetary policy given the view of economic prospects at that time. It is also clear that the monetary policy that was conducted has had a strong expansionary effect on the economy. For instance, GDP growth has been high. The expansionary monetary policy has also been evident in the rapid credit expansion in the household sector and the price increases in the housing market. It is doubtful whether it would have been wise to reinforce this development with even more expansionary monetary policy. Unfortunately, the strong growth has not resulted in a corresponding recovery in employment. On the contrary, the labour market has developed more weakly than might have been expected from a historical perspective, given the high GDP growth. To some extent this reflects the unexpectedly high  BIS Review 12/2006  5  productivity growth. However, a reasonable explanation is that there are also problems in the labour market that are not cyclical. This is something that should be resolved by other means than monetary policy.

Stefan Ingves: Introduction on monetary policy Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Riksdag Committee on Finance, Stockholm, 23 February 2006. The Diagrams to the speech  can be found on the website of the Sveriges Riksbank. *  *  *  Let me first of all thank you for the invitation to come here. This is my first hearing with the Committee on Finance and I hope that we will have a rewarding discussion on monetary policy. I shall begin with a brief report on our current assessment of the economic situation and future inflation prospects. Above all, I wish to clarify the reasoning as to why we are choosing to raise the repo rate now. Given that the recent monetary policy debate has revolved to a large extent around the objective of monetary policy, I would also like to take this opportunity to report our fundamental view of monetary policy strategy. My main message can be summarised thus: •  There is one objective for monetary policy and that is to maintain price stability. •  The task given to the Riksbank by the Riksdag and our method of working provide scope for taking other factors into account, such as growth and employment, as long as this does not jeopardise price stability. The inflation targeting policy has worked well in its present form and I therefore see no reason to change it.
Investors at the end of this chain, who bore the final risk, had less information about the underlying quality of loans than those at the start and became very dependent on rating agencies and their models. It also reduced the incentives on originators to assess and monitor credit risk carefully. 1  The dotted line represents the end of 2006. BIS Review 24/2008  1  The downswing – how the crisis unfolded Growing problems in the sub-prime market started the downswing. Chart 3 compares the path of US housing prices with the price of the triple-B ABX index (which captures the cost of insuring against default losses on sub-prime mortgages) and bank equity prices: •  As you can see, the US housing market began to turn down in mid 2006; and banks holding sub-prime loans on balance sheet began to make provisions at that point. •  But it wasn’t until early in 2007 that rising defaults led to markdowns in even the riskier tranches of sub-prime backed securities. •  Last summer, problems at Bear Stearns, IKB and BNP Paribas brought home to investors the market risks they were running and led to an “investors’ strike” on mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed commercial paper. •  That in turn led banks to hoard liquidity; inter-bank markets spreads rose and volumes fell beyond the very short term; Northern Rock ran out of road, and bank equity prices began to drop.

Basle II is a step in the right direction in many ways, particularly in its treatment of off-balance sheet vehicles and in stimulating improved risk management systems, but it still has known pro-cyclical features which we need to address. If we cannot do so effectively an alternative may be to require larger capital and liquidity buffers across the whole cycle. The past seven months have been testimony to Mark Twain’s comment that “history doesn’t repeat itself but it does sometimes rhyme.” The structured credit markets and the growth of “originate and distribute” banking have amplified the turmoil in credit markets in recent months. But under the new clothes, the old credit cycle is still recognisable. It is important we learn the lessons about the new credit instruments and markets. But we also need to address again the roots of the credit cycle.
External debt is now only 60% of GDP compared to 90% at its peak. Financial institution performance in Thailand has also strengthened considerably. Last year the banking system recorded an operating profit of 0.68 % on assets, boosted by both improved interest income and fee-based income. The transfer of non performing loans to the government owned, Thai Asset Management Corporation, has reduced the NPL ratio in the banking system to 11.5%. With less need for provisioning, the average BIS ratio of the Thai banks now stands at approximately 13% at the end of March this year. BIS Review 44/2002  1  Last week the Thai authority also finalized the measures to deal with losses from the financial sector intervention. The government will fiscalize the losses by issuing bonds to cover them in full. The servicing of the interest rates will be entirely from the government budget. The retirement of the principals will be borne by the central bank. But it will be paid out of the central bank's future yearly profits which would be earned mostly from the international reserves and would normally be paid over to the government in its yearly appropriation of the profits anyway. Thus the scheme will not affect the Bank of Thailand's ability to formulate monetary policy in the future. The scheme also makes more clear the path of fiscal deficit in Thailand.

The minimum is a system that allows the sharing of negative information or some kind of black lists. But one should quickly migrate towards pooling and sharing positive information as well. A well functioning credit information system is not harmful to the consumers. Instead it enables the borrowers on the margin to obtain credit, those who would have been refused in its absence. In Thailand we already have two credit bureaus operating, and the Credit Bureau Act will soon be enacted to govern their businesses. Third, the need to protect the consumers. The charges and expenses levied against them should be made clear and easy to compare between various issuers. Interest rates should be declared as effective annual rates and sufficient lead time should be allowed and communicated to consumers before changes in terms and conditions come into effect. In Thailand, we are planning to set a uniform standard for the whole industry regarding such things as interest free periods, the setting of due dates and calculation methods for past due balances. Finally, if internet transactions become prevalent or poised for rapid growth, there is the need to define its proper legal framework. On this issue, we have just passed the relevant laws and are in the process of drafting the subsidiary regulations at ministerial level. At the micro level, and this is your direct responsibilities, card issuers have to put in place a good system of risk management.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2020/html/ecb.sp201119_1~4a1ff0daf9.en.html  1/7  20/11/2020  COVID-19 and the liquidity crisis of non-banks: lessons for the future  But the trend towards non-bank finance also creates challenges. For example, non-banks typically do not have access to central bank balance sheets, which raises important questions about the role of a lender of last resort. The current system puts the onus on the ability of market makers to provide liquidity during periods of stress. In a similar vein, while the regulatory responses to the global financial crisis have succeeded in making the banking sector more resilient, the policy framework for the non-bank financial sector is far less developed. In particular, the macroprudential framework for the non-bank financial sector is still in its infancy, which limits the ability of authorities to address emerging risks and vulnerabilities. The role of non-banks during the spring market turmoil These regulatory gaps were clearly visible during the market turmoil in spring. When the pandemic broke out in Europe, systemic stress surged to levels close to those seen during the peak of the global financial crisis, in both the euro area and the United States (see slide 3). Diverging corporate sector bond spreads and credit default swap (CDS) spreads signalled that bond spreads widened beyond the rise in perceived default risk (see left chart slide 4). The widening in net asset value spreads for exchange-traded funds, which was the largest on record for these instruments, also pointed towards a remarkable decline in liquidity (see right chart slide 4).

Going forward, each country needs to be analyzed more as individual stories. Ladies and gentlemen, Emerging market countries are at a critical juncture. Much has been accomplished, and much potential remains. This is the key transition point. How successfully a nation manages this transition will depend primarily on domestic factors. Specifically, its ability to instigate structural change and implement institutional reforms. I believe that big strides can be achieved if we can push through our individual glass ceilings. But I am also realistic that realizing this potential and coordinating societies on the good outcome will be enormously challenging. To move forward, there needs to be a collective change of attitudes and mindsets – particularly towards things like corruption, good governance, and consideration for the public good. Here there is good news and bad news. On the positive side, mindsets and attitudes are things within our control. The bad news is that changing attitudes and mindsets is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do. As Leo Tolstoy once wrote “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” For many of you here who will go on to serve in public policy, I urge you to embrace this challenge and give you my wholehearted support. Today is a legacy of the past, but history is not destiny. You can make a difference and we need more people who devote themselves to do so. Thank you very much for your attention. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
This is because it helps investors, businesses, and household to effectively make plans and manage their risks, as well as lower businesses’ cost of funds. To end my remarks today, I would like to stress that while there remain risks and uncertainties surrounding the overall outlook for global growth, prospects for Asia remain relatively bright. However, countries in Asia, and Thailand especially, need to put real efforts to foster capacity, innovation, and productivity. We must also prevent excessive risk taking and lax policy-making from becoming the norm. This requires preempting excessive risktaking and conducting policy with prudence. I can assure you that the Bank of Thailand is committed to ensuring a stable macroeconomic environment which would help investors, businesses, and households in planning their economic activities and to operate effectively. However, policies can mitigate only parts of the spectrum of risks. The business sector must also be mindful and well-prepared to deal with new risks and challenges, going forward. Thank you. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3

In terms of quarterly performance, a significant rebound is expected over the summer in line with the removal of the most severe lockdown measures. However, the scenarios differ in terms of the duration and severity of virus-related restrictions on economic activity and the behaviour of households and firms in the rest of 2020 and throughout 2021. In all scenarios, a deep recession is envisaged: in the severe scenario, real GDP would fall by 12 percent in 2020. Chart 1 Euro area real GDP under the mild, medium and severe scenarios  https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2020/html/ecb.sp200519~e5203d3520.en.html  1/14  5/19/2020  Pandemic central banking: the monetary stance, market stabilisation and liquidity  (index, 2019 Q4 = 100)  Source: ECB calculations. Note: For details on the scenarios, see Battistini, N. and Stoevsky, G (2020), “Alternative scenarios for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic activity in the euro area”, Economic Bulletin, Issue 3, European Central Bank. Chart 2 shows the household savings rate, as projected in the European Commission Spring Forecast that was published a couple of weeks ago. The household savings rate is forecast to jump by a remarkable 6 percentage points to around 19 percent for 2020, and is expected to remain elevated even in 2021. Although “forced saving” during the lockdown is surely contributing to the increase in household saving, it is plausible that the precautionary motive will remain significant so long as virus-related uncertainty persists. Elevated uncertainty may also hamper investment prospects for an extended period of time.