samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
10  By searching  for words such as “self-employed”, “flexible hours” and “contractor” in published job ads, we can track trends in the demand for jobs with these characteristics. This suggests all three job classifiers have maintained or increased their shares of vacancies since 2008 (Chart 8). On the face of it, these trends – less union membership, more self-employment, more zero hours contracts, more part-time and temporary work – might suggest work has become more fluid and insecure. But we should be cautious about jumping to that conclusion. Over the past three years, there has been a marked increase in the share of temporary workers reporting they do not want a permanent job. And since 2012, the share of part-time workers reporting that they do not want a full-time job has also been on an upward trajectory. Whether these trends in employment are voluntary or involuntary, good news or bad, an opportunity or a threat, they may still carry implications for wage-setting. That is true even if it is only a (rising) minority of workers being affected by these changes. The marginal worker is much more likely than in the past to be self-employed, to work flexibly and to not be part of a union. And, economics and employers tell us, it is the marginal worker whose pay matters most when determining wage pressures in the economy at large. Implications for Wages  So what does the evidence tell us about the potential effects of these changes in patterns of work on wages?

If the Monetary Union – now bolstered by the Banking Union – is to remain one of the great landmarks on the road to European union, the support for it needs to be renewed and strengthened. And this naturally cannot be achieved by monetary policy, or even, I would say, by economic policy, alone. Governments must press ahead with the reforms needed to make the economies of the European Monetary Union more flexible and productive, thereby spurring innovation and investment. Thank you very much. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
The last few years have been challenging times for Hong Kong and for the banks that operate within it. So far 2003 has shown no signs of being an exception to this. Indeed, the environment in the first half of the year has been more than usually turbulent. Attention at the beginning of the year was focussed on geopolitical uncertainties, and in particular on the implications of the war in Iraq for both the global and the local economy. No sooner had concerns eased on this score - for the time being at least - than we were confronted with the escalating impact of the SARS epidemic. Hong Kong banks are used to dealing with unexpected shocks, but the threat of disease is something new in modern times. The immediate need for the banks was to keep their business going and to protect the health of their customers and staff. Business continuity plans were therefore activated, including the setting up of command centres to monitor the situation and the formation of plans to deal with confirmed or suspected cases of infection among staff. Critical to this process was the creation of back-up teams of staff who could man key operations in an emergency from separate offices or even from home. Face-to-face meetings among staff and with customers or clients had to be curtailed. Teleconferencing helped to keep things going, including in the syndicated loan market. The need for such arrangements demonstrated that banks must be able to react quickly and flexibly to unexpected situations.

David Carse: The Hong Kong banking sector - performance and outlook Speech by Mr David Carse, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Asia Pacific Loan Markets Association, Hong Kong, 9 July 2003. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen: I have had the privilege of speaking to the Association on two previous occasions, beginning at its inaugural lunch five years ago. I am pleased to have the opportunity to do so again, particularly since the fifth anniversary of the Association marks another milestone in its presence in Hong Kong. During this time, the Association has done much to promote the development of the syndicated loan market in Hong Kong and in the region more generally. As I noted in my speech to the Association last year, its work in establishing common standards for documentation has been particularly commendable. I want to use this occasion to talk about the current state of the Hong Kong banking sector and about its prospects. This is something whose significance extends beyond the interests of those, such as yourselves, who are directly involved with the industry. The banking sector plays a vital role in the service-based economy of Hong Kong, and its profitability is something in which all of us have a stake. A profitable banking sector is better able to withstand negative shocks, and this helps to preserve the stability of the financial system.
New legislation When new legislation was adopted for the Central Bank of Iceland in 2001, these international developments were taken into consideration and the Icelandic Act patterned on recent legislation in other industrialised countries. There was broad political consensus on this, as people realised that low inflation is one of the cornerstones of economic growth and improved living conditions. In addition to the legislation, inflation targeting was introduced as the Bank’s objective in a joint declaration by the government and the Central Bank. The decision to float the Icelandic króna was taken at the same time, since experience had shown that in the long run it was impossible to ensure a specific exchange rate with free movement of capital in and out of the country. In such case the exchange rate is determined by the market where supply and demand control the value of the króna. This new framework for monetary policy was immediately subjected to a baptism of fire. The Icelandic economy was overheated and inflation rising rapidly. The Central Bank had to respond by raising interest rates. The fall of the króna played a part in the elimination of the current account deficit much more rapidly than anyone had dared to hope two years ago. The economy is more stable at the moment than it has been for some time and, acccording to the outlook, the current slight slowdown will be short-lived.

If, however, the exchange rate is forcefully headed in a certain direction, no central bank can withstand this trend for any length of time. This has been the experience throughout the world, wherever there is free movement of capital between countries. This was also the experience of the Central Bank of Iceland when it attempted to check the slide of the króna from mid-year 2000 to autumn 2001. To demand now that the Central Bank adopt exchange rate objectives is unrealistic. The only option to peg the currency is to return to former practices and introduce currency restrictions, but who wants to go back to that? Cutting interest rates beyond what the Bank’s inflation targets allow, in order to force down the exchange rate, would be highly inadvisable. The nominal exchange rate might temporarily drop somewhat, but it is practically certain that inflation would once more heat up and soon we would end up with the same real exchange rate as before, in addition to having kindled the flames of the next period of overheating and instability. Slowdown in the economy After a protracted period of high economic growth, which ended in overheating, we now have a slight slowdown in the economy and increased unemployment. It has, among other things, been claimed that this slowdown is in particular the result of a tight monetary policy.
PMI suppliers' delivery times show that supply bottlenecks are having a greater impact in Europe and the United States. Germany has been the most vulnerable euro area country, given that: (i) it is more integrated into, and occupies a central position in, value chains; (ii) manufacturing – particularly the automotive industry – accounts for a high share of its economy; and (iii) its productive processes are heavily reliant on imports of commodities and inputs. In this regard, since summer 2021 more than 50% of German industrial firms have reported the shortage of material and/or equipment as a factor limiting production, as compared with 25% in Spain. Higher energy prices are having a more acute impact on inflation in the advanced economies and, especially, in the euro area. The greater contribution of the energy component to euro area inflation is largely a result of this component accounting for a higher relative share of the consumption basket in the euro area (10.9% of the total versus, for example, 7% in the United States). Moreover, the euro area’s high dependence on external energy sources has been compounded by the depreciation of the euro in 2021 and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, which has also driven up the cost of the energy component of consumption. The contribution of energy to the rise in inflation in the euro area is particularly important in Spain and, to a lesser degree, Italy, given the larger contribution of the electricity component.

In the past, it has been argued that some transformations, such as globalisation, digitalisation and population ageing, may have contributed to the low-inflation environment during the pre-pandemic period. However, the pandemic and the war could disrupt the globalisation that the world economy has experienced in recent decades, which, together with the need to implement measures to fight climate change, could be consistent with higher inflation rates in the future. Economic policies in the short term In the context described, economic policies must continue to play a key role in minimising the impact of the war in Ukraine on activity and inflation. Fiscal policy First, domestic fiscal policy should help to counter the war’s adverse effects on activity. In fact, the European Commission has recently proposed postponing the activation of the Stability and Growth Pact for another year, until 2023. That said, there are two reasons why the design of the measures should be very much geared towards meeting the needs of the most vulnerable agents. The first is the high government indebtedness, which limits the available scope for action. The second is the fact that the impact of the war is proving highly asymmetric across sectors, firms and households. Thus, the efforts should focus on  10  supporting lower-income households, who bear the brunt of inflation, and the firms most vulnerable to this new shock. Moreover, any measures implemented should be temporary so as not to drive up the structural budget deficit.
Yet, at the same time, we know that many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) – with good results and prospects, and current in their payments to their banks – have difficulty financing even their working capital, or can do so only at a very high cost. There is a further factor affecting credit flows, both on the supply and the demand sides. Our banking map has changed considerably in recent years, with the disappearance or transformation of many savings banks which, in different regions, traditionally lent to many SMEs. That has led to adjustments in bank balance sheets and to new working relationships between credit institutions and their customers, which may, at least temporarily, be influencing credit flows. The need for deleveraging has not only been a consideration for credit institutions, but also for non-financial corporations and households; as earlier stated, both households and firms incurred very high and in many cases unsustainable debt levels in 2008–2010. Indeed, a good number of analysts agree that, in order to expand again, our productive sector is more in need of capital than of credit, given that the correction of excessive debt has not been concluded, without ruling out the fact that, evidently, the pick-up in economic growth may assist this correction. In any event, there can be no economic recovery without a pick-up in credit flows. But the latter cannot ensue from administrative rules that ignore economic rationality or that lead to mistaken decisions from the standpoint of the solvency of banks, including public-sector institutions.

The European Parliament should shortly approve the legislation that creates the single supervisory mechanism, in which the European Central Bank is to play a central role. The single supervisor will become operational twelve months after this approval, but first the ECB must analyse the solvency of all the institutions it is to supervise, an exercise that will have to be incorporated into the new stress tests to be performed by the European Banking Authority next year. The Directive establishing the harmonised resolution regime – currently under debate at the European Council and the European Parliament – and the legislation to create a European authority and a common resolution fund are still pending approval. In the latter case, a proposal must be submitted, on a date yet to be specified, by the European Commission. Conclusions Ladies and Gentlemen, the theme of my speech has been the difficult adjustment that the Spanish economy is currently going through, which needs to be seen in the context of the largely unprecedented international and European setting. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  The advanced economies, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Japan are operating under extremely loose monetary conditions, with exceptionally abundant liquidity and very low interest rates. Emerging from this situation without any impact on growth and without creating fresh financial turmoil will not be easy and considerable risks will be encountered along that path.
), and to move over to a type of regulation based on the roles performed by different players in the stability of the system (liquidity provision, deposit-taking, market making, etc). Lastly, the G20 has set out a road map to improve accounting standards. Agreement on this point is not as broad as on the previous ones. The members of the G20 have sometimes divergent views about the role of accounting rules. In particular, one of the controversial  2  BIS Review 75/2009  points relates to mark-to-market and the scope of application of fair value accounting. Nonetheless, I observe that the G20, by asking that the accounting standard setters take greater account of financial stability constraints, implicitly acknowledges that the impact of accounting choices on the latter are not neutral. In any event, the countries agreed on three objectives: reducing the complexity of accounting standards, increasing the harmonisation of standards internationally and introducing a more forward-looking system of provisioning. The discussions at the G20 summit find a strong echo in Europe. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the Europeans are a driving force in the international projects I have just described. In regional terms, the report by the high level group chaired by Jacques de Larosière is a cornerstone for the new financial regulation and supervision that will emerge in Europe after the crisis. These recommendations appear highly relevant to me. They reconcile efficiency and pragmatism.

Whether it concerns developing a European system of financial supervision or setting up a Systemic Risk Council under the auspices of the ECB and the ESCB, these ideas are truly conducive to greatly strengthening the surveillance of risks both at individual institution level and for the European financial system as a whole. The reforms that I have just described should make it possible for the incentives of financial system players to be compatible with the stability of this system. The crisis has highlighted two types if not of incompatibility, at least of divergence that need to be corrected. First, within the financial industry itself. Financial innovation and developments in the business models of financial intermediaries have weakened credit discipline in favour of a strict return-oriented discipline. Regulators are working on correcting the regulatory sources of these incentives, which are dangerous for financial stability. I am thinking notably of the work aimed at reducing regulatory arbitrage and at countering the short-termism encouraged by certain prudential and accounting provisions. Second, we need to reconverge the incentives of private- and public-sector players. Their divergence is a natural phenomenon in periods of economic and financial boom. In these periods, regulators and supervisors find it harder to limit risk-taking when the risks to financial stability are unclear and competition is fierce. Maximising profit and competition considerations stand in the way of prudence and the prevention of financial imbalances. Countering these forces requires in particular the implementation of an independent macroprudential policy.
There are also signs that productivity growth in service sectors is slackening. We are now seeing the first signs of higher wage growth. We cannot ignore previous episodes of abrupt shifts in wage growth during boom periods. On the other hand, improved labour market adaptability and the supply of foreign labour may have a dampening impact. Unemployment may thus stabilise at a lower level than earlier. Moreover, the social partners’ experience of the impact of substantial wage increases on interest-rate setting may also restrain pay increases in the centralised settlements. Economic policy will increasingly have to reflect the capacity constraints facing many Norwegian enterprises. Given the high level of activity and the prospect of a pick-up in inflation, it is appropriate to increase the policy rate from today’s level of 3.75 per cent. We envisage a gradual interest rate increase towards a more normal level of a little more than 5 per cent. Economic developments are uncertain. The uncertainty surrounding the interest rate ahead is illustrated by the shaded area in the chart, which is intended to capture the outcome with a 70 per cent probability. 6  BIS Review 15/2007  In Norway, inflation fell markedly from the end of the 1980s up to the mid-1990s and has subsequently been low and stable, with considerably less variability than earlier. Inflation has averaged around 2 per cent over the past 5-10 years, i.e. somewhat lower than the target. Thus, the growth potential of the Norwegian economy has been strong and higher than expected.

The upturn followed a period of slower growth as from 1998 and a mild recession in 2002 and into 2003. Even though there have been cyclical changes, growth has been very high over the past 15 years. Norway is one of the nations that has gained most from trade liberalisation and increased cross-border flows of capital, technology and labour. Norway has experienced the benefits of shifts in the division of labour across countries and regions. First, Norway’s terms of trade have improved markedly. We can buy one and a half to two times the volume of imports for the price paid for our exports than was the case only 5-6 years ago. Prices for oil and gas, shipping, fish, industrial commodities and engineering products have increased considerably. Moreover, Norwegian importers have gained access to new markets in central Europe and Asia which offer considerably cheaper consumer goods. A similar situation has not been seen since World War I, when earnings in the shipping industry and other export industries were exceptionally high for a period.16  16  Tore Jørgen Hanisch, Espen Søilen, Gunhild Ecklund (1999): Norsk økonomisk politikk i det 20. århundre (Norwegian economic policy in the 20th century), HøyskoleForlaget, page 60. 2  BIS Review 15/2007  Second, the supply of foreign labour has increased markedly after EU enlargement in 2004. Over the past two years, these labour inflows have accounted for more than 30 per cent of growth in our labour force.
In other words, looking at a cross-section of UK companies, secular innovation (for the upper 1% or 0.1%) has co-existed with secular stagnation (for the remaining 99%). The two are engaged, not so much in a secular struggle, as a secular stand-off. Technological diffusion, and hence productivity growth, has been the casualty. 67  Andrews, Criscuolo and Gal (2016). Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (2017). 69 Haldane (2017). 70 Productivity figures refer to the non-financial business sector, but other sectors for which data are not available over the full ten-year period are also omitted. 68  19  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  19  There have been one or two recent studies which have been quoted as questioning the importance of this “long tail” issue for the UK. 71  These pieces use the same data used here. The problem arises not from the  data but from the (mis)interpretation placed on them by these studies. All of these studies show, very clearly, that the UK has a significant long tail problem. Appropriately defined, they also demonstrate that this tail has lengthened during the course of the crisis. To give one example, my Bank colleague Patrick Schneider recently published a blog post showing that a good chunk of the slowing of productivity growth since the crisis could be accounted for by workers in the top quartile of the productivity distribution. 72  This is entirely consistent with the tale of two companies.

And growth may even have contributed to the incidence of global conflicts and wars having fallen to their lowest levels, perhaps in human history. 3  That makes growth a gift, one necessary (if not necessarily sufficient) to deliver secular improvements in living standards. And it is what makes a good understanding of the determinants and drivers of growth so crucial for societal progress. By understanding the forces driving growth, past, present and future, we can begin to devise and implement economic policies that support improvements in society. I thought I understood the story of economic growth, its drivers and determinants. But recently I have changed my mind. I have a new story of growth. I think this story carries important implications for understanding the future challenges of technology and for devising the future policies and institutions necessary to meet them. That might require, among other things, a repurposing of successful institutions like this one, turning them from universities into multiversities. The Story of Growth  The story of economic growth often begins with a chart like this one (Chart 1). This plots the path of global economic growth, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per head, over the past 1000 years. And what a story it tells. It is a tale of two halves – or, more accurately, a tale of three-quarters and a quarter. 4  For the first three-quarters of the past 1000 years, the global economy stood still in growth terms.