samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This is the domain of the authorities. All taxes in Norway must be paid in Norwegian kroner. The governments of most countries have defined the country’s banknotes and coins as legal tender. This means that a buyer is entitled to make a payment in the country’s currency, and a seller can require payment in this currency. Legal tender cannot be refused as payment by either party. 4 Buyer and seller can of course agree on a different method of payment if they so wish. Second, trust is related to the role of the central bank. In most countries, it is taken as a matter of course that the central bank guarantees the value of the currency. The central bank is subject to democratic control. In Norway, Article 75 of the Constitution states that “It devolves upon the Storting [Norwegian parliament]… to supervise the monetary system of the realm”. At the same time, the people’s elected representatives have conferred independence on the central bank in the use of its instruments by means of the Norges Bank Act. This underpins trust in the central bank and ensures the democratic legitimacy of the system. For Norway’s founding fathers, another important objective was to ensure that the king and his government did not have direct access to the banknote printing press. Past experience had 2/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  shown that kings were not immune to temptation. The stability of the value of the currency in Norway is guaranteed by Norges Bank, and ultimately by the Norwegian government.

1 www.riksbank.se/en/The-Riksbank/History/Important-date/1590-1668/ 2 For more details about the story of Stockholms Banco and the origins of the Riksbank, see the Riksbank  website www.riksbank.se/en/The-Riksbank/History/ 3 Harari, Y.N. (2011) Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. Vintage Books, London, pp. 201 and 207. 4 Definitions of legal tender vary across countries. Danish banknotes and coins, for example, are legal tender in  Denmark, but this is a right for the payer and an obligation for the recipient of the payment, and not vice versa. See "Report on the Role of Cash in Society", The Danish Payment Council, August 2016: and Danmarks Nationalbank's Monetary Review, 3rd Quarter 2006, "Legal Tender". 5 Bank reserves at Norges Bank are not included in the total money supply (M1, M2 and M3) as these reserves  are financial institutions’ claims on other financial institutions. Claims between financial institutions or from the public sector are not included in the money supply. 6 We refer here to the money supply measure M3, which includes time deposits, repurchase agreements, and  bonds and short-term paper with a maturity of less than two years. We do not show M1, which only includes cash and customer deposits in banks, because there are substantial breaks in our historical series and M3 is comprised almost exclusively of deposits. In February 2017, repurchase agreements and bonds were 0.4 percent of M3. Time deposits represented a somewhat larger share at 9 percent of the money supply. For more details on money supply statistics, see ssb.no/en/bank-og-finansmarked/statistikker/pengemengde.
One obvious wildcard is the situation in Ukraine and relations with Russia. How this will evolve is difficult to predict. The big risk is that conditions deteriorate and the ultimate outcome is a disruption to energy supplies from Russia. When all these cross-currents are considered, the impetus to growth from abroad appears little changed from last year. Now a reasonable question would be: If the outlook is improving, then how does one explain the sharp slowdown in growth in the first quarter? My own view is that the principal factors behind the slowdown were transitory so we should not be overly concerned at this point. Some slowing in the first quarter was nearly inevitable. Foreign trade and inventories provided unsustainably large contributions to growth over the second half of last year and payback for those large gains was expected in the first quarter of this year. Also, the expiration of extended unemployment compensation benefits and bonus depreciation at the end of the year was likely to take some of the starch out of consumer spending and business fixed investment. Beyond these anticipated factors, we had unusually harsh winter weather, which likely depressed housing activity, manufacturing production and some aspects of household spending such as motor vehicle purchases. With the fundamentals of the economy improving and fiscal drag abating, I expect the economy to get back on to a roughly 3 percent growth trajectory over the remainder of this year, with some further strengthening likely in 2015.

Jörg Asmussen: The Irish case from an ECB perspective Speech by Mr Jörg Asmussen, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Dublin, 12 April 2012. *  *  *  Dear Mr Halligan, dear Mr. O’Ceallaigh, dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Introduction Coming to Ireland yesterday was a very short journey for me, leaving my office in Frankfurt at 3 pm and arriving in downtown Dublin at 6 pm. On the way from the airport my Counsellor, who is accompanying me today, remarked that Ireland, however, has apparently come a long way compared to the time when she visited Ireland for the first time as a backpacking student almost 20 years ago in the early 1990s. While she recalled that her first impression of travelling from the airport downtown was rather sad, with run down warehouses and poor residential buildings, the picture has completely changed: modern office buildings and residential areas line the streets on the short trip from the airport to downtown nowadays. This is anecdotal evidence, of course, but I think it depicts in a nutshell Ireland’s truly remarkable economic development over the last 20 years. Ireland managed to find a unique selling proposition in the European context and made use of the instruments the European Union offers to foster economic development and growth such as the structural and regional funds in a very smart and sustainable way.
However, we must carefully follow and analyse the development in the area where monetary policy is formulated. The risk of incorrect assessments having more serious consequences should, however, be small as changes in this area do not take place overnight. Another component of the risk scenario is how wage formation and the labour market will function in coming years. Negotiations are taking place in an economy undergoing strong growth at the same time, as there are occupations with a shortage of labour where pay has fallen behind. However, changes have taken place in the Swedish labour market that permit some optimism about developments. Above all, this concerns the support for and understanding of the inflation target and the low inflation expectations that have been established. Changes in the forms of wage formation, which have been carried out or are planned work in a positive direction. Finally, globalisation and competition can have increased businesses’ cost consciousness. This may lead to a greater opposition to wage increases and also that businesses in their drive to keep costs down endeavour to introduce forms of employment that increase flexibility in the labour market. In conclusion, it is important for the Riksbank as always to carefully monitor what is taking place in the economy when conducting monetary policy.

Ethics and compliance will be an important part of that progress, provided that ethics and compliance is nurtured by a strong ethical culture, in a company following sound corporate governance, and employing the best and the brightest personnel. I am excited about the road ahead. Thank you for listening. 6  Price Waterhouse Coopers, “What It Means to be a ‘Chief’ Compliance Officer: Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Opportunities” at 12 (2014). BIS central bankers’ speeches  5
Ensuring that banks have the capacity to lend If the first aim for policy is ensuring that banks have the incentives to remain engaged is economically important lending, the second is ensuring that they have the capacity to do so. A pre-condition for this is that banks are appropriately capitalised, as I have already discussed. But what also matters is the landscape of the banking sector – that is, whether the banking sector is sufficiently efficient and diversified to ensure a stable supply of credit. According to some indicators the European banking sector is characterised by over-capacity relative to the size of the market. For example, the Herfindahl-Hirschman concentration index for the euro area currently stands at around 700; as a general rule, a figure below 1000 signals low concentration. 8 This suggests that one factor in difficulties facing the sector is that it is not operating at the efficient frontier – and consequently, that there would be macroeconomic benefits to some restructuring and consolidation. We also saw during the crisis that the banking sector in the euro area was not well-diversified on either the asset or liability sides. Cross-border exposures mainly comprised of short-term debt, which meant that when bank assets were hit by an adverse shock, funding quickly dried up. The result was that risk-sharing through the banking system virtually collapsed  7  See for example Buch, Claudia and Esteben Prieto (2014), “Do better capitalized banks lend less? Long-run panel evidence from Germany”, International Finance 17:1.

• In recent years, in order to meet their price stability targets, many central banks have pursued a very expansionary policy, including low or even negative policy rates, as well as purchase programmes of securities. These policies have attracted criticism, saying they increase inequality, but I disagree. • Given the weak trend in growth in many countries, a less expansionary monetary policy than pursued during recent years would have led to higher unemployment than was the case. In that sense, monetary policy could be argued to have contributed to lower income inequalities, as unemployment could lead to large negative effects on household income. Many of those households, who would have experienced unemployment, would then have fallen to lower income deciles, contributing to higher income dispersion. Most studies that include the labour market effect come to the conclusion that the overall effect of expansionary monetary 1  See Deutsche Bundesbank (2016). 2 See Deutsche Bundesbank (2016). 2 [5]  policy on inequality is that it slightly decreases it. Or in short, the dampening effect of lower unemployment offsets the effects from higher share prices. But the overall effect seems, if any, to be small. • To sum up, the very expansionary monetary policy conducted during recent years in some countries could be argued to have had a positive net effect, albeit small, on equality. The positive employment effect normally seems to dominate over the negative effects 3. • We at the Riksbank don’t per se take equality into consideration when taking monetary policy decisions.
The volumes traded are small both in value and quantity, with agricultural products and consumer goods being the main traded goods. The traders’ mode of transport in conducting their business is on foot, using bicycles, taking a minibus or a taxi to and from the other side of the border. Ladies and Gentlemen, cross-border trade not only benefits traders’ lives through incomes but also strengthens local production, and fosters service provision. It also benefits the people involved in activities associated with trading. This entails that cross-border trade is a significant driver of employment and income generation for households that would otherwise have lived in poverty, especially in remote areas where employment is scarce. Furthermore, Ladies and Gentlemen, cross-border trade lowers import prices and widens the range of choice of goods available to consumers, as well as enables exporters to benefit from higher value-addition. Finally, cross border trade has a gender dimension with women being more actively involved. From the foregoing, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, it is very clear that small-scale cross-border trade plays a very vital role in our economies, particularly in generating income, creating employment and alleviating poverty. However, Ladies and Gentlemen, the small-scale cross-border trade faces a lot of barriers and impediments, including lack of access to financial and payment services such as currency exchange and transmission facilities.

Lower interest rates have encouraged risk-taking and higher leverage as investors have wanted to secure high rates of return. A case in point is insurance companies, which have to service guaranteed rates of return, and pension funds that have agreed to specific benefits. As the return on risk free bonds has declined, investors have been increasingly led to search for yield and increase the share of risky assets, including credit derivatives, in their portfolios. This contributes to the compression of risk premia. This can continue as long as long-term interest rates stay low. But there is some circularity in the situation. On the one hand, institutional investors are “victims” of low long-term interest rates. On the other hand, they help to maintain this situation as they continue to look for even longer-dated bonds. Therefore, if the pricing of long-term government bonds, which is the reference for the pricing of many other assets, remains distorted, credit risk premia may be based on shaky foundations. Second, risk transfer mechanisms contribute to a certain opacity in the distribution of risks. Most transactions are conducted on OTC markets and are not recorded in a centralised manner: there is therefore a “knowledge gap” in the financial system as regards CRT exposures. More fundamentally, risks are usually transferred by banks, which are regulated and transparent, to entities that are unregulated and are not required to disclose their positions. It is therefore impossible for market participants and regulators to identity the situation of the ultimate risk holders.
The range of participants and audience at this conference is precisely something I would like to stress, the main goal of the seminar being to promote an exchange of views and flow of ideas and thinking among the various groups having a say on this topic, namely academia, international organisations, policymakers, social agents and the private sector. Only by covering all the different aspects and by sharing the different country experiences on this matter can we expect to make the right diagnosis of the problems and facilitate the acceptance and implementation of the reforms that might be needed. As you may be aware, I myself have repeatedly been suggesting the need for a labour market reform in Spain. But it is not the goal of this conference to act as a platform for announcing or defending the views of the Banco de España. On the contrary, its spirit is to incorporate different views into the discussion and promote mutual learning. I should like particularly to stress the importance of grounding and testing our opinions and proposals in rigorous analytical and empirical economic research.

And the reasons for this cyclical pattern of structural reforms seem to be related to the fact that crises unmask weaknesses that were hidden by cyclical buoyancy, and these increase, at least partly, the social support for change. The labour market is clearly first among the structural reforms that are needed. For one thing, labour markets play a key role in the functioning of the economy, in particular as a mechanism for adjustment in the face of adverse shocks. And their functioning has implications for competitiveness and productivity, two variables crucial for the long-term growth of any economy and, in particular, for those countries participating in a monetary union, as is our case. Likewise, there is sufficient evidence that labour market institutions play a key role as determinants of their sound functioning. In particular, we have evidence that labour markets have been pivotal in the response of the different economies to the current crisis. And they can play a central role in the persistence of the negative effects of the financial crisis in the medium and long run. During the current recession output and unemployment responses differed markedly across the advanced economies. For instance, the peak-to-trough increase in unemployment during  2  BIS Review 65/2010  the crisis was around 7.5 percentage points in Ireland and Spain, while output dropped by more than 8% in Ireland and only half as much in Spain.
The second model is more traditional, with links to the Keynesian school. In the post-war era a long period of high demand has regularly given way to an economic slowdown. Historically speaking, the latest upswing has lasted unusually long, so perhaps it is not so odd that we are now experiencing a decline. But sooner or later activity will pick up, though this will take time. On the other hand, the ongoing downward phase will not be all that dramatic. The third model has its roots in the Austrian school and harks back to experience from the 1920s and ’30s as well as from before the Great War. Proponents of this view are wont to point out that a period of growth not infrequently ends in exaggerated optimism and over-investment. When profit expectations ultimately become more normal, share prices fall and investment undergoes a troublesome adjustment. Sometimes the adjustment problems give rise to some form of financial crisis that accentuates the downward trend. The economic difficulties in Japan in the 1990s are sometimes cited as an example of this model. Another instance is the crisis in the 1930s. Other examples in various countries are to be found in the period before 1913. This explanatory model suggests that the recovery will take time and it is conceivable that the global economic slowdown will continue for some time to come. Turning now to the economic situation in Sweden, we can say that activity has slackened as a consequence of the slowdown elsewhere.

The relative importance of consumption in the economy has increased from 56% in 1998 to 61% of GDP in 2002. The savings rate has, nevertheless, remained high at 35% of GDP, having declined from a peak of 42.2% in 1998. While household consumption and private investment would continue to remain important in sustaining domestic demand and economic activity, this needs to be balanced against the need to save. While there is potential to increase consumption further, of importance is for households to improve the management and planning of their finances over the different stages of their lives. Indeed, financial planning is essential to sustain living standards and long-term financial security. With the rapid development of the financial system and the broader array of financial products and services available to consumers, there is an increasing need for Malaysians to make wise savings and investment decisions that will have lasting implications for their financial well-being. Such financial planning and management will determine the extent of consumption expenditure, the indebtedness and the savings that is possible at the respective stages of one's life. The strengthening of domestic demand in our economy has also been supported by increased lending by banks, including to households. For a number of advanced economies, this trend has become a source of concern. This is in view of their rising household debt that have exceeded prudent levels in the range of 80-100% of GDP. Household indebtedness in Malaysia has, however, remained within prudent levels at 60% of GDP.
And so they actually found a way to get into some securities activities, and then Glass-Steagall Act a number of years later was actually formally repealed because the firms were already, essentially, in the business. Now my own personal view is that I don’t think the Glass-Steagall Act had much to do with the great financial crisis. If you look at the firms that got into great difficulty, at the earliest stages – Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, AIG – they really had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall because they really weren’t banks and securities firms. They were securities firms and insurance companies. My own view is that the Glass-Steagall Act was not a major – the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was not a major factor behind the Great Recession and the financial crisis. Now this is something that people probably would debate. Other people might have somewhat different views. You could repeal the Glass-Steagall Act again. I think it would obviously require a lot of financial corporate restructuring because there are a lot of firms in the U.S. that are in both the securities business and the commercial banking business today. I think that there are links between those two businesses. It probably helps those firms, satisfy the demands of their large corporate clients more easily than if you had to separate them into separate entities. But you could do it.

Because we definitely think this is an important issue, and we definitely want to be helpful and use the resources we have, both in terms of research and our convening power, to try to take this forward. So, let’s have a conversation. Dr. Olajide Oladipo: Next question please. I’m still expecting a student. 10 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  President Dudley: Good morning. My question will be in the form of appeal. This is for small homeowners. Recently, the Fed announced about increasing the interest rate. But I don’t know how long the Federal Open Markets Operations committee will actually sit for that. But what I’m appealing for is for that period to be extended. We just came out from an economic recession. Thank God we didn’t get to the depression part of that business cycle. Many homeowners basically, particularly small homeowners, they are struggling to fix their credits. And because their credit scores are so terrible, they cannot refinance, and therefore they are locked in with high interest rates – we are talking about thousands and thousands of dollars. Banks are making money off them because they cannot refinance. If you go ahead and increase that interest rates when they are still struggling to pay what they have now, I think many will lose their homes. So, my appeal is for the Fed to please, let the current interest rates stay – give a little bit more room for small homeowners to fix their credit scores so that they can refinance.