samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
As you would expect, this makes it difficult to assess in advance, or even in real time, the amount of loosening or tightening that is likely to be necessary to achieve the goals of central banks. Even if we had precise knowledge of key economic relationships, our ability to assess economic conditions in real time would be impeded by data limitations. Though most modern central banks implicitly or explicitly target some measure of inflation, the host of issues surrounding the proper definition and measurement of inflation for policy purposes is daunting. In general, most economic data are subject to sampling error and so cannot simply be taken at face value. Also, many of the series we rely on are subject to revision as more or better information becomes available, and potentially can even be redefined in a way that makes the history of the series less useful for interpreting current movements. Finally, data are often reported with a significant enough delay to limit their use as a read on current conditions. But, even if we knew the model and data with certainty, it is impossible to perfectly predict the evolution of factors that are largely beyond the influence of current monetary policy but that would likely affect our policy today if we knew for sure how they would look tomorrow. One way to say this is that we simply cannot know what types of "shocks" are likely to hit the economy or when they will hit.

Transparency in monetary policy cannot mean that the central bank conveys more confidence in the outlook for growth and inflation than it can reasonably have, and it cannot provide more assurance about the likely future course of policy than it actually has. This seems self evident. And yet as central banks have moved to communicating more and disclosing more about monetary policy, transparency in monetary policy has been associated with rising expectations for clarity about the path of target interest rates over time. It might seem desirable in an ideal state of the world for expectations in financial markets about the future course of policy to closely track in real time those of the central bank. But given the degree of uncertainty that surrounds monetary policy making, this is unlikely to be possible, except in special circumstances. There will be circumstances when it is appropriate for the central bank to send a signal about the target rate that extends well beyond the immediate horizon. These circumstances are not likely to arise frequently, and will be appropriate in particular conditions when the benefits afforded by the effect on expectations clearly outweigh the cost imposed by the loss to flexibility. Central banks should be clear about what they are trying to achieve. They should be open with the knowledge and insight they possess. And they should provide the public with clarity where it is attainable.
As a final reflection, and to the surprise of no one in this room, we are experiencing an unprecedented period of innovation in financial services, with nascent technologies such as distributed ledger garnering substantial attention. These emerging technologies possess the potential to revolutionize financial services, making them faster, more efficient, and more secure. Notwithstanding this promise, challenges remain in their application to critical financial market infrastructures whose operational integrity represent a non-negotiable pre-requisite for our financial system. As we enhance existing services or develop new ones, our consideration of new technologies must strike an appropriate balance to ensure the risks are thoroughly 4/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  understood before their transformative potential is realized. In pursuing this suite of initiatives straddling the wholesale services, we seek to advance both the interests of customers and policy makers during this era of unprecedented challenge and change. Standing before you today convicts me that our success as stewards of this business depends absolutely upon our active engagement with the depository institutions and end users to which we are operationally accountable. Across this sphere and all others, either intentionally we are progressing or inevitably we are regressing; there is no idleness. Thank you for your generous attention today. I’d be pleased to respond to a few questions. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches

Following the implementation of inflation targeting, the report will be published quarterly; - a model calibrated by the Bank’s staff is currently being tested and will be used for forecasting purposes. Instead of going into the details related to the Inflation Targeting framework, I will let my fellow speakers tackle the most important issues. Shortly after this, Deputy Governor Ms. Rachel Lomax will present a compelling account of UK’s experience and, may I add, success as a benchmark inflation targeter. After the lunch break, Gill Hammond, Deputy Director of CCBS, will give you an excellent presentation dealing with specific issues and challenges faced by emerging market economies when adopting inflation targeting. Later on, we will have our guests from the Czech National Bank and the National Bank of Hungary giving you a purposeful insight of such challenges and of their countries’ experiences with the IT framework. Mr. Ludek Niedermayer, Deputy Governor of the Czech National Bank, will first explain to you “why and how” inflation targeting was adopted in the Czech Republic – the first country to embrace this regime in our region. Then, it will be for Ms Csermely Agnes, Director with the National Bank of Hungary, to share with us the “Lessons and Challenges” put forth by the Hungarian experience with inflation targeting.
The SRB’s role as a central resolution authority is also related to certain direct powers regarding 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  all institutions, including the less significant institutions. The SRB has the powers to demand information, to conduct general investigations and on-site inspections, and to impose administrative and pecuniary penalties for non-compliance with the SRM Regulation. Furthermore, the SRB develops general policies and rules to be applied so as to make consistent the analyses used for the preparation of resolution plans and the taking of resolution actions. Such documents are drafted by the so-called horizontal units and are discussed by the SRB’s working groups and/or sub-committees in which the participating Member States are represented. The BNB’s representatives will also take part in these working groups and subcommittees. The established close cooperation between the SRB and the BNB as resolution authorities for credit institutions also requires that data be exchanged and that information be provided to the SRB for performing its tasks, including information that is banking and professional secrecy. The banks in Bulgaria will have a new obligation to pay the fees, set by the SRB, needed by the SRB to cover the administration costs for performing its functions and tasks. 3. Restructuring the BNB’s activities Close cooperation is a process in which both the BNB and the credit institutions will have to adapt the model of interaction regarding the supervisory process and the bank resolution activities.

6  BIS Review 133/2010  During the second quarter, the fall in inflation and increased downside risks regarding the global economy have vindicated the monetary policy stance of the Committee – that it may be necessary to maintain policy rates at current levels for some time, and to keep them at low levels for a long period. Accordingly, we see that market expectations regarding future policy rates were revised downwards (Figure18). Market rates also reflect growing expectations of delay and moderation in the rate-hike cycle. Accordingly, benchmark bond yields fell during the second quarter and continued to hover around historic lows despite the increased risk aversion (Figure 19). The downturn in market  BIS Review 133/2010  7  rates was also driven by the improved inflation outlook. The flattening of the yield curve in July compared to April indicates that policy rate-expectations of market players have been revised downwards (Figure 20). The downslide was more significant in market rates than in inflation expectations during the second quarter, pushing medium-term real rates down to historic lows (Figure 21). Yet I would like to underline that real market rates in Turkey did not decouple substantially from other emerging economies (Figure 21). 8  BIS Review 133/2010  The ongoing downward trend both in market rates and the tightness in credit conditions contributed to the maintenance of low levels in loan rates. No remarkable change is observed in loan rates in the second quarter despite the continuing improvement in credit markets (Figure 22). 3.
Classical growth dynamics appear for some reason to have stopped operating, with the gap to the frontier widening the more so the greater the distance to it. It is possible to quantify this slowing in convergence using a similar approach to that used to measure output convergence in the cross-country growth literature. 39  Specifically, a country’s productivity growth can be  linked by a convergence parameter to its productivity gap to the frontier country. This parameter can be estimated econometrically and tracked over time. 40  Chart 12 shows a time-series of this convergence coefficient estimated using a rolling regression. In the 1980s, this coefficient averaged 0.8. That is to say, every 10 per cent productivity gap relative to the frontier country resulted, on average, in productivity growth being 0.8 percentage points higher than in the frontier country. By 2000, that convergence coefficient had roughly halved. By the end of the sample, the coefficient is statistically insignificant from zero. Convergence had not just slowed but stalled. One of the key determinants of international technology transfer has been found to be cross-border flows of goods and services, people and money and capital. 41  While they have waxed and waned historically, all of th  these have tended to rise rapidly since the middle of the 20 century. Other things equal, that would have been expected to increase the speed of diffusion of innovation across countries over that period. In practice, the opposite appears to have occurred.

I. Monetary policy is doing its duty, and has already done a lot  I am well aware that some recent monetary policy decisions of the Governing Council are hotly debated in Germany. The expression of such criticism reflects, at a minimum, the need to explain our monetary policy decisions better. However, I’d like to argue that our recent monetary policy decisions are very much in line with the principles of stability that German culture incarnates so well. Let me elaborate on three of these principles. First, independence. The divergent inflation performance of the major industrialized economies after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system had a profound effect on the subsequent conduct of central banks. On the practical side, Germany was seen to have navigated the so-called stagflation episode of the 1970s considerably better than others. The Bundesbank was role model for the independence of other central banks. Second, a clear mandate for price stability. The Eurosystem was built on these foundations as enshrined in the Maastricht treaty. We also adopted, as early as 2003, a transparent quantitative definition of price stability as an inflation rate close to but below 2% over the medium term – very close to the present definition of the US Fed, the BoE or the BoJ: so this is nothing new or specific to the ECB. From 1999 to 2011, the HICP inflation rate averaged 2% in the euro area, remarkably consistent with the objective.
Christian Noyer: The euro area is getting stronger Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Paris Europlace International Financial Forum, “Post-crisis growth and investment opportunities in Europe”, New York, 22 April 2013. *  *  *  Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to you here in New York. I’d like to offer you some views about the euro area from both a short- and long-term perspective. I’ll start with Cyprus. This was certainly a traumatic episode. Obviously, the decision process was not optimal. And the adjustment effort requested from the country, while absolutely necessary, was totally unexpected by the population. As a result, many observers have interpreted the Cyprus crisis as a sign of fragility and uncertainty about the euro. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Imagine if the situation in Cyprus had occurred nine months ago. Most likely it would have resulted in a new wave of turbulence in euro sovereign markets, with interest rate increases and strong capital flows out of the periphery. This was not the case. There was no contagion, and no spill-over effects from Cyprus to other euro area countries. During the first quarter of 2013, when the Cyprus crisis developed, long-term interest rates in Greece, Portugal and Ireland actually declined by around 270, 120 and 130 bps, respectively.

Since its inception, SAMA has supported banks to develop human resources by establishing the Institute of Banking, which contributes to training and qualifying a large number of national cadres in the financial services sector. The Institute continues to professionally exercise this role and make efforts to cope with the developments in the financial and banking sector by providing information solutions and diverse educational programs consistent with individual bank needs. The Institute's programs have covered important banking fields, such as treasury, investment and credit, and contributed effectively to developing and qualifying national cadres. Thus, Saudization in the banking sector exceeded 85 percent by the end of the first half of 2006. Dear Audience, These developments, which have diversified and expanded the services provided in the Saudi market, have given rise to substantial challenges to financial institutions. One of the most important challenges is to provide a sufficient number of qualified human resources to meet the needs of these institutions. Despite the employment efforts made by banks to cope with this expansion, and though 4,246 employees were appointed during the first half of 2006, the total needs of these institutions are still not satisfied. Hence, SAMA has promptly exerted expeditious efforts in search for solutions to these challenges. To this end, it has instructed the Institute of Banking to study the situation and propose practical solutions to help banks bridge such gap over both the short and long terms.
And, second, I will share three things that I think we – as supervisors – need to do to strengthen supervision of global firms and, at the same time, make it easier to get our jobs done. Three things global firms with U.S. presence can do •  First, improve communication and transparency with supervisors. Communication between supervisors and supervised institutions has to start with a “no surprises” philosophy, which serves as the basis for building the right channels of communication and confidence between firm and supervisor. This means identifying and discussing issues that could grow into significant risk events – even before all of the facts may be known or collected. “No surprises” also means more timely information sharing with key supervisors. Supervisors talk regularly and pass along key information; we are fine doing so, but firms could position themselves better if they communicate significant items to core supervisors on similar timetables. Given the global management structures of many business lines and risk functions, a risk event in one jurisdiction may have an immediate impact in other jurisdictions. Another element of improving communication is sharing more global information with host supervisors. In order for us to better understand your operations and to put the U.S. operations into the global context, we need to have a better understanding of the global operations. Many, if not most, firms assert that they manage businesses and risk on a global basis.

And, we understand better the tone at the top – even though the top is somewhere other than the U.S. – as well as the risk culture of the firm. It’s simply not enough to understand tone at the top in the U.S., if the top is really somewhere else. Three things that supervisors can do •  First, improve communication with firms. The counterpart to asking you to improve your communications with us is raising the expectation that we do the same. We need to be timelier in our communication of relevant findings in our supervisory efforts, and we need to shorten the time between the conclusion of supervisory work and our feedback to firms. More timely communication should also include sharing information in the earlier stages of our work, before all issues have been confirmed or facts sorted out, but at the point at which we suspect there’s something not quite right. This is important not just in the context of formal supervisory efforts like examinations, where we may have an early read on an issue, but also in areas where we see something or something has been flagged through other means and we raise it with you for discussion and attention as needed. Our communication needs to be more candid and direct. Too often I hear that our communication has too much “nuance” and that firms struggle to understand exactly what we are looking for.
They point to the probable and desired direction, but the exact figures should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. An important balancing act At the same time, it is important to realise that the problem that constantly lies below the surface is how to find an appropriate balance between what one could call diversification and clarity: On the one hand the central bank wants to benefit from the fact that the decisions are made by a committee. We are not supposed to be cast in the same mould. There should thus be a sufficient degree of freedom and scope for individual members to make their own analyses, draw their own conclusions and make decisions as they see fit. 8  For arguments in favour of this hypothesis in research, see for instance Blinder, A. S., and J. Morgan, (2005), “Are Two Heads Better Than One? Monetary Policy by Committee”, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, vol. 37, pp. 789–812. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  On the other hand, this should not mean that monetary policy becomes unclear, that it is characterised by more or less loose opinions – and that it thus becomes more difficult to understand and thus to assess. Ultimately, it is the confidence of the general public that is at risk here; the legitimacy of monetary policy. This was strongly emphasised when the inflation-targeting regime was introduced.

An illustration One can illustrate the complications that may arise in the actual work with the aid of the type of figure I showed earlier, where one marks the average squared deviations, the mean squared gaps, during the forecast period. For a concrete example of a time when the differences were particularly visible, we can study the forecast from September 2008. In addition to the repo rate path in the main scenario, the Riksbank usually also analyses two alternative repo rate paths; one that is higher than the one in the main scenario and one that is lower. The mean squared gaps for different measures of inflation and resource utilisation generated by these three interest rate paths in September 2008 are shown in Figure 2. 4  4  See, for instance, Blinder, A. S. (2007), “Central Banking by Committee: Why and How?” European Journal of Political Economy vol. 23, pp. 106–123. BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 2. Mean squared gaps September 2008  Source: The Riksbank Note: Red dots show the main scenario, blue dots show the alternative with a higher repo rate path and yellow dots show the alternative with a lower repo rate path. If inflation is measured in terms of the CPIF, that is, the CPI excluding direct effects of interest rates, and if resource utilisation is measured with a gap calculated on the number of hours worked in the economy, one obtains the three dots up on the left-hand side of the figure.
Under certain circumstances stock adjustments may trigger a more marked economic slowdown. This may happen, for instance, if effects of the adjustments either spread to private consumption or have a negative impact on the labour market and household confidence. The Riksbank was therefore alert to the risk of private consumption being weaker last spring and summer, which would have pointed to a further curb on inflation. In practice, however, private consumption went on rising in the summer and its growth became somewhat stronger in the autumn. Low inflation and interest rate reductions The rate of inflation decreased during 1996 and the rates that different economic agents expected in the future also moved down markedly (Diagram 2). This enabled the Riksbank to lower the repo rate from 8.91 to 4.10 per cent. As a result, the initial position for the ongoing growth phase in Sweden’s economy is more favourable than for many years. The drop in the rate of consumer price increases was appreciably accentuated by the Riksbank’s repo rate cuts in that these contributed to the reduction of mortgage interest costs. Under normal circumstances the tolerance interval around the price stability target should suffice BIS Review 56/1997  -4-  to absorb transitory effects on the price level. Last year, however, the fall in interest rates was very marked because many factors had a concerted effect that rapidly altered the picture of inflation. The magnitude of that interest rate fall is also largely responsible for the weak price trend to date in 1997.

* * * All in all, today there is no reason to revise the overall picture of the economy and inflation that was presented in the March inflation report. The tendencies to date seem to broadly confirm the assessments there. Various forward indicators suggest that the Swedish economy is again entering a period of increased growth. At the same time, most things point to price increases remaining low this year and next, which is the period we can assess at present. The repo rate was lowered most recently last December. Since then we have frequently declared that the monetary stance is well balanced. This still applies. BIS Review 56/1997
It is the duty of major economies, such as the United States, China, Japan, and, of course, the European Union to ensure that there are sufficient international policy dialogues and that they are successful. Without the economic cooperation and political will of the major economies, each and every country will be at risk. We all agree that difficult times require difficult choices. But there is one choice that should not be difficult: that is, the decision to stand together. Thank you for your attention. BIS Review 20/2007  3

Additionally, where suitable, vetiver grass is utilised to reinforce road slopes and prevent erosion. The term "climate-resilient" is used to describe these roads, emphasising their ability to withstand environmental challenges without employing other technical jargon. 3 Water Revolving Fund in the Philippines. [Source] 4 Melaka State Climate Action Plan 2020-2030. [Source] 5 ADB Technical Assistance Report. [Source]  3/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches