samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The USA's increase in growth in the 1990s was partly due to the US economy being internationalised more rapidly than before, with a larger percentage of GDP exposed to international competition than the EU. If eastern Europe is now integrated more closely with western Europe, this could create a more efficient division of labour and raise productivity in western Europe. The challenge of EU enlargement eastwards could rouse decision-makers in western Europe to a more intensive reform effort so they can fully take advantage of what will, in total, be the world's single largest market. There are parallels here to Japan's success story in the 1970s and 1980s, when Japanese industry, which had not yet subsided into its own structural problems, benefited from the interplay with the dynamic Asian economies that complemented the Japanese companies. Just as the dynamic Asian economies additionally formed a bridge to China, the candidate countries comprise a bridge to Russia (particularly the St Petersburg  2  BIS Review 9/2002  region where Sweden is concerned), the Ukraine and the other CIS countries – areas that should also become a growing part of the EU's trading sphere. Moreover, unlike many dynamic Asian economies, the candidate countries' populations have always had a very high level of education; in science and technology it is fully comparable with the level in the current EU member countries.

An even greater risk for both candidate countries and the EU could be to try to transfer the entire system of subsidies and taxes applying in several richer EU countries to central and eastern Europe. Most of the candidate countries already have higher tax levels and a greater degree of state influence in the economy than the majority of countries in the world at their welfare level, and much more so than in countries such as Taiwan and South Korea, which have succeeded in rapidly attaining a higher standard of living. To further increase the tax pressure and subsidy levels would risk subduing growth. 4  BIS Review 9/2002  Here I should like to highlight a warning example and a good example. The warning example is the former East Germany. It is often said that it was the fact that the East German mark was replaced at parity by the West German mark that led to the economic difficulties in the former GDR. This perhaps was not the decisive factor; rather it was the fact that wages and subsidy levels, together with the rest of the West German system, were transferred to a much poorer economy, which needed much greater room for manoeuvre. Despite massive investments, the new eastern länder suffered a recession and mass unemployment.
The whole point of a model is to abstract from a wider range of factors in order to think clearly about one particular issue.”4 Over the last couple of years, for example, we have drawn on a range of models to capture the impact of credit markets. The MPC bases its forecasts on all the evidence. And most forecasts have a lot of added judgement in them. But our main macro model sets a baseline for our discussions and forces us to quantify and integrate different judgements. It is difficult to see how the committee could reach a consensus on a forecast (albeit with a probability distribution around the central projection) without a model of some sort. All models are simplifications and all models have difficulty identifying turning points. But we badly need some new thinking to make them better. Putting banks into the models would be a good place to start. The model of the banking sector which is being developed in the Financial Stability wing of the Bank will make a good contribution to that. Lesson 5: Mopping up after the bust is not a good strategy The world’s central banks have tended to follow similar strategies. So much so that an American economist, John Taylor, was able to neatly summarise how monetary policy is set with a very simple rule.

It has provided all relevant private and public stakeholders with a voice in the process - from the SNB to large banks with an international focus, to smaller and regional institutes. The twelve year history of the Swiss repo market illustrates this principle at work. At the end of the 1990s, commercial banks, financial infrastructure providers and the SNB collaborated  7  It consists of four elements: i) the electronic trading platforms, SIX Swiss Exchange and Eurex (derivatives); (ii) the central counterparty SIX x-clear; (iii) the securities settlement system SECOM; and (iv) the payment systems, Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) and euroSIC. Also directly integrated are the central counterparties, London Clearing House (LCH) and Eurex Clearing, as well as the euroSIC payment system. 8  Cf. “International Capital Market Association: European repo market survey.” Number 18, conducted December 2009, published March 2010. p. 10. Cf. also BIS, “CPSS: Strengthening repo clearing and settlement arrangements,” published September 2010., pp. 10–12. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  closely to develop the repo market. The resulting electronic Eurex Repo trading platform9 standardised repo transactions. Crucially, since 1999 the Eurex Repo trading platform has been linked to the SECOM securities settlement system, which is connected to the SIC realtime gross-settlement payment system. Not only does this make straight-through processing possible, the system also sets itself apart by integrating central bank repos and interbank repos on the same platform.
Since mortgages are a highly standardised product, the price, ie the rate of interest, will be a decisive factor in the competition for customers. As competition on the mortgage market increases, the cost of refinancing will become the decisive factor for mortgage institutions’ possibilities to pursue a profitable business. I will therefore devote the rest of this speech to the question of refinancing. The Swedish mortgage institutions´ balance sheets, 1999. 10%  2%  Stadshypotek + Handelsbanken Hypotek (33 %)  1% 33%  SPINTAB + Föreningsbanken Kredit (28 %) SBAB (13 %)  13%  Nordbanken Hypotek (13 %) Skandia Banken Bolån (1%) 13%  SEB-Bolån (10 %) Venantius (2 %) 28%  Swedish mortgage institutions´ shares of borrowing on the security market (money market instruments and bonds), 2000. 7% 3% 13%  35%  SPINTAB Stadshypotek SBAB NB Hypotek SEB Bolån  18%  Övriga 24%  Traditional mortgage financing Swedish mortgage institutions finance their operations mainly by issuing bonds and certificates. The entire balance sheet of the mortgage institution serves as security for borrowing, and consequently each loan is not directly linked to a specific amount of collateral. 5  BIS Review 99/2000  The advantage of the Swedish model is that borrowing can be undertaken without any fixed link to specific loans. This means that large loans can be put onto the market, which makes it easier to uphold regular trade and strong liquidity. This has been the case with the Swedish benchmark bonds.

Lars Nyberg: Swedish housing financing and the EMU  Speech by Mr Lars Nyberg, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riskbank, at Economics Day held at HSB Bank, Stockholm, on 8 November 2000. *  *  *  I would like to start by thanking you for inviting me to HSB Bank’s Economics Day and giving me this opportunity to talk about Swedish housing financing from an EU perspective. Introduction One of the main purposes of the Single Market and the introduction of EMU is to create a more efficient market for goods and services, a market which is characterised by greater competition and better products at lower prices. On the mortgage market, this should mean that borrowers can expect a wider range of products, more choice of suppliers and lower interest rates. The national mortgage markets in Europe vary considerably, as does their significance to the country’s economy. This is illustrated in the following diagram (Figure 1). In countries such as Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK, the total outstanding stock of loans with property as collateral amounts to over 50% of GDP. In other countries, such as Greece and Italy, the corresponding figure is less than 10%. The differences are mainly due to factors such as different regulations, tax legislation and market structures in the different countries. As in Sweden, housing financing issues have often aroused considerable political interest, a fact which is reflected in all of the above factors. The outstanding stock of European mortgage bonds divided by GDP 1998.
The monetary pillar provides for discipline not to ignore risks to price stability stemming from imbalances in money and credit developments. •  Initiatives are now being taken to close the gap in the area of cross-border supervision and between micro- and macro prudential supervision. The envisaged establishment of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) which the ECB will support analytically and logistically marks an important step in this direction. The ESRB will monitor systemic risk and provide risk warnings and recommendations. Effective cooperation and leadership at the European level will be crucial to make the ESRB successful in the pursuit of its mandate. •  Is the current improvement in some financial market segments genuine or driven by governments and central banks? When the crisis took hold and risk aversion spread, leading to de-leveraging and a sharp decline in securitisation public attention focused on executive pay as an area for regulation. In fact improving corporate governance remains a key area for regulation. Bonus systems need to be changed so as to make managers liable for their decisions and provide them with the right incentives to focus on longer-term sustainability of their business models rather than short-term profit. •  But corporate governance is just one area where regulation needs to be improved.

But adjusting the level of the inflation target to the structural underlying trends that for the moment are influencing the economy does not seem like a good idea. A related and equally important circumstance is that even if globalisation and digitisation can subdue inflation, this does not mean that they determine inflation – and transform the central banks into passive onlookers, without any opportunity to influence inflation over time. In practice, the central bank has the possibility to try to estimate how much digitisation and globalisation will dampen inflation and to compensate for this. This is what central banks with an inflation target do now. It is not always an easy task, I will admit, as knowledge of the quantitative effects of digitisation and globalisation is so far fairly limited. This also means that a monetary policy that tries to compensate for the effects of these trends on inflation will not always be right, but will sometimes compensate too much and sometimes too little. However, digitisation and globalisation are not different in this aspect from other factors that affect the economy and that the central bank must try to take into account. My point is that structural trends that put downward pressure on inflation during a period of time do not necessarily mean that actual inflation will be permanently lower than the national authorities intend it to be on average.
There are three relevant dimensions of economic stability: price stability, financial stability and macroeconomic stability, including the health of public finances. In all these areas, we have made substantial progress in recent years. During the crisis, the ECB took all appropriate measures to ensure that price stability provided an anchor in an uncertain and volatile economic environment. As for financial stability, the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism and the launch of banking union, with its Single Supervisory Mechanism and Single Resolution Mechanism, have been milestones in this respect. As a third dimension, the crisis has shown us the kind of existential threat to monetary union that can be brought about by the build-up of excessive imbalances, i.e. by the lack of fiscal and macroeconomic stability. New growth will not be generated by new debt. Sound fiscal policies are essential for growing out of debt. Therefore, the existing rules should be applied in a credible manner. That said, we cannot claim “mission accomplished”. What has been achieved so far is not enough. The answer to the remaining challenges could take the form of a “convergence process 2.0”, which should have an agreed timeline and milestones. But convergence can only be sustainable if it is associated with a commensurate deepening of integration, if it is a race towards best practice institutions and policies rather than towards mere nominal outcomes.

This can only be agreed under the veil of ignorance,8 i.e. under the expectation that participating economies, in their diversity, have comparable strengths and weaknesses. And that is why such a new social contract can only happen at the end of a new convergence process. As to which level which budgetary responsibilities are allocated, and how they are matched by appropriate democratic arrangements, I believe this is ultimately a political decision. It should emanate from a political process, and I note that other federations with more developed forms of political union such as Switzerland or the United States have found very different answers to this question. Further integration within the euro area raises the difficult issue of the relationship with the “outs”. Adequate safeguards have to ensure full consistency with the Single Market, which is the European Union’s most valuable achievement. However, while such safeguards will have a bearing on the design of euro area integration, they cannot change its direction. The biggest threat to the Single Market is not euro area integration: it would be euro area stagnation.9 Conclusion Ladies and gentlemen, The triathlon competitions here in Vouliagmeni ended a decade ago. The challenge of making EMU work is far from over. In fact, we are now just out of the water. Let’s get ready for the bike race and not forget about the running that will come later. Many thanks for your attention, and I am now looking forward to our debate.
The EC forecast shows that both for 2017 and 2018, Malta’s unemployment rate will be 4.9%, which is extremely low when compared to the both the euro area and the EU. During 2017, it is expected that unemployment in the euro area and the EU will be 9.6% and 8.1% respectively. For 2018,  4  unemployment in the euro area is expected to go down to 9.1% whilst that in the EU will also decline to 7.8%. Malta’s general government deficit as a percentage of GDP is also expected to continue on the positive trajectory it has embarked on the in the previous years. It is expected to narrow further to 0.6% in 2017 and remain at this level in 2018. This figure is also compares favourably to the average deficit ratios projected in the euro area19 (2017 and 2018: -1.4%) and the EU (2017:= -1.7% and 2018= -1.6%). For the first time in many years, Malta’s gross government debt to GDP is expected to fall below the 60% threshold. In fact, for 2017 the debt ratio is expected to be 58.0% and to decline even further in 2018 (55.6%). In my view, the main lesson to be learnt from this half a century of experience is that while a flexible exchange rate policy may afford some leeway in the short term, allowing the economy to withstand economic shocks, it is no substitute for structural reforms that achieve greater flexibility in product and labour markets. This is especially the case for small open economies.

** * The Commission Bancaire therefore intends to continue its action to enhance management and control of these risks, not only within France but at the international level as well, naturally, within a European banking supervision structure that emphasises real convergence in supervisory practices. The practical implementation of supervisory colleges needs to be stepped up in order to achieve this objective. Supervisory colleges are the keystone for the supervision of large cross-border groups in Europe. The resolutely European thrust of our action, which is naturally in line with the international development of banking activities and of the sources of vulnerability for financial  4  BIS Review 82/2008  stability, will lead to the incorporation of a European convergence objective into the mandates of domestic supervisors. From my point of view, this objective will be a major motivation for the supervisory community as a whole. BIS Review 82/2008  5
Over time the private sector will develop a wider range of products referencing SONIA. Futures contracts have already been created. We can expect Floating Rate Notes and loans referencing SONIA to follow. The end point should be an ecosystem for interest rate markets which has an altogether healthier foundation than at present. Developing the infrastructure around the near risk-free benchmarks globally, and assisting market participants in dealing with legacy Libor portfolios, is a significant opportunity for innovation. Firms here in London are well placed to take advantage. As mentioned, international authorities are working closely together, and I know Bill Dudley is going to pick up the baton and talk more about the transition to risk-free rates from a US perspective. It is an immense pleasure to introduce Bill. It is an honour that he is here at this Markets Forum to give his last keynote speech as President of the New York Federal Reserve. And it is appropriate given his deep commitment to fighting misconduct and improving standards of behaviour in the institutions we regulate and supervise. Bill had the wisdom to appreciate quickly how cultural and ethical issues lay at the heart of the global financial crisis, and he has been a consistent and strong voice in arguing for what needs to be done to improve individual behaviour, firm culture, and industry ethics. On behalf everyone, I would like to thank you Bill for your many, invaluable contributions throughout this exceptional period for financial markets and the global economy.

Where the central bank chooses to position itself on this front depends on how important it considers stabilising the real economy to be in relation to stabilising inflation, that is, which λ the central bank has. 1  I have simplified somewhat. Without simplification, the loss is often written as  where t, is the time when we make the forecasts, and T is the “horizon”, that is, the period our forecasts cover. 2  The method with a mean squared gap is presented in the article “Evaluation of different monetary policy alternatives” in the Monetary Policy Report, October 2009. A presentation and an analysis using this method were also included in Material for assessing monetary policy 2009 and Material for assessing monetary policy 2010. For a more detailed description and references to relevant literature, see Lars E.O. Svensson’s speech “Assessing monetary policy”. The speech was held at Uppsala University on 13 March 2009. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 1. Mean squared gap for resource utilisation and inflation, and the effective front. The step from theory to practice is not uncomplicated This theoretical approach, where the central bank minimises a squared loss function with inflation and resource utilisation has been in the monetary policy toolbox for a long time, and it has been useful in developing flexible inflation targeting. It captures in an illustrative and relatively simple way the essence of inflation targeting and it has helped to structure our thinking.
And although the number of people in the scheme continued to decline through August and September, that made no visible impression on indicators of labour-market tightness. Tax-financed rises in government spending needn’t be inflationary because there is an offsetting hit to demand in the private sector. But the current increase has been largely deficit financed so far. 7  12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  12  So far as we can tell, and although there were still 1.1 million jobs furloughed in the final week of September, just prior to its end, nor has there been any visible effect now that the CJRS has formally closed. There is obviously more to come on this: we’ll get the first post-furlough release of the Labour Force Survey, for October, just at the time of next week’s policy meeting. But we know already that there’s been no decline in vacancy numbers for that month, no tick-up in surveys of labour availability, and no sign either of any increase in benefit claims (Chart 18). In fact, they all went in the opposite direction: the labour market looks to have tightened further. Chart 17. Public sector employment has risen significantly during the pandemic Dec 2019 = 100 Public services  Chart 18.

Inclusion – expanding the reach of microfinance One of the key challenges for microfinance has been providing access to financial services where it is unavailable, but needed the most. Expanding the reach of financial services, and finding new ways to do so cost efficiently, lie at the very heart of efforts to increase inclusion. The right channels can also create emotional connections, not just geographical ones. Making it easier for borrowers to connect with financial institutions in ways that they feel comfortable with, can build affinities with financial institutions which in turn, encourages participation and timely repayments. Mobile banking is an excellent example. The portability, affordability and ubiquity of mobile gadgets effectively put a bank in everyone’s pockets today. The numbers are telling. Half the global population use mobile internet. We spend 4 hours on the phone and use 12 apps in a single day. The tremendous success of mobile banking in Africa has been hailed as a transformative platform for greater financial inclusion. If providers leverage digital platforms well, finance can literally be at the fingertips of the unbanked. Leveraging on digital platforms can also create a virtuous cycle. Over time, such platform providers will accumulate a wealth of data on customer preferences and behaviour. This can in turn drive drive analysis for new product offerings in the future. This is of course, highly contextual and an effective delivery strategy will likely differ across countries, communities and cultures.