samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Last year’s rapid disinflation was not least the result of the substantial appreciation of the króna, which in turn can be attributed to better external balance, lower inflation expectations as the year wore on, greater confidence in stability, and expectations that large-scale investment projects would go ahead. Disinflation last year can also be attributed to a considerable weakness in domestic demand. National expenditure  BIS Review 18/2003  1  contracted by 2½%. The decline in fixed capital formation was particularly pronounced, but private consumption also contracted. In spite of the contraction in national expenditure, however, GDP declined by only ½%. This was due to favourable foreign trade developments, with a contraction in imports and expanding exports. The sudden turnaround in Iceland’s current account from 2000 to 2002 is almost unparalleled among the developed countries. In 2002 there was a 1.8 b.kr. surplus on the current account, or 0.2% of estimated GDP. In 2000 the deficit amounted to more than 10% of GDP, as I mentioned earlier. This shows the great adaptability of the Icelandic economy, which to a large extent can be attributed to the wide range of reforms that have been made to the structure of economy in recent years, including changes in the monetary framework. Now I shall turn to last year’s inflation developments in more detail. In 2001 inflation climbed rapidly, from 5.6% at the beginning of the year to a peak of 9.4% in January 2002. Last year, inflation slowed down steadily and dropped to 1.4% in January 2003.

While cost will inevitably be an important consideration, this should be weighed against the significant benefits and operational savings from the more accurate allocation of capital to risk. MAS will work closely with the local banks to implement the new Accord. Business and strategic considerations Next, banks have to decide how to grow and position their businesses over the longer term, especially the local banks. Maintaining margins and cutting costs is necessary in the short term, but beyond that, banks need longer term strategies for staying viable and competitive. After a period of domestic consolidation, the local banks have made several regional acquisitions, but they still remain small by international standards. Competition will intensify, within the domestic market because of liberalisation, and internationally because globalisation is continuing. The local banks may well find that in order to hold their own and be viable, they need to grow bigger. Possibilities for domestic growth are limited other than through further consolidation. But the region offers considerable opportunities. Asia is poised for sustained growth, having emerged from the Crisis as one of the most promising regions in the world. Countries have gone through a period of structural reforms and transformed their financial sectors. Now they are progressively opening up their  4  BIS Review 39/2004  economies to greater foreign participation. This is attracting interest from major regional and global players. Our local banks cannot ignore this game. They need to consider their options carefully.
And well managed banks have indeed been able to weather the shocks - a real positive from the point of view of financial stability oversight. But on the other hand the added vulnerabilities too are real. So I do not find it surprising that there are calls for public policy response. The consequences of liberalisation and the derivatised world of enhanced risk transfer are indeed formidable. There is the breakdown of the old barriers; with unfamiliar and new players operating in often unfamiliar territory; uncertainty over concentrations of risk and with a more difficult or unpredictable set of behaviours; and newly created networks whose failure could be catastrophic. Spotting threats is tougher: and there is a premium on intelligence from a broader network to cover a multitude of new transmission channels. The tension between globalised players in a world of national supervisors needs to be managed. But let me not leave you with the impression that we are deterred by the task. On the contrary challenging certainly, but hopeless certainly not. After all, the market place itself has to act prudently; to judge potential behaviour of counterparties; to improve risk management techniques; to understand where concentrations of risks reside and what their dangers are. If firms fail to do so they go out of business. And as for the public authorities, we all know the maxim or guiding prayer “Lord let there be failures: but let them be small ones”. No better way of encouraging market discipline!

Here I would point to market liberalisation, technological advance and the development of a range of new instruments for transferring risk. Third, market participants need to be aware that financial stability starts with them. Integrity and sensible restraint are the bedrocks of stability. This requires heightened awareness that the leverage in the system as a whole, encouraged by the new risk transfer techniques, contains its own vulnerabilities. Fourth, in response to the changing environment, the financial authorities have had to adapt their models and procedures for regulation and oversight. Greater disclosure and transparency can be antidotes to the information deficits in an increasingly complex, and sometimes opaque, financial system. International cooperation is at a premium, both in delivering a consolidated view of globally active firms, and in seeking to clarify who is expected to do what when difficulties arise. They need to match this level of technical expertise with the private sector, and to contend with new or heightened risks in such areas as business continuity. Fifth, as a central bank, we need to be as clear as we can about the nature of our contribution to the oversight process. At the core is our concern with the maintenance of liquidity, and our capacity to inject it when necessary. Much of our financial stability work is aimed at identifying potential liquidity strains, and what responses are likely to be most effective. Lastly, whilst the challenges for oversight may be daunting, progress in addressing these challenges is significant.
[Slide 1] A property worth 100 in 1998 would have sold at 280 in 2007 in Spain and Ireland and at 230 in Greece. Between 1998 and 2007 bank lending for house purchases increased by more than 400% in Spain, 500% in Ireland and 800% in Greece. The credit boom led to a sharp increase in private sector indebtedness. But such imbalances have not only been a private sector story. Between 1998 and 2007 the compensation of employees in the public sector (that is the number of employees times their per capita wages) increased cumulatively by close to 180% in Ireland (i.e. five times the euro area average) and by close to 110% in Greece (i.e. three times the euro area average). Public spending growth has systematically exceeded nominal GDP growth also in Portugal (about double the average for the area). Fiscal discipline had been clearly insufficient. Even when the headline fiscal deficit was suggesting a healthy situation until around 2008, that was misleading as GDP was above potential and strong tax revenues resulting from housing booms were not sustainable. During the 2008–09 crisis, the sharp drop in domestic demand caused a significant fall in revenues, which in some previously booming countries were based on very cyclically sensitive taxes, such as corporate taxes, stamp duties and capital gains taxes. At the same time, government spending was increased by crisis-related measures.

Prasarn Trairatvorakul: Towards a multi-polar currency and reserve system Speech by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the High-Level Conference on the International Monetary System, Zurich, 10 May 2011. *  *  *  Governor Hildebrand, Managing Director Strauss-Kahn, Distinguished Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen, 1. I would like to thank the co-hosts, the Swiss National Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for inviting me to speak at this high-level conference. So far in this session, we have listened to a number of insightful presentations by well-known speakers. To avoid repeating what has been said, I will try to frame my talk from the perspective of a small emerging market economy. My focus will be on the three problematic issues facing emerging market economies and the current international monetary system, and how we may think of what needs to be done to put our international monetary system on a more sustainable path. 2. Let me start with the first issue. As of now, excess global liquidity generated under the current international monetary system is complicating the conduct of macroeconomic policy in many emerging market economies. Although the expansion of the global economy has strengthened in the past few quarters, economic cycles and thus monetary policy stance among various regions greatly differ. This has been widely regarded as a key push factor for international capital flows into emerging markets.
Productivity per head is 4% below its level of five years ago. No-one really understands why. Perhaps the output data are understating the true picture. Perhaps the black cloud of uncertainty moving towards us from the euro area means that businesses are choosing to meet demand by expanding employment, which can if necessary be adjusted downwards relatively easily, rather than  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  investing in new capital equipment which cannot. Perhaps flexible wages have encouraged employers to hold on to labour. Or perhaps forbearance by banks has allowed inefficient firms that might otherwise have had to contract to continue with more labour than can be employed in the long run. One thing we can see clearly is that the recovery and rebalancing of the UK economy are proceeding at a slow and uncertain pace. At this stage, it is difficult to know whether some of the recent more positive signs will persist. The Monetary Policy Committee will think long and hard before it decides whether or not to make further asset purchases. But should those signs fade, the MPC does stand ready to inject more money into the economy. Printing money is not, however, simply manna from heaven. There are no shortcuts to the necessary adjustment in our economy. The problems in the world economy mean that we shall have to be patient. Over the past twenty years, during regular visits to Wales, I have seen several waves of restructuring of the Welsh economy.

On the one hand, over the past two years total output, or GDP, has been much weaker than expected. In fact, output has been broadly flat over that period. And the zig-zag pattern of quarterly growth rates of GDP that we have seen this year is likely to continue, as we may see on Thursday when figures for the third quarter are released. On the other hand, there are other more encouraging signs. First, the labour market gives a very different picture to that conveyed by the output data. In the private sector, more new jobs have been created than over any other two-year period since the mid-1990s. And in the past year, unemployment has been falling, and falling faster in Wales than in the United Kingdom as a whole. Second, inflation has now fallen back to 2.2%, close to our 2% target. Although recent increases in domestic energy and food prices are likely to leave it a little above target well into next year, the fall in inflation means that the squeeze on real takehome pay, which accounted for much of the weakness in consumer spending over the past two years, has eased somewhat. And retail sales figures are consistent with a pickup in consumer spending. The disparity between weak output growth and a buoyant labour market is not easy to explain. It is not the product of a switch from full-time to part-time jobs because total hours worked have risen at the same rate as employment.
Points to the right and above the curve are inefficient in the sense that it is possible for monetary policy to achieve a smaller sum of squares for the inflation-gap forecast for a given sum of squares for the output-gap forecasts, or vice versa. In the Monetary Policy Reports, the Riksbank usually presents alternative scenarios with a different repo rate path in addition to the main scenario. These generate other paths for inflation and the output gap. Figures 4 and 5 show examples from February 2008 and February 2009. The sums of squares that can be calculated from these paths are shown in Figure 6. Two observations can be made here. The first observation is that the sums of squares in the main scenario are smaller than in the alternative scenarios – the main scenario is closer to origin in Figure 6. The main scenario is thus more successful in terms of stabilising both inflation and resource utilisation. The alternative scenarios are clearly inefficient compared with the main scenario. This does not necessarily mean, however, that monetary policy is efficient in the sense that the main scenario lies on the modified Taylor curve. There may be a repo rate path that would stabilise inflation and resource utilisation even better. Excluding this possibility requires a comparison with many more alternative scenarios. The second observation is that the position of the modified Taylor curve may vary considerably depending on the initial state of the economy. The situation in February 2008 was much more favourable than in February 2009.

The enhanced and robust competition in the marketplace would lead to greater consumer benefits in terms of improved business efficiency, product development and service quality. It is envisioned that the achievement of these imperatives will ensure that the Malaysian takaful industry is well-positioned to successfully make the transition from being "good-to-great" and, InsyaAllah, will remain as the global leader for takaful and retakaful. Ladies and Gentlemen, The overarching objective of our regulatory policies is to ensure that the financial system is in a position to serve the public with the best range and quality of products and services, that the interest of the consumer is at all times protected, and that best practices are adopted to ensure the soundness and stability of the system. It must be emphasised, however, that the ultimate responsibility for ensuring this rests on the players in the financial system, in particular, the Senior Management and the Board of Directors. This is particularly important to ensure public confidence in the efficiency and performance of the financial system to contribute to the overall development of the economy. The initiative formulated for the takaful industry in strengthening competition through the creation of new takaful players, is aimed at achieving this overarching objective. The presence of players with the right qualities and calibre in the marketplace is part of the process of ensuring product innovation and service excellence.
The IMF has an experience of at least 5 decades in analysing the economies of its members, 185 countries at present, and such a capacity is rather difficult to build. 7. Expansionary measures should be accompanied by exit strategies from the very beginning. History has shown that expansionary measures taken in order to exit an economic crisis do have side effects in terms of inflation. The lesson learned from the '70s is that protracted expansionary policies resulted in high levels of inflation and public debt, the reduction of which called for tight monetary policies, which resulted in relatively low average economic growth. This lesson, along with that learned from other episodes which were addressed similarly, shows that the measures to weather the crisis should be based on the objective of ensuring medium- and long-term fiscal sustainability and price stability. In practice, this means that anti-crisis measures should be accompanied by credible exit strategies from the measures that are now necessary to support the financial sector and provide renewed impetus to global demand. From this perspective, the recent meeting of the G20 leaders is encouraging. On the one hand, there were discussions regarding expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, including the use of unconventional monetary instruments, and, on the other hand, the objectives of ensuring medium- and long-term fiscal sustainability and price stability, with a special emphasis on drawing up credible exit strategies from the measures that are now necessary to underpin the financial sector and give a new impetus to global demand. 8.

The risk might occur that, in face of relatively high volatility of output and inflation, we run out of instruments to tackle the issue. I consider this as a strong enough reason not to adopt the euro prior to eliminating all major imbalances in the economy and before having made enough progress on the path to achieving convergence. We stand committed to implement the pre-announced calendar of the euro adoption. We intend to join ERM II on 1 January 2012. After the minimum two-year stay in this mechanism, the joint decision on entering the euro area will be made in 2014 and (likely to) become effective as of 1 January 2015. Mention should be made that this is the calendar considered by most rating agencies and foreign investors, hence any large deviation (postponement) from this calendar would be negatively perceived and penalised accordingly. * * * I believe there will also be other lessons for countries to learn from the current financial crisis. They will learn the manner in which a banking system can be restructured so as to cope with a global financial crisis, particularly what is the impact of a so-called "bad bank" on real life. I trust countries will learn that central banks' resort to unconventional instruments bears certain costs. Yet, regardless of the number of lessons learned, the experience of financial crises indicates that the social memory of crises is of short duration and that the possibility of repeating the same mistakes should never be ruled out.
He steps onto e-scales and it only takes him seconds to get feedback from the e-dietician. Things look good. Besides, he knows that his e-dietician has delivered relevant guidance to the restaurant where Global is going to have lunch with one of his friends. Now it's time for his favourite coffee and online newspapers, that is a special edition of news, commentaries, lists, reports, quotes, similarities, differences etc. related to our Global’s interests. News aggregator turns out to be very helpful in getting access to useful information, filtered from noise and randomness. While at home, Global looks through the newspapers using his TV-set. When he is out, he uses his communicator to do this (the name ‘mobile phone’ fell into disuse in 2015). Sipping his coffee, he starts reading. After a while, his wife joins in. They both use the aggregator, but they have different interests and different news search criteria. John Global's wife comes from Scotland. She is much attached to the Global Scott Network. She believes that the Scottish population is shrinking, so in order to sustain growth in Scotland it is necessary to employ the Scottish intellectual capital spread all around the world. The Global Scott Network is so efficient, that it has been outpacing large competitive consulting companies for more than twenty years, by receiving orders related for example to biotechnological clusters. The Global Scott Network is an example of a diaspora understood as an ethnic or a religious community living in a foreign country or environment (e.g.

It has long been known that projects usually end in failure not because they are bad but because somebody does not understand what his or her role in the process involves, or even why this process exists. Communication improves the level of understanding and acceptance on the part of all stakeholders. It helps create commitment observed in diasporas, and also creates room for internal motivation. It was as early as at the beginning of the 21 century that public administration in Singapore knew the art of project implementation, which institutionalised the role of communication in project planning. 1 p.m. Lunch with a friend. Global brought him a small gift from his weekend family trip to an exotic country. It was a real bargain, and it only took a few minutes to arrange for the trip on the way home from the Friday visit to a modern art gallery. Both Global and his wife are lovers of modern art. All they had to do was to get in touch with their virtual travel agent and they could both go through the offers displayed on the screen in his car, consulting an e-expert. They decided to go for the most exotic trip, which was also quite affordable. Global competition does its job. Their only concern was not to miss the plane. Global and his friend do not waste their time ordering meals, as an e-waiter has already sent suggested menu to their communicators (in Global’s case, consulted with his e-dietician).
14 But in day-to-day monetary policy communication, these relatively abstract arguments about the benefits of a credible and sufficiently high inflation target have to compete with observations that are significantly more concrete for economic agents: that the policy rate has been negative for rather a long time – in itself an exceptional circumstance historically – in a situation where output and employment have generally developed well, and the expansionary policy has helped lending continue to rise and led to a depreciation of the exchange rate. Regular overviews of the remit important for understanding and legitimacy What lessons can be learnt from this? To begin with, I think that it is quite a useful observation that a central bank with an inflation target may sometimes have to conduct a policy that is so exceptional as to bring the policy’s legitimacy into question, despite the aim of it being to fulfil the remit that the central bank has been instructed to pursue. Bearing in mind the current international economic environment with low real interest rates and powers that are having a restraining effect on inflation, this is something that an increasing number of countries may experience in the period ahead. A lesson to be learnt from this is, in my view, that regular public reviews of the monetary policy remit as such are a good thing, so that it becomes clear what the central bank’s task actually is and that it only does what it is intended to do.

To overcome this, a temporary expansion of the list of collateral has been decided. Furthermore, the ECB intends to enhance the use of bank loans as collateral in Eurosystem operations. These measures should support bank lending, by increasing the amount of assets on euro area banks’ balance sheets that can be used to obtain central bank refinancing. Third, the Governing Council decided on measures aimed at fostering money market activity. Amongst others, the reserve ratio will be temporarily reduced, from 2% now to 1%. This increases the incentives for market participants to engage in money market transactions. Also, it increases the collateral available to banks, as it reduces their liquidity needs vis-à-vis the Eurosystem and thereby the amount of collateral that needs to be posted. Overall, all measures mentioned aim to ensure enhanced access of the banking sector to liquidity and facilitate the functioning of the euro area money market, thereby avoiding severe limitations to the real economy from a lack of financing possibilities. This also helps ensure that the official interest rates set by the ECB are transmitted in an appropriate way to the economy, and in that way help maintaining price stability in the medium term. II. Foundations for a stable economic and monetary union  Let me now turn to the outcome of the last European Council. This Council has really brought about a breakthrough in terms of commitment to sound and transparent fiscal rules.