samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Thus the structural analysis reveals that for the region as a whole, before the crisis in 2007 the role of the direct investments was significantly larger than that of the debt creating flows in creating international liabilities, whereas it turned balanced in 2013. By the end of 2018 as expected, mostly through deleveraging, the level of debt creating flows decreased. 13  Chart 10 Structure of NIIP  Source: IMF BOP data. The simple analysis of the external sector profile in the region, reveal compression of the current account gaps, slowdown in financial flows, and adjustment of the IIP position. Some of the adjustments might be a reflection of the unsustainable pre-crisis imbalances, some of them are cyclical, and some might be a result of structural shifts that boost competiveness, enable export to grow and gaps to be narrowed. Whichever the cause, it is critical to assess whether the adjustment and the current level are in line with what the fundamentals and policies would suggest. For this reason, we use the latest available results from the IMF external sector assessment and we construct a heat map to have broader vision of where the region stands in terms of the external sector imbalances. The current account focus offers a general conclusion that the region is broadly in line with fundamentals, with five out of eleven counties have current account in line with fundamentals according to the IMF estimations, and four have stronger position, while three show weaker position than what the fundamentals suggest.

Svein Gjedrem: Monetary policy and the economic situation Speech by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, 2 September 2003. The text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The speech is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 13 August and on previous speeches. The Charts in pdf can be found on the Norges Bank’s website. *  *  *  The operational target of monetary policy as defined by the Government is inflation of close to 2.5 per cent over time. The inflation target provides economic agents with an anchor for their decisions concerning saving, investment, budgets and wages. The inflation target is a vehicle for monetary policy’s contribution to stabilising output and employment. This intention is also expressed in the Regulation on Monetary Policy. High demand for goods and services and labour shortages normally point to higher inflation. When interest rates are increased, demand falls and inflation is kept at bay. When demand is low and unemployment rises, inflation will tend to slow. Interest rates will then be reduced. Norges Bank sets the interest rate so that future inflation will be equal to the inflation target of 2½ per cent. The interest rate has been reduced since December last year in response to the change in the inflation outlook.
The Economic Development Board’s investment arm, EDBI, will establish a Growth IPO Fund, that is starting with a fund size of $ million to invest in growth stage companies, grooming them for IPOs in Singapore. We are bringing down listing costs and improving the research ecosystem. MAS has enhanced its Grant for Equity Market Scheme (GEMS) to provide additional support for listings in Singapore. The GEMS listing grant defrays the cost of listing on SGX by co-funding up to $ million of listing expenses, an increase from $ million before. The coverage of the scheme will be expanded to defray the listing costs of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs). The GEMS research grant seeks to groom equity research talent and expand Singapore’s research coverage of listed companies by co-funding the hiring costs of research analysts. We are expanding the listing pathways for corporates. SGX launched its framework for SPAC two months ago. Traditionally, IPOs can be a time-consuming process, and it can come with some uncertainty over valuations and pricing. 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  With good quality sponsors, SPACs can meet the expansion needs of Asia’s fast growing companies by letting them gain greater certainty on price and timing, as well as strategic partners that can help them grow further. We are positioning SGX as a platform for sustainable investments. There is much that capital markets can do to direct funding towards sustainable projects and corporates seeking to reduce their carbon footprint.

In tribute to the Governor, as I know that Fernando Pessoa is one of his favourite poets, I'd like to quote his “Odes by Ricardo Reis”, in which he reminds us of the importance of being truly committed to our work. “To be great, be whole: don’t exaggerate Or leave out any part of you. Be complete in each thing. Put all you are Into the least of your acts." Thank you all for being here. 5/5
In spite of everything, there has been little demand for overdraft loans, which is a positive sign. Household debt has held relatively stable at around 150% of disposable income, far below the level in most neighbouring countries. Now, however, there are signs that negative real rates have given legal entities an incentive to borrow: in 2022, the three large banks' corporate lending grew by some 200 b.kr. Perhaps this should come as no surprise after the downturn in investment during the COVID years. Trying to boost output is a natural response to strong demand. Corporate debt has not risen as a share of GDP in recent years, however, and in general, most companies' equity is strong. The fact is that the Icelandic economy is in robust good health with its renewed emphasis on exports. The tale of inflation in the 1970s highlights how important it is that the Central Bank be able to increase real interest rates so that the inflation boogeyman doesn't gain further strength and plunge us into a new inflation vortex. This is the main reason the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee decided last week to raise the policy rate by 1 percentage point. Investment is on the rise, and without doubt, the projects that await are valuable. But we cannot do everything at once. Negative real interest rates are actually a form of subsidy, and they create abnormally strong demand for credit, thereby exacerbating the risk of inappropriate or inefficient allocation of capital.

Ásgeir Jónsson: Speech – 62nd Annual Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland Speech by Mr Ásgeir Jónsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland, Reykjavík, 30 March 2023. *** "When a traveller gets lost in the fog or a storm and loses his sense of direction, it is said that he starts going around in circles and eventually feels as though water flows upstream. In our economic and labour market affairs, we Icelanders are utterly lost, and the circles we navigate are growing smaller and smaller. Similarly, our sense of real value has become distorted, so that it seems to us that the line graph illustrating the nation's prosperity is aiming upwards when it is actually pointing downwards." These words are taken from Morgunblaðið's Reykjavík Letter editorial on Sunday 19 August 1979. I am quite certain that the author was poet and editor Matthías Johannessen, and I have never found a more accurate description of Iceland's economic situation that summer. The old adage that poets see more clearly than others still holds. Yes, in summer 1979, annual inflation had soared to a new high of more than 60%. And yes, it had happened in spite of innumerable economic policy actions, emergency acts of law, and other responses that were supposed to drop a net over inflation - which nevertheless kept on climbing. Price instability begat political instability. Governments came and went. Wage agreements and currency devaluations played leapfrog, fanning the flames of inflation.
Financial market disruption The disruption of credit and money markets was set off by a deterioration in the US subprime housing market. This started to show up in increasing provisions in the 2006 accounts of banks which held them on balance sheet in a traditional way. But impairment charges of that sort would not have occasioned such ferment in international markets. That was the result of the impact on the new markets for structured credit such as Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO’s) 1 (Chart 1), which had developed to meet investors’ demand for higher yield. As forecasts of US sub-prime defaults mounted, it became clear that such products had introduced opacity and uncertainty into both the distribution and scale of losses. The crisis played itself out in number of “lurches”, which were reflected in the movements in the ABX indices 2 (Chart 2): •  Although the problems of the sub-prime market were obvious in mid-2006, it wasn’t until January/February 2007 that the rising defaults led to mark downs in indices valuing the riskier tranches of the structured products and difficulties at a number of US sub-prime originators;  1  Collateralised Debt Obligations are securities backed by a portfolio of fixed-income assets that are issued in tranches of varying seniority. As default losses accrue to the underlying portfolio they are applied to the securities in reverse order of seniority. The main types of CDOs are those based on portfolios of leveraged bank loans (CLOs) and asset-backed securities (ABS CDOs).

If an issue is on the FPC agenda, given they are responsible for the financial  3  www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/news/2018/november/boe-and-fca-appoint-new-chair-of-the-sterling-risk-free-referencerates-working-group.pdf 4 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/events/2019/june/last-orders-calling-time-on-libor 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  3  system as a whole, then we would generally assume it should also be on the agenda of the senior governance committees of the firms who make up that system. To make sure this was the case, the UK regulators – the PRA and FCA – took a decision to send a “Dear CEO” letter to our largest banks and insurers requesting sight of their Board-approved plans for managing the risks around Libor cessation. The Bank and FCA have already responded to the individual firms involved and, this morning, we published thematic findings from the exercise. I encourage all Libor users whatever their size and position in the system - to look at this: the emerging themes from the exercise apply to a wide range of firms, not just those who received our letters. I’ll make a few observations:  i. The letter has achieved one of its original objectives of helping to focus senior minds on this topic. Each firm written to now has a dedicated Senior Manager under the Senior Managers regime with responsibility for overseeing the transition – I can see many are here this morning. ii. The responses to the Dear CEO letter highlighted much of the good work that is already underway; how some firms have mobilised themselves to meet this challenge.
We thus need to carefully weigh all relevant considerations and determine the actions that would be both legal and effective in promoting environmental protection without interfering with the main objective of the ECB’s monetary policy under the Treaty, which is price stability. Views and opinions certainly differ here. But I would argue that the ECB, acting within its mandate, can – and should – actively support the transition to a low carbon economy, in two main ways: first, by helping to define the rules of the game and, second, by acting accordingly, without prejudice to price stability.25 Our actions to protect the environment begin with reducing our own ecological footprint. In 2007 we adopted an environmental policy and registered with the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme. For more, see ECB (2018), “2018 update of the ECB’s Enviornmental Statement”, October. Much of this is already happening, although I have no doubt it will intensify in the future. The ECB, together with other national central banks of the Eurosystem, is actively supporting the European Commission’s sustainable finance agenda.26  5/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  We are doing this by supporting ongoing work in various international and European fora aimed at enhancing the pricing of climate change and transition risks and promoting the reorientation of financial flows towards sustainable investment products.27 A tangible side effect of these measures is that, once adopted, they will automatically be reflected in our collateral framework.

In the light of this information from the two pillars of the monetary policy strategy, the Governing Council reduced the key ECB interest rates twice by 50 basis points, first on 17 September, in the immediate aftermath of the events of 11 September, and then again on 8 November 2001. After these decisions, the minimum bid rate on the main refinancing operations stood at 3.25% and the rates on the deposit facility and the marginal lending facility stood at 2.25% and 4.25% respectively, 150 basis points lower than a year earlier. Let me also report that at its meeting of 8 November 2001, the Governing Council decided that it would henceforth – as a rule – assess the stance of the ECB's monetary policy only at its first meeting of the month. Accordingly, since November 2001 interest rate decisions have only been taken at such meetings. In addition, I should mention that in the context of its regular review of the reference value for M3, the Governing Council confirmed in December 2001 the value of 4½% for the annual growth of the broad monetary aggregate M3. I would now like to turn briefly to the analysis of the current economic situation. Over recent weeks we have seen a slight weakening of monetary dynamics, which might be a first indication of a gradual unwinding of the factors that led to the increase of M3 growth in the second half of last year, and a continuation of the decline in credit growth.
The answer is no. The financial crisis casts a long shadow. Both household and corporate debt levels have declined significantly, with the household debt-to-income ratio around the 2005 level and the corporate debt-to-GDP ratio at its lowest since mid-2004. But there are significant pockets of financial fragility, with some of the households that bought and borrowed at the peak of the market still facing very heavy debt service burdens. And even though public debt is now on a declining path relative to GDP, it is very high in historical terms, which remains a vulnerability. The biggest legacy problem, though, is the capital controls. During the early stages of the crisis, the controls were helpful in stabilising the economy and providing the shelter needed to repair balance sheets and rebalance the economy. But over time – and increasingly, as the economy and the rest of the world recover – they begin to turn into obstacles to economic growth. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The problem is that there are big obstacles to speedy removal of the capital controls. First, we have short-term króna assets in the hands of foreign residents, so-called offshore krónur, which currently amount to 15% of GDP, after having been reduced by more than half since the capital controls were introduced (see Figure 10). But more importantly, we have domestic assets held by the estates of the old banks.

The adopted solution was embedded in the so-called Emergency Act, which was passed by Parliament on 6 October 2008. The Emergency Act saved the domestic operations of the banking system by creating new banks, which involved carving domestic assets and liabilities out of the old, failing banks. The rest – and the much larger part – went into a resolution process. In order to reverse the ongoing run on domestic deposits, a declaration was made that all deposits in Iceland were safe, but this did not include deposits in foreign branches. Furthermore, all deposits in Icelandic-headquartered banks were given priority over other unsecured claims, including in foreign branches. As regards the blanket guarantee, the distinction made between domestic deposits and foreign currency deposits in the banks’ foreign branches added fuel to the fire of the so-called Icesave dispute about the settlement of deposit guarantees in the Dutch and British branches of one of the banks. But guaranteeing those deposits would never have been credible and might have bankrupted the Government had it been attempted. The deposits in question were in foreign currencies and amounted to 11½ billion euros – far in excess of Iceland’s available FX liquidity at that time, as the sovereign was completely closed off from foreign capital markets.
People want to be team players.1 Those behavioral traits can be amplified through a firm’s culture, which can weigh on one’s willingness to do the right thing. This is, unfortunately, what seems to have occurred at Wells Fargo, one of the largest retail banks in the United States. Whether to obtain a bonus or simply to keep a job, employees felt they had to keep quiet and meet sales targets despite the cost to customers.2 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  So, how do you change a culture where silence leads to misconduct? I will offer two ideas that might help and one idea that will not. Here is what will not work: Merely telling your employees to speak up. Cultures do not change simply by exhortation. Eloquent speeches, a well-phrased value statement, and an annual requirement to acknowledge the code of conduct are just not sufficient. That’s the easy one. The two ideas that might work are harder. First, managers have to lead by example. Senior executives must be seen within the firm to expect and respect challenges, and in turn must challenge ideas themselves. And, they have to explain difficult decisions to their employees—sharing not only the news of what they have done, but why. More important, mid-level managers have to do the same. Of course, mid-level managers will not generally behave that way unless they see their senior leadership setting the example. Second, if your organization values people when they raise their hand, your incentives have to reflect that.

The current account on the other hand, which constitutes a flow that adds to or subtracts from these stocks, is less important. 22 Changes in the valuation of the assets and liabilities are affected to a great extent by changes in the exchange rate. 23 There are, however, considerable shortcomings in the statistics in this area. The values of some types of asset are definitely underestimated, as there is a lack of statistics on the Swedish households’ direct investments abroad. The net position can also be measured in different ways depending on whether direct investments are accounted at market value or at book or nominal value. However, both methods give a net position that is much lower than that given by the accumulated current account surplus (see Figure 8). 21  The nominal external position was –22 per cent of GDP in 2010, while the market-value net position was +4 per cent of GDP according to statistics from Statistics Sweden. 22  This is also found by Lane (2006) in an analysis of the Swedish exchange rate. 23  For a more detailed analysis of the external position see Blomberg and Falk, 2006.
The time it takes for a change in the interest rate to affect inflation and demand will vary. During the period in which a change in the interest rate affects output and inflation - and often before monetary policy has an effect - the economy will be influenced by a number of direct and indirect disturbances. Therefore, we cannot fine-tune inflation. In our open economy, the exchange rate channel is one of several channels through which monetary policy operates. How much the exchange rate appreciates as a result of a rise in key rates depends on a number of factors. The effect of the exchange rate channel may therefore vary over time. The more the krone appreciates as a result of a rise in interest rates, the less the key rate must be raised in order to reduce inflation when tightening policy is appropriate. The level of the real exchange rate affects the activity level in business and industry. We take account of the exchange rate channel and the effect of the krone exchange rate on domestic activity and inflation when preparing our inflation projections. Thus, the exchange rate influences the setting of interest rates. There is no underlying perception of what the correct exchange rate level in the long term should be for the conduct of monetary policy or, of course, of what the correct industry structure should be in the long term. This is consistent with an operational target of low and stable inflation and with the conduct of inflation targeting in other countries.

And investigations of further cases and criminal actions, in foreign exchange and other markets, remain ongoing. Some of the cases already brought by colleagues at the Financial Conduct Authority have resulted in the publication of truly shocking evidence about the behaviour by some individuals in these markets. What particularly struck me in reading some of that evidence was how casual their attitude appeared to be towards the abuses they perpetrated. In one example, a trader mentioned to his manager that he had asked a colleague to lower the firm’s Yen Libor submission, adding that “every little helps…it’s like Tescos.” Was the  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  manager concerned? Not a bit of it. “Absolutely, every little helps”, he replied. 1 Some individuals seem to have enjoyed a perverse kind of prestige from their involvement in the process. One Libor submitter was told by a grateful trader for whom he had manipulated a submission that his “name will be written in golden letters” should he ever write a book on the business. 2 As somebody who believes in markets, I find this behaviour outrageous. How did this happen? How did this happen? Some academics I have spoken to think that part of the answer may lie in the field of moral psychology. 3 That view suggests that initial transgressions occur because many decisions taken by those in financial markets are done by way of automatic, fast thinking – “System 1” thinking in the language of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman 4.