samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Major differences from when I last worked at the Riksbank I have worked at the Riksbank twice, during two entirely different regimes – or paradigms, if you wish. The first time was during a period of around fifteen years from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. At that time, the credit and foreign exchange markets were regulated. The Riksbank determined both the price and size of the credit on offer and had access to tools such as liquidity ratios and lending caps. The Riksbank also had regular meetings with the commercial banks, to closely monitor that they were observing the regulations. The banks were told in no uncertain terms if they had failed on some point. The Riksbank was able to conduct a policy that stabilised economic activity to some extent, but monetary policy – to the extent that one can call it such – was largely subordinate to other economic policy. One important task for the Riksbank during this period was to secure the funding needs of the government and the housing sector. This was of course only possible because the markets  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  were so strictly regulated and separate from the surrounding world. In other words, the situation was completely different then – although some of the regulation tools used then have begun to come back into fashion, albeit in another form and context.

The regulatory model for stablecoins could include different applications of these features – as long as it offers equivalent protections to those for commercial bank money. As part of this, a key requirement will be to ensure that, unless the stablecoin is operating as a bank, the backing assets for stablecoins cover the outstanding coin issuance at all times. An alternative to a private stablecoin, but not a mutually exclusive one would be central bank digital money in the form of a central bank digital coin (CBDC). Central bank money has a unique role in anchoring value and promoting confidence in monetary systems. A CBDC could therefore play an important role in sustaining, and potentially expanding retail access to central bank money. I have discussed the public interest in the safety and security of money. But there is another very important public interest in this area which goes to the heart of the monetary and financial system. I mentioned earlier that commercial bank money combines in one place – bank accounts – the store of value and means of payment functions of money and in doing so enables lending to the real economy. What if new forms of digital money – Stablecoins or CBDC – result in a large scale displacement of commercial bank money which means that a higher fraction of money in the economy must be backed by high-quality liquid assets rather than by loans to the real economy, with this being necessary to preserve the stability of a now more fragmented financial system.
Further, it is necessary to equip the European regulatory framework10 to deal with a hypothetical systemic crisis, to address the problem of the liquidity of institutions under resolution, and to analyse the possible role of asset management companies in the event of severe impairment of European financial institutions’ balance sheets. EU Member States should also move swiftly to reach an agreement on creating a common European procedure for the administrative winding-up of credit institutions. Lastly, we should not overlook the importance of making headway on the agenda of measures for the capital markets union project. In October, the European Commission launched a new action plan, identifying 16 areas for action to drive the project forward. I would like to highlight some of the most significant ones: supervisory convergence; sustainable finance to consolidate European leadership worldwide; changing the regulatory treatment of securitisations to strengthen banks’ lending capacity; or promoting market financing to SMEs and the development of venture capital markets. In general, progress on these and other key matters, such as the creation of a European safe asset, is a complex task that requires the adoption of measures and regulatory changes in a wide variety of areas, and entails the full implication not only of EU authorities, but also of the Member States. It is crucial that the authorities concerned have the firm political will to implement the required measures and do away with barriers and red lines. In short, to avoid a piecemeal approach and the loss of momentum, the utmost political ambition must be mobilised.

8  projects mean that the main mechanism for financing the public deficit continues to be traditional access to markets. An aspect I would like to underscore regarding the economic policy response to date is the high degree of complementarity of the measures adopted by the different authorities. If the ECB's response and the decisions of the European Council have enabled governments to expand the scope for fiscal action, it is the action taken by the latter and the ECB itself that has been vital for guaranteeing liquidity and reducing risk for non-financial corporations. This, along with the decisions taken by micro and macroprudential authorities and the ECB, has helped sustain the flow of credit to economic agents. It is very important that this degree of complementarity is maintained in the future. Outstanding European architecture reforms This crisis has also shown that, despite the progress of recent years, further improvements are needed in euro area governance. In particular, beyond the importance of having access to a recovery fund with the characteristics described above, we must continue to stress the major limitation for the proper functioning of the euro area of not having a permanent macroeconomic stabilisation mechanism that allows for greater risk-sharing in response to economic shocks.
But then a common currency  BIS Review /1998  –2–  of the region, not the dollar, will be agreed upon and the first step in this direction is to have a strong real. Responsibility I have been in the government since the beginning of 1995. I feel myself responsible for what has been done during this whole period. Pedro Malan has a key role in the government. Few Brazilians have his international credentials. He has good relations with men that make this world of international finance. His continued presence is essential to consolidate this transition period. But we should care about policies rather than names. Malan and I are carrying out a mission. Devaluation of the real No economy in the world could sustain a devaluation in real terms of 40%. The difficulty in maintaining a devaluation of that magnitude is that inflation would resume. The exchange rate has overshot, but it will come back, appreciating as time elapses. Currency Board I would like to stress my opposition to the idea of adopting a currency board in Brazil. This subject has already been examined and the government has decided against it. The Brazilian economy is not dollarised and I believe it would be a disastrous policy option. Brazil tried a similar regime in 1906. Nowadays, money supply in the expanded concept (M4) comes to $ billion, while international reserves reach $ 36 billion. To implement this regime we would have to dollarise and lengthen the maturity of these deposits.

Nevertheless, the issue of diversification continues to strike a chord among regional central banks and major institutional investors, driven by the accelerated pace of reserves accumulation in the past decade, low-yield environment in the G7 economies and changing trends in trade pattern and currency regimes. This necessitates a rethinking on how reserves should be invested. The fast pace of reserves accumulation and low yields on G7 assets remained the most compelling reasons for diversification in the quest to seek better risk-adjusted returns in alternative asset classes, such as emerging market debt, commodities and equities. BIS Review 162/2010  3  Intra-regional trade in Asia has surged from 32% of total exports in 1995 to an average of 50% in 2008, while the use of regional currencies for trade settlement has started. Furthermore, most Asian economies have gradually shifted from a US dollar focus to a more flexible exchange regime against broad basket of currencies, a trend which underlies the rationale of diversifying away from US dollar. In tandem with the rising savings and reserves accumulation by regional central banks, these reinforce the argument for more intra-regional investments which will contribute to the goals envisioned by the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) initiatives. The ABF was a fund launched by EMEAP, comprising foreign reserves held by regional central banks for investments in regional bonds with the aim of contributing to the development of regional bond markets.
Although the outlook for price stability is favourable, having allowed interest rates to fall to historically low levels, monetary policy cannot by itself generate lasting and sustainable growth and employment in the euro area. Part of the weakness in economic growth in the euro area may be linked to a lack of ambition in recent years in both fiscal and structural reforms to improve the conditions for investment and employment in the euro area. The euro area needs structural reforms which increase the flexibility of labour, financial and product markets and effectively increase potential output growth, job creation and investment. Although the extent and implementation of labour market reforms have been uneven across countries, the efforts made in the 1990s resulted in positive progress in two areas: first, in fostering employment growth across most sectors, which rose to 1.5% per year on average between 1997 and 2001, and second, in helping groups, such as women, the young and old and the least educated, to enter the labour market. Labour market reforms should now focus on reducing high structural unemployment and increasing participation and employment rates. Indeed, it is important that, alongside social considerations, the countries of the euro area give more weight to economic efficiency within labour markets. Capital market reforms can also play a major role in making the euro area economy more flexible. Much has been achieved, not least due to the introduction of the euro, and the bulk of the Financial Services Action Plan has been implemented.

Monetary and fiscal policy, and structural reform The achievement and maintenance of strong growth implies a perspective that extends beyond shorter-term cyclical developments. Indeed, over the medium term, economic growth tends to be negatively affected by the considerable costs associated with inflation, and the prospect of stable prices is therefore a key factor of growth. By being strictly geared towards maintaining price stability in a credible and lasting manner, monetary policy makes an important contribution to achieving a high level of output and employment, and to sustaining growth. Confidence in lasting price stability removes the inflation risk premium on interest rates, ensuring low real interest rates, which in turn foster investment, growth and employment. Theoretical and empirical evidence clearly confirm that there is no long-term trade off between price stability and economic growth. Trying to use monetary policy to fine-tune economic activity or to gear it above a sustainable level will, in the long run, simply lead to rising inflation - not to faster economic growth. Fiscal policy also plays a key role in contributing to macroeconomic stability. Stable, sustainable and efficient fiscal policies exert a favourable effect on long-term growth performance. They stimulate savings, capital formation, employment and innovation. And they facilitate the task of the monetary policy-maker in maintaining price stability. Sound public finances should rely on automatic stabilisers, rather than discretionary fine-tuning, to dampen the cyclical fluctuations of aggregate demand.
Given the Bank’s somewhat chequered record on gender diversity up to that point, it was rather unfortunately named CHAPS. And indeed still is. In 1993, the Bank stepped-in to rescue a flagging project to upgrade the securities settlement process in the UK. The Bank designed and built a new, safety-first, system which again exists to this day. Fortunately, we did not call this one BLOKES, but rather the gender-neutral CREST. Most recently, in the light of the crisis, the Bank has been at the forefront of the debate about re-organising the structure of banking, with a ring-fence or firewall between the basic retail and investment banking sides of the business. This structural approach is increasingly finding favour both in the UK (through the proposals of the Vickers Commission) and internationally (for example, through the Volcker proposals in the US and the recent Liikanen proposals in Europe). 9  Sayers (1976). 10  Sayers op cit. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  For the past half-century, the Bank’s structural agenda has become a central feature. But at the time it marked a radical departure from the Bank’s past. Designing what are in effect financial public goods is a front-foot activity. The Bank had grown a new limb, augmenting its crisis-management right arm with a crisis-prevention left arm. Stitching it all together So far, I have made no real mention of monetary policy. That is because, for much of its life up to the early 1970s, monetary control at the Bank of England was pretty simple.

These two winds have stirred up the water through which the UK economy must pass. The westerly gale first hit us in August as developments in the US mortgage market led to turmoil in global financial markets. For some years, banks were able to borrow cheaply in world capital markets to expand their lending. They packaged the resulting loans and sold assets backed by those loans to capital market investors. They were able to do that because some investors had failed to adjust to lower rates of return caused by high savings in emerging economies and low inflation at home. Those investors engaged in a “search for yield” by buying risky assets without always understanding fully the risks attached to them. Families and businesses had access to more finance at lower cost. That was most obvious in the growth of the US sub-prime mortgage market, where the potential problem of lending to people who could not repay when the interest rate was reset on their floating rate mortgages was becoming only too clear. In the United Kingdom too, borrowing and spending growth were strong and inflationary pressures built up. BIS Review 8/2008  1  But in August all that changed dramatically. Rising default rates in the US mortgage market led investors around the world to question whether they were being adequately compensated for the risks they were bearing on a wide range of assets – not just those associated with sub-prime mortgages.
Eva Srejber: Frameworks and stabilisation policy in a monetary union Speech by Ms Eva Srejber, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Bank of Uganda, Kampala, 17 August 2006. *  *  *  Let me begin by thanking you for the invitation to come here and speak today on the occasion of Bank of Uganda’s 40th anniversary. On several occasions the members of the Executive Board of the Swedish central bank, including myself, have had reason to address the interesting topic of monetary unions. Besides being a stimulating theoretical exercise, it has been of great practical importance with the creation of the euro. Also, from a Swedish point of view, because of the national referendum in 2003 when a majority of Swedish voters said no to adopting the euro. Another reason, from an international point of view, is the trend in exchange rate policies towards corner solutions, of which membership in a monetary union is one. Although the East African Community (EAC) – with member states Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania – aims at eventually forming a political federation, and not only a monetary union, I am convinced that the experiences from other monetary unions, for instance the CFA Zone, will prove valuable to you in your efforts. However, since my comparative advantage concerns the Swedish and European experience I will discuss monetary unions from that perspective and I hope that this might be of some value.

When thinking about the set-up of national fiscal stabilisation policy in a monetary union intended to create credibility, these five guiding principles – consistency, commitment, transparency and accountability, coupled with independence of policy makers – are a good starting point. Fiscal stabilisation policy set-up Turning to its design, three relevant questions provide a framework for discussing the set-up of a fiscal stabilisation policy regime for a country in a monetary union: what is to be stabilised, how should it be stabilized and who should do the stabilising? 6 Addressing what is to be stabilised, two alternatives that were discussed in Sweden were the output gap and the inflation rate. Irrespective of what target is chosen, it should apply in the medium term, thereby allowing temporary deviations in the event of shocks hitting the economy. In the case of an  6  6  This discussion is based on Boije, Borg and Eklund (2002) and Boije and Shahnazarian (2003). BIS Review 73/2006  inflation target, it should be designed in such a way as to take account of necessary changes in relative prices; i.e. allowing for adjustments in the real exchange rate. Different targets have different advantages and drawbacks. For our purposes, when discussing the framework, it is more important to stress that the motives and forecasts behind the stabilisation policy decisions should be presented in a clear and open fashion. In turn, this helps build credibility through accountability. How is the policy objective to be stabilised?
In the next few years, job growth picked up sharply and real estate markets soared, a clear sign that a growing number of people had regained confidence in the city. But, even during the booming 1980s, crime rates continued to increase—it wasn’t until 1990 that crime rates peaked and began a long downward trend. I returned to New York in 1983. The draw was an employment opportunity in finance. At the time, the city’s circumstances were improving but crime was still high, and there were still lots of problems caused by years of underinvestment. For example, I recall that the New York City subway system at the time was a near-wreck, with train speeds sharply reduced in many areas due to poor track conditions and dilapidated infrastructure. But, the seeds of improvement were in place. The financial services industry was beginning a long boom marked by financial market innovation and the rapid development of the nation’s debt capital markets—a boom that ended with the financial crisis. When I arrived, the build-out of the Battery Park City neighborhood was just starting. My first year, I lived at Gateway Plaza, which was the first big apartment complex in Battery Park City. However, it was early days and the nearest grocery store was about half a mile away north on West Street! Although a major economic downturn throughout the Northeast in the early 1990s took its toll on New York City—especially on employment and home prices—the city’s population continued to grow and its crime rate began to decline.

With more competitors around, the wider effects of the failure of an individual bank would in all likelihood be smaller. The stability authorities need to be more alert than in the past to this source of economic vulnerability. Consistent with that, as we prepare for the transfer of prudential supervision, the Bank of England wants to reduce barriers to entry somewhat, so that the banking system can, over time, become less concentrated. But for that to be sensible, we need to be confident in the authorities’ ability to resolve those banks that get into distress without dramatic spillovers – lowering barriers to entry by removing barriers to exit. For smaller banks, that should already be possible using the Special Resolution Regime introduced in 2009. Prudential supervisors will need, as a priority, to ensure that banks are set up to enable the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to pay out rapidly. To be clear, for banks funded by insured deposits, the costs of failure will fall on their peers. Over time, I suspect that that will increase pressure for a funded deposit-guarantee scheme with risk-based levies. The Bank would welcome that. Prudential regulation: higher risk-based capital requirements and a cap on leverage But the reform agenda is not just about handling failure. Banks will be better capitalised, more liquid, and less interconnected. To take just one of those changes in the global order, higher capital requirements will affect behaviour as well as resilience.
This MoU sets a framework of cooperation among OIC member countries in key economic activities, with the objective of enhancing the opportunities for economic growth and development. Today’s Seminar is indeed a testimony to the continued efforts by both the IDB and Malaysia in enhancing the cooperation and deepening of business relationship. As all of us are aware, infrastructure development is a critical component to unlock potential economic activities, thus supporting sustainable economic growth of a nation. Malaysia has placed great emphasis on infrastructure development as part of its economic transformation, diversifying from agriculture to manufacturing and, in more recent years, in the services sector as well. Over the last ten years, the Government of Malaysia has allocated a total of nearly RM100 billion for infrastructure development mainly in transport, energy and public utilities. The Malaysian government has also encouraged the participation of the private sector in the development of infrastructure through privatization and the public-private partnership (PPP) policies. On the global front, the estimated value of infrastructure development is estimated to be USD35 trillion over the next 20 years. For the Asian region alone, a study done by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reveals that the region needs USD750 billion per year over the year 2010–2020 to meet the rising needs of infrastructure development. Out of this, the needs for the ASEAN region have been estimated to be over USD60 billion per year. Considering the vast opportunities of infrastructure projects regionally and globally, Malaysian contractors should seize the opportunity for further expansion of their business.

At the same time, tax financing may be politically difficult to implement.4 In the short term, the politically easiest way of financing war, but in the longer term perhaps the most harmful, is through the printing of money, as this almost inevitably results in higher inflation. A fairly large share of the literature on the effects of war on inflation is about the financing of war. A review of the effects on inflation of the United States’ wars from the American Revolution to the First Gulf War shows that when the US has been involved in more limited wars, they have usually been financed through higher taxes or increased borrowing or a combination of these. However, in the case of major wars, the point where these two methods of financing have been considered exhausted has often been reached, and the government therefore turned to the printing press. The result has often been a considerably higher inflation rate.5 The two world wars are examples of this. After a war, sovereign debt has often increased considerably. At the same time, it may be difficult to raise tax revenue in the same way as before the war. This may be because the political situation has become more unstable or the economy's production capacity has declined. In such a situation, there may be a great temptation for a government to try to alleviate the situation by using the printing press to finance current expenditure and pay off the loans.