samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This is mainly due to companies rationalising their operations to manage the competition with other companies and to new companies being able to enter the market. There are several studies, made by for instance the OECD and the SNS, which have described this development. Globalisation also reinforces competition and encourages productivity growth. This applies in particular during the past fifteen years, among other things as a result of the EU enlargement, China’s rapidly growing international trade and the opening up of the previously planned economies in eastern Europe. For instance, Sweden’s exports as a percentage of GDP have increased from around 30 per cent in 1990 to around 50 per cent in 2006. Traditionally, developments in trade are explained by income and relative price effects. A study made at the NIESR in London shows that this still applies, on condition that one also takes into account the trade agreements within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the development of the EU and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 1 The significance of IT is visible in two ways; in production and use. If we look at the production of IT, we can observe that the telecom industry's share of the total industry is substantial in Sweden compared with other countries. This means that the rapid development in productivity that has taken place in the telecom industry has significance for the development of productivity in the economy as a whole.

We expect to enter the next phase over the coming years when GDP growth will slow down. This indicates a lower rate of increase in productivity. Another factor that indicates a lower rate of increase for productivity is the composition of the labour force. The rapid increase in employment means that an unusually large number of new job-seekers are entering the labour market. It is reasonable to expect that those who now obtain jobs have a slightly lower productivity than those who already have jobs. In addition, employment is mainly increasing in the service sector, which also indicates a lower rate of increase in the future. Structural factors also indicate a slowdown It is more difficult to assess how globalisation, deregulation, IT investments and other structural changes will contribute to productivity growth in the future. Some structural changes are of a one-off nature while others are ongoing processes without any clear ending. And even if these changes are of a one-off nature, such as the fact that Sweden joined the EU, they may have significance for a long period of time. Globalisation is a factor that will probably continue to be a driving force behind productivity for a long time to come. Integration within the EU is deepening. The countries in eastern and central Europe who  6  4  Greenwood & Krusell (2007)  BIS Review 61/2007  have moved away from planned economies have many years of rapid development ahead of them before they reach levels corresponding to those in western Europe.
They will discuss how countries can best formulate labour market policies in the pandemic’s wake to restore and rebuild workers’ ability to engage in the labour market of the future. 13 At lunchtime, we are privileged to have Professor Emi Nakamura join us virtually. She will speak on “Inflation, Monetary Policy and the Phillips Curve”, a topic that that has become dominant to policy considerations this year. 14 Anchoring today’s discussions is Professor Ricardo Reis, the author of this year’s Commissioned Paper, who will discuss whether monetary policy has placed an undue emphasis on the natural real rate of interest, which we term r* and measure by government bond yields, a parameter that is inherently tricky to define and problematic to measure. Despite these difficulties, r* has seemingly come to occupy a central place in assessments of the appropriateness of the policy stance, a conundrum that Professor Reis will help clarify. We are delighted that Professor Andres Velasco and Professor Vissing-Jorgensen are with us to discuss the paper. 15 But first, we are honoured to have Dr Li Bo, Deputy Managing Director at the IMF, to deliver the opening address for AMPF2022. He brings with him a wealth of experience in economic policymaking, serving in a range of monetary- and macroprudential-policy related roles at the People’s Bank of China, before assuming his current position at the IMF. Dr Li’s breadth of experience and depth of technical expertise will offer pertinent insights, at this complex global conjuncture. ***  © 2022, Government of Singapore.

The MPC process, however, involves no pressure to reach agreement. We are each accountable for our views; full minutes are taken and published; our individual vote is publicly recorded. This is counter-intuitive for anyone from a PLC background. It is impossible to believe that a split in the Board of a major corporation, certainly a split that was aired in the press, could exist for any length of time. Either the split would need to heal rapidly, or more likely some high-profile departures from the Board would ensue. But in the MPC a system which permits different views to surface publicly is both refreshing and appropriate. Since economic analysis involves a great deal of peering into the future, it is not surprising that there should be disagreement. There is, of course, the old joke of putting nine  BIS Review 102/2000  2  Economists into one room and getting ten views. But it is better to be open about the disagreements than try to forge a false sense of consensus. Of course, alongside this transparency and open voting system goes a degree of personalisation within the Press. An industry has grown up geared to guessing our personal habits, psychoanalysing our personalities and classifying us into different species of the aviary. And alongside this has gone a demand for even greater transparency which falls only a little short of having TV cameras in the Committee Room.
This might arise because the pool of workers willing to enter the labour force at the existing wage rate has increased – for example, older workers prepared to work longer than they had planned or workers from overseas moving into the UK labour force. There is evidence of many of these trends intensifying over the past few years. For example, the unemployment rate among 18-to-24 year olds has fallen by almost 4 percentage points over the past year. The trend in labour force participation rate has picked up significantly among women and older cohorts over the same period. And net migration to the UK was estimated to be almost 300,000 in the year to September 2014, almost double the level two years earlier. 7  8  For example, Weale (2015). BIS central bankers’ speeches  There is evidence, in the UK and internationally, to support the Phillips curve having flattened over time. For example, cross-country evidence from the IMF suggests that the slope of the price Phillips curve has fallen, from around one in the 1970s to 0.1–0.2 today (Chart 16). That could reflect the effects of globalisation, enhancing competition in domestic labour and product markets.8 The implications of a flatter Phillips curve for future wage growth and inflation can be assessed by rerunning the projections from the MPC’s February Inflation Report. Specifically, assume a halving of the Phillips curve slope used in the model of Chart 15, from 1 to 0.5.9 That slope is still well above the levels in Chart 16.

Chart 3 shows the paths of short-term forward interest rates in the UK, US, euro-area and Japan for the next 30 years. They imply that rates will rise, on  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  average, by only 10 basis points per year in the US, 7 basis points per year in the UK, 6 basis points per year in Japan and 5 basis points per year in the euro-area. That is the most gradual of interest rate glide-paths. The eventual cruising altitude for interest rates expected by financial markets is also remarkably low by historical comparison. The level of forward interest rates 30 years hence is around 3% in the US, 2.5% in the UK, 2% in Japan and 1.2% in the euro-area. Up until the crisis, the average level of policy rates in these countries in the post-war period was 3%, 7%, 4% and 3% respectively – for most, roughly double the levels currently expected. Interest rate end-points are also remarkably low. In a growing number of countries, interest rates are not just low but have recently turned negative. At last count, eleven countries had negative shorter-term bond yields, including nine within the euro-area. In part, that reflects the effects of a recent further round of policy loosening by central banks. At present, two-thirds of countries globally have policy rates below 3% (Chart 4).
Regarding the internal propagation of the shock to commodity prices, food prices have increased less locally than internationally, indicating a compression of margins in the industry. Overall, this compression reverses the expansion they posted in the second half of 2008 and throughout 2009, after the fall in external prices (figure 13). However, it cannot be ruled out that, if international prices continue to rise, further effects on domestic inflation may be observed. As for oil, due to conditions inherent in this market, pass-through to consumer prices has been instantaneous. Facing additional shocks, the stabilization system in place could help smooth short-term fluctuations in fuel prices. Nonetheless, it is not its objective, in a mediumterm horizon, to isolate local price movements from external ones. In addition, the effects might be amplified if the availability of hydroelectric energy diminishes increasing the dependence on thermal energy generation based on oil derivatives. Recall that in 2007–2008 energy prices rose considerably because of an electric production mix that was more intensive in thermal generation at a time that the oil price was hitting record highs. Today, the marginal cost of electric generation is 25 percent below its peak of 2008 (figure 14). Another difference between the current situation and the episode of 2007–2008 has been the evolution of the exchange rate.

Likewise, business and consumer confidence surveys show increased concerns about inflation. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  As usual, there are various risks that could shape a different macroeconomic scenario. On this occasion, the Board believes the risk balance for both inflation and output is biased upward. The main risk to inflation has to do with the size, persistence and propagation of the shock to commodity prices, especially oil. Internationally, as I said, the baseline scenario assumes that the oil price will be high and fairly stable. However, it may happen that the political tensions in some oil-exporting countries continue or intensify, resulting in a steeper upward trend. The global effects of such a setting are clearly inflationary in the immediate future, while further down the line its combined effects on world demand and interest rates may moderate world economic activity (table 3). In the case of foodstuff prices, current aggregate indexes are above their peak of 2007–2008, although the composition of products showing the bigger increases differs. In any case, the velocity of these hikes has been greater than that of the last episode (figure 12). Both futures prices and analysts’ projections assume that the prices of these products will not increase further but will rather tend to normalize. Still, it cannot be ruled out that if supply-side problems in the agricultural sector persist within a context of strong growth in emerging economies, pressures on the prices of foodstuffs may be intensified.
Financial institutions are increasingly using technology to gain an edge over their competitors, or to achieve cost efficiencies and free up resources for new growth areas. In consumer banking, we are now seeing new mobile payment products that enable on-the-go transactions. In private banking, banks are putting more investment tools at the disposal of their clients. For corporates, banks are using technology to facilitate end-to-end supply chain financing. And needless to say, cyber security is now a key risk, everywhere in the world. Across the business, from management to individual business units, technology skills and adaptability must be a strategic imperative. Initiatives to facilitate the building of competencies IBF has a key role in ensuring that finance professionals are able to keep pace with these challenges of the future. IBF has been undertaking the strategic role of a standard-setting body for financial sector competencies since 2001. When we went on to launch the Financial Industry Competency Standards or FICS in 2005, IBF took on the role as the national accreditation and certification agency for the FICS framework. The FICS cannot be a static set of competency standards. It must evolve, to cater to new business opportunities and new regulations, and to encourage individuals to build up expertise continually. We are thus unveiling today the “IBF Standards”, which provide practice-oriented development roadmaps for all our financial sector practitioners. The IBF standards which will merge IBF’s current offering of industry examinations and industry standards offered under FICS, into an integrated and seamless set of competency standards.

My sense is that presently, we could do this: (a)  While still maintaining the attractiveness of investing in Treasury and agency securities relative to other highly liquid sovereign markets and not sparking significant increases in rates;  (b)  Simultaneously providing some alleviation of the collateral shortage we have helped create, and;  (c)  Reducing the need for the New York desk to perform the complicated jujitsu we at the FOMC have tasked it with in creating alternative strategies that stretch its traditional mandate and which may give further rise to congressional criticism of the Federal Reserve and a New York Fed that some influential lawmakers already consider to be either too big for its britches or not being able to fill out its suit. This would make crystal clear to Congress and the public our stated desire to make the ON RRP facility a temporary one that will be eliminated when it is no longer necessary. Mind you, the above proposition does not imply any rush to raise the fed funds rate or its equivalents, such as the rate on excess reserves. That will depend on progress made toward meeting our dual objectives of maintaining price stability around the FOMC’s 2 percent target while facilitating full employment. Nor should it be interpreted as a criticism of the very able people we have on the trading desk: I hold them in highest regard; they perform their duty admirably.
So if somebody shorted the market thinking that the adjustment should be deeper, and if the market did fall and he benefited from the short position, we would even congratulate him for having excellent foresight. But we are against market manipulation, specifically the manipulation of our currency market, taking advantage of our passiveness under the discipline of the rule-based currency board arrangements, to produce very high interest rates with a view to sending the stock market into a nosedive and benefiting from a short position in stock index futures. Such manipulation was conducted with no regard to economic fundamentals. This presents serious risks of market dislocation or overshooting, with asset markets ratcheting down every time this double play is staged. This can be highly damaging to the stability of the whole financial system of Hong Kong. It also presents the serious risk of undermining general confidence in our currency. Our aim has been to deter market manipulation, not to jack up the market. The second accusation is that we panicked because the pain of adjustment with a fixed exchange rate, including the interest rate pain arising from capital outflow under the currency board arrangements, had become unbearable. We did not panic. We were trying to prevent the market panic and overshooting that those manipulating our markets were trying to engineer. And Hong Kong is prepared and well equipped to bear the inevitable pain of economic adjustment necessitated by the financial turmoil that originated in this region and is now spreading to the developed markets.

However, the models developed and long-term analysis made after 1980s revealed that the loose monetary policy under high inflation conditions could only end up raising the inflation rate and growth would slow down due to uncertainties arising from inflation. We very well know from our own high inflation experiences in the past three decades and other countries’ experiences that average growth slows down when inflation climbs and average growth accelerates when inflation falls. The high growth rates we achieved in the past three years, which were marked by the stability program, is a good evidence of this generalization. Attaining price stability is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable growth. For this very reason, today, the primary objective of the Central Bank is to achieve and maintain price stability, which makes the biggest contribution to sustainable growth and increase in employment. Distinguished participants, In this part of my speech, I would like to dwell on the three pillars of the change observed in inflation dynamics under falling inflation process. The first significant change observed in economies under falling inflation conditions is the decline in interest rates. If enough credibility has been established in the falling inflation process, significant decline is observed both in nominal and real interest rates and this process does not only lead to rise in expenditures but also in investments.
Such fluid arrangements are also being leveraged to build internal capacity building and support transition. A survey conducted by Capgemini reported that more than 60% of businesses fill new jobs powered by AI and automation with fluid workers first, then gradually seek to transfer knowledge from these specialists to other full-time employees in the organisation. These strategies will have important implications for how we build the future workforce from without rather than within. Such strategies can create greater flexibility for organisations to respond to changing business needs, but they also call for a fundamental re-thinking of pre-existing organisational and cultural norms. As we move forward, deepening employee engagements will become more important to enable firms to better anticipate shifting trends and inform approaches to building a future-fit workforce. It is not uncommon today to find up to four different generations coexisting in many workplaces, each with different perspectives on leadership, learning and workplace culture. Recognising these differences within talent strategies will be important to successfully cultivate a future-ready workforce. Closing message: In closing, I am reminded of the words of Mr. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State who said: "One of the greatest talents of all, is the talent to recognise and develop talent in others". This lies at the heart of building a workforce fit for the future. We all have a part to play – as employers, professional development bodies, training providers and workers – to build a resilient and sustainable talent pipeline for the future.

The aim would be to provide a kind of “digital banknote", which would combine the security of banknotes issued by the central bank with the ease of use and innovation of dematerialised means of payment. The ECB and the Banque de France are working on all the associated challenges, and we have already conducted 9 experiments in Paris on an “interbank” digital currency. They will be continued in 2022, focusing on improving cross-border payments. Indeed, the euro is also a global success: no continent before us had managed to create and introduce a new currency in this way. In this respect, the euro has a political dimension, to consolidate European sovereignty – like the dollar for the United States. Our currency has proven its role in protecting European economies from the turbulence of Covid, and has preserved favourable financing conditions for all economic players, households, SMEs and companies, and states. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  But for the trimaran of the euro to be fully operational, its central hull – the ECB and the single monetary policy – needs to be completed with two floats. A public float with a permanent common fiscal capacity (which does not mean that an additional annual budget is needed), to better cope with macroeconomic shocks. And a private float to promote a better allocation of capital in the euro area. The latter has abundant savings: the surplus of domestic savings over investment structurally exceeds EUR 300 billion.
Thus although the fiscal imbalance is narrowing and returning back to the levels stipulated by the Maastricht Treaty a strong case can be made for continued caution in Malta’s fiscal policy and for further measures that would help to ensure the achievement of the government’s targets. With a government debt ratio at around 69% in 2010 and 2011, it has become even more important to bring down this ratio at a faster pace (Chart 3). 3  J. C. Trichet, “Remarks at the farewell event”, Frankfurt am Main, 19 October 2011, p. 3. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Moreover, despite the weak external environment the economy continues to grow at a sustained rate and, as I referred to earlier, it is considerably easier to undertake further consolidation at a time of ongoing economic growth. Reductions in the deficit ratio would also leave more room for manoeuvrability on the fiscal side in the event of an economic slowdown without breaching the European rules. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The least painful way to reduce the ratio of the deficit to the GDP is through economic growth. In turn faster growth can be achieved through improvements in productivity. In this respect, consensus needs to be reached on steps that can be taken with minimal social disruption to reduce the threat to, and ultimately enhance, the country’s international competitiveness. Competitiveness depends partly on developments in productivity and wages.

Some reforms underway represent efforts to ensure that our rules keep pace with the achievements that the industry has already made. On this note, I would argue that Basel II is just as much about aligning supervisory practices more closely with the industry’s latest advances as it is about promoting improvements in the management of risk within the industry itself. But I sympathise with the sense that the wide range of standards that are evolving in parallel represents a drain on the limited resources that firms have to keep pace with those changes. I agree that we must find a way to balance the dangers we are trying to ward off against the time and resources it takes to adapt to new circumstances and new rules. And I want to work with you to make sure that the labours you undertake are not merely exercises in compliance with new rules, but rather will represent honest efforts to strengthen your practices and your long-term prospects for growth and innovation. From my perspective as chairman of the Basel Committee, I can say that the Committee’s main focus in the near future will be on completing the current work and on implementing Basel II in a sound, consistent, and effective manner. This will allow us all a period to digest the framework we have designed. At the same time, we have always said that Basel II should be an evolutionary approach. This does not mean a moving target.