samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
4  The measures incorporated into the Plan would reduce the average inflation rate in 2022 by between 0.5 pp and 0.8 pp. 4  This is a very important consideration that must steer the debate about what role the different economic policy instruments should play. In my view, given it is a common shock, the optimal response would be forceful pan-European action that mitigates, in the short term, the economic effects, particularly for the most vulnerable agents. Furthermore, in the medium term, this crisis stresses the need to boost Europe’s strategic autonomy in terms of both energy and defence. Indeed, joint European action, ideally through the pooling of budgetary resources, is once again the most effective means of funding the resulting increase in public expenditure. This common response should stave off a persistent deterioration in the economic outlook and, in tandem, eliminate a potential new source of financial fragmentation in Europe. As part of the RePowerEU initiative, the European Commission has proposed a plan to reduce the EU’s demand for Russian gas by 60% by the end of 2022. Spain has a key role to play here, given that it accounts for 25% of the EU’s regasification capacity. However, to fully exploit this capacity investment will be required in cross-border interconnections to eliminate the existing bottlenecks. In response to rising energy prices, under the plan options would also be explored to optimise the design of the electricity market in view of the foreseeable changes in the energy mix.

Lim Hng Kiang: The Tokyo Stock Exchange and Singapore Speech by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Minister for Trade and Industry, at the Tokyo Stock Exchange Singapore Representative Office 10th Anniversary, Singapore, 14 December 2006. *  *  *  Congratulatory remarks I am delighted to be here with you this evening to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Tokyo Stock Exchange Singapore Representative Office. Firstly, I would like to thank the Tokyo Stock Exchange for its commitment to Singapore and the region over the past decade and I hope Tokyo Stock Exchange will continue to scale greater heights in coming years. Growth of Asia and Japan When Tokyo Stock Exchange established its overseas office in Singapore in 1996, Singapore and the region were experiencing strong economic growth with Asian economies developing at rates of about 5 to 10% per year. Today, we continue to witness the rise of Asia on the back of the twin drivers of China and India. Prospects for South-East Asia have improved considerably and Japan, after years of stagnation, is firmly back on the track of healthy sustained growth and is a major investor in South-East Asia. As of 2005, Japan's FDI into South-East Asia totaled $ billion, and it is the top investor in Indonesia, and the third largest investor in Vietnam. Changes in the global exchange landscape The competitive landscape in the global exchange arena has also changed significantly.
Should this be confirmed, besides the need for monetary policy to maintain a prolonged, very accommodative stance and for the selective extension of certain ERTE support measures at the national level, an expansion of the support measures for the financing of firms would be advisable, in order to sustain the recovery. In any event, in this second phase of the economic policy response, credit support mechanisms should focus on prioritising access to these funds for firms with  See Banco de España (2020), Annual Report 2019, Box 4.3, “Developments in bank finance for productive activities in the context of the COVID-19 crisis”, and R. Blanco, S. Mayordomo, Á. Menéndez and M. Mulino (2020), Spanish non-financial corporations’ liquidity needs and solvency after the COVID-19 shock, Occasional Paper No 2020, Banco de España. 3  4  sound viability prospects, with a view to providing for the necessary cross-firm and crosssector reallocation of productive resources. Also, it should be acknowledged that the number of financially vulnerable firms will rise significantly as a result of COVID-19. According to analyses by the Banco de España, this increase will be more marked in the SME segment and among firms pursuing activities in the sectors most exposed to COVID-19. An initial factor to be taken into account when assessing the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the corporate sector’s solvency is the future decline in the return on firms’ assets.

For purposes of comparison, the dash-dotted green curve shows the inflation forecast of the September monetary assessment, which was also based on a three-month Libor of 2.75%. The new forecast indicates that inflation will rise in the first half of 2008. It is likely that it will breach even the 2% level. However, this increase will be temporary and will be chiefly due to the rise in oil prices. After that time, inflation will settle at around 1.5%, with a slight upward trend at the end of the period. The slowdown in the international economy explains the downward revision in the inflation outlook for 2009 and 2010. Naturally, any forecast is uncertain, and at present both upside and downside risks are greater than usual. Consequently, we will continue to keep a close watch on developments in the financial markets, the international economy, oil prices and the Swiss franc exchange rate, in order to assess their impact on the inflation outlook and to be in a position to react swiftly should the need arise.
The growth rate intensified as the year unfolded, rising to a rate of 5.8% at the start of 2005. This acceleration has been driven by a higher increase in private consumption and the renewed buoyancy of construction coupled with a pick-up in investment in equipment. Households’ expenditure has been underpinned by the recovery in their disposable income, which has benefited from higher employment growth and from a comparatively favourable contribution by general government, through the net effect of benefits and taxes. But above all it is the increase in household wealth in recent years - largely linked to the rise in real-estate asset values - and favourable financing conditions which are most underpinning household consumption and residential investment decisions. The behaviour of productive investment has, in recent years, reflected the opportunities and uncertainties of this expansionary phase, many of them related to the external environment. However, business investment progressively took a lead from the robustness of demand during 2004 and it started the current year on a clearly more expansionary path. Lax financial conditions, the healthy position achieved by those corporations with most investment potential and favourable expectations about economic developments are behind this rise. Set against the increase in domestic demand, external demand has exerted an increasingly contractionary influence. Although world trade picked up in 2004, goods exports grew less than external markets, while imports climbed at very high rates, increasing their penetration in the Spanish market.

Jaime Caruana: Overview of the Spanish economy in 2004 Address by Mr Jaime Caruana, Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, to the Governing Council of the Bank of Spain on the occasion of the presentation of the Annual Report 2004, Madrid, 10 June 2005. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, The performance of the world economy in 2004 was exceptional: growth exceeded 5%, the highest rate for the last quarter of a century; inflation remained under control, with the exception of slight rises in some emerging countries; and the climate on international financial markets was relatively relaxed, allowing generous financing conditions in most countries. No headway was made, however, in correcting the world economy’s main disequilibria, which tended to worsen. Adding to these imbalances was the shock of higher oil prices, which look more permanent than in previous episodes. There are thus persistent risks and vulnerabilities which, if not corrected, might endanger the continuity of growth. Underpinning the buoyancy of the world economy was, above all, the contribution of US and, to a greater extent, Chinese demand, along with that from other emerging Asian economies. There was also a marked rise in activity in other emerging regions, such as Latin America and the central and eastern European countries. Conversely, the economic performance in the euro area and Japan was disappointing, with rates of expansion running below initial forecasts.
Jarle Bergo: Household saving and the economic outlook Speech by Mr Jarle Bergo, Deputy Governor of the Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), Oslo, 3 October 2005. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The address is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 21 September, Inflation Report 2/05 and on previous speeches. The references and the charts in pdf-format  can also be found on the website of the Norges Bank. *  *  *  Introduction First of all, let me take the opportunity to thank you for your invitation to speak to you this morning. Most of you in the audience today are in daily contact with the public to give them advice about saving and investment decisions. Some of these decisions can have considerable impact on a household’s financial situation. In addition, overall developments in the economy are a result of all these individual decisions. In any case, it is important that all of these decisions are based on the best possible information. Savings motive and forms of saving One decision we take as individuals is how much of our current income we are not going to spend on consumption immediately. In other words – how much we are going to save. We can save directly in the form of fixed assets such as residential property or by investing in financial assets.

In this context, the ESRB is further analysing systemic risks posed by liquidity mismatch and leverage in investment funds. Moreover, the report identifies considerable interconnectedness between banks and shadow banks, particularly money market funds (MMFs). Approximately two-thirds of MMFs’ total assets are related to banks, mainly in the form of debt securities. This interconnectedness was a key consideration underpinning the ESRB’s recommendation that MMFs should have a fluctuating net asset value, rather than promising a constant one, and that they should be subject to enhanced disclosure and liquidity requirements.12  Macroprudential policy beyond banking More generally, the ESRB is analysing connections across different sectors and geographies of the financial system. This cross-cutting analysis informs the development and calibration of macroprudential policy beyond banking. In this way, targeted research enhances the quality of policymaking and thereby improves the resilience of the financial system. 2/4  BIS Central Banker's Speeches  The ESRB believes that the smooth functioning and systemic resilience of derivatives markets can be improved by requiring standardised over-the-counter contracts to be centrally cleared and traded on exchanges or electronic trading platforms, in line with the commitments made by the G20 in 2009. The EU’s first central clearing obligation came into effect in June this year for certain interest rate derivatives, and will gradually be extended to other transactions. The ESRB is monitoring the effects of this obligation on collateral demand and network structure, and will publish its findings in due course.13 The ESRB is also leading research into new macroprudential instruments beyond banking.
2 These remarks are focused on the mechanics of policy implementation; see Williams, “‘Normal’ Monetary Policy in Words and Deeds,” September 28, 2018, for a discussion of the evolution of Federal Reserve policy actions and communications amid the exit from the extraordinary policy accommodation, and his perspective on what “normal” means. 3 Also see Potter, “Confidence in the Implementation of U.S. Monetary Policy Normalization,” August 4, 2018, for a thorough discussion about the implementation of monetary policy normalization. 4 Statement Regarding Reinvestment in Treasury Securities and Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities, September 20, 2017. 5 The effective federal funds rate (EFFR) is calculated as a volume-weighted median of overnight federal funds transactions reported by banks on the FR 2420 Report of Selected Money Market Rates. The New York Fed publishes the EFFR for the prior business day, along with volumes and rate percentiles, on its website daily at approximately 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The EFFR is used as a measure of the typical federal funds transaction and is the way the New York Fed’s Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) measures its success in meeting the directive on interest rate control from the FOMC. 1  As always, the views I will express today are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System. Let’s begin by reviewing where we are in the normalization process.

Since the June technical adjustment, rates on federal funds transactions have continued to edge higher in the range, and most recently the EFFR has risen to the IOR rate, or five basis points below the top of the target range. 27 It is possible that the EFFR could fluctuate around the IOR rate or exceed the IOR rate. However, I don’t believe that this upward pressure on the EFFR signals that we’ve reached balance sheet normalization or that we are at the “steep” portion of the reserve demand curve, where reserves are scarce. This is supported by the lack of evidence across a range of indicators signaling aggregate reserve scarcity. Let me be clear: Observing the EFFR and other rates above the IOR rate is not a sufficient condition for reserve scarcity. 28 In the last few days, even amid upward pressure in overnight funding rates, we still have not seen the range of signs I described earlier that would indicate reserve scarcity, such as significant 25  See Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, March 17 – 18, 2015. Recall that before liftoff, the main concern was that rates would fall below the bottom of the target range. Thus, policymakers thought term draining operations might be helpful.
In other words, consumption has fully recovered more than a year earlier than the Bank expected as recently as August. Large-ticket purchases, such as cars and houses, are also back to around pre-Covid levels. Against a backdrop of more than 40,000 Covid-related deaths, an extra 1 million people unemployed and perhaps a quarter of the workforce having faced a cut in their incomes, the speed and scale of this recovery in consumption is, I think, fairly remarkable. It suggests considerable resilience on the part of consumers in the face of adversity. It also indicates considerable flexibility in both how and on what they spend. On the how, UK consumers have (perhaps unsurprisingly) switched from the High Street online to meet their spending needs. Online spending has jumped from 20% to almost 27% of overall spending during the course of this year, peaking at a third of all spending in May. It seems probable some of this switch online will endure into the future. Online habits tend to persist. On the what, there have been notable switches in expenditure patterns in the face of new working and socialising patterns (Table 1). According to data from Visa, on average this year spending on hotels and accommodation is down by over 40% and on travel by over 35%. By contrast, spending on households goods is up 8% and food spending is up by over 25%. Home production and home consumption has surged to counterbalance the effects of reduced time and money spent away from the home.

Large parts of the economy were, in effect, put into a policy-induced coma. The resulting collapse in aggregate demand would ordinarily have resulted in huge numbers of job losses. Economists call the relationship between demand and jobs Okun’s Law.1 Historically, the Okun coefficient is found to lie around 0.5-0.6. On that basis, the 25% fall in output would have been expected to lower employment by perhaps 12-15% and to raise the unemployment rate by maybe 10 percentage points, taking the pool of unemployed workers to around 5 million. The Government’s job support packages, notably the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), avoided this catastrophic outcome. The CJRS provided support to around 9 million workers at its peak, in addition to which income support was provided to around 2 ½ million self-employed workers. Currently, it is estimated 1  See Okun (1962) 2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  2  that around 2.75 million workers remain on furlough. The CJRS will end next month, to be replaced with the Job Support Scheme (JSS) announced by the Chancellor last week. Of course, not all jobs have or could have been protected. Data from the ONS’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) is, at present, difficult to interpret when gauging employment trends. But based on HMRC data on paid employees, around 700,000 workers may have been laid-off, in addition to around 280,000 self-employed workers. That means around 1 million workers in total may so far have lost their jobs.
The conclusions of these studies are nevertheless evidently too radical: they place finance at the helm of the economy rather than an instrument at its service, an instrument used to achieve a goal, that of the work and progress of mankind. Indeed, as with all human endeavours, finance is not immune to certain excesses, or to certain limits. Some studies4 have highlighted the inherent instability of the financial system. The existence of excessive risk-taking – the economists Guttentag and Herring use the concept of “disaster myopia”5 – or the possibility of bank runs are among the examples of market failures or negative externalities, which justify public intervention and financial regulation. Similarly, some indicators, which are initially signs of economic development, may in extreme cases reflect the over-exuberance of the financial system, which may hamper growth. For instance, it is commonly acknowledged that when volumes of debt as share of GDP are too high, this has a negative impact on growth in the long term.6 Beyond public debt – discussed in a report by your Chairman in 2005, and alas still topical – private debt in France now stands at 130% in France, compared with 122% in the euro area and 150% in the United States.7 Regulation can and must play a protective role, by setting certain limits ex post and by shoring up resilience to destabilising impacts ex ante. A 21st century Rabelais would say that finance without conscience is but the ruin of the soul. I will return to individual conscience in my conclusion.

At the global level, responsibility for the operational implementation of these objectives was entrusted to the Financial Stability Board, and to the Basel Committee on which both the Banque de France and ACPR are active. Since 2010, significant, albeit uneven, progress has been made on all four G20 objectives. I shall focus here on the first of these: financial institutions are now more resilient. The Basel III Accords, adopted in 2010, have increased both the quantity and quality of banking sector own funds; in addition, they ensure better account is now taken of the diverse risks to which banks are exposed, thanks to the introduction of a leverage ratio – measured as a share of total unweighted assets – and two new liquidity ratios for bank cash levels. Requirements have also been increased in the insurance sector, with the entry into force of the new Solvency II regulatory framework in Europe at the start of 2016. At the end of 2016, French insurance firms subject to Solvency II had a solvency capital ratio of 222%, well in excess of the required 100%. These various tools, known as microprudential as they are intended to reduce the individual risks incurred by financial institutions, have been supplemented with a set of socalled macroprudential tools, designed to improve the stability of the financial system as a whole.
Source: QRTs, PRA analysis  10  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  10  Chart 5: The impact of MA on the base balance sheet. Source: PRA analysis, Solvency II Regulations  Chart 6: Credit Spread on Investment Grade Corporate Bonds. Source: Bloomberg data, PRA analysis  11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  11  Chart 7: Decomposition of Bond Spread. Source: PRA analysis, Solvency II Regulations  Chart 8: FS Components: Non-Financial CQS 3 (BBB-rated). Source: PRA analysis, YE20  12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  12  Chart 9: FS – Credit Quality Step 2 (A-rated). Source: PRA analysis, YE20  Chart 10: Illustrative A-rated 10 year financial bond. Source: Bloomberg data, PRA analysis  13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  13  Chart 11: 2020YE FS as % spread - Illustrative A-rated 10 year financial bond. Source: Bloomberg data, PRA analysis using YE20 FS  14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  14

What to expect from the Fed’s Monetary Policy Normalization?1 Sebastián Claro Vice‐Governor, Central Bank of Chile              I would like to start thanking the organizers for this invitation. Let me start with a disclaimer. Next Monday, April 3rd, the board of the Central Bank of Chile will present its inflation report to the Senate. Therefore, I will not be able in this occasion to offer a detailed discussion on the macroeconomic situation and perspectives in Chile, which will be described in detailed in the report. Rather, I have decided to focus on a broader issue that is relevant for Chile and the region in the current scenario. During 2017, we will finally witness the process of monetary policy normalization in the United States. After almost 8 years keeping the Federal Funds rates essentially at zero, the Federal Reserve has started a gradual process of interest rate hikes. This is good news. Fundamentally, the normalization of monetary policy is the natural consequence of a normalization of the US economy after the Global Financial Crises. A normal US economy is a positive phenomenon for the world economy. However, this transition period may become bumpy. Indeed, previous episodes of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve have not been smooth at all for emerging economies. The most obvious of these examples is the debt crisis in the early 1980s.