samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
For this reason, it is important that deviations from the target should not be allowed to become too prolonged. This is why the Riksbank has chosen to aim under normal circumstances to bring inflation back on target within two years. One can say that this is a restriction we have placed on ourselves to create flexibility in an orderly manner. At the same time, it is not appropriate to set restrictions for monetary policy that would be binding regardless of developments in the economy. There may – exceptionally – be situations where the consequences of bringing inflation back on target within two years may lead to unacceptable fluctuations in economic activity. It has sometimes been claimed that there is currently a risk that inflation could remain subdued over a long period of time, partly as a result of globalisation, and that this may mean that inflation is below target for longer than two years. We have made another assessment, as I mentioned earlier, but this type of situation is an example of when it might be  4  BIS Review 44/2006  appropriate to deviate from our normal target horizon. If we were to make the assessment that this type of situation had arisen, we would make it quite clear in advance. We also make clear how long we expect inflation to deviate from the target, and why we think this will happen, in connection with our monetary policy decisions. Conclusion Let me conclude with a brief summary of what I have just said.

In the euro zone, developments during the fourth quarter were roughly as expected, but the indicators published since then point towards slightly more favourable developments there than was expected in February. At the same time, the oil price has risen much more than expected and forward prices for oil have also risen. We can therefore assume that oil and petrol prices will remain at a high level for some time to come. This of course comprises an uncertainty factor for the economic assessment and it is difficult to ascertain what consequences it will have. The experiences so far indicate that the international economic upswing has been resistant to the increasing oil prices. At home, a considerable amount of new statistics have been published since February, including the national accounts for the final quarter of 2005. GDP growth during the fourth quarter was slightly lower than expected, but for the year 2005 as a whole growth was nevertheless in line with our forecast because the outcomes for earlier periods had been revised upwards. The figures show that exports increased more than anticipated last year, which with hindsight is not surprising, given the strong international growth. On the other hand, both household consumption and investment were weaker during the fourth quarter than in our earlier forecast. Judging by the recent economic indicators, developments so far this year have been better than at the end of 2005.
Financial institutions should implement robust practices to assess, monitor and manage environmental risks, and make regular and meaningful disclosures. Second, we want to encourage the development of green products and solutions. MAS is developing a grant scheme for green and sustainability-linked loans – similar to what we have for green and sustainability bonds – to grow the green and sustainability-linked loan market in Singapore and the region. We will launch the Green and Sustainability Linked Loan Grant Scheme in the fourth quarter of this year. Third, we want to harness technology and innovation to promote green finance. This year, the Global FinTech Innovation Challenge that is part of the Singapore FinTech Festival, has a focus on green finance. It is seeking ideas for enablers of green finance and innovative solutions to challenges faced by financial institutions in managing climate risks. The submissions closed last night and we have received some 250 proposals on green finance and sustainability from entities across 50 countries. MAS will present later this year a comprehensive update on our green finance strategies and the progress made. MAS FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE Before I close, let me provide a brief update on MAS’ financial performance. The investment return from the Official Foreign Reserves was $ billion.This comprised: 13 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  Investment gains of $ billion; and A positive currency translation effect of $ billion. MAS made a net profit of $ billion in FY2019/20.

Since joining the EU and until 2018, Romania had accessed more than 21 billion EUR as EU funds that contributed to development and bridged the gap of convergence with developed economies in the EU. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  NBR’s recent research on the impact of EU funds on Romanian economy shows that an increase by 1 percentage point of GDP in structural and cohesion funds has a short term eﬀect of up to 0.7 percentage points on economic growth and a medium-term effect of up to 3 percentage points1. Thus, significant efforts should be made to guarantee that Romania improves the efficiency of EU funds absorption. In order to achieve that, Romania needs sound policies oriented towards macroeconomic balance and safeguarding financial stability. Foreign direct investments are also essential for economic growth. The picture here is mixed. During the second half of the year 2018 and in 2019, persistent pressures on global economic growth and subsequent downward revisions of expected growth rate impacted the investments and the reallocation of capital. Constant trade tensions, terrorism and geopolitical uncertainties are causing a slowdown in economies across the world. At the same time, new technologies have disrupted global value chains and the classic employment model, while new climate change related risks have emerged in the financial sector. On the other part, investing in companies with strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies, in green bonds and in new technologies supporting the digital economy, will contribute to achieving the Paris Agreement objectives and a sustainable development.
And the results slip reads pretty well. In particular, the inflation target was instrumental in anchoring the credibility of policy, without which the MPC would not have been able to respond so aggressively. Without credibility, there can be no flexibility. And the MPC has used that flexibility to the full, providing extraordinary levels of stimulus to support growth and jobs. But the nature of the inflation targeting framework meant that it dropped a few marks in terms of helping the MPC to communicate the role monetary policy played in supporting the recovery. That risked undermining the democratic legitimacy of inflation targeting. Likewise, the inflation target on its own was less suited to explaining the MPC’s view of the appropriate trade-off between the speed with which inflation is returned to target and the support provided to the fledgling recovery. The forward guidance announced by the Committee retains the primacy of the inflation target while allowing the Committee to more effectively tackle these communication challenges. In so doing it enhances the transparency and accountability of monetary policy. The guidance also provides a robust framework in which the MPC can explore the scope for economic expansion and helps to provide greater clarity about the likely path of monetary policy as the economy recovers. The inflation target remains front and centre in the conduct of UK monetary policy. Price stability remains the primary objective of monetary policy.

Credit scoring, advanced statistical analysis, and financial modelling are among the ever expanding range of tools that credit officers and others use to lend more rigorous insight into risks that were once thought not readily quantifiable. The businesses of banking and risk management will always be more art than science. Still, the metaphor of the crossroads of subjects related to numbers reminds us that, for our system of supervision to remain relevant in the twenty-first century, it must reflect the industry’s advances in quantifying risk and in developing other tools to measure and manage risk. At the conclusion of this seminar, I hope that all of us will return to our home countries with deeper insight into Basel II and into our own readiness for a new approach to banking supervision. A Spanish proverb reminds us to “drink nothing without seeing it; sign nothing without reading it.” It is in that spirit that I would like to begin the substance of my remarks with my thoughts on why we need Basel II. Do we need Basel II? As you know, Basel II has attracted much more attention, from more segments of society, than probably any other reform of bank supervision. Mainstream newspapers have reported extensively on it. Politicians of all views have addressed it. Even non-financial business owners have discussed it extensively. The level of public debate reminds us that banks are charged with a special public trust and that capital requirements are intended to safeguard their ability to discharge that trust.
The industry needs to reduce the level of foreign employment which remains relatively high at present at more than 10% of the industry total workforce. We will therefore be engaging with companies to reduce the level of foreign employment to no more than 5% by the end of this year and to less than 3% by the end of 2016. Accreditation for compliance officers In the area of talent development, the industry should take the next step of introducing professional certification and accreditation programmes for relevant key personnel. This initiative will signal the strong commitment by the industry players to uphold their professional standards consistent with the Code of Conduct, and sends a clear message that this industry takes, professionalism seriously. The global scrutiny on measures aimed at countering money laundering and terrorism financing risks has heightened. The importance of having in place strong AML/CFT (antimoney laundering and counter terrorism financing), to safeguards against such risks is given. Immediate attention to developing and providing an accreditation programme for the compliance officers becomes critical. I am optimistic that an accreditation programme for compliance officers can be introduced by the industry by the end of the year. An accreditation program will also tie in well with plans being considered by the Bank to introduce an approval framework for compliance officers for the industry. This program should enable companies to appoint compliance officers who have the necessary skills and knowledge of regulatory requirements to perform their role effectively.

The major economic policy challenges facing the nation today - pick your favorites among the usual suspects of low public and household savings, concerns about educational quality and achievement, high and rising income inequality, the large imbalances between our social insurance commitments and resources - are not about monetary policy. Poor monetary policy choices would make these problems harder to address, but monetary policy itself can't do much to fix them. The issues about monetary policy regimes we spend most of the time debating these days - such as those involving communications and disclosure and variants on inflation targeting - are high class problems to have. Even if they were resolved in the direction of what seems to be the broad academic consensus, they would still leave us with all the hard questions in monetary policy. The color of truth in monetary policy (apologies to McGeorge Bundy) is often grey, not black or white, and moving further along the spectrum toward greater transparency or more explicit rules, will not make easier the hard choices of what to do in the face of the normal fog that surrounds the forecast. In thinking about the durability of these gains in monetary policy delivered under Volcker and Greenspan, there are a few aspects of our history and about the world today that deserve note. The actions of individual chairmen have been very important in the history of the Fed.
The budgetary cost of the actions taken now is very high and will lead to a very pronounced increase in government debt, which will need to be corrected when the crisis is over. The need to commence fiscal consolidation to reduce the general government deficit and debt will then be apparent. And, even if we do not know the exact timing of the transition from the current phase of expansionary fiscal policy to fiscal consolidation, we do know that the latter will be as necessary as the forceful action taken to date. In fact, as I have stressed on various occasions, the credibility of Spain’s economic policy would be reinforced if, along with the current budget, a plan were presented, based on European and national fiscal rules, outlining the gradual reduction in fiscal imbalances and the actions to be taken in the period following the crisis. The increased vulnerability of the government’s financial position due to the increase in government debt has not been very visible so far. On the one hand, the ECB’s expansionary monetary policy is helping to keep government debt financing costs very low. Moreover, the demand for government debt is high, given the chronic savings surplus at global level. On the other hand, the new instruments at European level are also helping to finance the costs 26  of the crisis through various channels.

To this end, it uses a variety of models and empirical approaches, and also conducts its own surveys. In addition, the SNB analyses economic indicators for Switzerland and abroad, and follows the assessments and forecasts of other institutions. KOF Swiss Economic Institute at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology Zurich (ETH) is without doubt the best-known for economic analysis. It makes a significant contribution towards understanding the Swiss economy with its regular data surveys (for example, the survey of companies it has been systematically conducting since 1955), as well as its economic forecasts and special analyses. In doing so, KOF fulfils an important role for the SNB's monetary policy and, ultimately, for the greater good of our country. For this reason, the SNB has been connected with the KOF Swiss Economic Institute since its beginning in the 1930s. Both institutions maintain a stimulating exchange of information and ideas to this day. With high-quality economic analysis closely linked to scientific research, KOF Swiss Economic Institute will continue to make a valuable contribution in future - to ensure an even better understanding of the Swiss economy. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1
At the same time, households adjust their consumption, not least of capital goods, to a more realistic assessment of income’s long-term trend. Seen in the context of innovations, there is no ready-made pattern for either the occurrence of a cyclical downturn or how quickly it can be reversed. A third basic insight from the Austrian school concerns economic policy’s limitations. If a leap forward in technology leads to a period of unsustainable growth of investment and consumption, there is bound to be a recoil. As argued in the 1970s not least by Fredrich Hayek, perhaps the foremost of the Austrians and a Nobel prize-winner, the necessary adjustment after a supply shock cannot be avoided by trying to bridge the trough with measures of economic policy. As an adjustment to more realistic expectations must come, a bridging policy will simply postpone it and presumably make it more difficult when it eventually happens. But history also teaches us that after a period of what I would call growing pains, optimism about the new technology’s potential will be restored in a more orderly and realistic form. Neither the sudden downturn in the global economy nor the terrorist attacks on 11 September should have changed the grounds for a positive appraisal of the new technology in the somewhat longer run. Signs in the summer of stabilisation in the United States During the summer there were signs that economic activity in the rest of the world was becoming more stable.

Sizeable interest rate cuts have been accompanied by large fiscal stimuli. But it does look as though this year’s GDP growth will have to be revised downwards. The outlook for 2002 is more uncertain but a downward revision is  2  BIS Review 82/2001  most probable. An illustration of the current uncertainty is the unusually wide spread between assessments of the American economy in recent years. Some forecasts envisage a very rapid recovery, with GDP growth already up at between 3 and 4 per cent next year in the United States; others foresee falling GDP. The picture in Sweden The Swedish economy is characterised by a relatively sharp slowdown and an appreciable depreciation of the krona in the past year. Another feature is that inflation is currently above 3 per cent and thus outside the upper tolerance limit for the Riksbank’s 2 per cent target. The high inflation at present is mainly, though not exclusively, a consequence of price increases that can be regarded as fairly transitory. The causes include foot-and-mouth disease, higher electricity prices and certain changes in the method for measuring electricity prices. Supply shocks of this kind normally do not have lasting effects on the rate of inflation. There is therefore reason to believe that when the increased price levels drop out of the twelve-month change figures between now and next spring, the figures will fall back from the relatively high rates at present.
Access to supplemental resources from the Fund on a precautionary or contingent basis could make a critical difference in preventing short-term liquidity crises from becoming full-scale solvency problems leading to default. Of course, access to such contingent financing should be limited to countries whose policies were judged reasonably sustainable, and consistent with a reduction in balance sheet risks over time. With an enhanced surveillance framework designed to help keep policy on a stronger path that does reduce risk over time, and with contingent finance that could be mobilized quickly, the Fund would be better positioned to contain the risk of deeper financial crisis. And more of the policy reform that is a necessary accompaniment to Fund finance resources could be supported ex ante, rather than ex post. Catalyzing better policies sooner is the best defense, though it will never be a perfect defense, against crises. Facilitating restructurings We have seen some progress in the last few years in efforts to improve the framework for sovereign restructurings. In particular, collective action clauses have now become the market standard where emerging market governments issue debt under foreign law. It will take some time for the full stock of sovereign emerging market debt to include these provisions for restructuring by majority action, but this progress is nonetheless important. But there are also some experiences that overshadow these more encouraging developments, and expose a breakdown in the broad consensus that had formed the basis for the successful past strategies of collaboration among the official sector, borrowers, and private creditors.

The new comprehensive package of measures that we adopted on 10 March 2016 reflects two main objectives: first, to return to inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. This is not the case at present since inflation stood at –0.2% in the euro area in February, taking account of the sharp decline in oil prices, but it should return to positive territory in the second half of 2016. The other objective is to bolster the financing of the real economy and to protect it from the pressures related to market volatility. The new series of targeted refinancing operations extension of the asset purchase programme, for its part, will be of particular benefit to large French corporations. We are convinced that these additional measures will deliver concrete results, as did the successive measures we have implemented since June 2014. The latter have indeed boosted lending to businesses, while lowering the cost of credit, and made a 0.3% contribution to French growth in 2015, or even 0.4% according to INSEE. This represents about 80,000 additional jobs for the economy. We are therefore consistent in our objective, and ready to act using the right instruments. But we also remain vigilant as to the possible risks that our monetary policy could generate.
The appropriate monetary policy response to this scenario depends largely on the magnitude and relative persistence of these shocks and their impact on inflation expectations. In any case, the Chilean economy has an economic policy framework that allows it to absorb external shocks and reduce their negative effects, particularly a flexible exchange rate and a monetary policy regime that, being based on a two-year inflation target, can act countercyclically. In the current external picture, those economies perceived as having weaker macroeconomic fundamentals may undergo abrupt changes in the financial conditions they face. The recent experience of Argentina and Turkey are good examples of this. In particular, the currencies of these countries have lost more than a third of their value in the last month and a half. Both economies share high inflation, monetary policy making with less credible targets, in a still highly dollarized economy and a fragile external position, resulting from a high currentaccount deficit and limited reserves. One Argentina-specific vulnerability is its high fiscal deficit at 6% of GDP in 2017, which is difficult to contain with a public debt denominated in dollars that exceeds 30% of GDP and whose service becomes complex in the current circumstances. Turkey, for its part, became highly dependent on external financing to sustain growth above its potential for several years. By 2019, the overall Turkish economy’s needs are estimated to approach 30% of GDP. 6  In Chile, the biggest reaction has come from the nominal exchange rate, while long-term interest rates have not been affected.

Exchange rate volatility vis-à-vis the euro area has declined, while it would continue to exist vis-à-vis the US dollar even after integration. The as yet more flexible labour market ushered in by the transition period II of the Bilateral Agreements I is the flagship of Swiss economic policy. It keeps unemployment and the resultant national costs low in the long term and strengthens the incentives for individual performance. It is essential to translate openness and flexibility, also with respect to internal structural reforms and external relations, into autonomously implemented reforms and a practical global orientation. BIS Review 49/2004  1