samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
To some extent there have been a number of signs of more subdued growth in the rest of the world, above all in the United States. Moreover, new statistics suggest that Swedish households are not quite as optimistic as before. Somewhat weaker car sales may be an indication of more subdued demand for durables. Asset prices also seem to be in a calmer phase. All of this may point to some slowdown in the development of demand. But is it enough? It is still a matter of forward indicators and we have not yet seen any clear outcome in the statistics. Neither does there seem to be any notable fall-off in labour demand. The number of new job vacancies continues to be comparatively high, at least to date. In the absence of a sufficient slowdown in demand, an adjustment to the long-term growth path will need to be achieved with interest rate increases by the Riksbank. It seems to me that it is deliberations of this type that the Riksbank will face at the coming monetary policy meetings. Consideration will also have to be paid, of course, to the inflation risks associated with the high price of oil and the high dollar rate. These were some of the risks we highlighted in the October Inflation Report. This type of discussion about the direction of stabilisation policy basically deals with how, after some favourable years in the late 1990s, we should act so that growth and employment in the Swedish economy can be sustainably high and stable.

In the longer term, however, demand-management macroeconomic policy – be it fiscal or monetary – cannot be used to address structural problems successfully. As such, the Bank of Thailand is also geared towards financial sector development in order to facilitate the country’s long-term structural reforms. Financial sector development is the third element of our policy navigation. The Financial Sector Master Plan Phase III will aim for a “competitive, inclusive, connected, and sustainable” financial sector. Our vision is to have a competitive Thai financial sector which can support more diverse needs at a fair and undistorted price, promote regional trades and investments, while maintaining safety and soundness of the economy and the financial system. Today I hope to share with you some of the highlights and key milestones. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Five years from now, I foresee that the Thai financial landscape will look different from today, with more digital banking and electronic payment transactions, and increased competition from nonbanks and foreign players. The landscape will also contain innovative fintech companies who provide alternative solutions to both service providers and users such as data analytics, crowd funding, and product or price comparison services. Ultimately, competition will increase financial access, and lower transaction costs to the economy as a whole. The Bank of Thailand will focus on the development of infrastructures and standards, while ensuring that rules and regulations are clear and supportive of innovation and efficiency.
Accounting standard-setters were also explicit concerning the need to take into account the exogenous and, in principle, transitory nature of the crisis when applying the rules, which incorporate the flexibility needed to accommodate this situation. The rapid European reform of capital requirements (informally dubbed the “quick fix”) contributed to these same objectives. Finally, forceful fiscal policy action has helped alleviate the declines in household and corporate incomes. Some of these measures have, precisely, focused either on making it easier for banks to lend, in particular through the public guarantee programmes, or on easing payments arising from their indebtedness through moratoria. The banking sector has played a key role in the application of some of these support measures, smoothing the transmission of monetary policy decisions and the implementation of certain financial and fiscal initiatives, such as the moratoria and public guarantee programmes. As a result of all these measures, and despite the severe economic downturn, the CET1 ratio has increased by 71 basis points (bp) to 13.3%.3 One means of showing the impact of these measures on the sector’s resilience is to calculate their effect on banks’ capital ratios in the stress test exercises mentioned.

In Spain, recent experience has shown how inefficient the existing insolvency proceedings for credit institutions are in terms both of timelines and recovery in value. It would, therefore, be desirable for progress to be made in determining an administrative mechanism for winding up credit institutions that maximises the preservation of value and reduces both the timelines and the costs of the existing insolvency proceedings. The need to address the long-term challenges If the current crisis has done anything it has been to underline the importance of having a healthy banking sector with sufficient buffers to absorb unexpected risks. In this connection, going forward we must ensure that the banking sector remains resilient to any new risks that might emerge. Completing Basel III and expanding the macroprudential toolkit available to the Banco de España are two particularly important avenues of work. To more accurately measure the risks assumed by banks and thus reinforce the credibility of their capital ratios, particular focus was placed on the calculation of risk-weighted assets (RWAs) in the second phase of the Basel reforms, approved at the end of 2017. Standardising the treatment of RWAs across institutions was considered necessary. The output floor is a key part of the reform to achieve this goal. The floor limits the benefits banks can derive from using internal models to calculate minimum capital requirements vis-a-vis the standardised approach, which does not require the use of models and is much less sensitive to new information.
Nigel Jenkinson: Promoting financial system resilience in modern global capital markets – some issues Speech by Mr Nigel Jenkinson, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at the conference, Law and Economics of Systemic Risk in Finance, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, 29 June 2007. This speech has been prepared with my colleague Mark Manning. I am very grateful to Mark and to Joanna Perkins for her input on legal risks, and to Ben Norman, Victoria Cleland and Andrew Bailey for their comments. *  *  *  The changing nature of risks Spurred by rapid innovation, we are currently witnessing a period of major structural change in financial intermediation and the global financial system. Financial market activity is growing at a tremendous pace. For example, over the past five years, the credit derivatives market has grown spectacularly from around $ trillion notional amount outstanding in 2001 to around $ trillion in 2006 (Chart 1) and the issuance of leveraged loans has increased almost three-fold (Chart 2). The balance sheets of the major global financial institutions (the so-called large complex financial institutions or LCFIs) have more than doubled since 2000, fuelled by an increase in trading assets (Chart 3). Turnover in the UK and US foreign-exchange markets has risen by around 50% in only the last couple of years. And capital market integration is rising rapidly as barriers to cross border flows have come down.

In contrast to the main refinancing operations, these longer-term market operations are not aimed at signalling the Eurosystem’s monetary policy stance. The ECB announces standard allotment volumes in advance. Therefore, interest rates from these operations are to be seen as indicators of market conditions. III. Regular assessment of monetary, financial and economic conditions Finally, I should like to report on the Governing Council’s regular assessment of monetary, financial and economic conditions. We consider the current monetary trend for the euro area to be compatible with continued price stability in the euro area. The 12-month growth rate of the broad monetary aggregate M3 decreased from 5.0% in October 1998 to 4.5% in November 1998. The three-month moving average of M3 (covering the months September to November 1998) stood at 4.7%, i.e. very close to the reference value of 4½% per annum. With respect to the broadly based outlook for price developments and risks to price stability, financial market developments may be seen as indicating a favourable assessment of the recent monetary policy decisions of the Eurosystem, signalling that financial market participants expect the environment of price stability to continue. In this connection, I could mention the fall in longterm interest rates at the start of 1999 to new historical lows and the fact that the yield curve has shifted downwards. Indeed, conditions for investment at the start of Monetary Union are favourable. This relates, in particular, to the currently prevailing low interest rate level, which significantly reduces the costs of financing for investors.
Experience after the global financial guidance (and the empirical evidence collected by Elsby and Solon (2019) inter alia) suggest that concerns about downward nominal wage and price rigidity may have been overplayed. See the discussion in Pill (2019) on this point. See Box A in ‘Monetary Policy Report – August 2021,’ Bank of England. See Broadbent (2022) on this point. See Pill (2021). This speech was given on the day the first reports in the UK media of the emergence of the Omicron variant of the Covid virus. Broadbent (2021) and Tenreyro (2022) offer some model simulations that illustrate the challenges monetary policy faced in addressing these inflationary shocks, demonstrating the substantial output costs entailed in stabilising inflation at 2% if those gas prices rises had been anticipated early enough for monetary policy action to offset them. See Haskell and Martin (2022). Of course, rising inactivity will also have demand effects. After all, Says Law implies that ‘supply creates its own demand’ (or in this case, the destruction of supply leads to the destruction of demand). That perspective is embodied in the Bank’s core forecasting model, at least over the long run. The inflationary pressures identified here are associated with shorter-term transitions before Says Law holds. In other words, the market prices prevailing on average in the 7-day window ending on 25 October 2022, which implied a peak in Bank Rate of 5¼% in the second half of 2023.

This eventuality transpired in the market tensions that emerged in late September, following the then-Government’s mini-budget announcement.13 A number of my colleagues have already described the events surrounding the decision to postpone the scheduled start of QT gilt sales in early October, as the Bank implemented financial stability operations in the form of additional gilt purchases, including purchases of indexed gilts.14 I won’t repeat that detailed description here, other than to flag that these operations were intended to restore market functioning in long-dated government bonds and reduce risks from contagion to credit conditions for UK households and businesses. Rather I will conclude with some more general observations about the relationship between monetary policy decisions taken by the MPC and financial stability operations conducted by the Bank. Not much of this is new – indeed, I have written about these issues in the past,15 colleagues at the Bank have published an overview of their research into asset purchases in a recent Quarterly Bulletin article,16 and the Bank has taken a leading role in international forums such as the Bank for International Settlements where  Bank of England  Page 9  the role asset purchases can play in promoting monetary and financial stability.17 So I simply offer a few general high-level remarks to frame our discussion this evening.
And this left a more distinctive and clearly defined role for monetary policy as the primary instrument for maintaining broad balance consistently over time between aggregate demand and underlying supply. All this has become the accepted wisdom just about everywhere. Since 1992 in this country the explicit objective of monetary policy has been to achieve stability defined in terms of a target for retail price inflation. And since 1997 the Bank of England - through the Monetary Policy Committee - has been delegated responsibility for setting short-term interest rates with the consistent aim of hitting the Government's symmetrical 2½% inflation target (on a precisely defined measure of retail price inflation - RPIX). Now the reason we've been set that task is not - as some people imagine - because either we or the Government think that consistently low inflation is the be all and end all of economic life. It is because we learned from our earlier experience that consistently low inflation is a necessary (though not in itself a sufficient) condition for the sustained growth of output of the economy as a whole, for high levels of employment, and for rising living standards, which are more fundamentally the things that we are all seeking to achieve. "Stability is a necessary condition for sustainable growth" has become the universal central-banking credo. So our objective - and the reasons for it - could not be clearer. But meeting that objective is not as straightforward as it may sound.

And the rate of unemployment fell from a peak of over 10½% on the LFS measure to around 5% last summer; on the claimant count measure it fell from some 10% to just over 3%, which meant that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit, at under 950,000, was the lowest for 26 years. Short-term interest rates are at a 38-year low. All of that it seems to me gives the lie to a view that was quite widespread a decade ago, that sustained low inflation would inevitably mean continuous suppression of the real economy. I'd go further myself and suggest that it provides considerable positive support for the central bankers' credo. Now some of you - given what's been happening to your own businesses, to certain particular business sectors, and in regions of the country where those sectors are particularly heavily concentrated - may think that I've been living on a different planet. The problem is - and it is a real problem - that with the best will in the world macro-economic stability, the stability of the economy as a whole, cannot guarantee stability at the more micro-economic level: it can not guarantee the prosperity of every individual business or even of whole business sectors or geographic regions.
That may call for the financial sector to seek new ways to define and communicate its purpose, its contribution to wider society, to act as an antidote to the short-term demands of shareholders and executives. Yet it would be easy, too easy, to point the finger at finance alone. For this Great Divide exists not just between the financial elites, but between elites generally and wider society. It is not just bankers who have suffered a loss of public trust. In varying degrees, this is also true of big business, government and, yes, politicians and central banks. These lessons for bankers may be relevant to some of us in this room too. The role of finance in society Let me start by discussing why closing the trust deficit in finance matters to the economy and to society. Whisper it quietly, but a large and well-functioning financial sector is an essential foundation for a growing and well-functioning economy. That is not an ideological assertion from the financial elite; it is an empirical fact. Most of the time and in most countries, finance is a growth-booster not a growth killer. 4 The economic textbooks do not get everything right, but on this they are clear and compelling. Banks and capital markets help finance investment by companies. And that, we know, is the seed-corn of future growth. 5 They also help insure against risk by companies and households. And that, we know, is the seed-corn of stability.

The Asian Institute of Finance (AIF) is ready to provide accreditation to training programmes offered by training institutes following a rigorous assessment under the new Assessment and Accreditation Framework and to ensure the highest standard of the trainings offered. The Association for Chartered Islamic Finance Professionals, a body entrusted to raise the quality standards and professionalism of Islamic finance practitioners, would also contribute to achieve this objective. This will centralise the setting of standards in Islamic finance and provide the assessments to ensure that the standards are being met. Partnerships and collaboration between the industry and academia There needs to be greater partnerships and collaboration between the industry and academia to align training and development with the requirements of the industry. Greater  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  involvement by the financial institutions is needed in designing the academic and training curriculum, and providing real business exposure and training through internship and sharing of experiences. Industry-universities partnership can also take the form of “summer school” programmes that emphasise on practical aspects of Islamic finance via business operation simulations. This move would provide value-added practical knowledge and hands-on experience to improve the technical competency of the graduates. More structured continuous learning programmes are also needed for practitioners to sustain their professional competencies. For top executives, the ICLIF Leadership and Governance Centre offers programs that aim to develop future business leaders for the financial industry.
Andrew Hauser: Building the market infrastructure of tomorrow – CREST, RTGS and the Bank of England, 20 years on Speech by Mr Andrew Hauser, Executive Director for Banking, Payments and Financial Resilience of the Bank of England, at the CREST Twentieth Anniversary Conference, London, 20 September 2016. *  *  *  I am grateful to Sana Siddique for her help in preparing this speech, and to David Bailey, Jo Clennell, Toby Davies, Rachel Greener, Chris Redmond, Iain Saville, Hugh Simpson and Paul Symons for their input and guidance. Introduction July 1996 was an eventful month. Dolly the world’s first cloned sheep was born. Boris Yeltsin was re-elected as President of Russia. The Spice Girls’ first single, “Wannabe”, was riding high in the charts. And the summer Olympics opened in Atlanta. By the time the Games closed in early August, Great Britain had won only 15 medals in total, finishing 36th in the rankings – three places behind North Korea, twelve behind Kazakhstan and 32 behind China. As that song of 1997 had it, “things could only get better”. But there was one rather more upbeat event that month back in the summer of 1996. On 15 July, in a crowded room high up in Trinity Tower, Wapping, Chancellor Ken Clarke picked up a computer mouse – then still a relative novelty – and, waving it towards a large computer screen like a wand, declared the CREST settlement system open for business.

The European Central Bank has therefore been fulfilling its mandate, which is to keep inflation below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. BIS Review 156/2010  1  With all the challenges we have faced since 1999 – the cash changeover, the oil price spikes, the internet bubble, the turbulences in the aftermath of 11th September and, of course, the global financial crisis – maintaining price stability is a notable achievement. What is more, looking ahead, inflation projections and inflation expectations are well anchored in line with price stability. The launch of the ESRB My main topic for today is macroprudential oversight and the new body that the European Council and the European Parliament have decided to create: the European Systemic Risk Board or ESRB. The legislation has been finalised yesterday and the ESRB will soon become reality. I am honoured to speak to you today not only as president of the ECB but also in my future role as Chair of the ESRB. The new European body will be part of the new European System of Financial Supervision and it will be located here in Frankfurt. The city can therefore be proud to host three European authorities: the ECB, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the ESRB. The function of the ESRB will be to provide macro-prudential oversight of the European Union’s financial system.
Following the last decision to reduce the interest rate on 22 September 1999, we signalled that our forecasts indicated a greater probability that the next interest rate change would be a reduction, although we did state that there was little room for further reductions in interest rates. Through the latter half of 1999, economic indicators suggested that we had underestimated economic growth. The projections for price and cost inflation in the mainland economy over the next few years were revised up. This was why Norges Bank, following its monetary policy meeting on 16 March 2000, at which interest rates were left unchanged, signalled for the first time that the next interest rate change was more likely to be an increase. On 12 April 2000, Norges Bank decided to increase the sight deposit rate by 0.25 percentage point to 5.75 per cent. The decision to raise our key rates was taken in a period when the krone had depreciated against an average of trading partners' currencies, but was stable and strong against the euro, primarily reflecting the weakness of the euro. Given the prevailing situation in the Norwegian economy, we were of the view that an unchanged interest rate would not contribute to bringing price and cost inflation down  BIS Review 7/2001  7  towards the corresponding aim for inflation of the ECB. An unchanged interest rate would therefore undermine the objective of a stable exchange rate over time.

If price and cost inflation is on a par with the level aimed at by the ECB, one of the fundamental preconditions for exchange rate stability has been satisfied. The exchange rate may nevertheless be  10  BIS Review 7/2001  regarded as "too strong" or "too weak" in relation to the initial range. This may be because conditions in the real economy imply a real appreciation or real depreciation of the krone. The reason for these exchange rate changes may be a deterioration or improvement in the cost competitiveness of the Norwegian business sector. For example, a greater use of petroleum revenues in the government budget may mean that the internationally exposed sector has to be scaled back in order to create room for higher domestic consumption. The equilibrium level for the krone exchange rate may therefore change. In this situation, Norges Bank should have carefully evaluated the reasons for exchange rate movements. If there is reason to believe that the exchange rate will remain strong or weak for a prolonged period, Norges Bank will have to decide whether to notify the government authorities that measures other than those available to the central bank may be necessary. We can imagine situations in which the interest rate had to be kept at a high level, leading to a deflationary recession, in order to allow the krone exchange rate to remain close to its initial range for a period. However, this situation would hardly be stable.