samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
I consider three policy scenarios. In the first scenario (the green line), the central bank can credibly commit to its future policy settings. I do not regard this as attainable in practice over anything other than very short time horizons, as central bankers generally cannot tie the hands of their successors. But it does provide a useful benchmark against which to judge alternative policies. The nominal interest rate is cut straight to its zero lower bound and remains there for over six years, far longer than is necessary to bring output back to potential and enough to generate subsequent overheating and excess inflation. But it is precisely that expectation of temporarily higher future inflation that reduces expected future real interest rates and boosts demand today. In the second scenario (the red line), the central bank cannot commit in this way; the best it can do is simply to set policy on a quarter by quarter basis. Interest rates are again cut to their zero lower bound but now the monetary stimulus is withdrawn earlier, after about four years, and there is no overheating phase. The consequence is that expected real interest rates are higher than under the first scenario, demand is weaker and the output gap larger. From a welfare perspective, the first scenario offers a better outcome, because – at least in the model – the overheating period is a price worth paying to generate higher activity and less deflation in the near term.

Andrew G Haldane: The Commercial Property Forum twenty years on Remarks by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at the Bank of England, London, 18 December 2013. *  *  *  I would like to thank Oliver Burrows, Iain de Weymarn, David Gregory, David Learmonth, Varun Paul, Rhys Phillips, Laura Piscitelli, Martin Taylor and Jack Worlidge for their help and comments. Tonight marks an important birthday. We are here to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Bank’s Commercial Property Forum. I am delighted to welcome members, past and present, back to the Bank. The Forum met for the first time on 28th July 1993. It was hosted by my predecessor Pen Kent. Its aim, to use Pen’s words at the time, was “to bring all sides of industry together” – developers, investors, lenders, occupiers, surveyors, auctioneers, researchers and regulators – to discuss developments in the commercial property sector. Since then, the Forum has met around 80 times. It has done so under three external chairmen – Clive Lewis, Chris Bartram and Ian Marcus – and I am particularly grateful to them for their efforts over the past 20 years. The Forum has drawn on around 300 experts from across various sectors. By my reckoning, they have drunk over 1500 cups of tea or coffee and eaten over 2000 biscuits. I cannot think of a Bank committee whose caffeine and calorific intake could surpass the Forum’s.
For the euro area, only a few additional data for economic indicators have become available, and the assessment of forthcoming GDP developments is currently complicated by the fact that the next release will be based on revised data in accordance with the new concept of the European System of Accounts (ESA 95). Industrial production declined at the beginning of this year, and data on retail sales volumes suggest that the pace of growth slowed down somewhat around the turn of the year, but recently there are preliminary indications of some improvement. Recent developments in the labour market show a somewhat decelerating  1  BIS Review 51/1999  employment growth towards the end of last year. The rate of unemployment remained unchanged in March 1999, following two consecutive declines in January and February. Industrial confidence declined further in the first quarter of 1999, but preliminary April figures from the European Commission point to a slight improvement. Given the latest developments up to April, it would appear that consumer confidence reached a peak at the beginning of this year since when it has moderated slightly. As expected, the trend towards decreasing inflation rates appears to have been reversed in March. In March the annual rate of increase of consumer prices as measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) was 1.0%, compared with 0.8% in the previous four months. This was essentially a consequence of the substantial rise in oil prices which began in mid-February feeding through to energy prices in the HICP.

Mr Duisenberg reports on the outcome of the latest meeting of the ECB Governing Council Introductory statement by the President of the European Central Bank, Dr W F Duisenberg at the press conference held in Frankfurt on 6 May 1999. Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice-President and I are here today to report on the outcome of today’s meeting of the Governing Council of the ECB. The Governing Council reviewed, as usual, the main monetary, financial and other economic indicators in line with its monetary policy strategy. Following this discussion it decided to keep the ECB’s interest rates unchanged. The interest rate on the main refinancing operations will thus remain 2.5%. In addition, the interest rate on the marginal lending facility will continue to be 3.5% and that on the deposit facility will remain 1.5%. Let me give you some details about our latest assessment of the monetary policy stance and thereby provide explanations for the decisions taken today. Overall, monetary developments and our broadly based assessment of future price developments do not signal dangers to price stability over the short and medium term. With regard to monetary developments in the euro area, in March 1999 the 12-month rate of growth of M3 remained constant at 5.1%. While the pace of increase in overnight deposits reduced further, signalling the waning influence of the uncertainties surrounding the launch of the euro, deposits with an agreed maturity of up to two years grew at a stronger pace in March than in February 1999.
Finally, drawing upon lessons from the recent experience I will talk about risk management in monetary policy, and what it implies in such an uncertain economic environment as we face today. Commodity prices and domestic adjustment Recent increases in the prices of commodities have been dramatic: many reached record highs in a very short period of time. This increase has been particularly broad across commodities and unexpectedly persistent. Commodity price indices (index 1967=100) 500  1000  400  800  300  600  200  400  100  200  0  00 Total Food  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  0 08 Metals  Source: Commodity Research Bureau (CRB). BIS Review 39/2008  1  Copper price (US cents/Lb.) 2006  2007  305  323  2008 (f)  2009 (f)  Jan. MPR 295  Mar. --  Jan. MPR 250  Mar. --  Deutsche Bank (7 mar) Scotiabank (20 mar) JPMorgan Chase (14 mar) Barclays (13 mar) Merril Lynch(19 mar) Cochilco (9 jan) IB's Mean  332 295 315 354 308 310 321  325 325 310 343 320 310 325  274 -228 295 291 270 272  306 250 246 326 291 270 284  Futures (1)  316  368  314  357  Actual Mean (2)  313  350  Central Bank of Chile  (1) Futures consider average of the last 10 working days prior to 20 March 2008.

Few times ago, I have been informed about a new EU initiative, which requires to set up, within a certain period of time, among others a unified payment system within the euro area, including payments with cards. Presently, small and medium businesses in the euro area have not the same payment opportunities as they have in their respective countries on a national scale. Such a case includes credit cards, which cannot be employed equally across the borders. For this purpose I would suggest that respective experts from the Association and Bank of Albania be as soon as possible informed about this project, making the relevant suggestions in this direction. I personally remain consistent in my position that in Albania we have to adopt the most advanced solutions in all the infrastructure projects that we are going to implement. I believe that we do not need to examine old-fashioned models, which, in addition to the initial cost, will continuously require other funds for maintenance and modification. Besides the developments in the field of payments I would welcome from you a broader commitment even in other directions. I think that the system must further expand its geographical coverage, aiming at including also areas, which, though having at first sight the appearance of being inactive, have large financial potentials in the form of threasurised savings outside the system. Also, the service level should be further improved.
I believe that we can say something similar about the arc of progress. Europe moves forward in stops and starts. It often learns lessons the hard way. But its arc bends towards a stronger and more united Europe for all citizens. The common currency 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  reflects this continued progress, with support for the euro at its highest level on record at 80%, up from 66% a decade ago.8 This should give us hope as we look to the future. And it should give us confidence that, even when Europe may seem divided or lacking in direction, there is a thread guiding us forwards. Over my career, I have had the privilege to watch this process unfold up close, to share in its highs and lows. I have been lucky enough to see it from three different perspectives – national, European and global. And I am honoured to continue working to take Europe forwards. I am very pleased to see the contributions of the European Central Bank recognised through my acceptance of this prize. Thank you. 1 Common Equity Tier 1. European Banking Authority (2020), “Basel III monitoring exercise – results based on  data as of 31 December 2019”, December. 2 Lagarde, C. (2019), “The future of the euro area economy”, speech at the Frankfurt European Banking  Congress, 22 November.

On the government level, borrowings would really be handy when it wants to keep up public expenditure and to enhance welfare payments, healthcare and the military. This would not only improve the standard of living and employment, but also help boost national power and speed up economic growth. The list of wonders that borrowed money can bring goes on, but we almost forget there is a catch, that is, debts must be repaid somehow some day; and the higher the interest rates, the more we will have to pay back over time. For individual borrowers, except for those with a handsome pay rise, they can only hope to pay off earlier debts by reducing consumption in the days ahead. Well-run enterprises should have no problem servicing their debt if their business expansion financed by loans does indeed enhance their productivity and competitiveness. Likewise, heavily indebted governments will be able to service their debts only when they have sustained economic growth and rising tax revenues. In other words, the ability to repay debt hinges on increased productivity and improved income, or otherwise, reduced future spending and increased savings. But despite the substantial GDP growth in major industrialised countries in the past 30 years, debts in these countries have piled up concurrently at an even more alarming rate. Advanced economies from across Europe and the US to Japan have all sought to boost economic prosperity, standard of living and employment with ever more borrowings and increased consumption and public spending.
Conflicts of interest with regard to investments in mid and large cap banks can come about because, according to its mandate, the SNB is also required to contribute to the stability of the financial system. Under certain circumstances, this can mean that the SNB has an information edge over the market with respect to the financial situation of individual banks. In order to avoid any suspicion that the SNB might make use of this information edge in its position as an investor, we completely exclude all investments in equities of such banks. Moreover, by doing so, we prevent market participants from attributing any signal effects to our transactions. On the question of conflicts of interest, I would also like to stress that, as a matter of principle, the SNB does not own equities in any Swiss companies for investment purposes. Should equities of individual companies be excluded from the investment universe on the basis of ethical criteria? We have been discussing this question for a considerable time and last year we made a fundamental decision. We do not invest in companies that blatantly infringe certain ethical principles. This decision was already implemented in the fourth quarter of 2013. To be specific, we do not hold equities in companies which produce internationally banned weapons, seriously violate fundamental human rights or systematically cause severe environmental damage. We believe that it is in the best interests of monetary policy if the SNB achieves sound investment returns through the widest possible diversification.

In addition, the policy interest rate was lowered by 0.75 percentage points last year, the króna has appreciated by over 16%, the Central Bank has bought more than 350 b.kr. worth of foreign currency, the foreign exchange reserves have grown by over a third in foreign currency terms, and capital controls have been almost completely lifted in three large steps. These are substantial changes in a single year – changes that will presumably take their place in economic history. What lies behind these developments? How could the domestic economy grow by more than 7% in 2016 without overheating and unleashing inflation? Five major factors are presumably of considerable significance whose mechanism it is important to understand in order to assess what comes next and formulate appropriate economic policy responses. First of all, the supply side of the economy is more flexible than before, owing to increased economic integration with the rest of the world. The EEA Agreement plays a large role here, but so do other trade related agreements and 1  general market-driven developments in the global economy. Because of this, when demand pressures start to develop, it is easier than before to mitigate them: by importing labour and other production factors, by using foreign inputs in domestic production chains to a greater degree, or by moving a portion of operations out of the country. Last year, for instance, net migration among foreign nationals was closing in on the previous peak from 2006.
This double whammy effect, attributed to the narrowness of the Swiss franc market, was highly penalizing for our export sector. Since the introduction of the euro however, this pattern is no longer observed. Thus, the evolution of the Swiss franc sticks closer to our economic fundamentals. I will address this issue more extensively later on and argue that this trend can be generalized to apply to other currencies as well. b)  The euro as a means of payment  Those who thought that the euro would make the Swiss franc obsolete as a means of payment were also mistaken. True, our ATM machines have been adapted to provide euro banknotes, so that it is now possible to pay in euro almost everywhere in Switzerland. Yet, despite these efforts, the demand for euro notes is still weak and those notes do not circulate any more extensively than French francs, Italian lira and German marks used to. In stores and restaurants, prices denominated in euros are usually not very attractive. Obviously, small shop and café owners are not thrilled by the idea of  2  BIS Review 70/2004  accepting cash payments in euros. Anyway, they cannot offer as good financial services as commercial banks or credit card companies! c)  Monetary autonomy  The last fear we had was related to the potential loss of monetary autonomy. Could Switzerland, a country completely surrounded by the euro zone, possibly hope to implement an interest rate policy different from the one of the European Central Bank?

William C Dudley: Opening remarks at the Evolution of Work Conference Opening remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Evolution of Work Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 17 November 2016. * * * Nora Fitzpatrick, Laura Pilossoph, Anika Pratt and Aysegul Sahin assisted in preparing these remarks. Good morning. I would like to welcome you to this conference on the Evolution of Work. Today, we will explore how the nature of work is evolving, including the role of technology, shifts in employee work arrangements and employer-employee relationships, and the effects of these changes on workforce development strategies. We are pleased to host this conference with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Freelancers Union. We welcome all the leaders from across academia, government, industry, labor and the nonprofit sector assembled here to explore the transformation of the workforce, and the impact this has had on communities and the economy more broadly. As always, what I have to say today reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System. As you know, the Federal Reserve monitors the labor market closely, given that maximum sustainable employment is one goal of the Fed’s dual mandate. The evolving nature of the workplace—and the speed with which it is changing—are therefore important developments that we must continue to monitor.
However, following the Great Depression, new responsibilities were imposed on the Governments to ensure the stability of the financial system. As a result, since 1934, the burden of any financial crisis has fallen onto the tax payers of the country and involvement of Central Banks has increased in order to bail out failed financial institutions. This was aggravated further with the theory “TooBig-To-Fail” (TBTF) popularised from early 1980s. In today’s context IMF describes it as “Too-Important-To-Fail” (TITF), as most of the larger banks in the developed world became  8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  too important with their integration in global market, and making the impact of such failures unbearable to respective countries as well as to the global economy. This has prompted other countries also to take every effort to protect systemically important financial institutions in their countries. In Sri Lanka, when the consolidation programme was introduced, there was some opinion that too big institutions would exert an increased burden on the regulator and the Government if they face any crisis situation. However, we have taken into consideration that concern and fashioned the consolidation policy through a modified regulatory framework to minimise such systemic consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, having explained the basis and the background in which we fashioned our financial consolidation programme, let me now move onto explaining “How” we initiated, designed and executed the consolidation programme.

Other countries such as China have pegged their currencies to the dollar, which meant that monetary policy in the world as a whole became very expansionary. This supported strong growth in the world during the years 2002-2006 and gradually led to an increase in oil and other commodity prices. There are also several causes that have interacted and led to the financial crisis. The credit rating agencies have given the new financial products too high ratings because of they have not taken sufficient account of the risk that it would not be possible to sell these products in the market. The supervision of the financial markets has not given sufficient consideration to the problems that can arise from a house price bubble. The regulations in the financial markets are procyclical, that is, they tend to reinforce fluctuations in economic activity. The remuneration structure in the private sector has moreover encouraged short-term thinking and substantial risk-taking. Massive measures have helped avoid a financial meltdown Massive measures by governments, central banks and other authorities around the world have meant that a financial meltdown could be avoided. The central banks have contributed large liquidity injections, that is, lent money to the banks against collateral. Several central banks have also provided emergency liquidity assistance to individual institutions. The Fed, the ECB and other central banks have moreover lent money through swap agreements to other central banks to alleviate the crisis in other countries.
By unambiguously assigning the primary objective of price stability to an independent central bank, the Treaty recognises that focusing monetary policy on the maintenance of price stability in the euro area ensures that monetary policy will make the best possible contribution to improving economic prospects. This view is rooted in the fact, supported by decades of practical experience and empirical evidence, that the benefits of price stability for growth are substantial. Without putting forward all the arguments, allow me to highlight, in particular, that the maintenance of price stability helps to allocate resources efficiently both across uses and across time. Inflation causes economic agents to confuse transitory with permanent price changes, and therefore distorts their decision-making process. In evaluating investment opportunities, firms need to have confidence in the signals conveyed by relative price changes, and to discriminate between relative price adjustments and general changes in the overall price level. This process is facilitated in a situation of overall price stability. Price stability therefore improves the transparency of the relative price mechanism and can promote an adequate environment to increasing the growth potential of the euro area economy. Moreover, as experience has shown, stable prices minimise the inflation risk premium, thereby lowering long-term interest rates and helping to stimulate investment and growth. In order to maintain price stability, the ECB has designed a monetary policy strategy wherein risks to price stability are assessed on the basis of two pillars. The first pillar assigns a prominent role to monetary developments.

Well, by considering how quickly we should aim to return inflation to target. If, for instance, inflation is below target while growth in the economy is high, as has been the case in Sweden in recent years, a monetary policy that aims to quickly push up inflation through very low interest rates could lead to demand being stronger than the economy can manage further ahead. We would then risk overheating, where prices and wages begin to increase rapidly and where inflation expectations would perhaps also be adjusted upwards. The Riksbank could then be forced to tighten monetary policy substantially. If we instead gradually begin to raise the interest rate earlier, there is a greater chance that we can avoid overheating. We can thereby also avoid the recessions that often follow overheating. This type of policy can thus mean that the fluctuations in the economy are smaller over time. This is where the  BIS Review 101/2006  3  two-year horizon that we work with comes in. It means that we can in normal cases allow up to two years before inflation attains the target. What I have described so far with regard to the principles for monetary policy is currently an accepted view of how monetary policy with an inflation target should be conducted. Central banks around the world have chosen slightly different varieties, where the details of the monetary policy system may differ considerably. However, the overall strategy is still the same. How to take into account house prices?