samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
34  At that time, little academic research was available on alternatives to a fixed exchange rate regime or money supply targeting. Leading politicians and economists were sceptical about the idea of abandoning the fixed exchange rate regime. Money supply targeting was regarded as out of the question because of instability in the money supply. John Taylor’s works on interest rate rules that could contribute to stabilising inflation and the real economy, through transparency and predictability, were not published until 1993 (Taylor, John B: “Discretion versus Policy Rules in Practice”, Carnegie-Rochester Series on Public Policy 39, 195-214). 35  Storvik, Kjell (1998) “Aktuelle økonomiske og pengepolitiske problemstillinger (Current economic and monetary policy issues)”. Lecture at Forex Norway, 28 August. Norges Bank was prepared for a change in regime, cf . the discussions in Choosing a Monetary Policy Target, Christiansen, A.B. and J.F. Qvigstad (Eds. ), Universitetsforlaget (1997) and Perspektiver på pengepolitikken (Monetary policy perspectives), Qvigstad, J.F. and Ø. Røisland (Eds. ), 2000. A workshop entitled “The Conduct of Monetary Policy in Open Economies” was also held at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in October 2000. 36  Article in the newspaper Aftenposten on 5 January 1999 in connection with the appointment of Svein Gjedrem as governor of Norges Bank, lecture by Svein Gjedrem, Gausdal, 28 January 1999: “Utfordringer i den økonomiske politikken (Challenges to economic policy)” and article by Svein Gjedrem in Aftenposten 4 May 1999: “Utfordringer i pengepolitikken (Challenges to economic policy)”.

Second, the banking sector’s resilience during the crisis has benefited crucially from the decisive economic policy response (monetary, fiscal and prudential), which has substantially alleviated the impact of the crisis on the financial position of households and non-financial corporations, thus lessening the effect on financial institutions’ balance sheet quality. The decisions taken by macro- and microprudential authorities have also allowed the banks’ capital positions to improve during the crisis, and have authorised the use of buffers to help smooth the provision of financing to other economic agents, as a complement to the fiscal and monetary measures. 1  Although banking was among the hardest-hit sectors – in terms of stock market valuations – during the initial stages of the crisis, its share price valuations have recovered significantly on international financial markets after the development of vaccines was announced in November 2020. This reflects the fact that, thus far, the crisis has largely been prevented from developing a relevant financial component. Some examples will suffice to illustrate the banking sector’s resilience during the crisis and the role played by economic policies in maintaining it. 2  The resilience and role of the banking sector during the crisis  First, let us look at the indicator reflecting credit developments. For the first time since the global financial crisis, the volume of bank lending to the resident private sector in Spain increased in 2020 (by 3.5%).
There are no signs that in the coming two years the economy will exceed the level of potential output at which inflation is liable to pick up. The level of inflation expectations is also compatible with the inflation target. BIS Review 8/1997  -5-  The exchange rate has been weaker than assumed in the latest inflation report and the current level of the effective exchange rate does not mirror fundamental trends in the economy. This points to some future appreciation. Meanwhile, GDP growth in 1996 seems to have been somewhat lower than the Riksbank counted on, which implies a somewhat larger output gap. All in all, the picture of future inflation does not appear to have changed from the assessment in the December inflation report. The conclusion in that report - that monetary policy is relatively well balanced - therefore holds good. The Riksbank is continuing to evaluate effects of the interest rate cuts that were implemented during 1996, together with new information about real economic activity, inflation expectations and the exchange rate. This in turn will determine the future course of monetary policy, that is, whether the repo rate should be kept at its present level or whether there is any limited room for manoeuvre. BIS Review 8/1997

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: The next wave for the financial system in Malaysia Keynote address by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the 12th Malaysian Banking Summit organised by ASLI "Taking the Leap in Paradigm Shift of Banking – New Wave, New Ventures", Kuala Lumpur, 5 June 2008. *  *  *  In this recent decade we have seen a period of profound modernisation of the Malaysian banking sector. Today, the banking sector has evolved from facilitating and supporting the economic growth process to becoming a significant source of growth. Innovation and product pioneering has proliferated the diversity of products and services offered. The adoption of best business practices, the use of new technologies, systematic cross selling and the new means of interface with consumers have become more pervasive. The banking system is also significantly stronger, reinforced by strengthened institutional structures, enhanced financial safety nets and developed financial markets, that includes one of the most developed bond markets in this region. Progressive deregulation and liberalisation have increased the flexibilities for banking institutions to capitalise on new business opportunities, both onshore and overseas. The strengthened incentives and more competitive environment have also prompted continuous performance improvements. Indeed, these developments have well positioned the banking sector to take the next leap forward. It is my pleasure to be here this morning to speak at this year's Malaysian Banking Summit which has focussed on the theme, the next wave for the banking system in Malaysia.
Expectations about future inflation seem to have fallen steadily over the past decade and are now clustered around the Bank’s target. This is supported by survey evidence, including surveys of trade union officials, and evidence drawn from financial market prices. A recent Bank of England survey of the general public5 pointed to interesting though small differences across age groups, with younger people expecting lower inflation on average than their parents. When it comes to inflation, people have very long memories. The evidence also suggests that firms and wage bargainers are now more disposed to expect inflation to revert to target if something happens to throw it off course: in that sense inflationary expectations are better anchored. This should make the task of policy makers easier. After all, if wage bargainers and firms themselves act as if the Bank will take action to offset any potential disturbance to inflation, the need for the Bank itself to actually change interest rates will be that much less. This, in a nutshell,  4  Benati, L (2004), ‘Investigating Inflation Persistence across monetary regimes’, Bank of England Working Papers, forthcoming. 5  Lombardelli, C, and Salaheen, J, (2003), ‘Public expectations of UK inflation’, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Autumn. BIS Review 11/2004  3  is the intuitive reason why a credible policy regime should help to produce more stability in output as well as inflation. Challenges Inflation is low, expectations are well anchored, and the real economy works better as a result.

And indeed one of the benefits of low inflation is that price signals carry more information, making price comparisons worthwhile. Understanding what is happening is relevant to monetary policy. To the extent that a fierce competitive struggle is squeezing retail margins, it is likely to affect the shortrun outlook for inflation. While such a squeeze won’t have an effect on inflation in the longer term, it could herald a lasting improvement in productivity across the sector as a whole. This brings me to my final issue: whether productivity in the UK will accelerate as it seemingly has in the US.6 Since 1995 the growth of US productivity has doubled and the improvement has been sustained through the stock market crash. This is directly relevant to current thinking about US monetary policy. If faster productivity has indeed helped to create a high level of spare capacity and contributed to a higher growth in underlying supply, holding interest rates at historically low levels for some time should not add to inflationary pressures, even if demand grows rapidly. This is a key reason why the Fed believes it can be ‘patient’ in raising interest rates. The US evidence does seem to suggest that productivity has accelerated and that ICT has played a substantial role in raising productivity in non ICT sectors. This answers one puzzle, neatly posed by US economist Robert Solow when he commented that ‘You can see computers everywhere but in the productivity statistics’.
Internationally, the weak incoming indicators for output and employment in the U.S. have increased the concerns over a slower economic recovery of that country. World growth forecasts are maintained for 2010, basically due to better than expected figures in the first half, and because the latest data point at a weaker second half (figure 5). The breakdown across regions has changed, with increased participation of emerging economies. In the main developed countries, manufacturing production has decelerated. So far, consensus forecasts do not fully consider this scenario, although financial asset prices have implicit slower growth for the U.S. and foresee a delay in monetary policy normalization. Accordingly, the Board assumes for the baseline scenario global growth again lower than market consensus for 2010 and 2011 (table 1). In international financial markets, risks associated to the fiscal and financial conditions in Europe are less imminent, as reflected in banks’ risk premiums and some liquidity indicators in money markets. Uncertainty remains, however, relating with the risk of further weakening of output in the developed world, causing a decline in long-term interest rates in the U.S., the Eurozone, and Japan since June, to levels similar to or even below the troughs of late 2008 (figure 6). Taking all these aspects in consideration, the Board estimates that during this year GDP will grow between 5.0% and 5.5%.

Inflation Forecast June 2003 with Libor at 0,25%  2003 2004 2005  Annual average inflation in %  0.6  4  0.4  1.2  BIS Review 27/2003
This then feeds back into wage growth in three ways: (i) through lower labour productivity, which depresses real wages, (ii) through a higher level of effective labour market slack and (iii), in an environment of high uncertainty, through employees and trade unions valuing job security more than higher wages – in particular after recessions where wage growth would likely have been negative for a while had it not been for downward nominal wage rigidity. Put differently, what we could be seeing today is a hysteresis in the euro area economy that has an effect on wages quite unlike that of “traditional” labour market hysteresis. The issue might not be so much that fewer “insiders” may be able to push aggregate wages up – which was a key insight of Blanchard and Summers’ earlier work. It is rather that hysteresis may be affecting labour markets through employers’ risk perceptions and subsequent hiring and investment choices, which have so far had the contrary effect of pushing wages down. But while this form of hysteresis might leave some workers working less than they would like, they remain – by and large – attached to the labour market. And by retaining their professional network and skills, they are less likely to become marginalised and, on aggregate, structural unemployment is less likely to become entrenched. This is what I mean when I say that the crisis may have caused scratches, but not necessarily scars.

First, and most importantly, unlike in the US, allowing inflation to overshoot our price stability definition for the sole purpose of bringing more people back into employment would not be consistent with our primary mandate. The “divine coincidence” applies only insofar as employment developments are consistent with our definition of price stability. Beyond that there is no room for trade-offs. Second, there are doubts as to the likely efficacy of such a policy. We have seen some evidence in the United States that the participation rate can become partially endogenous to demand, as discouraged workers return to job-seeking in a strengthening labour market. But we have seen no such evidence in the euro area. Our participation rate has continued to increase over time. So the question in the euro area is much more whether, or not, long-term unemployment is likely to be amenable to continued policy accommodation. The evidence raises at least doubts. For example, although many claim that monetary policy was too accommodative during the boom years of 2005 and 2006 – as also evidenced by policy rates often being lower than what standard Taylor rules would have predicted – the share of long-term unemployed in the euro area has remained fairly constant over this period. So, even if the desired effects of accommodative policy lead to more investment and employment, it remains questionable whether employers will respond by taking on chronically unemployed or whether they would instead rely on “insiders” whose pay has been stagnant or, alternatively, on fresh university graduates.
We thus will need to see more data to determine the extent to which the March data represent a transitory weather-related setback. Regardless of the importance of the mild winter in distorting the recent economic data, real economic activity has yet to be strong enough on a sustained basis to make a big dent in the overall amount of slack in the U.S. economy. While growth was stronger in the fourth quarter, most of it was due to inventory accumulation. Growth of final sales remained quite weak. Historically, quarters in which inventory investment makes significant growth contributions are typically followed by quarters in which that growth contribution is modest or even negative. That appears to be what is shaping up for the first quarter of this year. Based on available data, our current expectations are that real GDP will expand at around a 2 ¼ percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2012. Even with the robust increase of light vehicle sales, overall consumer spending in the first quarter appears to be rising at a similar moderate rate. At the same time, real disposable income has been flat over the past three months, and the large increase of gasoline prices is likely further sapping consumers’ real purchasing power. And growth of business investment spending, which softened in the fourth quarter of 2011, may have been even a little softer in the first quarter of this year.

William C Dudley: The national and regional economic outlook Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Center for Economic Development, Syracuse, New York, 12 April 2012. *  *  *  Good morning, I am pleased to be here in Syracuse at the Center for Economic Development. It is always a pleasure to speak with business and community leaders because of the important role you play in helping to shape the economy of the region. I thank you all for inviting me here today. I try to get out of my office in New York City as much as I can to get a sense of regional economic conditions across the second Federal Reserve District. I was last here in Syracuse in 2010 and, more recently, I traveled to West Point and the Capital region and Long Island. These visits are just as important as any trip I might take to Washington, D.C., to help formulate monetary policy, or to Switzerland, to help shape international bank regulation. Each visit within the region helps me to deepen the relationships with the people I represent. I believe that the understanding of issues and concerns that I gain today will help ensure that the Fed’s policy decisions reflect the public interest. Today, I want to talk a bit about the Fed – what we do and why we do it. Then I’ll provide some thoughts about the economic outlook nationally and locally.
But it will also be seen that in certain periods the return has deviated rather markedly from the trend. That raises the question of how long the horizon needs to be for a diversified 13 portfolio to actually yield a good return. The third diagram plots the highest and lowest real returns for rolling investment horizons of different duration between 1918 and 1996 (Diagram 3). It will be seen that with a five-year horizon in this period, the best average annual return has been 26 per cent; with an unfavourable initial year, however, the average annual return could be as poor as –9 per cent; moreover, even such a long horizon as twenty or thirty years did not guarantee a return on a par with the trend. The return is admittedly positive for all the rolling periods but even for such a long horizon as twenty years the return on equity was worse than for bonds and bank deposits in 5 per cent of the cases. This raises the issue of timing, that is, when to start saving in shares. Doing so at a time when stock market prices are high may entail a long – in some cases very long – wait for a return that is even in the vicinity of the trend. One way, used by many people, of coping with the problem of timing is to spread the investments over time.

13 If it is considered important to influence market expectations in a certain way, I believe that it is normally easier to achieve this using well-considered communication, for example in the form of more or less forceful statements from the Executive Board about future interest rate policy, rather than in the form of bond purchases. … but increased likelihood of unconventional monetary policy in times of economic slowdown When the acute phases of the financial crisis began in the autumn of 2008, the Riksbank owned no domestic bonds. As a result, the Riksbank found it difficult to quickly intervene on the market with appropriate support measures. A lesson learnt from this episode was that the Riksbank needed to have preparedness in order to be able to act on the bond market in special situations. Such preparedness presupposes that the Riksbank maintains at least a small portfolio of government bonds in order to have the necessary systems, agreements and knowledge in place. The Riksbank therefore built up a government bond portfolio in 2012– 2013. 14 This justification for maintaining a bond portfolio is still relevant. A future reduction of the Riksbank’s bond holdings will therefore most likely not result in a complete phasing out of the portfolio. But the bond portfolio built up in 2012–2013 was small in relation to the one built up for monetary policy purposes. Bond purchases in 2012–2013 totalled SEK 10 billion, compared with purchases for monetary policy purposes since 2015 totalling more than SEK 300 billion.
The initial lift from the fiscal stimulus will likely wane over the course of this year. And financial conditions have become less accommodative over the past several months. In addition, we are now seeing some emerging headwinds to growth from the partial government shutdown in the United States and elevated geopolitical uncertainties abroad. Other “data” confirm that the winds in our sails have calmed. The headlines have been about investors’ concerns around growth, which have contributed to volatility in markets. This is also showing through in surveys of households and businesses, who say that they are somewhat less confident about future economic prospects. For example, the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey and New York Fed Business Leaders Survey both point to slowing growth in the region. And there is no doubt that my colleagues and I are hearing the same thing directly from our business and financial market contacts, who are more focused on the possibility of a weaker economic outlook this year.3 But let me be clear: a softer economic outlook doesn’t mean we should prepare for doom and gloom. On the contrary, it’s likely we’ll see GDP growth somewhere between 2 and 2½ percent this year. That’s a step down from 2018, but still consistent with a healthy, growing economy. Supporting a Strong Economy So, how should the Fed respond to an outlook of slowing growth and one that’s less certain than, say, this time last year? In a word: carefully.

John C Williams: Monetary policy - a "data dependent" approach Remarks by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the New Jersey Bankers Association's Economic Leadership Forum, Somerset, New Jersey, 18 January 2019. * * * As prepared for delivery  Introduction Good morning everyone. I wish every conference I went to had such an incredible opening— Joe’s certainly a hard act to follow. I have a son who’s a very talented artist, but he didn’t get those genes from me. So I’m going to stick to what I know—monetary policy. Today I’ll talk about the economy, how I’m assessing the outlook, and what that means for monetary policy. It’s early in the day, so I’ll try and keep the recitation of facts and figures to a minimum. But I know there are a lot of bankers in the room and that the direction of interest rates plays a vital role in your business, so, rest assured, I won’t skimp on that topic. Given that I’ve promised to talk about interest rates, before I say another word I’ll give the standard Fed disclaimer that the views I express are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Open Market Committee or anyone else in the Federal Reserve System. The Dual Mandate I want to start this morning by reminding everyone what the goals of the Federal Reserve are.