samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Table 1  Before the crisis, both methods of conducting liquidity management transactions (via outright purchases or lending to the banks) previously mentioned, had the objective of steering a short-term interest rate close to the policy rate decided by the central bank. It would therefore be misleading to interpret the increase of banks’ balance sheets through LSAP or QE as just an increase in scale of the traditional outright purchases. There is a different objective of intervening directly in different asset markets and in higher maturities in order to influence the respective prices or yields. The intention and the composition of the assets purchased are thus relevant and different from what was previously done to manage short-term rates. QE has several transmission channels: besides the direct impact on prices/yields of the purchased assets (Treasuries or ABSs), it triggers portfolio adjustments on other assets, like equities or exchange rates, and is accompanied by wealth effects. While the theoretical debate on the exact channels of transmission remains active, many event and time-series studies have tried to measure the QE effects. John Williams (2013) presents a survey of several studies and reports that USD 600 billion of FED asset purchases achieves a result equivalent to a cut in the federal funds rate of 0.75 to 1 percentage point.1  1  For a survey of results, see John Williams (2013), President of the San Francisco FED, “Lessons from the financial crisis for unconventional monetary policy” NBER Conference, October.

Vítor Constâncio: Recent challenges to monetary policy in the euro area Speech by Mr Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, at the Athens Symposium ‘‘Banking Union, Monetary Policy and Economic Growth’’, Athens, 19 June 2014. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, Seven years have passed since the financial market turmoil in the summer of 2007 marked the beginning of the financial crisis and the ensuing recession. These years have been challenging for all central banks. They have marked the end of a long period of remarkably stable, good macroeconomic performance. The widespread adoption of an explicit price stability objective had been conducive to low inflation outcome in an environment of prolonged economic growth. Existing monetary policy strategies – mostly variants of the inflation targeting model, though with notable exceptions at the ECB and at the Federal Reserve – appeared to be adequate and sufficient to attain this goal. Consistently with the Tinbergen principle, the primary objective of price stability was achieved everywhere through a single, conventional monetary policy instrument: a short-term interest rate. The global financial crisis changed this situation abruptly. Since then, some central banks have been endowed with additional macro-prudential instruments and a more explicit mandate to preserve financial stability. While no explicit change in monetary policy strategies has taken place, it is fair to say that there has been a generalised increase in the attention paid to banks’ balance sheet conditions and to the evolution of credit.
I also hope that the work that has begun on a number of other important frameworks in the wake of the financial crisis will be finalised this year. This will entail a change in the focus of the Committee’s work. Going forward, the Committee will place more emphasis on monitoring and assessing the application of the frameworks to ensure that the regulations are effective. The international regulatory work is extensive and will affect us directly when the regulations are introduced here in Sweden. Having a global regulatory framework that increases the safety margins in the global financial system will benefit everyone and is therefore important. It is also important to remember that the international discussion on regulations and regulatory frameworks has a lot in common with the discussion underway here in Sweden. In the main, the measures proposed in Basel III aim to reduce risks that also exist in our Swedish banks and that we have been pointing out for a long time. The international regulatory work therefore serves Swedish interests – in other words, it is not a question of introducing regulations that have mainly been drawn up to manage problems that only concern other countries. Moreover, discussions are underway in international forums that are similar to those underway here in Sweden on many other policy issues, but perhaps not as much progress has been made abroad as in Sweden on considering what measures can be introduced. One example of this is the discussion of floors for risk weights.

Emerging economies are now sufficiently large for growth in their economies to provide impetus to production in other regions. The question has been raised, why didn’t we – the economists – see the crisis coming? As long as the credit system has existed, crises have struck with irregular intervals. Still, we must strive to keep the intervals as large as possible. A poorly regulated financial sector is partly to blame for this crisis as for many others. In many countries, the capital requirements were reduced year by year before the crisis, to very low levels. The quality was gradually impaired. Many banks issued large quantities of hybrid capital, but the investors were not ready to bear losses. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  In addition to low capital requirements, few countries had any macroprudential policies to speak of. Spain was an important exception. To avoid the next crisis, or at least dampen the effect, better banking regulation is necessary. First, the financial crisis revealed that banks held insufficient capital, excessive short-term market funding and inadequate liquidity buffers. The new Basel III framework sets out stricter requirements. Higher and better-quality capital will increase banks’ resilience to pronounced fluctuations in the economy without their having to tighten lending abruptly. The new rules aim to moderate growth in banking in periods of expansion. Second, the new framework includes macroprudential tools that can be applied as necessary. Banks may be subject to additional capital requirements if credit growth in the wider economy is excessive.
Here I would like to make also four points. 2.1 Stress testing is an important tool in our supervisory toolkit in Europe In Europe, the EU-wide stress test is mainly a micro prudential exercise whose main objective is the identification of risks for both supervisors and banks. For European supervisors, it has become a concrete support to the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (also known as SREP in Europe) and to the assessment of capital planning. For banks, it should complement and challenge their internal capital adequacy assessment process (ICAAP). In a more heterogeneous market than in the US and given the micro prudential nature of the exercise, the EU stress test framework has been instrumental to establishing a level playing field across banks with a constrained methodology while at the same time taking into account the specificities of some business models with a bottom-up approach allowing supervisory dialogue. 2.2 EU-wide stress tests have helped improving market confidence in the EU banking sector’s resilience EU-wide stress tests have gradually and consistently improved market confidence in the EU banking sector’s resilience. This year, an EU-wide stress test was conducted on large European banks. Starting from an already deteriorated macroeconomic environment at the end of year 2020, the exercise confronted banks with a very severe adverse scenario, which envisioned a protracted GDP contraction in a low interest rates environment.

2.4 Stress testing should also prove helpful in informing macroprudential policies While stress tests have become an important part of the microprudential toolkit, they have also taken a key role in macroprudential analysis in recent years for financial crisis prevention purposes, enabling central banks and macroprudential authorities to assess the vulnerabilities of the financial system as a whole. Informing macroprudential policy with a comprehensive overview of the financial sector’s resilience is and will remain an essential objective for the future of stress testing. In that regard, improving the accuracy and relevance of our top-down models is one of our priorities at Banque de France, but also at the European level, to better use them in the macroprudential field. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
The financial crisis and wage formation The financial crisis has affected the Swedish economy in two ways. Firstly, the financial markets and the financial sector have been impacted negatively. However, in principle, this problem has now been addressed. Central banks and authorities have adopted extraordinary measures which have succeeded in getting the financial markets to function better again. The remaining areas to be addressed are that the financial sector is still dependent upon government support, that there exists a risk that new problems will arise and that a new regulatory framework is needed for the financial sector. Secondly, the financial crisis has led to a decline in world GDP and world trade. As regards Sweden, this has primarily impacted the Swedish export industry and has led to a deep recession from which it will take the country a long time to emerge. Other parts of the economy that are focused on the domestic market have coped better, due to the expansive fiscal and monetary policies being conducted, among other factors. This has led to a clear division of the Swedish economy. This is the economic background against which the social partners are to conclude wage agreements during the year. This will not be an easy task. It will require a variety of deliberations to be undertaken.

As a global messaging standard with richer data content, ISO 20022 has the potential to drive greater payments efficiency, facilitate risk management and compliance with regulations as well as facilitate cross-border connectivity. This move towards a common global standard will address issues relating to diverging regulatory and technical standards which have increased friction in making payments and made the cross-border payments landscape more complex. Embracing financial innovation to enhance cross-border payments efficiency Aside from the global pandemic, the other key disruption to our established view of cross-border payments is financial innovation. There has been growing awareness that the underlying technology for digital assets such as distributed ledger technology (DLT) may have the potential to improve payments efficiency, particularly from the cross-border payments perspective. Some central banks have made significant strides in exploring the potential of this technology, including testing the use of blockchain and DLT for clearing and settlement of payments and securities. The rapid shift from cash towards other payment platforms, has also intensified calls for central banks to issue Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to protect the country’s monetary sovereignty. Many central banks, including BNM, are exploring the merits and feasibility of issuing CBDC. Preliminary findings highlighted that this may offer some solution to the challenges associated with cross-border payments (e.g. synchronised cross-border transaction between different currencies across different platforms, reduced number of intermediaries and improved transparency of payment status).
And progress on guarantees, while gradual, has also been encouraging, with a number of banks issuing bonds even without the use of the guarantee. Libor spreads have also edged down and are now expected to fall a bit further and faster than before the package (Chart 8). Many banks continue to face a period of deleveraging and rebalancing to reduce their dependence on Central Bank finance and on short term wholesale funding. However a stronger capital and financing position will make it possible for them to do that over a period of some years, which will diminish the squeeze on lending in the short run. More widely, of course, the financial system remains under acute strain. The falls in equity markets, corporate bond prices and the prices for leveraged loans is hitting both long term institutional investors and leveraged investors, including hedge funds. Some are being forced to sell into a falling market in response to margin calls and redemptions. BIS Review 132/2008  3  And there are growing signs of stress in many emerging market economies. We have already seen a banking sector and currency crisis in Iceland and in the past few days the IMF has also announced loan packages for the Ukraine and Hungary. In short, the package of measures introduced in the UK and elsewhere has improved the prospects significantly, especially for banks but it is too soon to declare the crisis over. Authorities worldwide need to remain vigilant and to be ready to step in again if necessary.

Christian Noyer: The end of the financial dictatorship? Introduction by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, to Session 5 “The end of the financial dictatorship?”, Aix-en-Provence Economic Forum, Aix-en-Provence, 6 July 2013. * 1. *  *  Firstly, is finance really a dictatorship? This question isn’t new: already Petronius, in Roman times, at the start of our modern era, asked: “What use are laws when money is king?” The question seems rhetorical, and you can sense in its resignation that the Latin writer (who, incidentally, was born in the nearby city of Marseille) was already worried about the difficulties of establishing the primacy of politics over finance. i)  It is true that the world of finance does have considerable powers:  •  The power to create and support economic development. In its most traditional forms, this is finance’s most crucial role – and power: it is an essential cog in the wheel of economic activity, allocating capital, supplying credit and enabling the management of risk. More than just “the sinews of war”, it can be seen as the lifeblood flowing through our veins. •  But also a highly destructive power: it was the unchecked sophistication of finance and the excesses this caused that lay behind the 2007-2008 financial crisis, a crisis that subsequently transformed into an economic, social and political crisis.
Elvira Nabiullina: Review of recent inflation developments in Russia and economic outlook Statement by Ms Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Bank of Russia, in the follow-up to the Board of Directors meeting, Moscow, 13 December 2019. * * *  Today, the Board of Directors has decided to cut the key rate by 25 bp down to 6.25% per annum. We will consider the necessity of further key rate reduction in the first half of 2020. Let me dwell on the main factors behind the decision. First. Annual inflation continues to decline faster than we expected. Our revised inflation forecast for the end of this year is 2.9–3.2%. Meanwhile, average 2019 inflation will stand at 4.5%, which reflects the high price growth rate in late 2018 and the first months of 2019. This significant slowdown in inflation in the second half of the year was caused by a joint action of a number of disinflationary factors, both temporary and more persistent. These factors include an increased supply of individual food products due to a bumper harvest. Also, price growth of imported goods is still limited due to the ruble appreciation and inflation deceleration amongst Russia’s trading partners. At the same time, moderate demand, both external and internal, is a more persistent factor. The proportion of temporary and persistent factors has yet to be estimated. Most indicators that we analyse reflect low inflationary pressure. Annual core inflation is declining at the same rate as the headline consumer price index.

1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  Indeed, the various measures that were implemented have been instrumental in accelerating the e-payment agenda forward, only because of the cooperation of the industry, sometimes with a bit of nudging. But truth be told, we have been able to achieve so much. Today, the payments industry is no longer the exclusive domain of banks. The advent of FinTech driven by the increasingly inexpensive and pervasive internet and mobile technology has encouraged the entry of more agile non-bank players as potential disruptors or collaborators of the incumbent players. This has set the stage for an exciting new era in payments, an era in which the industry is expected to take on a larger role in delivering a more robust and efficient payments system for Malaysia. The Bank will facilitate this in three key ways: i. First, through policy initiatives to encourage collaborative competition or ‘co-opetition’; ii. Second, by further strengthening industry alignment; and iii. Third, by supporting more inclusive governance arrangements for the development of the payment system. Policies to promote co-opetition as a key enabler for greater efficiency, competition and innovation Network effects are critical to an efficient payment system. The larger the network of a payment system, the more valuable it is to users of the payment system.
First, employment has been more resilient than in past recessions and appears to have turned around more quickly than in the previous recoveries. The total number of people in employment in the UK has increased by over 300,000 since last winter, according to the official Labour Force Survey. 2  Chart 2 shows this contrast with previous economic cycles very clearly. Employment is down by not much more than 1% on its level at the peak of the cycle in 2008, compared with a decline of around 5% at the equivalent phase of the early 1980s and early 1990s cycles. This employment picture points to a rather mild recession in terms of the labour market, which contrasts with the much larger fall in GDP relative to previous UK downturns. The resilience of employment through the recession should help to sustain consumer confidence. It is also a positive indicator about medium-term economic prospects – as companies would not be retaining and taking on workers if they were not reasonably  1  UK economic growth averaged 2.5% in the sixty years 1948 to 2008. In the year to 1982Q1, GDP in the United Kingdom grew by 2% and in the year to 1993Q2, it grew by 2.1%. However, if growth is measured from the trough of output in 1991Q3, growth in the first year of the 1990s “recovery” would be just 0.5%.

Andrew Sentance: Sustaining the recovery Speech by Mr Andrew Sentance, Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, at the British American Business Council in association with RSM Tenon, London, 13 October 2010. *  *  *  I would like to thank Tomasz Wieladek and Abi Hughes for research assistance and I am also grateful for helpful comments from other colleagues. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England or other members of the Monetary Policy Committee. I am delighted to be giving this speech this evening here in the heart of Westminster and I am grateful to the British American Business Council for hosting this event and to RSM Tenon for sponsoring it. As an active member of the Church of England, I am also very pleased to be giving this speech at its headquarters in Church House. The Church of England plays a vital role in supporting the spiritual health of our nation, just as the Bank of England has a key responsibility in underpinning its economic and financial health. A healthy economy is normally a growing economy. So ensuring the right conditions for a sound and sustained recovery is a key challenge for UK monetary policy at present. And it is that challenge that I want to discuss in my speech to you this evening. The current recovery in context The UK economy has been recovering for about a year now.
Michael C Bonello: Central bankers’ view of the new challenges Speech by Mr Michael C Bonello, Governor of the Central Bank of Malta, at a conference entitled “The Challenges for Central Banks in an Enlarged EMU” organised jointly by the European Community Studies Association (ECSA Austria), Research Institute for European Affairs (IEF) and Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Vienna, 20-21 February 2004. Mr Bonello was a panelist on the discussion regarding “Central Bankers’ View of the New Challenges”. *  *  *  When ten countries, including Malta, join the European Union (EU) on 1st May, they will assume the status of “Member States with a derogation”, meaning that they are exempt from the stricter rules of EMU. This may seem to imply that the transition to EMU is thereby rendered easier, but a careful examination of the conditions attached to the process reveals that the policy issues involved are anything but straightforward. This is particularly true of a small open economy like Malta’s in which macroeconomic policy is strongly conditioned by the external environment, but which has nevertheless succeeding in reconciling a hard currency peg with relative exchange rate stability for over thirty years. Malta has a population of only 400,000. Its nominal GDP of € billion, or less than 0.1% of that of the EU, translates into a per capita income which is around 69% of the EU average. Market services, including tourism and finance, account for nearly two-fifths of GDP, while manufacturing contributes almost a quarter.

The Bank of Albania has continued the practice of organising scientific conferences and national and international forums to share opinions with national and international partners and groups of interest. The Bank of Albania is committed in expanding financial literacy, for an informed public understands better and responds more adequately to the decisions of the central bank. Also, a financially literate public manages better its personal finances. This commitment is further concretised with the establishment of the Museum of the Bank of Albania. During 2017, a range of informing and educational activities were organised at the Museum of the Bank of Albania with the participation of academics from various fields to share their knowledge with the public at large. The Bank of Albania has strengthened the cooperation with the national and international institutions, through information sharing, and consultation and joint projects. During 2017, a number of memoranda of cooperation were signed with national and international partners. Good governance in terms of the performance of the work processes, the efficiency in using the resources and risk management, is an element of the Bank of Albania’s accountability. In this light, I would like to mention the main improvements that have taken place in terms of internal audit systems. The internal audit at the Bank of Albania is an independent activity from the management, ensured through the Inspector General, appointed by the Parliament. 8/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  6. Internal audit The Operational Risk Management function was consolidated over 2017.