samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In particular, Spanish unit labour costs relative to the rest of the euro area fell by 14% from 2008 to 2018, thereby offsetting practically all the losses in competitiveness, measured by this indicator, built up during the previous expansion. This has been conducive both to across-the-board gains in share in international markets and to greater geographical diversification towards markets with high growth potential. As a result, goods exports rose from accounting, in real terms, for 19% of GDP in 2009 to 28% in 2018; exporting firms as a proportion of total Spanish companies grew sharply as from 2009; and the number of regular exporting firms has increased in the past five years by 31%, with a notable increase in destinations such as Asia and North America. Likewise of note is that this period of growth has been accompanied by significantly buoyant investment in equipment. Specifically, from 2013 to 2018, this aggregate increased in real terms by almost 34%, compared with the cumulative 14.4% increase in GDP over the same period. Hence, the weight of this component in GDP stood in 2018 above 10%, the highest figure for the past three decades. Further, this improvement in productive investment has been across the board in terms of productive branches, and notably sharper than that recorded in the euro area as a whole, a development closely linked to the competitive gains and to the intensification of Spanish firms’ export orientation in recent years to which I referred.

This would directly conflict with our monetary policy, since any hedging would be equivalent to a purchase of Swiss francs against foreign currencies, which would intensify the upward pressure on the Swiss franc. Therefore the broadest possible diversification of our foreign currency investments is our sole means of reducing exchange rate risk. At the end of September, 48% of foreign currency holdings were invested in euros, compared with 60% at mid-year, with 28% invested in US dollars, and 24% in other currencies. We are continuously evaluating new asset classes and currencies in both advanced and emerging economies; this year, the SNB began investing in the South Korean won. Our goal is to further diversify our foreign currency investments and thereby reduce risk concentration. To avoid undesirable third-market effects, our entire investment activity is invariably undertaken with a high degree of prudence and caution in respect of potentially adverse effects on markets. This applies equally to inflows and reallocations of investments, as well as to the establishment of new positions. If, for example, we see ourselves confronted with very high foreign currency inflows, we might place these in sight deposit accounts at other central banks, before investing them in securities. The SNB has absolutely no interest in causing market distortions or influencing currency movements in other countries. Issues surrounding the Libor and reference interest rates I would like to conclude by exploring some of the issues in connection with the Libor rate, and the global discussion on reference interest rates in money markets generally.
The former savings banks that exceeded a specific size have had to convert into foundations, whose main function is the management of their welfare projects drawing on the  1  See “Background note on public financial assistance in the restructuring of the Spanish banking sector (2009–2015)”. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  return on their assets. Likewise, the Law provides for various mechanisms – such as the requirement, where appropriate, for a management protocol, a financial plan and the settingup of a reserve fund in foundations – to safeguard the independence and professionalism of bank management and to generate incentives for the orderly reduction of the stake of these foundations in banks, to levels compatible with the absence of control. I believe the new regulations – soon to be complemented by a Banco de España circular – point the way for a new organisational model for the sector more in keeping with the current demands which include ever-stricter prudential and corporate governance requirements. Under this model, and after a suitable transition period where necessary, significant banks would generally adopt the form of a listed public limited company, so that they are able to compete in the market to raise the capital and funding required for the orderly pursuit of their activity in the new regulatory environment. I believe that in this forum – sponsored by La Caixa – I need not insist on the viability and reasonableness of this model for the former savings banks.

However, as the former president of the European Monetary Institute suggests, the crisis has changed the world for ever, bringing about significant changes in the economic, regulatory and institutional environment in which the banking industry operates. In particular, Spanish banks, similarly to their European peers, now face challenges that will require them to adapt their business models in a new environment characterised by a structural decline in profitability, a significant increase in regulatory requirements, the harmonisation of supervisory rules and practices in the framework of the banking union and the introduction of new demands by the resolution authorities. As Lamfalussy said, there are no grounds for pessimism, but this view is based essentially on the expectation that banks will be able to successfully complete the work they have started to fully restore investor, customer and general public confidence. Thank you very much. 3  Taken from the keynote speech made at the Ninth BIS Annual Conference on “The future of central banking under post-crisis mandates”, 24–25 June 2010. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches
Marzunisham Omar: Digital ID/e-KYC and Financing and Facilitation of Foreign Terrorist Fighters Welcoming remarks by Mr Marzunisham Omar, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the 22nd Asia/Pacific Group (APG) on Money Laundering Typologies Workshop, virtual, 2 February 2021. * * * It is my pleasure to welcome all of you to the first virtual APG Annual Typologies Workshop this week. It is rather unfortunate that I cannot personally host you in Kuala Lumpur for this event. I have recently assumed the role of APG Co-Chair, representing Malaysia. Malaysia is indeed very honoured to co-chair the APG and we are committed to working together with all members in delivering the APG’s mandates during this unprecedented and challenging times. It is my wish that during my tenure as Co-Chair, we would be able to further strengthen the strategic partnership amongst APG members and foster better collaboration in implementing the APG initiatives and agenda. Together with the APG Secretariat, we will continue to provide platforms for members to raise any issues affecting individual members as well as collectively as a group. For this purpose, together with Co-Chair Ian, we have identified several focus areas as the CoChairs’ Priorities, one of which is to host the Annual Typologies Workshop. Despite the pandemic and after a two-year hiatus, we are glad to be able to conduct the APG Typologies Workshop although in a virtual setting.

Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: The crisis and financial markets Speech by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the Annual Financial Conference of the Asociación de Mercados Financieros, Madrid, 13 December 2010. *  *  *  Good afternoon, and my thanks to the Asociación de Mercados Financieros for their kind invitation to participate in this lunch colloquium. Since the Great Depression last century, the world has not seen a financial crisis as deep as the present one. And, like then, many years of intense study and a sufficient time perspective will probably be needed to accurately assess the factors that caused the crisis and the mechanisms contributing to its spread. In particular, there is still much to be learned of the relationship between the development of the crisis and the behaviour of financial markets. Nonetheless, I shall take this opportunity today to offer some brief reflections on the conduct of markets during the crisis, with a perspective that in no way claims to be all-encompassing since I shall concern myself exclusively with its impact on the Spanish economy. To this end I’ll discuss two clearly differentiated episodes of the financial crisis of the past three years: the first, which we might call the “banking crisis”, affected Spain less than other countries; and the second, associated with the rapid deterioration of public finances in the euro area, has had significant effects on our country.
More broadly, the developed financial markets, including derivatives for managing interest-rate and exchange-rate risks, a critical mass of financial institutions and a large investor base, support the growth of the debt market. This brief comparison will, I hope, bring out quite clearly the size, sophistication and efficiency of Hong Kong’s financial system in the context of the country as a whole. It should also give some indication of the actual and potential utility of the financial system of Hong Kong to the country, in contributing to sustainable economic growth and development on the Mainland. It was also Deng Xiaoping who coined another memorable phrase. He said that: "finance is very important; it is the nucleus of a modern economy" 3 . Indeed, the future path of the economy of China depends crucially on how matters concerning money and finance, currency and exchange are organised. To sustain the current rapid pace of economic growth and development, what China needs now is an effective mechanism for financial intermediation for the Mainland – a mechanism to mobilise the huge amount of savings  2  The responsibilities of the Monetary Authority are laid down in the exchange of letters between the Financial Secretary and the Monetary Authority on 25 June 2003. The letters can be found on the HKMA website. (http://www.info.gov.hk/hkma/eng/press/2003/attach/20030627e3a1.pdf). 3  The phrase was used by Deng Xiaoping during a visit to Shanghai in the spring of 1991, when the central government decided to develop Pudong into a modern financial centre.

Jarle Bergo: Projections, uncertainty and choice of interest rate assumption in monetary policy Speech by Mr Jarle Bergo, Deputy Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Foreign Exchange Seminar of the Association of Norwegian Economists, Sanderstølen, 27 January 2006. The  Charts in pdf-format can be found on the Norges Bank’s website. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The speech does not contain new assessments of the economic situation or of current interest rate setting. *  *  *  Introduction First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me to this seminar. Participants at this and other seminars have occasionally shown some interest in Norges Bank’s views on future interest rate developments. For a long period, our analyses were based on the assumption that the interest rate would move in line with market expectations, and the discussion was usually about whether the bank agreed with this interest rate outlook or had a different interest rate path in mind. In Inflation Report 3/05, projections were based on the Bank’s own projected path for future interest rates for the first time. In other words, from using technical assumptions and others’ assessments of our future monetary stance, we have now in a sense “assumed ownership” ourselves of the interest rate path in our projections. This seminar would therefore seem to give me an appropriate opportunity to provide some background on this issue and on the assessments underlying our forecasting.
Another example where we’ve acted as a catalyst is our Small Business Credit Survey. The findings revealed the challenge small businesses face accessing loans for expansion. The cost of originating smaller loans is often so great that banks won’t take them on. But as a result of the gap being identified, one bank is now partnering with the Community Reinvestment Fund to refer small businesses to the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund.2 Small businesses are vital to job creation and play an important role in our communities, so it’s essential we support them to get access to the credit they need to grow. I don’t want to talk about access to credit without saying a few words about the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA. Our work supervising CRA compliance supports efforts to make sure credit gets to where it’s needed most. A large amount of work has been going on at the Board of Governors to review the modernization of the CRA, and we held two roundtables here in New York City to better understand what’s working and where we need change. What’s important is that efforts to modernize CRA maintain and strengthen the emphasis on 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  ensuring all communities in our nation have access to affordable credit. These principles—connect, convene, and catalyze—will continue to guide us forward as we grow our outreach programs and drive progress.

A tale of two workers So which of the twin-peaked outcomes facing the economy is most likely? An imminent burst of macro-economic sunshine? Or leaden-grey skies as far as the eye can see? Several factors have been put forward to support the secular stagnation hypothesis. They include rising levels of inequality, worsening levels of educational attainment, a rising debt overhang, lower prices for investment goods, rising levels of youth unemployment and lower levels of innovation (Gordon (2012), VoxEU (2014)). None should be dismissed lightly. But nor do these factors necessarily contradict the possibility of recovery in at least some parts of the economy. It is entirely possible that both poles may be in play – if you like, sunshine with showers – pulling the economy in opposing directions. Those polarising forces are well illustrated by developments in the labour market. Polarisation in the labour market has been a phenomenon since at least the 1980s, with a “hollowing out” of employment across the skill-distribution (Goos and Manning (2007) Goos et al (2009), Autor et al (2003, 2006, 2010), Sissons (2011), McIntosh (2013), Plunkett and Pessoa (2013)). Employment growth has been strongest among the highest and lowestskilled. But the casualty has been the mid-skilled, where employment has fallen. This structural shift is usually attributed to technological displacement of mid-skill jobs – for example, because of the automation and digitisation of certain tasks. For that reason, a “smiley face” employment pattern has been found across a wide number of countries when looked at in skills space.
Reasons for optimism abound however: intensive discussions are currently going on between market participants and Eurosystem/ESCB experts on the range of actions that are needed to achieve the highest desirable level of standardisation. In that regard, an harmonised and consistent implementation across member states of the recently amended European directive on UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities) that extends the range of money market instruments available to mutual funds would certainly represent a major step towards the creation of a pan-European market for short term securities. Still, it is worth recalling that this situation has not prevented this market segment from experiencing a significant growth in issuance as well as in turnover. As illustrated by the developments on the French component of this market, the largest one in the euro zone, this trend has been fostered on the one hand by an increase in large issuance programs, notably by non-resident issuers, and on the other hand, by the development of the euro Asset Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP) market segment (19% of total outstanding amounts). 1.3 The implications of the launch of the euro have also been highly visible on the equity markets. The disappearance of currency risk within the euro area has led investors to shift from a domestic focus to a more international, sector-related one, and asset managers to develop European oriented investment funds to complement their originally domestic-focused funds.

Out of this came the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), namely the European Banking Authority (EBA) in London, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) in Frankfurt and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in Paris. We discussed whether these three authorities could be merged into one, but that was considered premature. Suggesting such a merger might have delayed the whole political process (Figure 5). Trying to move the three to the same city was considered equally impossible. Figure 5 The EU’s new supervisory structure European Banking Authority (EBA) European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB)  European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)  The second pillar was the European Systemic Risk Board, the ESRB. The main idea with the ESRB was to look beyond the supervision of individual institutions and focus on the risks relevant to the financial system as a whole. There was a widespread feeling that supervisors in many countries could not see the wood for the trees – and certainly not any woods in any other countries. So the new body should work with issues systemic to parts or to the whole of Europe. As time has passed, this task has become known as “macro-prudential supervision”. The institutional set-up of the ESRB Legally, the ESRB is an independent EU body located in Frankfurt and with a Secretariat provided by the European Central Bank. The President of the ECB is also the Chair of the ESRB. The ESRB has no binding powers.
However, it is not necessarily a law of nature that technological advances always create at least as many jobs as they take away. The digital technology developments have made it increasingly profitable, and to an increasing degree possible, to replace human labour with machinery. It is probable that “technological unemployment” resulting from automation will become a more common phenomenon in the coming period than it has been so far, although this is of course something that remains to be seen. If this were to be the case, a lot more groups in the economy will experience downward pressure on their wages. This may, in turn, have a restraining effect on inflation. Globalisation, the acceleration of international trade and the integration of China and other developing countries into the world economy, has been an important underlying trend in the global economy and will probably remain so in the coming period. Like digitisation, globalisation affects the economy through many different channels. Perhaps the one that has been most in focus in the discussions on inflation is the downward pressure that results from industrialised nations increasingly importing cheaper goods from, for instance, China. 13 This essentially concerns cutting the price of import goods relative to prices of domesticallyproduced goods, while inflation is a change in the general price level that affects all prices.

The risks of a setback in economic activity should not be underestimated either. As we Executive Board members pointed out, we are always prepared to make monetary policy even more expansionary if we assess that the upturn in inflation is threatened. But even if the focus of the debate in Sweden is now of necessity on current monetary policy, we must not lose sight of the longer perspective. There is a lively international debate on whether, and if so how, inflation targeting should be changed in the wake of the financial crisis and the ensuing period of a long-drawn out economic recession, very low inflation and very expansionary monetary policy. What do the past eight years mean for the functioning of the economy and for monetary policy? Will we return to the way things looked before the financial crisis? It is important that we also take time in the Swedish debate to focus on these fundamental issues so that the discussions of our own monetary policy framework remain well-informed and productive. This is important not least for the external evaluation of monetary policy in Sweden now being carried out on behalf of the Riksdag Committee on Finance. There are many interesting question that are worth raising. One example that is of immediate interest in the Swedish debate is the question of whether monetary policy should have an explicit target for employment in addition to the target for inflation. This is one question that will be taken up in the external evaluation.
As the Times reported 20 years ago, “the pound’s firmer tone, and softer German money market rates, could tempt the Chancellor to shave half a point off base rates to coincide with the Prime Minister’s speech at Brighton today”. The party conference season is no longer a time for speculation about changes in interest rates. No doubt we shall learn a great deal about the appropriate allocation of responsibilities to monetary policy, on  32  10  Bernanke (2011). BIS central bankers’ speeches  the one hand, and macro-prudential policy, on the other, over the next twenty years. But we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Low and stable inflation is a pre-requisite for economic success. Much of what I have said is, I hope, a call to arms for economists, and especially younger economists, to rethink the foundations of our macroeconomic theories. Not to abandon rigorous modelling – after all, in the words of last year’s Nobel Prize winner Tom Sargent “it takes a model to beat a model” – but to recognise that in our present models the way we think of human behaviour in the face of irreducible uncertainty is seriously incomplete. Ideas matter far more than is usually recognised in the public discussion of monetary policy which concentrates too much on personalities. Keynes and Stamp both knew that.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  Annex: Tables and charts  10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  12  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  13  14  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  15  16  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  17  References Adrian, T and H. Shin (2011), “Financial Intermediaries and Monetary Economics”, Handbook of Monetary Economics 3A pp. 601–650, Elsevier. Barker, K., (2003), “Adjusting to low inflation – issues for policy”, available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2003/speech190.pdf . Barker, K., (2012), “Macroeconomic policy: too much autonomy and too little coordination”, Centreforum, available at www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/macroeconomic-policy.pdf . Bean, C., (2003), “Asset Prices, Financial Imbalances and Monetary Policy: Are Inflation Targets Enough?” in Anthony Richards and Timothy Robinson (eds.) Asset Prices and Monetary Policy, pp. 48-76. Reserve Bank of Australia: Sydney. Bean, C., M. Paustian, A. Penalver, and T. Taylor, (2010), “Monetary Policy after the Fall” In Macroeconomic Challenges: The Decade Ahead. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Bernanke, B., (2011), “The Effects of the Great Recession on Central Bank Doctrine and Practice”, remarks at the 56th Economic Conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 18 October 2011. Bernanke, B., and M. Gertler, (1989) “Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations”, American Economic Review, Vol. 79(1), pp. 14–31. Bernanke, B., and M. Gertler, (1990), “Financial Fragility and Economic Performance”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 105, pp. 87–114.