samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
So how do our actions support economic activity? Buying assets and extending interest rate guidance puts downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, so they are lower than they would otherwise be for any given economic outlook. This supports the price of assets such as equities and homes. Buying mortgage-backed securities has the additional effect of  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  narrowing the interest rate spread between these assets and Treasuries, which further reduces mortgage rates. Moreover, to the extent that our actions are seen as supporting the recovery and providing some insurance against adverse shocks, confidence in the mediumterm economic outlook should also increase, making businesses and households more willing to invest, hire and spend. If we are successful, long-term Treasury yields could actually rise as confidence in a sustainable recovery increases. At the same time, the expected returns on private assets should rise and risk premia decline. This matters because such shifts would provide support to the economic recovery. Now it is true that some of the channels through which monetary policy affects the economy may be partially impaired at the moment. For example, because of ongoing restrictions in the supply of mortgage credit to customers with less than perfect credit records, the impact of lower mortgage rates on housing is probably less powerful than normal. While this restraint should slowly ease as house prices stabilize, the difficulties of households with lower credit scores in obtaining mortgage credit warrants ongoing attention.

Muhammad bin Ibrahim: Developments in Malaysia’s banking sector Keynote address by Mr Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Official Launch of the Asian Banking School, Kuala Lumpur, 17 August 2015. *  *  *  Thank you for inviting me to deliver my remarks at this official launch of the Asian Banking School (ABS). It is my great pleasure to be a part of this momentous occasion. Today is the culmination of the vision to take professional development and continuous learning in the Malaysian banking sector to new heights. It also marks the beginning of another important and exciting journey in our overall effort to enhance the standards, quality, productivity and competitiveness of the workforce of the financial services industry. It’s an important first step in professionalising the industry. The banking sector in Malaysia has come a long way to grow both in strength and stature, steadily advancing and maturing as it seeks to become more effective and efficient in performing its intermediation function. In the last decade alone, the industry has undergone some fundamental changes following a period of transformation facilitated by the Financial Sector Masterplan (FSMP). Today, our banking system is placed on a solid footing on the back of strong capitalisation, strengthened by improved risk management and governance practices. We are also seeing increased sophistication and a wide spectrum of products and services being offered by diverse players in the marketplace.
Jean-Claude Trichet: Structural and financial reforms in Europe in a global economic environment  Speech by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor of the Banque de France, at the International Securities Market Association meeting, held in Paris, on 16 June 2000. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great pleasure for me to take the opportunity of this ISMA meeting in Paris to present some views on how European economies have entered a new era with the introduction of the euro. First, I would like to elaborate on the pace of structural reforms, which have already produced tangible and positive effects on the growth rate in the euro zone. Second, I will focus on the integration process which is under way in financial markets across the euro area. 1. The euro area may expect a long phase of steady economic growth sustained by the strong pace of structural reforms: further liberalization, increasing labor flexibility and government budgetary discipline  Liberalization based on privatization, deregulation and transparency has been a success The time is long past when a significant portion of the European economy was controlled through various government bodies or regulations. The liberalization movement, which accelerated substantially with the development of the European Union and principally the completion of the single market, includes three aspects: –  A significant privatization movement, which has spread throughout all of Europe. Since 1990, Europe’s governments have sold more than $ billion worth of state companies.

I would, for example, underline the development of asset-backed securities markets in different countries, among which France, to take advantage of demand from global investors for this type of securities. Let me also mention, as regards the short end of the yield curve, the very rapid development of the market for commercial paper in euro and, in particular, the success of the Paris-based market, which has attracted large foreign issuers, thanks to its security, an appropriate regulatory framework and the efficient functioning of DVP procedures. The euro’s market share as an issuance currency reflects, to a large extent, the ability of intermediaries to promote the deep and liquid markets that issuers and investors need. Hence, as was predicted by observers, since the start of Stage Three the euro has become the second most important currency in all segments of international capital markets. •  At the shortest end of the market, the integration of the interbank market took place last year right from the start of EMU, thanks to the installation of the TARGET system, which enabled large-value payment systems to move money efficiently and safely in real time from one location to another. An important feature to have in mind is that this efficiency has been achieved not through the centralization of payment systems, but through a decentralized network in which national RTGS systems managed by NCBs are linked together. Such a structure is working well.
My special welcome goes to the IMF's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva - it is indeed our great privilege to have you on the conference and to host you for the first time here in Dubrovnik. I also thank our Prime Minister Plenkovi for being with us today to open this event and to set the stage for fruitful discussions that will follow. Finally, I want to thank all of you for coming here to enrich the conference by sharing your great knowledge and experience with us. Last time we gathered here in Dubrovnik, on a similar occasion, was in 2019. We had to skip 2021, for the known reason, namely one of the shocks that hit us in this short period of time – the pandemic. I'm happy that we are back here in a better shape than in spring of 2020 most believed we would be at this moment in time. And while the main objective of the conference has not changed much – that is to discuss policies needed to enable sustainable growth and prosperity in Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe – the underlying circumstances at that time were so much different than today. From an economist's perspective, it seems that 2019 was not years ago, but decades ago.

Boris Vuji: Resilience, adaptability, and cooperation Speech by Mr Boris Vuji, Governor of the Croatian National Bank, at the conference "Policymaking in Choppy Waters: Fostering Resilience in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE)", Dubrovnik, 3 June 2023. *** Dear Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovi, dear Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, dear ministers, governors, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to everyone. After a beautiful evening yesterday, that served as a perfect introduction to our gathering, it is my great pleasure to also welcome you to the official part of our conference. As you know, the conference is jointly organized by Croatian National Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This is the third biennial conference that we started in 2017, when the MD of the Fund was my current boss in the Governing Council of the ECB. At that time neither of us knew that today we would be sitting together in the ECB Governing Council. That much about the predictability, which has poorly served us on a much grander scale over the last years. So, I would first like to express my sincere gratitude to our IMF colleagues for excellent cooperation during the preparation of the conference. We are both happy that we have managed to gather top policy makers and speakers at this beautiful location to talk about very topical issues.
Looking ahead to next year, the Governing Council will hold fortnightly meetings and I intend to hold a press conference, normally, once a month. For the first quarter of 1999, I envisage holding a press conference immediately after the first meeting of each month. Further details of the meetings schedule are provided in the separate press release that will be issued to you this evening. Let me, however, return to the present. The Governing Council and the General Council devoted part of their September meetings to an extended exchange of views on recent economic, monetary and financial developments. In particular, much attention was paid to the global economic and financial environment of the future euro area, which has clearly worsened. Two major factors are currently affecting capital markets. First, the “flight into quality”. Second and related - the tendency to switch from equities to bonds. As evidenced once again over the past few days by large swings in investor sentiment, the monetary policy environment has become more uncertain. One focal aspect of the discussion has been a close monitoring of the financial crisis in Russia. As we all know, the Russian crisis has added to concerns regarding the state of the world economy at a time when the crisis in Asia is still ongoing and growth in Japan is negative. These concerns have been fuelled by renewed strains in international financial markets as well as sharp fluctuations and downward corrections in major stock markets.

An efficient securities clearing and settlement infrastructure is of fundamental importance to the integration and smooth functioning of financial markets. To this end, the Eurosystem supports the Commission’s intention to put forward a proposal for a directive on securities clearing and settlement. On the question of new regulatory initiatives, we share the view that asset management and retail financial services are areas where regulatory intervention could be considered. In the area of financial supervision, the Eurosystem fully supports the Commission’s view that the current institutional set-up should be exploited to the maximum extent before any potential structural change is considered. In particular, the Eurosystem agrees that the main policy objective in the area of financial supervision is two-fold: first, to enhance the competitiveness of EU financial markets and institutions and to facilitate the development of cross-border finance both in terms of institutions and in terms of products and services – the so-called financial integration angle; and second, to ensure the effectiveness of standards for oversight and supervision in a more integrated financial system – the so-called financial stability angle. In this respect, we attach particular importance to the consistent implementation of financial services legislation and the pursuit of supervisory convergence, as well as to the effective cooperation between home and host authorities. We are of the view that it is important that home-host coordination be developed on a robust and consistent basis for the financial groups involved in a way that both ensures effective supervision and reduces compliance costs.
In other words, there have been grounds for counting in the Inflation Report on a somewhat stronger krona even in the period one to two years ahead that guides monetary policy. But when the krona began falling almost 5 per cent in the course of only a fortnight early this summer, it ultimately became difficult to count on the exchange rate becoming as strong as the forecast envisaged in the coming two years. The weaker the initial position, the larger the requisite appreciation. To quote the press release from 15 June, the Executive Board considered that “The krona’s depreciation since the latest Inflation Report is the most important single factor that may lead to the inflation target being threatened 1-2 years from now”. The Riksbank had then initiated currency market interventions with a view to strengthening the krona. When the Executive Board met on 5 July the krona was still weak. In the light of the current forecasts of resource utilisation, the exchange rate and demand, a majority of the Board members concluded that the repo rate should be raised 0.25 percentage points, to 4.25 per cent, in order to avoid the risk of inflation exceeding the target 1-2 years ahead. The picture also included considerable price increases during the spring which, although mainly transient, were liable to influence inflation expectations. The decision was not an easy one for the Executive Board. As the minutes show, it was preceded by an intensive discussion. Three members had a different view.

BIS Review 72/2001  3  Looking ahead Before I take a look at future tendencies, it may be in place to emphasise that the Swedish economy is fundamentally sound, with a good potential for growth and employment, accompanied by surpluses on the current account as well as the public finances. The recent temporary increase in inflation at a time of slowing activity is a problem that Sweden has in common with other countries around the world. Global economic growth has slowed, as I mentioned, during the spring. The fall-off has been deeper and more protracted than many observers counted on at the beginning of the year. Information received during the summer confirms the impression of a somewhat more drawn-out course, with an upturn that looks like being delayed, in many respects because the key player in the global economy - the United States - is still limping. The imminent recovery presaged by signals early this summer, above all from the financial markets, now seems somewhat more doubtful. The outlook for the Japanese economy is still highly uncertain. And in Europe the growth forecasts for the leading economies have had to be revised downwards. It is perhaps not surprising that after a series of years of strong growth it is taking time to overcome the tensions that arose in the wake of the economic euphoria in the United States. Neither is it odd that with an increasingly integrated global economy, the American slowdown is affecting many other countries, too.
In recent years, these have been significant: specifically, both the jobs lost in the 2008–09 downturn, and those regained during the recovery, have been skewed towards the lower-paid end of the spectrum. This has imparted a bias to average pay and productivity growth – upwards in the recession, downwards in the past couple of years – over that period. Chart 3 plots these estimated “compositional effects” on average wage growth against the change in unemployment. They went up during the recession, boosting average earnings growth, and fell back sharply in the recovery, when unemployment declined. Last year, on these estimates, the skew towards low-paid job creation knocked 0.3% off average wages, relative to those of the median. This compares with a pre-recession average of +0.7% per year. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  One key point I want to make today is that, directionally at least, this isn’t at all unusual. It’s true everywhere that employment tends to be more cyclical for the young, the less experienced and those with fewer qualifications. Chart 4, for example, illustrates a similar phenomenon in the United States: those without degrees experience much larger swings in employment than college-educated people. As a result, measures of average earnings growth in the US are biased upwards in recessions (relative to the experience of people continuously in employment) and downwards in recoveries. That’s why many people pay more attention to the Employment Cost Index1 of US wages, which adjusts for these compositional effects, than to the (unadjusted) headline earnings series.

Given this, it is interesting to reflect on why we Swedes prefer to pay by cash rather than by card more often than our Nordic neighbours. The number of card transactions per inhabitant in 2003 was around 130 in Norway, just over 100 in Finland and Denmark and just over 80 in Sweden. There is no clear explanation for this,  2  BIS Review 33/2006  but one clue may lie in pricing. In Sweden, cash withdrawals from all ATMs are free of charge, despite the large costs entailed in cash handling. In the other Nordic countries, cash withdrawals are only free of charge from the customer’s own bank’s ATMs, which has led to a reduction in the use of cash. The Riksbank’s opinion is that to achieve the best possible efficiency with regard to payments, the respective means of payment should bear its own costs and those who make the payments should be aware of these costs in order to make rational choices. However, it is important to be aware that increased card usage would only have a marginal effect on the number of cash transports. It would therefore be no solution to the problem of cash transport robberies. I hope that we can together bring up these issues onto the agenda and contribute to constructive solutions. The security surrounding cash transports can itself be improved in various ways, but it should be emphasised that this entails much more than security cases and bullet-proof glass.
Further, a “New normal” would call for a prudential coordination of public policies, for reaching an optimum balance between the economic growth and the economic, monetary and financial stability. Allow me to elaborate somewhat further on this issue. The global financial crisis and the pandemic renewed attention to the indispensable role of fiscal policy: an instrument for the stabilisation of the economy and mitigation of crises. This lesson is expected to be relevant – both in medium- term and long-term- by paving the path to a more active role of fiscal policy in the future. Nevertheless, it should in no case skip the need for preserving the fiscal stability. In contrary, fiscal stability remains a precondition to long-term 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  growth and enables the establishment of the necessary premises for the amortisation of shocks. In the area of central banking, the “New normal” will continue to be characterised by a flatter Phillips curve, where wages, employment or economic growth will continue to have a weak relation to inflation. Challenges to maintaining price stability will continue to be present. It dictates the need for the improvement of transmission mechanism of monetary policy by making indispensable the exploring of unconventional instruments as feasible and valuable alternatives for managing future shocks. All these challenges lead to the need for enhancing the flexibility of public institutions making them more able to evolve, adapt to changes around them, and to boost innovation.

Mervyn King: Monetary policy developments Speech by Mr Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet for Bankers and Merchants of the City of London at the Mansion House, London, 17 June 2009. *  *  *  My Lord Mayor, Mr Chancellor, My Lords, Ministers, Aldermen, Mr Recorder, Sheriffs, Ladies and Gentlemen, It has been quite a year. A year to remember, but not to repeat. Since we last met, a financial panic swept through markets in September, several major financial institutions failed, and a remarkable collapse of confidence around the world led to unprecedented declines in industrial production and national output. World trade fell by almost 15% in six months, a faster rate of decline than in the Great Depression. Faced with this crisis, the Bank of England took extraordinary actions. Bank Rate was cut virtually to zero, and the Monetary Policy Committee embarked on a programme of £ billion of asset purchases. And in your own businesses you too have had to deal with what some have called a once-in-a-century event. Since the panic last autumn, overall output has fallen by around 3% in the United States and the United Kingdom, 6% in Germany, and 7% in Japan. The collapse of spending in these economies is having painful consequences. In less than a year, over 5 million jobs have been lost in the United States, almost 2 million in the euro area, and almost half a million here in the United Kingdom.
A further 10 firms have commenced exploratory engagement with our specialists with a view to a future application. But it is self-evident that, each time we make a requirement more proportionate for firms below a certain size threshold, we introduce one extra adjustment that firms need to make as they grow in size and exceed it. This brings the risk that on the mountain-path from newly authorised firm to ring-fenced bank, we create sheer rock-faces that can be a rather daunting barrier, and require investment in specialist climbing equipment if they are to be scaled. And more broadly, we recognise that there is always the risk that the costs to comply with a regime that is designed for all firms including the most complex can be disproportionate for those that are smaller and simpler. This means we need to do two things. First, we need to do what we can to smooth out those barriers to growth, in order to create a smoother path and not insurmountable rock faces along the way. For example, we have set out a new policy for a ‘graduated rate’ approach to setting capital requirements for credit unions with more than £ million in total assets.7 And second, we need to help firms get over those barriers.

This initiative reflects our commitment towards financial integration in the ASEAN region and the global financial system through closer linkage with other central securities depositories, namely Euroclear and the Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. It is expected that other central securities depository will participate in this initiative to heighten this cross-border linkage. MyClear is thus set to be one of the key multilateral settlement platforms that will facilitate sukuk trading transactions. The implementation of this initiative which is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2011 offers cost-effective access for foreign investors to invest in Malaysian securities deposited with MyClear. At the same time, it will enable Malaysian investors to invest in foreign securities deposited with international and regional central securities depositories institutions. Moving forward, MyClear will continue to expand its horizon to other regions across the world. Another infrastructure development that is taking shape in the international Islamic financial system is the establishment of the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation (IILM). Launched in October 2010, the IILM has begun its operations in Kuala Lumpur on the 1st of February. Its main task is to issue short-term multi-currency liquidity instruments to facilitate the cross-border liquidity management between financial centres and at the same time enhance the financial inter-linkages. The IILM is scheduled to roll out the issuance of liquidity instruments later this year. This will allow for more efficient management of financial flows across borders and thus contribute towards the efficient internationalisation of Islamic finance.