samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
I think that we should in Estonia seriously and comprehensively analyse factors that influence employment, including absolute or relative taxation of the workforce and costs related to hiring and layoffs. Thirdly, the balanced growth. Reforms are not an objective per se, we undertake them with the assumption that they will lead to a higher economic growth rate, higher income and improved living standard. Leaving aside the turbulent years of economic reforms immediately after the 1992 monetary reform which lasted until 1995, the average annual economic growth rate in Estonia has been above 5%. Between 1995 and 2001 the average salary increased from 2086 kroons to 5721 kroons. During the same time period real wages increased by one-third. We believe that our mean economic growth rate will continue to be about 6% per annum. The quality of the economic growth in Estonia is consolidated by growing productivity - in 1995-2001 the GDP per capita (in fixed prices) increased by almost 40%. It is also demonstrated by the remarkable interest of the private sector and its readiness to invest. Structural changes in the economy can also be regarded as quality indicators - changes in the distribution between the industrial, agricultural and service sectors. Still, in the forthcoming years we must keep a watchful eye on the external equilibrium of our economy, the current account deficit and its financing, changes in the productivity and competitiveness.

While the government pump-priming helped achieve this favorable growth outcome, net exports contributed to almost 60 percent of the overall GDP growth. Indeed, the robust growth of exports of 18 percent in US dollar terms in 2007 illustrated the ability of Thai exporters to adjust through quality improvement and search of new markets, as well as their ability to preserve overall price competitiveness in the face of sharp dollar decline. Admittedly, this exceptional export performance was also due to strong trading partners’ demand – the environment which is unlikely to reoccur in 2008. I will return to discuss this risk a bit later on. Monetary policy has been accommodative to growth since the beginning of 2007, with an aim to firm up domestic demand while safeguarding against undue inflationary expectations. The outcome on this front was quite favorable, as headline and core inflation were well contained at 2.3 and 1.1 percent, respectively, by end-2007. The Thai financial markets remained resilient through 2007 with only moderate fluctuations. Though credit and deposit grew slowly last year as domestic demand was weak, profitability of banks and financial institutions were satisfactory and the overall non-performing loans in the banking system remained moderate. Ladies and Gentlemen, Against the background of sound monetary and financial stability, the growth momentum of the Thai economy is expected to gain strength through the year 2008.
The Bank of England voluntarily accepted DEFRA’s invitation to compile a Climate Change Adaptation Report, due for delivery later this year. A project team was established to inquire into the topics of climate change and stranded assets. We are seeking to understand how these changes may impact upon the PRA’s objectives and how that could shape our role going forward. We have noted that change to an insurers’ business model can be driven from many sources – which include changing consumer expectations. Today the consumer demands more control, flexibility and automatism having become accustomed to interactive, accessible and digitised services. Increasingly consumers – that’s you and I in our personal lives – expect the same digitised experience for all their buying needs, including insurance. Digitisation and the prominence of “smart tech” cannot be ignored and already innovation in technology is leading insurers to do business differently. This shift can be felt across the value-chain, whether it be changes in distribution channels and use of cloud-based infrastructure, to enhanced underwriting processes and use of “black boxes”. For the most part, digital includes putting the customer experience at the centre of insurers’ strategies. Whilst positive, as with any shift in business model and strategy, business developments need to be carefully managed and monitored to ensure the core objectives of enhancing the customer experience are indeed achieved. And new IT systems don’t come cheap, nor are they riskless. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Digitisation and enhanced technology can be a double-edged sword.

Moreover, the 5/18  risks associated with a no-deal Brexit persist, and the emergence of fresh protectionist tensions hampering the recovery in global trade cannot be ruled out. Domestically, doubts prevail over the future course of economic policies, both in relation to budgetary policy and structural reforms. We must wait until a government emerges from the results of the latest general elections. The challenges and vulnerabilities of the economy Beyond its expected course in the short and medium term, the Spanish economy continues to face significant challenges and vulnerabilities. Headway in correcting these is needed in order to shore up the economy’s long-term growth capacity. Most notably, I would stress here high public and external debt, progressive population ageing, the high unemployment rate, the strengthening of the banking system and, as I said in my introduction, low productivity. Let us take first high public debt. This stood at end-2018 at around 97% of GDP, over 60 pp up on 2007, and is one of the main vulnerabilities that arose in the wake of the crisis. Also, the budget deficit is still high (2.5% of GDP in 2018) and, on available estimates, still has a significant structural component into which no inroads had practically been made in the past four years. Eliminating this vulnerability of the economy requires resuming the budgetary consolidation process. Cutting the deficit and public debt would, moreover, give fiscal policy greater leeway for countercyclical action in the face of any future negative shocks.
But let us now turn to monetary policy. The Central Bank’s interest rates have been lowered significantly over a short period of time, mostly because inflation has subsided rapidly and inflation expectations have followed suit. Interest rates had to fall accordingly in order to prevent the real interest rate from rising, which would have been quite unfortunate given the spare capacity in the economy. For the same reason, attempts have been made to lower real interest rates without jeopardising exchange rate stability and the inflation target. As I mentioned earlier, Central Bank interest rates are at an all-time low. Nonetheless, the Monetary Policy Committee is of the opinion that there is still some room for further rate cuts if the króna remains stable and inflation continues to subside as forecast. The MPC emphasises, however, that the upcoming removal of capital controls creates uncertainty about just how much room there is to reduce interest rates. The breakeven inflation rate on Government bonds, as measured by the Central Bank, has declined since the 3 November interest rate decision, and the five-year breakeven rate is now broadly in line with the Bank’s inflation target. Shorter-term expectations could fall even further in the near term, as the Bank’s forecast projects that inflation will fall below 2% in 2011. Based on this measure, the effective real policy rate is now 2-2½%. This is below the pre-crisis equilibrium real interest  BIS Review 158/2010  3  rate, and probably lower than the rate that will prevail once the economy has normalised.

But while we are at the bottom of the business cycle, it is appropriate that real interest rates should be well below long-term levels. Nonetheless, it is clear that, as interest rates fall, there will be less scope for further rate cuts. At present, however, I think we have not reached the bottom of the interest rate cycle. Let us turn now to the capital controls. When we begin to lift controls on capital outflows, sometime after March 2011, the exchange rate will lose the support the controls have provided. If all of the capital controls were lifted today, the exchange rate would probably fall sharply. But no such plan is in the offing. On the contrary: work will be done to create the conditions for removal of the controls without necessarily causing a marked drop in the exchange rate. The liberalisation strategy publicised in August 2009 specified three conditions for removal of the controls: 1) macroeconomic stability, including credible measures to ensure fiscal sustainability and declining inflation; 2) a sound financial system; 3) sufficient foreign exchange reserves. The financial system soundness requirement has not yet been met, but the other two are relatively well in place. But why were these conditions chosen? They were chosen because they are essential if risk premia on Icelandic financial assets are to fall to any significant degree.
cnb.cz/cs/verejnost/servis-pro-media/autorske-clanky-rozhovory-s-predstaviteli-cnb /Klausova-draha-permanentka/ 3 https://www.cnb.cz/cs/o_cnb/cnblog/Inflace-v-CR-cyklicky-ci-acyklicky-pribeh/ 4 https://www.cnb.cz/cs/verejnost/servis-pro-media/autorske-clanky-rozhovory-s-  predstaviteli-cnb/Krotitele-nakladove-inflace/ 5 For details, see https://www.cnb.cz/cs/o_cnb/cnblog/Jak-dlouhy-je-spravny-horizont-  menove-politiky/. 3/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  6 https://www.cnb.cz/cs/verejnost/servis-pro-media/autorske-clanky-rozhovory-s-  predstaviteli-cnb/Zapisky-z-Jackson-Hole-1-00001.-dil/ 7 https://www.cnb.cz/cs/verejnost/servis-pro-media/autorske-clanky-rozhovory-s-  predstaviteli-cnb/Jdeme-prikladem-brzdime-platy-v-CNB/  4/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches

Complying with regulations, submitting to supervision, and churning out disclosure documents for the markets is not always an appealing prospect. 7 In short, the Goliaths of the financial world have become more nimble-footed, and are both competing with and partnering the Davids. 8 That said, we are still at an early stage of FinTech, globally. It has spurred greater competition in every segment of the value chain of finance. It is too early to say who the winners will be. 9 The traditional financial institutions have the advantage of scale and a reputation amongst customers. But those that fail to keep up with technology will see part or all of their business models disrupted. Consumers are cautious about shifting their wallets to new players, but they are also looking out for services that offer the best value. 10 But many FinTech start-ups will also fail. It is in the nature of innovation that few new ideas and technologies will develop scale, sustain funding and end up as winners in the market. The 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  collapse of many peer-to-peer lending platforms in the US, UK, and China is a reminder that it will not be plain sailing for FinTech companies. A growing FinTech ecosystem in Singapore 11 Singapore’s strategy is not to choose between financial institutions and new FinTech players but to provide the conditions for both to innovate, compete, and collaborate. Our aim is to create a FinTech ecosystem where innovation thrives.
In particular, the models cannot deal easily with self reinforcing movements away from equilibrium. What at first glance can look like a series of unrelated unexplained disturbances to the variables in the model, could actually reflect some common economic impulse that is not captured by the model. Whether those shocks die away, persist or even build – and therefore how misleading the forecasts that the model produces are – will depend on what’s missing from the model. In fact the areas of the economy which the current generation of models do not cover well include the areas where the imbalances were building up in recent years. The treatment of financial markets and their interaction with the real economy is little more than a side-show. Banks are typically absent altogether. Yet experience has shown that financial markets are particularly prone to these self-reinforcing movements away from equilibrium. We have seen in the last few months alone many examples of that. For example we have seen coordinated sales of assets depressing prices, leading to write-downs on portfolios throughout the system, which in turn have triggered a further wave of selling. These features generally prevented these models from “joining up the dots” in the last upswing and from capturing the impact of tightening credit conditions in the downswing. I should emphasise that the MPC is not a slave to any one model. The current Governor reminds us frequently that: “It is vital never to confuse the world with a model.

If policy is given the narrower goal of protecting the banks from the cycle and it proves possible to set clear rules in place (for example a simple leverage ratio) there would be no need for a further policy maker to be involved. However if policy is given the broader macroeconomic goals of stabilising credit – protecting the cycle from banks if you will – and judgement is required on the state of the cycle and whether and when to vary the rules, then it would be essential for the Central Bank to play a leading role, albeit in close consultation with the regulator. In my view that is the more likely outcome. Conclusion One theme you may have noticed in these reflections is the need for policy makers to be willing to back their judgements – whether in identifying asset bubbles or identifying firms or markets which threaten financial stability – and to take pre-emptive action. For example, if most macro-models were not giving us warning signals in recent years, our analysis of the financial sector certainly was. As I mentioned earlier, successive Financial Stability Reports did set these dangers out in 2006 and 2007 and indeed earlier. One of the lessons we have acted on already is to make more of such warnings.
And central banks do not regulate casino visits. As you can see, I could easily spend all of my time today talking about the problems of cryptocurrencies, and of bitcoin in particular. I could talk about how much energy it consumes – at some points last year, the bitcoin ecosystem consumed twice as much energy as Nigeria, an oil giant with 190 million people. By the way, the energy consumed on a single bitcoin transaction until 2017 could power a typical American household for more than three weeks. I could talk about how a seven-fold increase in the value of bitcoin some time ago was driven by the manipulation of a single trader. I could talk about the volatility of bitcoin, which surpasses that of any other commonly traded commodity and which renders bitcoin useless for the vast majority of people. I could talk about the funny thing that bitcoin as a quasi-currency was created to make payments cheap and fast, while in reality it is more often than not expensive and slow. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  But instead, I will stress – and this is my point today – the positive philosophical influence of bitcoin on the conservative world of central banking.

José Manuel González-Páramo: New investment fund statistics for the euro area Introductory remarks by Mr José Manuel González-Páramo, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, for the first statistical release, Frankfurt am Main, 11 December 2009. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to the ECB. Today it is my pleasure to introduce an important new set of statistics for the euro area as single economic entity. These statistics provide detailed harmonised information on the assets and liabilities of investment funds resident in the euro area. They are compiled by the ECB in close cooperation with the national central banks. Fruitful work has also been conducted in liaison with the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), a business association represented in this room. Since the inception of the ECB, major progress has been achieved in developing monetary and financial statistics for the euro area. This work, carried out in close cooperation with the Member States, has resulted in a full range of timely and high quality euro area statistics, which the ECB constantly monitors in performing its policy functions. The first major steps were the implementation of euro area statistics for monetary financial institutions (in particular to derive statistical information on monetary aggregates), lending and interest rates, as well as on the balance of payments. In recent years, efforts have focused on the development of statistics for other financial sectors. This also reflects the increasing links between the banking sector and other financial institutions.
Both the economic literature and the experiences of the countries show that, it is impossible for central banks to keep both the interest rates and foreign exchange rates under control at the same time in the economies where international capital movements are free as in ours. Therefore, the Central Bank does not and will not have an implicit commitment regarding the level of the foreign exchange rate, or a policy towards rendering the Turkish Lira valuable. When we look at the period starting from 2001 in which the floating exchange rate regime was embarked on up to now, we see a number of fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates, the most recent of which was observed in the May-June period. Similar fluctuations may be experienced in the future. The course of conduct of the Central Bank regarding the foreign exchange markets is quite clear. The risk of foreign currency is borne by the market players. The fluctuations that are experienced clearly display that these types of risks may arise any time and that they should be managed effectively. Economic units should ensure the required protection against the risks regarding their balance sheets in the modern sense within the scope of the risk management principles. Remarkable attainments were obtained in the banking sector within this context. The private sector also should need to adopt a similar approach in this respect.

Indeed, SARON never fell below the rates we set for the fine-tuning operations of first 0.35% and, 3 days later, 0.38%. Starting on the day of the monetary policy assessment, we also commenced auctions of term repos and SNB Bills. As you can see from Slide 12, we absorbed a sizeable volume of reserves via overnight repos in the first few days after the rate hike. During this initial period, the volume of overnight repo transactions peaked at around 36 billion Swiss francs. The market’s take-up of our term repos and SNB Bills auctions was very strong from the outset, and it continues to be strong. As shown on the slide, by the end of October, the combined stock of repo transactions and SNB Bills used to absorb excess reserves was close to 140 billion Swiss francs. The absorption of reserves was achieved in roughly equal parts by term repos and SNB Bills. We saw substantial demand for SNB Bills right from the very first auction, on 22 September, and demand has increased even further since then. At present, demand is concentrated in SNB Bills with the shortest term of 28 days. As one can see on Slide 13, as of the end of October, the total stock of outstanding SNB Bills stood at almost 70 billion Swiss francs. Of this, SNB Bills with 28-day terms accounted for around 50 billion Swiss francs, or roughly 70% of the total outstanding stock. SNB Bills, as money market debt register claims, are tradeable securities.
However, these effects can to a large extent be disregarded. Assuming that weather conditions remain fairly normal over the next year, the rise in prices at the same time next year will be that much lower. Electricity prices will then make a comparable negative contribution to overall inflation. Conclusion In retrospect, developments over the past decade feature several elements of a normal business cycle. Following a long period of expansion in the 1990s, the economy is stagnating as a result of overheating in the labour market, high wage growth and high borrowing in the private sector. The new guidelines for monetary policy were introduced in March 2001 when there were pressures in the economy, expectations of increased use of petroleum revenues and growing divergence between cyclical developments in Norway and abroad. Today, after close to two years of inflation targeting, experience shows that monetary policy has an impact on inflation. In this respect, the experience has been uplifting. Future developments are uncertain. Our internationally exposed sectors may be hard hit because this time the tightening has to a large extent been the result of a strong krone and a downturn in our export markets. It may take time to address the problems associated with wage formation after last year’s wage settlement. The oil market is volatile, influenced by fears of war in Iraq and political unrest in Venezuela. Our main impression is nevertheless that the economy will grow in the period ahead, albeit at a somewhat slower pace.

This applies both to companies competing on international markets and those supplying goods and services to the domestic market. In comparison with other countries, it is particularly productivity gains in banks and other service sectors that stand out. Examples are automated processes and swifter payments in the financial industry and improved inventory and management systems in commerce and transport. In sum, these positive supply side shocks have increased the growth capacity of the Norwegian economy, and have played their part in keeping inflation at a low level. Monetary policy assessments  Monetary policy influences the economy with a lag. Norges Bank sets the interest rate with a view to stabilising inflation close to the target in the medium term. The interest rate path should provide a reasonable balance between the path for inflation and the path for capacity utilisation. When we reduced the interest rate in 2003, demand and output rapidly picked up. However, it took a long time for employment to rise and the next phase from a pick-up in employment to a fall in unemployment was also long. But now the upturn has entered into a mature phase. The enterprises in our regional network report that capacity constraints are now limiting further growth. Unemployment has fallen markedly over the past year. Wage growth appears to be rising, but so far only gradually. Prices for many inputs and services and building materials are rising markedly. Consumer price inflation is also expected to pick up further ahead. Thus, interest rates are rising.