samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
From April they should be able to start buying assets from banks, including foreclosed assets and NPLs which have completed court process and awaiting receivership. This should help to further speed up NPL reduction. Ladies and gentlemen, Let me now turn to the main topic of my talk today, the role and responsibility of bank directors. First of all, I would like to emphasize that bank directors play a crucial role not only to the individual institution, but the directorship carries with it accountability and responsibility for the stability of the economic and financial system of the country. This broad accountability arises from the central role played by banks in the process of financial intermediation and payments system of the country. Therefore, financial institution soundness and efficiency are of utmost importance, as financial system stability depends crucially on the public confidence. Financial weakness or improper business conduct in one bank could affect the general confidence and stability of the entire financial system, thus causing systemic risk. In light of this, bank directors must carry out their duty in overseeing that sound, proper, efficient, and progressive business practices develop in their individual banks. They must at the same time uphold their accountability for the preservation of the public interest through contributing to safeguarding economic and financial stability. Thus, bank directorship carries with it accountability not only to shareholders, but also to depositors, clients, and other stakeholders in society at large.

Tenth, and final point, the success of the bank depends not only on strategy and policy direction set by the Board, but also on the capability of senior management to take on those policies and implement them. Thus, the Board must give high priority to recruiting and retaining quality senior management, including work capability, experience and vision to carry out the task. But most importantly, he or she must be of high moral integrity. The greatest weight is given to the personal attribute of high integrity because senior bank management are continually surrounded by wealth and the temptation for huge financial gains through improper conduct. Ethic is the personal inner compass that prevents the individual from taking the wrong turn and fall into the trap of exploiting conflict of interest. It would also help the individual to stand up against such conduct by others in the bank, even those of higher ranks. Such personal ethic will also help the individual to stand up to pressures from those in position of power in the country as well as those who represent such powers who have infiltrated the operation of the bank. Such moral leadership will provide an example to bank employees to uphold the high working principle thereby helping to safeguard long-term growth of the bank. Ladies and gentlemen, I have no intention of “preaching to the Pope”. I wanted merely to share an understanding on the role and responsibility of bank directors, and convey to you the Bank of Thailand’s expectation from your directorship role.
However, not least because of experiences in recent history, it is widely acknowledged that the stabilisation of aggregate demand through changes in public spending is not an easy task. Preferably, policy makers should refrain from fine-tuning, not least against the backdrop of inside and outside lags that distort the timing of such policies. It is far more important to ensure that the government budget is balanced over the course of a business cycle. Over the last couple of decades, monetary policy has been geared towards price stability, thereby also indirectly contributing to stabilising demand. Given the success in regaining price stability, Uganda being one of many examples, it seems sensible to take a closer look at the guiding principles that have been important factors in making this possible. Using inflation targeting regimes by independent central banks as a special case, four advantages of this strategy can be singled out as illustrated in a recent study (Schmidt-Hebbel and Mishkin, 2006). First, the nominal anchor should be based on the institutional set-up and not on individual policy makers, this to ensure consistency. Second, a credible commitment as just described produces stable expectations of a continued focus on the long-run. Third, transparency reduces uncertainty about the tools and goals of monetary policy. Finally, without a target, a lack of accountability might undermine the central bank’s independence.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  13  The Bank’s Monetary Policy Report also presents alternative scenarios for the Norwegian economy. If developments are broadly in line with expectations, economic agents can expect that the interest rate will be set in line with that projected by Norges Bank. If conditions change, as was the case in August, Norges Bank will naturally adapt the monetary policy stance in the light of new economic prospects. Through summer, dramatic falls on stock exchanges and political unrest made the headlines. There are now prospects of lower economic growth in many countries. In both the US and many countries in Europe, public debt is high and fiscal deficits are substantial. At the same time, measures to reduce the deficit in the short term will also dampen activity. Some economists fear a renewed economic setback in the US and the financial markets are characterised by turbulence and uncertainty. The US and EU authorities are facing demanding decision-making processes. In the US, the political parties and the people are divided in their views on taxation and the exercise of central government authority, reflected for example in the absence of measures to strengthen central government revenues. The debt problems in the EU are being aggravated by the lack of a similar coordination of fiscal policy to support the European monetary union. Government finances in many of the countries now experiencing problems have been weaker than required under the EU’s own rules for several years. Measures have been put in place.
In 1990, shortly after the fall of communism, I became Governor of the National Bank of Romania, having to put into practice the transition from a monobank-type system to a two-tier system, while the country’s economy was going through major changes from the ruinous central planning to a market economy. As a matter of fact, in retrospect, I can say that my entire career has spanned several decades marked by truly ground-breaking policy and paradigm shifts. Some of the recent ones, such as quantitative easing and close to zero or even negative monetary policy rates, would have been inconceivable even a few years (not decades) before they occurred! The experience acquired through the years, both as a researcher and as governor, makes me reluctant to engage in speculations on the future of central banking in 10 or 20 years’ time, particularly at the current juncture when the global economy is in a state of flux. Nevertheless, there are a few old and new things about central banking which I believe will continue to be relevant in the future. I would start by pointing out that, in the extremely complex post-crisis economic and financial environment, the mission of a central bank cannot be simple. There are so many transformations going on right now, after the global crisis not only invalidated certain elements of mainstream economics, but also changed the order of priorities on policymakers’ agenda.

The key questions here are related to amount and velocity -- that is, (1) how would digital bills or notes, or digital coins, be represented on the books of a bank or depository institution; and (2) how many times would this electronic coin or bill circulate in the general economy without somehow being processed and recorded by a bank? In this regard, the October 1996 Bank for International Settlements report “Implications for Central Banks of the Development of Electronic Money” states “E-money could lead to shifts in the velocity of money which might temporarily reduce the usefulness of the monetary aggregates, especially narrower ones, for countries that rely on them as targets or indicators.” In a June 1996 speech before a cyber-payments conference, Governor Edward Kelley of the Board of Governors stated that, with respect to a bank’s liabilities incurred through issuing stored-value cards, such liabilities should be included in the statistical reports that banks must currently submit to the Board of Governors.3 It is difficult to argue that bank liabilities resulting from the issuance of electronic “coins” or electronic “bills and notes” should be reported any differently. A more problematic question arises when considering the matter of nonbank issuance of electronic coins or bills. Currently, the largest nonbank issuers of travelers checks are not required, but do volunteer to the Fed, the outstanding balances of their travelers checks, so that this information can be statistically recorded and reported in United States monetary aggregates by the Fed.
As a result, an inflationary bias may be generated. This inflationary bias is ultimately anticipated and incorporated into agents’ expectations, and, therefore, into price-setting and wage bargaining. The upshot is higher inflation without hardly improving the level of output and employment in the economy. This means monetary policy loses its effectiveness and the commitments to price stability cease to be credible. 2/9  Figure 1 INFLATION RATES 1970-1994  25  1994-1998  %  5  20  4  15  3  10  2  5  1  0 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 EURO AREA  %  0 94  95  96  97  98  SPAIN  The independence of the Banco de España, along with the new monetary policy framework based on direct inflation targets, was decisive in bringing inflation down and in fulfilling the Maastricht requirements in a short period of time.2 In this regard, the Spanish experience in relation to EMU accession meant a qualitative leap forward in terms of credibility, communication and transparency, which facilitated the anchoring of inflation expectations to a new regime of price stability, providing a focal point for collective wage bargaining, the setting of regulated prices, etc. The task of taming inflation did not fall entirely on the shoulders of the Banco de España, as Spain showed a strong and credible political will to lower inflation that helped bring about the anchoring role of the whole European institutional setting.

– https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2019/html/ecb.sp191112_1~f304b47e14.en.html  3/9  Mechanism (SSM) in 2014, the Banco de España’s supervisory role was integrated into a new institutional framework with the European Central Bank at its core. I will come back to this function later on. Some lessons on central bank independence Let me share with you some reflections about central bank independence nowadays. This will be in the form of five lessons which, in my view, should be kept in mind when thinking about central bank independence, particularly at the current juncture of seemingly tamed inflation but with difficulties in achieving price stability objectives in some advanced economies. 1. Institutional settings matter First, I would state that independence, to be effective, must rest on a robust legal and institutional framework. Independence must be formally recognised in all of its relevant dimensions: namely, at the institutional, functional, personal and financial levels. This is the case in the euro area, where the Maastricht Treaty4 provided the appropriate framework; but unfortunately it is not the case in other regions, thus making the task of central banks much more complicated. 2. The need to deliver Second, the main reason for central bank independence is a utilitarian one: independence is an instrument to enhance effectiveness in order to achieve agreed objectives in the general interest, such as price or financial stability. The social value of central bank independence is thus inextricably linked to the effectiveness of its policies.
As I have mentioned earlier while talking about global risks, forecasts for our largest trade partner, the European Union, suggest that it would take a long time for foreign demand to return to pre-crisis levels. 4  BIS Review 79/2010  Industrial production has been increasing moderately since March 2009. According to the latest Business Tendency Survey conducted by the CBT, the moderate recovery in orders both from domestic and foreign markets continues. On the expectations side, there is improvement both in the real sector and consumer confidence indices. Nevertheless, the stillweak foreign demand and the fact that Turkey’s exports predominantly rely on products that are susceptible to cyclical developments are retarding a rebound in industrial production. Uncertainties regarding aggregate demand urge firms operating in the manufacturing industry to take a cautious stance and to be more reluctant about inventory building compared to the periods of strong growth. The biggest headache for Turkey, unemployment, assumed a slight recovery trend in the third quarter of 2009 as the economy started to generate employment opportunities again. Industrial employment, which is the sector that is most severely affected by the crisis and became the main driver of contraction in non-farm employment, started to recover at a moderate pace. The services and construction sector supported non-farm employment as well. Despite the recent partial recovery, the unemployment rate is still quite high compared to the pre-crisis period. This high unemployment rate curbs the consumption demand as well.

In their meeting in Busan earlier this month, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the G20 have “acknowledged a need for national, regional and multilateral efforts to deal with capital volatility”. A Financial Safety Net Experts Group has been set up to work on the issue. The reform of financial regulation The financial crisis as taught us some very hard lessons. While there are many causes to the crisis, it is clear that it forces us to reconsider the way we regulate and supervise the financial system. That is what we have been doing since the November 2008 G20 meeting. We entered this crisis with many unregulated entities playing a major role in the financial system. There were, therefore, huge “black holes”, including what has been called a “shadow banking system” where most of the excesses of securitisation took place. The G20 has fostered coordinated efforts by industrialized and emerging countries alike to bring most important financial actors under the umbrella of supervision, with rating agencies and hedge funds receiving a larger degree of attention. Beyond these actors, the G20 and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in particular have been instrumental in efforts aimed at enlarging the scope of financial regulation to make sure that the systemic importance and interconnectedness of institutions, markets, instruments no longer escape our vigilance. Naturally, the necessary reform of OTC derivatives markets has gained traction and the G20 has set a very clear roadmap on these matters.
Figure 4 Price of electricity (annual change, percent) 60  60  50  50  40  40  30  30  20  20  10  10  0  0  -10  -10  -20  -20  -30  -30 05  06  07  08  09  10  11  Source: National Statistics Institute (INE). 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 5 Output growth (quarterly change, percent) Chile (*)  World  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  -2  -2  -4  -4  -6  -6 05  07  09  11  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2  -2 05  07  09  11  GDP Domestic demand Domestic demand w/o inventory change  Figure 6 Growth forecasts for the year 2009 (1) (annual change, percent) 8  8  5.9  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  -2  -1.7  -4  -2  -1.7  -4  -4.7  -6 Chile  Dev. economies (2)  Latin  America  Emerging Asia  Emerging  -5.2  -6  Europe  (1) Consensus forecasts from January 2008 to December 2009. For emerging Asia, forecasts are available as from March 2008. Black bars show actual growth in 2009.

It’s easy to think of the Fed as just setting interest rates, and of course that’s a major part of what we do. But we do so in order to achieve two goals set by Congress: maximum employment and price stability. In Fed-speak it’s called the dual mandate. There are serious debates taking place amongst economists and policymakers about what maximum employment actually looks like, and they probably deserve another speech of their own. But I promised not to deluge you with numbers, so I’ll focus on a few highlights. The unemployment rate last year averaged just under 4 percent, the lowest such annual figure since 1969. The latest jobs numbers also showed very strong growth, with over 2.6 million jobs added last year. The ongoing strength in the labor market has led to encouraging gains in wages. No matter how you cut it, the labor market is strong, consistent with our maximum employment goal. When we say price stability, our goal is to keep inflation around 2 percent.1 Those of you who are of my generation will remember the runaway inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Obviously that’s something we must avoid repeating. But the challenge of more recent years actually hasn’t been too high inflation. Instead, it’s been inflation that’s persistently too low. Over the past decade, inflation has more often than not come in below our goal. But things are looking better.
The loans were often sold on to other financial institutions packaged together with other assets, until it was finally difficult to know which financial institutions were exposed to the impaired loans. When the uncertainty spread, it had unexpectedly large effects and repercussions on the entire world economy. Financial crises took place in several countries in the euro area and in the United Kingdom. The world's central banks reacted by implementing powerful measures – a lesson learnt from earlier crises is that the reactions of central banks are decisive for the sequence of events. Many say, for instance, that one of the reasons why the 1930s crisis in the United States became so serious was that the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy was too tight. Although it is difficult to distinguish the purpose of different measures, we can say that the financial crisis roughly entails three different types of problem for the central banks: liquidity problems, problems with market functioning and difficulties managing an unusually deep recession. In addition, a long line of solvency problems arose. The fact that different central banks, to some extent, chose different measures during the phases of the crisis reflects which problems needed to be counteracted at different points in time. Central banks offered liquidity during the crisis The acute liquidity problems arose when unease spread and various actors began to question their counterparts’ creditworthiness. This led to many financial agents having problems obtaining short-term market financing.

See Söderberg (2018) for a description of the development of means of payment. 2 [25]  rates, where a small number of central banks in practice conducted monetary policy for the entire world and thus ‘lent’ their credibility. 2 In Sweden, this system of fixed exchange rates did not function so well and this led to several major devaluations. The larger central banks also lost credibility for various reasons and the global economy underwent a period of high inflation in the 1970s and 1980s. Independent central bank with inflation target replaces gold The global developments over the past 30 years have entailed major changes to the monetary policy landscape, not least in Sweden. During the 1980s, work began in the leading countries of the world economy on rebuilding the confidence in monetary policy that had been lost in the 1970s. 3 At the beginning of the 1990s, Sweden experienced a severe financial crisis following the rapid winding up of several decades of hard regulation of the financial markets. During the crisis, there was strong pressure to devaluate and the defence of the fixed exchange rate finally became untenable. When the Riksbank abandoned the fixed exchange rate, monetary policy sought a new way to promote price stability, and Sweden joined the global trend of reinforcing the credibility of monetary policy. The answer became a more independent Riksbank with an explicit inflation target, and Sweden became one of the first countries in the world to try this new path.
In our forthcoming report for 2021, which will be published in the next few weeks, we have sought to build on last year’s content to provide additional context and analysis. In March last year, I outlined our intention to assess ways that our holdings of corporate bonds could be adjusted to take the climate impact of issuers into account whilst still meeting our monetary policy objectives.9 Last month we set out in a Discussion Paper our proposals for ‘greening’ our Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme (CBPS).10 There is no template for a comprehensive framework for greening an asset portfolio held for monetary policy purposes. We know that outreach and engagement is  See The Bank of England’s climate-related financial disclosure 2020, Bank of England, June 2020 See Appointment of Andrew Bailey as Governor of the Bank of England, March 2020 10 See ‘It’s not easy being green – but that shouldn’t stop us: how central banks can use their monetary policy portfolios to support orderly transition to net zero’ speech by Andrew Hauser and Options for greening the Bank of England’s Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme, Bank of England, May 2021 8 9  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  critical in getting this right, and so are currently seeking feedback on our proposed framework. We are keen to hear from a range of experts and stakeholders over the coming weeks to inform our next steps. The need for us to act in this space was clear and unambiguous.

EBRD’s involvement in two very important initiatives, namely the Local Currency and Local Capital Market Initiative and the Vienna Initiative, has been essential for Romania and the region. I am closely following the evolution of the EBRD. I believe that it finds itself at a cross-road, as the world has been changing rapidly due to the remarkable achievements of the past century: the IT revolution, artificial intelligence, the technological progress and so on. EBRD, as other financial institutions, ought to adapt itself to this new environment and try to respond wisely and appropriately. In this respect, I think that EBRD has to continue its work in the countries for which the Bank was initially created, as transition gaps still exist. We all need to share our experience with the new countries of operations, adjusting our knowledge to new challenging environments. We need to remain open minded and ready to tackle further challenges in this multidimensional environment. EBRD needsto be ready to share, when and if its help is required. Together with the other institutions of European Union, the European Commission, the EIB Group, as well as the national development agencies of the member states, we all have a duty to help/assist the less fortunate. However, as expansion is a “hot topic” today in the EBRD, should it be considered by the shareholders in the future, it needs to be calibrated with a strong and decisive intervention in the current countries of operations, to remove as much as possible the transition gaps.