samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
There can hardly be any doubt that in the 1950s, price changes would have been less abrupt in Norway if the devaluation had not taken place.” See Odd Aukrust (1965): Tjue års økonomisk politikk i Norge: suksesser og mistak, [Twenty years of economic policy in Norway: successes and mistakes] Articles from Statistics Norway, no. 15. 16  Erlend Loe (1999): L, J. W Cappelens forlag, p. 376. 17  Loe (1999), pp. 397–398. 4  BIS Review 147/2010  against serious missteps, which seems to be particularly important when decisions are made under uncertainty. This notion is part of the justification for the jury system in our courts of law. The French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet’s now well known jury theorem states that the higher the number of the group is, the higher the probability is that the group will make the correct decision by majority vote. 18 Group decision making has been widely accepted, not only by the courts but also by business, public administration and elected governing bodies. In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki cites a number of examples where large groups outperform individuals or small groups of experts. Contestants on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? have various so-called “lifelines”, including telephoning a smart friend or asking the studio audience for help. It has transpired that the studio audience is the contestants’ absolute best bet.

3  See inter alia Report No. 29 (2000–2001) to the Storting, Guidelines for economic policy, Ministry of Finance, and the Regulation on Monetary Policy of 29 March 2001. BIS Review 147/2010  1  That it is tempting, but dangerous, for a government to focus on short-term gains was a lesson Greek politicians learned this spring. Government spending exceeded revenues over a long period. Accounts and official statistics were fudged. Politicians may have hoped to secure a quick admission for Greece into the euro area, with the advantages this would bring. They may have also believed that high government spending and low taxes might help their re-election prospects. Instead, they now have to steer the country through harsh reforms and substantial cuts. 4 The Norwegian economist Finn Kydland received the Nobel Prize for economics in 2004 for having shown that on the whole, monetary policy decisions are better if policymakers delegate interest rate setting to an independent central bank under a clear mandate. 5 As a central bank we must adhere to the mandate we have been given and be able to set the key rate based on a professional assessment. 6 This is a system that lays a solid foundation for making good decisions. 3. We make decisions under uncertainty  Independence alone does not guarantee good decisions. Even if an independent central bank is better positioned to avoid having short-term expediency and changing preferences dictate interest rate policy, its decisions must be made under considerable uncertainty.
To fully assess the impact of the SMP it would be necessary to know the counterfactual, that is the situation that would have prevailed in the absence of the SMP. By definition this counterfactual cannot be observed. There is, however, no doubt that through the purchases of government bonds the SMP has contributed to restoring the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the euro area. Other things equal, the programme also helped contain volatility in the markets concerned. 9  For an overview of quantitative easing (QE) and its impact, see A. Krishnamurthy and A. Vissing-Jorgensen (2011), “The effects of quantitative easing on interest rates: Channels and implications for policy”, mimeo., Northwestern University, October (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/krisharvind/papers/QE.pdf). For more specific policy views regarding the nature of QE policies by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, see Chairman B. Bernanke (2009), “The crisis and the policy response”, Stamp Lecture, London School of Economics, January, and M. Joyce, M. Tong and R. Woods (2011), “The United Kingdom’s quantitative easing policy: Design, operation and impact”, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, 51(3). BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  It is essential that the nature of the SMP as a measure that supports the central bank in the pursuit of its goal of maintaining price stability does not distort the incentive structure among different policy actors that lie at the heart of EMU.

Starting from the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid-September 2008, a regime switch in the pricing of sovereign credit risk could be observed, from a pre-crisis situation of almost complete compression of spreads to one of extreme market sensitivity to adverse country developments. At the same time, the high degree of economic and financial integration in EMU resulted in the fact that risks quickly spread to other Member States perceived as vulnerable by the market. This happened, particularly, via national banking systems and their exposure to sovereign credit risk. These developments illustrate how the emergence of economic and financial imbalances laid the groundwork for the subsequent instability. The experience of the crisis has also shown that in times of financial market stress the unravelling of imbalances and contagion effects, which are both sources of systemic risk, often reinforce each other. As result, I think it is fair to say that we now stand at a crossroads and that decisive and farreaching reforms will be necessary to address the sovereign debt crisis and ensure a smooth functioning of EMU in the future. It seems that European policymakers have understood the urgency of the situation and, fortunately, substantial reform steps have been initiated. A governance reform package – the so-called “Six pack” – has been approved by the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission in September 2011. It strengthens both the preventive and the corrective arm of the SGP and establishes minimum requirements for national budgetary frameworks.
It is impossible to calibrate this precisely at this juncture, but I would guess this would be in the region of 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  0.25 to 0.50 of a percentage point. It is important to note that the storm affected much of the Northeast Corridor, a densely populated area responsible for about 15 percent of GDP. Normal economic activity in the final days of October and the first few days of November was severely disrupted. The disruption then began to subside, but only recently has life begun to feel normal again. The negative effects of this disruption have already been noted in economic indicators such as industrial production for the month of October and initial claims for unemployment insurance during the second and third weeks of November. Yet, some of the economic disruption experienced here was offset to some extent by stronger than normal activity elsewhere. For example, plants in Ohio or South Carolina making portable generators may have worked overtime to fill the increased demand. Second, some types of disrupted activity, such as the purchase of a car or a housing start, can be made up before the fourth quarter is over. Lastly, as I mentioned before, repair and replacement of damaged property is already underway, offsetting some of the earlier disruption. This rebuilding will continue well into 2013, likely providing for somewhat stronger growth than otherwise would have been the case.

So, what does “substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market” mean to me? A key point is that I will focus on the labor market outlook, not just its current state. Therefore, I will be looking at the growth momentum within the overall economy and a range of labor indicators, including the unemployment rate, payrolls, the participation rate, the employment to population ratio and job finding rates. Following the framework we set out in September, I will be assessing the employment and inflation outlook in order to determine whether we should continue Treasury purchases into 2013. We will continue to do our part to push the economy towards maximum sustainable employment in the context of price stability. Yet, it is important to recognize that our tools are not all-powerful – monetary policy is not a panacea for all that ails our economy. In particular, Congress and the administration must address the “fiscal cliff” in a manner that creates a credible framework for long- term fiscal sustainability. It is widely acknowledged that the large fiscal contraction associated with going “off the cliff” would drive the U.S. economy into recession. The contractionary impact is likely to be larger than normal when monetary policy is operating at the zero lower bound for interest rates, as is the case today. Thus, fiscal consolidation must be accomplished in a way that avoids derailing the economic recovery.
Thank you very much.

We know that the health shock has affected European countries to varying degrees, but the economic shock has been more symmetrical, due to the restrictive measures that ended up being substantial in all countries. GDP figures for the second quarter show that the recession is widespread, with double-digit percentage declines: -11.8 % in the euro area, -13.8% in France and -9.7% in Germany. Almost half of the differences between our two countries can be attributed to the construction sector, which has contracted much less in Germany, and more than half to the differences in methodology regarding public services statistics. The European response to the health crisis was initially monetary, thanks to the rapid and decisive action of the Eurosystem. I attended the Governing Council today, and I will not comment immediately on our decisions that Christine Lagarde has just presented. In mid-March, when the economy was threatened by a breakdown in financing, the Governing Council of the ECB put in place an immediate and virtually unlimited liquidity shield. On 12 March, we acted first of all for businesses and SMEs that obtain financing from banks, by allocating them an exceptional refinancing envelope at a very attractive rate: the TLTRO III, which as of their first take up in June represented an amount of nearly EUR 1,350 billion. Then, on 18 March, for large companies and governments that fund themselves through the financial markets, we created the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), initially totalling EUR 750 billion, which was increased to EUR 1,350 billion on 4 June.
Durmuş Yilmaz: Press conference for the presentation of the inflation report Speech by Mr Durmuş Yilmaz, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, at the press conference for the presentation of the inflation report, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara, 31 January 2008. *  *  *  Distinguished Guests and Press Members, Welcome to the press conference for the presentation of the Inflation Report that is one of the most important communication tools of the formal inflation targeting regime that we implement. In this conference, I would like to give you a short summary of our evaluations and the Central Bank’s inflation forecasts which appear in the Inflation Report that will be posted on our website shortly today. 1. An assessment of the year 2007  I would like to start by a general assessment of inflation developments in the year 2007. The monetary tightening exercised since mid-2006, has been successful in leading to a significant reduction in the underlying inflation. Especially the 3.6 percentage points fall in the services inflation, which confirmed the marked disinflation trend during 2007, was remarkable. The fall in headline inflation, however, was more limited, owing mainly to factors beyond the control of monetary policy, such as developments in energy, food, and administered prices. Accordingly, inflation realized as 8.39 percent at the end of 2007, breaching the upper bound of the uncertainty band of 6 percent.

Moreover, the first round impacts of the recent hikes in end-user electricity and natural gas prices on end-2008 inflation are expected to be around 0.6 percentage points, which is higher than what we assumed in the previous Inflation Report. Meanwhile, considering the lagged impacts of last year’s drought and elevated prices of agricultural commodities in global markets, we now envisage that the price increases in processed food will persist for a while and the inflation in this item will stay at relatively high levels throughout 2008, albeit a slight decline. Upside revisions on the assumptions for food and energy inflation imply that it may take longer to bring headline inflation to 4 percent than envisaged in our previous Inflation Report. Therefore, in the absence of a significant correction in food inflation, headline inflation will most probably exceed the target level of 4 percent at the end of 2008. Forecast Range*  Medium-term Target  Uncertainty Band for 2008  Output Gap  2009-  2009-III  2009-II  2009-I  2008-  2008-III  2008-II  2008-I  2007-  12 10 8 6 4 2 0 -2 -4 -6 2007-III  Percent  Figure 15: Forecasts for Inflation and Output Gap  *The shaded region indicates the 70 percent confidence interval for forecast.
For example, understanding supply and demand factors affecting the MBS market is essential in helping to ensure that operations can be executed smoothly. In addition, MBS have an embedded prepayment option, which affects the risk and prepayment characteristics of these securities, and consequently the way in which purchases of these securities influence policy objectives and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet over time. The scope of the Desk’s market expertise has had to expand in ways beyond supporting new modes of operation. As the financial crisis revealed the importance of maintaining a wide range of financial market knowledge, Desk staff covered a broader set of financial markets and instruments compared to the pre-crisis period. We also more explicitly focused on linkages between markets and underlying, longer-term trends that could present financial stability risks in the future. With the expansion of monetary policy into less conventional territory, our analysis of monetary policy expectations had to evolve as well, as evidenced by an increasingly comprehensive survey of primary dealer economists each FOMC cycle4. Lastly, our own internal analytical capabilities have also deepened, for instance with the creation of a portfolio analytics unit to better assess the risks and outlook associated with the Federal Reserve’s expanded asset holdings.5 I anticipate that as the economic and policy environment changes, the Desk’s interactions with the market will continue to evolve, both in terms of its operational capabilities and the focus of its market monitoring and analytical responsibilities needed to support Federal Reserve operations and the information needs of policymakers.

But even in the capacity of a research economist at a central bank, my understanding of financial markets and the economy was greatly informed by the many types of interactions central banks have with financial markets. Today I will first reflect briefly on the nature and purposes of central bank interactions with financial markets. I will highlight the operational and market monitoring responsibilities of the New York Fed Markets Group and how these responsibilities evolved since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007. Next, I will share some of my personal experience as a research economist at the time trying to make sense of the unprecedented events of the financial crisis through the prism of economic theory, and the lessons I learned. Let me emphasize that my remarks represent my personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Pre-crisis central bank interaction with financial markets The Markets Group interacts with financial markets in several important capacities. It is perhaps best known for the role it plays in the implementation of monetary policy by conducting open market operations (OMOs) at the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). As most of you probably know, in an OMO the central bank purchases or sells securities in the market in order to influence the level of central bank reserves available to the banking system.
A major improvement to the inflation targeting framework itself was to confirm explicitly beginning with the 2013 remit that the MPC is required to have regard to trade-offs between keeping inflation at the target and avoiding undesirably volatility in output. In other words, the MPC can use the full flexibility of inflation targeting in the face of exceptionally large shocks to return inflation to target in a manner that provides as much support as possible to employment and growth or, if necessary, promotes financial stability. Even more fundamentally, the lessons of the global financial crisis prompted a radical overhaul of the Bank’s broader policy framework. The crisis exposed the limits of inflation targeting itself, notably how a healthy focus on price stability could become a dangerous distraction. Central banks had won the war against inflation only to lose the peace as financial vulnerabilities built remorselessly during the Great Moderation. Price stability clearly is not a guarantee of financial stability. With the deficiencies of the Tripartite regime1 on full and painful display, the decision was taken in 2012 to give the Bank of England responsibility for macroprudential and microprudential supervision. Two new independent committees, the FPC and the PRC, were created and charged with maintaining financial stability and safety and soundness of banks and insurers, respectively.

26  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  26
This in turn could create a drag on real economic activity and productive investment that cannot take place without appropriate insurance coverage. Equally, there is a risk that supply will be curtailed. As a result of potentially large and unintended accumulations, insurers will naturally take actions to limit their future exposure. This could be in the form of tighter policy wordings, exclusions, withdrawal of capacity or significant price rises, reducing the availability and affordability of non-specific peril cover and creating an increasingly concentrated market. For example we know that on average, D&O (Directors’ and Officers’ protection) premiums have doubled this year.1 To some extent this is of course individually sensible risk management, and it is right that insurers consider the broader lessons from recent events about the potential contract uncertainty within their portfolios, and take  1  See Financial Times article (September 2020): 'Cost of insuring board directors from lawsuits doubles in Covid era' 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  3  steps to reduce this. But there is a risk of excessive risk aversion and an overshoot leading to an aggregate reduction in supply that damages recovery. It is not impossible to transform a seemingly uninsurable peril into a diversifiable, insurable one. Cyber risk is a helpful example. A severe, global cyber event causing systemic losses is considered uninsurable – the risk does not diversify, and the industry’s capital could never be sufficient.

08.07.2019  The Banco de España and its promotion of economic history research Presentation of the “Guide to Historical Banking Archives in Spain” Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure for me to close this conference, which has presented the “Guide to Historical Banking Archives in Spain”. This publication, both for the quality of its information and the wealth of data it contains, will no doubt contribute to increasing knowledge on the historical development of the Spanish banking system. I would like to thank all those who have participated in this project for their efforts. My gratitude in particular to the academic historian, Pedro Tedde, to Professor María del Carmen Angulo, and to all those institutions and individuals who have enthusiastically collaborated in the publication of the guides to their respective archives. And naturally, too, to the Banco de España teams behind this initiative. The value of the initiative lies in the very value of the Spanish banking and Banco de España archive collections. These archives are fundamental to the study of our history and the development of Spain’s banking system. In this respect, I wish to highlight the importance of having historical archives that allow documents to be held and conserved and that guarantee their traceability and integrity. Without these archives, our knowledge of the past would no doubt be limited. Indeed, their subject matter provides for well-founded historical analysis and for a better understanding of the reasons that led to specific financial decisions.
At this time, the Thai bond market has a strong potential to become the important third pillar of Thailand's financial structure next to the credit and the equity markets. At present, the size of the bond market in terms of market capitalization to GDP is about 50 percent. Hence, there is considerable scope for the local bond market to grow and expand. Thai bond market in 2004 Last year, the Thai bond market grew by about 9 percent in terms of the amount of bonds issued, while activities in the secondary market increased by about 12 percent. The growth reflects mostly transactions in government securities, particularly treasury bills and Bank of Thailand bonds. Last year was also an important year for bonds as it was the year that we saw a shift in the stance of monetary policy. The policy interest rate was raised three times in the second half of last year in response to increased pressure on prices and economic stability. Looking back, one has to say that the bond market adjusted very well to the shift in the monetary policy stance. Bond market interest rates responded in an orderly manner and moved in line with policy signal. This smooth adjustment reflects two important qualities that we are now seeing in the local bond market. The first is greater market liquidity which has allowed the bond market to adjust to the change in monetary policy without difficulties.

And the second is the improved communication between policymakers and market participants, which has allowed the bond market to form its own expectations about policy direction and to respond accordingly. These two qualities, in my view, are positive for the development of the bond market in the longer-term. Outlook and developments in the bond market This year the Thai economy will continue to expand, driven by momentums in domestic demand and export, including the launching of new infrastructural projects. Higher investment will imply higher funding requirement. Given ample liquidity in the system, funding investment expansion domestically should be a preferred option to funding it from abroad. Domestic funding will help make the domestic credit market competitive while helping to avoid the unnecessary pick-up in external debt. It is in this context of domestic resource mobilization that the bond market can have an important role to play. BIS Review 29/2005  1  This is to say that while bank credit will continue to be a major intermediary for investment finance, the need for long-term investment financing will offer considerable opportunity for the bond market. On the supply side, the fixed income market can be an important channel for long-term capital mobilization, while on the demand side, there will be ample demand to invest in fixed income instruments from domestic institutional investors. It is in this context that the current efforts to develop the domestic bond market by the Government are timely, and this priority now ranks high on the Government's agenda.