samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Regarding the composition of spending, while the recovery of activity in the main economies was initially driven by consumption, between the end of 2020 and early 2021, investment showed a more dynamic behavior (Figure 10). Global financial markets have captured this outlook, encouraging greater risk-taking, stock market rises and widespread asset price appreciations. As a result, financial conditions have remained favorable, particularly due to the greater stability of long-term rates, the decline in corporate spreads and risk premiums, and capital inflows to emerging markets. However, this picture is not common to all economies, with significant lags in those where pandemic control remains complex, where there is no significant vaccination plan in the short term, where policy space is limited, and/or where domestic tensions have increased. This is the case in several Latin American countries. International commodity and food prices have also been boosted by the global recovery, in the presence of supply-side difficulties and a depreciated dollar. Copper hit a record price of USD 4.86 per pound early in May  Page 3 of 27  and is close to USD 4.5 as of the statistical close of this Report, which is 11 percent higher than its March price. The oil price has also risen and is now above USD 65 per barrel. This, along with higher transportation prices, has increased the cost pressures faced by companies around the world.

in the product, services and labour markets, healthcare and social insurance systems etc. For Estonia the adoption of the euro is the only logical step and the overarching policy priority. In this context, we would like to emphasize that it is in the interest of the whole European Union that the Euro Area enlargement takes place in accordance with the clear set of well known rules while the criteria are applied, in line with the Treaty provisions, on an equal and economically meaningful manner. The countries joining should have a proven track record to fare well under the common monetary policy. This being the case, the Euro Area membership would fasten the catch-up process in these countries and strengthen the countries' ownership in the EU-wide macroeconomic co-operation at large. Macroeconomic stability and economic flexibility are prerequisites for the new Member States to ensure that investment in physical and human capital is sustained and outlays for research and development further increased. Higher growth and stronger policy coordination on the EU level will also strengthen the social dimension of enlargement. BIS Review 60/2006  1
That will put further pressure on global capacity, extending an increase in shipping costs that started in late 2020 and had already exceeded my expectations, meaning that the current increase in shipping costs could have an impact on consumer prices at least until the end of the year. I also agree with the Committee’s assessment in June that there are now “two-sided risks” around that central path, for both GDP and inflation. Indeed for me that updated assessment is one of the most significant implications of developments since May, when the MPC still judged the risks to GDP to be skewed 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  8  to the downside in the near term. For that reason I want to spend some time setting out what I see as the key risks and how they might evolve – a survey, if you like, of what new features future editions of our map of the economy might need to incorporate. Two sided risks  I should say right away that the downside risks to GDP and inflation from Covid remain clear and present. Although the UK’s vaccination programme has proved successful, the pandemic in the UK and the wider world is not yet over. It remains to be seen what the full impact of the new Delta variant will be and how households and businesses respond to the combination of the current rise in infection rates and the impending lifting of remaining restrictions.

William C Dudley: US monetary policy and emerging market economies Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Roundtable Discussion in Honor of Terrence Checki “Three Decades of Crises: What Have We Learned?”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 27 March 2014. *  *  *  The scaling back of the Federal Reserve’s asset purchase program – both the prospect and the actuality – has created significant challenges for many emerging market economies. Although this shift in U.S. monetary policy was inevitable at some point, it seems to have triggered a broad-based sentiment shift in global markets. Recent events are a reminder that U.S. monetary policy can have powerful effects abroad. What lessons should we draw from these events? That will be the general theme of my brief remarks today. Before I go on, though, I first would remind you that the thoughts I offer today are my own, and should not be interpreted as representing the position of the Federal Reserve System. I also want to call attention to Terry Checki, who is being honored today and has been at the center of events in global finance for more than three decades, and who has done so much to shape them.
Over the last 6 years the cumulative productivity growth in Estonia, relative to its main trading partners, has amounted to 25 per cent. The corresponding CPI-based real exchange rate appreciation amounts to 22 per cent. The share of current and future EU member states in Estonian exports is about 80%. By now, Estonian economy is strongly integrated into the European economic area. Can we say that the restructuring of our economy has been completed? III. On the way to Europe  What are the challenges ahead? For Estonia, like for all new member states, the only possible way to join the euro system is to do it in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the EU Treaty. Speaking about the present accession countries as a group, it can be said that the key challenge of the policy maker is similar everywhere - to foster real convergence and at the same time maintain macroeconomic stability. But although the underlying processes are the same for all, earlier national economic policy choices - and also the size of the country in question - play a very significant role. Thus, the optimal approach to euro area membership can in no case be a uniform one suitable for one and everybody. ERM II provides, in principle, a much-needed buffer zone before a country's EMU entry. However, there are obvious risks involved.

In a situation of stress, individual banks hoard rather than lend liquidity. The system then co-ordinates itself on a low liquidity equilibrium. Liquidity then has negative spillovers, imposing negative externalities; illiquidity is a public bad. And with asset prices and liquidity falling and haircuts rising, the credit multiplier becomes self-reinforcing downwards. Given these pro-cyclicalities, there have been recent proposals by both policymakers and academics to regulate collateral requirements.1 This is one possible arm of so-called macroprudential policy. Within the UK, haircuts on secured financing or OTC derivative transactions have been identified as one possible tool for executing macroprudential policy.2 The UK’s new interim Financial Policy Committee, housed in the Bank of England, will provide advice to government on possible macroprudential tools over the next year or so. The debate on haircuts as a policy tool is live internationally too. In a recent speech in Atlanta, US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner proposed the introduction of international minimum standards for margins on derivatives transactions.3 This would be akin to the international minimum standards for capital adequacy introduced through the Basel agreements. Since 1934, the US authorities have had regulatory powers to impose minimum margin requirements on lending against equity and some other assets – so-called Regulation T. But these policies have not been used actively, with minimum margins unchanged since 1974. To date, analysis of the macroprudential role of haircuts has been largely descriptive.
And crises, like illnesses, are also more or less acute, may overlap one another and may have interconnecting feedback loops, with the consequent increase in risks to the health of the patient or, in this case, of the economy. Viewed from this perspective, the current crisis in Spain is very serious. It has seen the confluence of different tensions and problems, which tend to exacerbate one another and make diagnosis and treatment more complex. And, as a particularly worrying characteristic, its social, institutional and political dimensions go beyond those of previous crises. The constraints arising from Monetary Union membership To understand the situation facing the Spanish economy, I must first briefly explain how the mechanisms of economic adjustment work in a monetary union and what the consequences are for economic policy management. First and foremost, in my opinion, the fact that Spain is part of the European Economic and Monetary Union has been and will continue to be an enormously positive factor for our economy. As a founding member of the euro, Spain has benefited over the 13 years the single currency has been in place from conditions of economic stability which, most probably, would not have been possible outside monetary union, and which have led to an improvement in our standard of living that the current difficulties should not let us forget.

In the first ten years of membership of the euro area, Spain enjoyed a long phase of growth in an environment in which monetary policy, with relatively low interest rates, was highly expansionary. This period saw rapid increases in the standard of living and in economic welfare, as reflected by the rapid rise in GDP per capita, which in 2007 edged above the average of that of the countries then comprising the euro area. This achievement largely reflected very labour-intensive growth. The insufficient adaptation to the euro gave rise to significant imbalances However, the expansion in those years was based on a pattern of household and corporate spending which, driven by the property sector boom and by cheap and easy credit, systematically exceeded the economy’s productive capacity. This imbalance has been at the root of the difficulties of the Spanish economy since the international financial crisis began. First, demand-side pressure led to significant pressure on costs, margins and prices, which tended to grow systematically faster than those of our European partners, with a notable worsening of our external competitiveness. This was not at all consistent with the decision to forgo the exchange rate as an economic policy instrument. Second, the lack of sufficient domestic output to meet domestic demand had to be increasingly covered by imports. This caused a sizeable imbalance in our foreign trade, as reflected by the balance of payments, which in 2007–2008 ran a deficit of around 10% of GDP.
The recent report, “Doing Business 2008,” by the World Bank upgraded Thailand by two places. Despite all the storms we faced, we are now ranked at 15th place out of 178 countries for the most attractive destination to invest. This reflects a better infrastructure for doing businesses in Thailand. The improvement was cited on the back of E-Custom system introduced since October 2006. Cost reduction, lesser time consuming and fewer procedures for imports and exports, all induce efficiency for international trades. Overall, we have strengthened the infrastructure or the micro aspects of doing businesses in Thailand. Ladies and Gentlemen, In all, I believe that quality investors look at both economic performance and policy credibility. It is obvious that short-term performance is not difficult to achieve but a consistent performance across horizon is a challenge. Getting the political will as well as policy mix and actions in the right direction is essential. The BOT has a clear stance and stands ready to secure the overall health of the Thai economy. The MPC has done its action last meeting and I believe we are on the right track. I need not remind you that Thailand is no stranger to difficult challenges. While being patient, we certainly have strong fundamentals for the second wind. It is just a matter of time to come. At this critical juncture, the most the Bank of Thailand can do is to keep the macroeconomic environment conducive to sustainable growth and productivity improvements.

The key to high-performance economy inevitably lies in supply-side policies that raise the economy’s potential growth. BIS Review 98/2008  5  The fact that supply-side policies take time should urge the government to hasten such policies. However much conflict of interest between a fixed-term government and long-term policies may be, it is important to realize that raising productivity, and hence the economy’s potential output, is ultimately the key to raise economic performance without provoking subsequent instability. As mentioned earlier, Thailand needs to be more resilient to oil shocks. For example, it is now a good opportunity to shape up our logistic system. Much integration needs to be done to coordinate the use of rail, road, river, and air transportation. Ladies and Gentlemen, My main message for you this evening is that the key for a successful economy is to preserve competitiveness and to grow at the potential rate as well as raising the potential output. This is to ensure both the performance and the sustainability of an economy. Many central banks are doing this through inflation targeting. At present, the risk of political uncertainty not only lies in terms of consumers and businesses’ confidence, but also in the efficiency of the government to pursue policies that raise productivity. As negative supply shocks persist, the better the job done by the government to enhance productivity, that is, to secure our potential output, the lesser the cost of economic stabilization. Thank you very much for your attention. 6  BIS Review 98/2008
Christian Noyer: Inflation, Europe’s response to the debt crisis, emerging-market economies and priorities for the G-20 – interview in The Wall Street Journal Interview with Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, in The Wall Street Journal, Paris, conducted by Mr Brian Blackstone and Ms Nathalie Boschat on 24 January 2011 and published on 26 January 2011. *  *  *  WSJ: The European Central Bank recently toughened its stance on inflation. How concerned are you about the risks of inflation taking hold in the euro zone? Noyer: The uptick in inflation is mostly due to the rise in oil and commodity prices. Core inflation has remained relatively subdued. By nature, that [the rise in inflation] should be temporary. Our projections show that the inflation rate should come back to a zone perfectly in line with our definition of price stability during the course of 2011. As a central bank, we are very attentive to the only risks that exist in such a situation, which is that there might be second-round effects – an acceleration of inflation due to other causes – wages and other dynamics of internal costs. This is why we are vigilant about all those evolutions. I am quite confident that we will be able to keep inflation at bay. That includes sending the message that we will never tolerate that inflation could become entrenched.

Philipp M Hildebrand: Liquidity - a challenge for banks Public lecture by Dr Philipp M Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Swiss National Bank Conference “Liquidity - a challenge for banks”, Zurich, 11 January 2005. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The resilience of the international financial system has been strengthened in recent years thanks to the extensive efforts of financial institutions, central banks and regulatory bodies. Nonetheless, given the steadily increasing volume of transactions in global financial markets, securing liquidity remains a fundamental task for banks. During times of crises, liquidity can suddenly contract or dry up altogether. The challenge for banks is to set up liquidity planning procedures to secure reliable liquidity sources for exceptional circumstances. Liquidity risks must be correctly assessed and assets must be secured to serve as collateral when necessary. In Switzerland, the repo market is the forward-looking liquidity management instrument for the banks. It minimises counterparty risk in lending and provides access to a crisis-resistant, collateralised interbank market. The Swiss National Bank is itself a participant in the repo market. It uses the repo platform to implement monetary policy and to provide for liquidity in both normal and exceptional circumstances. BIS Review 1/2005  1
1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  While capital flow risks have become more complicated, the issue faced by policymakers remains unchanged – that is, how can we better manage these risks and yet maximise the benefits that come with capital flows. The experience of our economies in dealing with capital flow volatility underscores the need to ensure our economic fundamentals are robust. While this is necessary, it is not sufficient. We have seen how external developments that are beyond our control, such as Taper Tantrum and trade tensions, could trigger periods of sharp capital flow volatility in emerging economies with severe consequences. There are “innocent bystanders” who are gravely impacted. It is therefore imperative that collectively, we continue to urge the global community to better manage the risks arising from financial openness. More needs to be done at the international level to have, to quote IMF MD Christine Lagarde, “safer capital flows". Nevertheless, we have to recognise that it is not easy to expect change at the international level. It will definitely take time. While the global community continues to debate and explore possible solutions to manage spillovers and spillbacks of policies in advanced economies, our economies will have to continue to grapple with capital flow volatility and its consequences on financial and macroeconomic stability. Therefore, I strongly believe that emerging economies must have the necessary domestic policy space in dealing with capital flows.

This will result in an extra 0.1% of GDP in infrastructure spending in 2017/18, rising to 0.3% of GDP by 2021-22. Over five years, the incremental spending amounts to an extra £ billion. This fund will be focussed on transport, housing, telecoms and research and development. 22  Just yesterday, the CBI published a report on differences in regional productivity performance and outlined a sequence of measures to help boost productivity and narrow regional differences. These measures included developing regional scorecards to enable productivity hotspots (and coldspots) to be identified; increased investment in skill-building through improved school and vocational education; increased infrastructure, in particular transport, spending; and improvements in managerial practices. The work of the “Productivity Commission”, chaired by Sir Charlie Mayfield, has identified a long tail of companies across all sectors in the UK whose productivity performance is falling short. 23  The Commission  are developing, among other things, a tool which would enable firms to benchmark themselves relative to others in their sector along several key business dimensions. This could then serve as a prompt for action, enabling firms to boost their productivity performance through targeted action. I think this micro-level assessment of productivity is a useful way to formulate plans which support productivity, and narrow productivity differences, regionally and sectorally. For example, recent work by the OECD has looked at the changing distribution of productivity across firms over time.
The iBoxx ABF Indices, the benchmark indices for the ABF2 Funds, are transparent and credible and compiled by an independent index provider. They can be easily replicated and customised by the private sector for other fixed-income products and derivatives and represent an important piece of market infrastructure for Asia. Moreover, since bond ETFs are a new product in Asia, in a number of cases, the linkage between the clearing and settlement systems for debt securities and that for equities have to be improved in order to allow the listing and trading of a bond ETF on the stock exchange. 13. Third, the ABF initiative has been a catalyst for regulatory and tax reforms in EMEAP markets, helping to remove market impediments and facilitate financial integration in the region. For example, the PAIF is the first foreign institutional investor to be granted access to China's interbank bond market. Securities regulators in Malaysia and Thailand have recently issued new rules to facilitate listing of ABF2 funds as bond ETFs. Malaysia and Thailand have exempted non-resident investors from withholding-tax, and Malaysia has liberalised its foreign exchange administration rules. Both Malaysia and Thailand opened their domestic bond market to bonds issued by multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank. 14. Fourth, the ABF initiative has helped to standardise and harmonise documentation for this type of exercise.

They also pay little attention to the traumatic experience of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 and the natural inclination to build up ammunition, in the form of foreign currency reserves, ever since. After all, most of us are small, in terms of our economies and our political influence, and the reality of this world is that, when you are small, you are more likely to be tossed around. So we need to be more cautious in our finances. 6. We find ourselves being held, at least partly, responsible for the dilemma currently surrounding the global imbalance, which has been interestingly described as a "stable disequilibrium". The description begs the questions as to how long the disequilibrium will remain stable and whether the eventual adjustment path to equilibrium is likely to be an unstable one. The answers to these questions remain elusive. 7. This obviously is not a very comfortable position that we find ourselves in. One solution to this structural problem in Asian finance, at least to us in the HKMA, is greater Asian financial integration to promote the stability, integrity, diversity and efficiency of financial intermediation across jurisdictions in Asia. At the micro level, an obvious, non-controversial initiative that Asian jurisdictions support, although not necessarily for the same macro reasons that I have described, is the development of the domestic and the Asian bond markets, hence the EMEAP ABF initiative. BIS Review 79/2005  1  Asian Bond Fund 8.