samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In the first half of 1973, the global economy is in full expansion. The preceding few years have been marked by mounting inflationary pressures (Chart 1). Norges Bank  Economic perspectives 2023  2  Chart 1 High and variable inflation in the 1970s Consumer prices. Four-quarter change. Percent 16 OECD Norway  14 12 10 8 6 4 1973  2 0 1966  1971  1976  1981  1986  Sources: Statistics Norway and Norges Bank  In Norway, too, prices are rising quickly. “Price problems”, as they are called, are a source of political concern. In summer 1973, the Price Problems Commission, headed by Deputy Governor Hermod Skånland, presents its report. The commission recommends closer cooperation between the authorities and the social partners to bring inflation under control. But the recommendation is not immediately followed.1 The price problems prove to be much worse than feared. On 6 October, war breaks out in the Middle East. The war is not only fought with military weapons, but also with economic weapons. The Arab OPEC countries impose an oil embargo on the major industrial economies in response to their backing Israel. Oil prices nearly quadruple. Petrol prices not only soar, but there are petrol shortages. Those of you a few years older than I am may remember the Norwegian ban on weekend driving. The following year, consumer prices in Norway rise by more than 10 percent, triggering a price wage spiral.

We can go one step further and ask whether this long-tailed distribution of board connectivity has any systematic relationship with the long tail of companies’ productivity performance. Controlling for other firmspecific factors, such as their size and sector, it appears that it does. Indeed, this relationship is both statistically significant and economically meaningful (Table 3). As a thought-experiment, imagine comparing two otherwise-identical companies except for their degree of board connectivity. One company has a board whose members are in the upper decile of the connectivity distribution; it is one of the “in-crowd”. Another has a board drawn from the lowest connectivity decile; it is one of the majority in the “out-crowd”. Average annual productivity growth for the in-crowd company is around 1 percentage point higher than for the out-crowd company. I am indebted to the doyen of monetary and financial economics, Professor Charles Goodhart, for many things. But among them is the following, the only corporate governance joke I know. Question: what is the difference between a shopping trolley and a non-executive director of a company? Answer: a shopping trolley has a mind of its own. The evidence here rejects the null hypothesis in Charles’s joke. It is unclear whether, for Facebook fanatics and Twitter addicts, higher numbers of friends and followers translates into higher levels of productivity and well-being. My casual empiricism suggests, sometimes, it might not. But for companies, the empirical evidence suggests connections do matter. For companies’ productivity, connectivity counts. Indeed, it may help account for the UK’s long tail.
Though the latest Budget and OSR plans imply a somewhat bigger fall in the public spending share of GDP than in the mid-1990s, this is offset by a smaller rise in the tax burden. Taking tax and spending together, the projected impact is broadly similar. Public borrowing fell by over 8 percentage points of GDP between 1993/4 and 1998/9, compared with a 9 percentage point fall projected over the next five years in the coalition government 2010 Budget. 10 It is also important to recognise the profile for total public spending conceals significant variations between different areas of spending. But the overall total is not being cut back as dramatically as some of the media headlines suggest. The broadest measure of public spending – Total Managed Expenditure – is still set to rise in cash terms at 1.5% per annum over the four years to 2014/15, not far below the targeted inflation rate of 2%. The profile for real spending in future years is not dissimilar to the mid-1990s when there was also a virtual standstill in the real growth of spending. In the 1990s, the public spending squeeze was also accompanied by a significant reduction in employment in the public sector, not dissimilar to the figures currently projected by the Office of Budget Responsibility. Despite this, unemployment fell in the 1990s from over 10% of the labour force to around 5% later in the decade because the private sector generated many more jobs than were lost in the public sector.

The original Basel Capital Accord was itself a landmark event, revolutionary in providing a common capital assessment approach, now used by over 100 countries. However, it has obvious limitations that have become more significant over time. It has become less and less reflective of the risks of our largest organizations, and, accordingly, has become less and less integral to our ongoing supervision of them. Basel I, as we all know, includes such shortcomings as: a) its failure to recognize differing credit quality within the same general asset type; b) its varying the capital charge with the credit exposure’s legal form, such as whether it is on or off balance sheet; and c) its simplistic approach to risk transference and credit risk mitigation. More generally, Basel I was not structured to keep pace with the rapid rate of financial innovation that we have seen in internationally active banks. It clearly has created incentives for capital arbitrage, with banks able to structure transactions with the primary goal of minimizing regulatory requirements without a commensurate reduction in risk. Similarly, it has resulted in distortions in bank activity, by creating a tax on certain activities while understating the risk for others. BIS Review 35/2005  1  These have combined to make the regulatory capital metric less informative to investors, supervisors and counterparties, and have eroded the principle of adequate risk-based capitalization that the Basel Accord was designed to promote.
In this framework, the Bank of Albania continued to work on the consolidation of inter-institutional collaboration, through the National Payment System Committee (NPSC), which it chairs. The Committee has initiated several projects, most importantly the projects on the compilation and implementation of the draft-strategy for the reformation of the small value payments market, the increase of financial inclusion and the assessment of remittances market. The successful accomplishment of the main legal obligations is supported by a range of other functions of the Bank of Albania. I will now briefly mention some of the improvements in these activities. 5. Other activities of the Bank of Albania  7/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  In the field of statistics, the Bank of Albania has intensified its work to align the methodology on statistics with the international standards and their harmonization with the acquis communitare. In concrete terms, the methodologies on the preparation of financial soundness, interest rates, financial accounts and international reserve indicators are revised. The Statistics Code of Practice at the Bank of Albania was adopted for the first time. This code ensures integrity, quality, access and confidentiality in using and reporting the statistics, according to the international standards. Also, the Bank of Albania, for the first time, published the policy and calendar of statistics review, which ensures full transparency related with the review of released statistics. Since June, Albania implements the IMF‘s Enhanced General Data Dissemination e-GDDS). Some of the statistics are compiled by the Bank of Albania.

It has facilitated the development of new financial instruments and investment strategies, and it has radically changed trading mechanisms. It should also have made it easier for both financial institutions and their regulators to measure, monitor and manage risk. But the electronic revolution, as it applies to our financial systems, has clearly had a very positive impact on the efficiency of all our financial markets and no doubt still has a long way to go. Other major drivers include: the effects of rising living standards and the associated increase in financial wealth; and the consequences of ageing populations in many of our countries with a related emphasis on private pension provision. They include also the impact of fiscal policies which are now typically directed to limiting budget deficits and reducing public sector debt and of monetary policies directed at consistently low inflation as a necessary condition for sustainable economic growth. Many of these trends seem likely to encourage a continuing relative shift in savings and investment patterns towards private sector capital market intermediation, although such intermediation will often be carried out by banks or within banking groups. I've no doubt that you can all think of other important drivers of change in our financial systems. And all of this before we even come to EMU!
• Retail CBDCs – which are issued by the central bank to the general public; they would be the digital equivalent of today’s notes and coins. MAS sees much promise in wholesale CBDCs.They have the potential to radically transform cross-border payments. But since wholesale CBDCs by definition are not meant to be used as currency by the general public, they are not money. So let me focus on retail CBDCs for now. Retail CBDCs are essentially digital versions of cash.Interest in retail CBDCs has risen sharply in the last two years. According to a survey by the Bank for International Settlements, six out of ten central banks are experimenting with retail CBDCs. MAS has been carefully studying the economic merits and implications of a retail CBDC in the Singapore context. We have just released a detailed paper outlining our current thinking. There are three possible reasons for MAS to issue to the public a digital Singapore dollar. First, a digital Singapore dollar would make available the benefits of using central bank money in the growing world of online transactions. Like notes and coins, a digital Singapore dollar issued by MAS will be safe, widely accepted, and bear the authority of the state. Cash is the ultimate risk-free asset, and means of final settlement. The rapid displacement of cash in favour of electronic payments based on bank deposits or e-wallets is one of the chief motivations for countries like Sweden and China to consider retail CBDCs.

On the external side, even though export growth in January is especially robust at 33 per cent, the likelihood of seeing a repeat of spectacular export performance is slimmer this year, as global growth is projected to slow down considerably. In fact, export growth in February has already decelerated to 16 percent. Going forward, the risk factors that can weigh on the ability of the Thai economy to expand will likely come from the US recession and high oil and commodity prices. In an increasingly integrated world, the slowdown in US demand can impact on Thailand’s export prospects. Despite the Fed’s aggressive interest rate cuts and innovative measures to forestall the rise in mortgage interest rates, substantial downside risk remains. Most US watchers agree that the US economy may not be able to avoid a recession; indeed, employment, house price and business confidence data all point to a possibility that it is already in a recession. It’s only a matter of how deep and how long this process will last. But while the US economy weakens substantially with worsening prospects, global price pressure is not letting off. Crude oil prices continue to rise as world oil demand strengthens in the face of limited global production capacity. In this tight demand-supply situation, adverse geopolitical events, unfavorable weather condition or further dollar slide can spike up oil prices. This phenomenon is not new. In fact, continued demand pressure coupled with supply constraint and other uncertainties have led countries to find substitutes to fossil fuel.
The rationale behind this view was to free the monetary policy conduct from conflicting objectives and thus render policymakers’ mission and life easier. It was advocated that banking sector supervision should no longer be assigned to the central bank, but rather to an independent agency (which might also ensure the consolidated supervision of all financial markets). I, myself, found the idea rather interesting at the end of the 1990s, when the collapse of several Romanian banks influenced the decision-making process at the National Bank of Romania. I realised at the moment how costly it was in terms of reputation for a central bank to be in charge of supervision and prudential regulation – not to mention that the separation appeared quite fashionable after the newly-established Financial Services Authority had become operational in the United Kingdom. At the same time, I vividly remember the conflict between price stability and financial stability, when I had to mediate the divergent positions taken during Board meetings by the deputy governors coordinating the two functions, not by virtue of personal affiliations, but due to the very nature of the specific tasks they had been entrusted with. I was wondering, in light of these Board disputes, whether separating the monetary policy and the supervision functions was preferable. At hindsight, I believe that Romania has made the right choice preserving banking supervision as a prerogative of the central bank, sorting out such disputes under the same roof.

Of course, no matter how much or how responsibly the central bank would get involved in safeguarding financial stability, this public good can only be delivered through cooperation and coordination with the other institutions tasked with financial market supervision and regulation. Relevant in this respect is that in Romania a National Committee for Financial Stability was established as early as 2007. The Governor of the National Bank of Romania, the Minister of Public Finance, the President of the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Chairman of the Bank Deposit Guarantee Fund are members of this committee, whose key objective is to ensure the exchange of relevant information, as well as to prevent, appraise and manage any issues with a potentially systemic impact. Efforts are currently underway to turn this entity set up based on an agreement among member institutions into a National Committee for Macroprudential Oversight, whose composition, tasks and areas of competence shall be set forth by law. This inter-institutional structure will act as a macroprudential authority, within the meaning of ESRB Recommendation 2011/3. 4. NBR: the internal control layers I imagine we all agree that improving the governance structure is essential for a central bank and I strongly believe the sharing of views and experience made possible by reunions such as the one we are attending is extremely beneficial for the process.
One driving force is of course that the world around us is constantly changing – and often very quickly. Quite simply, there are new demands made on us from outside, which we must deal with as best we can. Developments during the financial crisis in recent months are a good example of this. There are also demands from outside regarding our interaction with the general public, with other public authorities and with you who work in the financial markets. It is important that we communicate and work together efficiently, both to ensure monetary policy functions smoothly and to safeguard financial stability. But the pressure for changes does not only come from outside. We are constantly working on developing our working methods. It may not always be apparent to those who do not work at the Riksbank, but there is a strong will among our employees to improve our ways of thinking and working. There is a positive driving force behind the changes we are implementing. I am convinced that this driving force has contributed to the fact that we now have much better working methods than before. Another positive driving force is the regular contacts we have with other central banks and with the academic world. 2  BIS Review 155/2008  The developments cover everything from new methods to our communication. Something that constitutes an example of both of these things is the forecast for the repo rate path that we now publish regularly.

Irma Rosenberg: My time at the Riksbank – some final reflections on challenges along the way Speech by Ms Irma Rosenberg, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at SEB, Stockholm, 8 December 2008. *  *  *  On a chilly day in January 1976 I crossed the threshold of the newly-built Riksbank building for the first time. It was true that all employees were moving into the new building that day, which contributed to the more or less organised chaos of furniture gone adrift and employees trying to find their new offices. But for me it was probably an extra special day. It was my first day at work. And it was my first job outside of the university after taking my PhD. Almost 33 years have passed since that day in January. And as I leave the Riksbank at the end of the year one could say that I have come full circle. It was where I began my career. In 1986 I left the bank, but in January 2003 I once again crossed the threshold at Brunkebergstorg 11, then as one of the six members of the Executive Board. This will now be my final full-time job. The years have been eventful ones, with more than a little drama from time to time.
Input prices have fallen and companies can sell their products in new markets. But there are also costs. Norwegian businesses and jobs may lose in the competition. The challenge lies in moving idle resources to new business activities. This requires adaptability and a sound cost policy. The Norwegian economy is unique in being both a fully developed economy and a major oil exporter. Norway is the world’s third largest oil exporter. In the future, we will become an increasingly important exporter of natural gas. The petroleum sector accounts for 44 per cent of exports and 17 per cent of GDP. The present value of remaining petroleum reserves has been estimated at close to NOK 2 000 billion (present rate of net cash flow). The bulk of Norway’s petroleum wealth will be extracted over a period of 40 years, from 1990 to 2030. We are now in a phase where petroleum wealth is being converted from natural resources under the seabed to financial assets abroad. The Government Petroleum Fund was established in 1990 with a view to promoting an even distribution of wealth across generations. The intention behind the Petroleum Fund is that the cash flow from petroleum production should be channeled to the Fund and invested abroad. By doing so, changes in oil prices have little effect on the mainland economy. This chart illustrates how petroleum activity is separated from the mainland economy. 2  BIS Review 16/2004  Oil companies’ revenues are in foreign currency.

Leaving aside differences across countries, a long and challenging process of economic transformation brought countries in the region significant improvements in incomes and living standards. Full membership of the EU – or the prospects of accession – provided an important stimulus for the process of transformation as well as an anchor of stability. In Western Europe, completion of the three stages of EMU led to the establishment of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the introduction of the euro in January 1999. Having started originally with 11 participating countries, the euro area has since expanded to include 17 EU Member States including some previous transition economies, namely Estonia, Slovenia and Slovakia. The changes Europe has seen over these past 20 years are enormous. Equally enormous have been the challenges along the way, not least of course due to the global financial crisis. But there have also been enormous achievements. In my remarks today, I would like to take stock of some of those achievements and focus on three main aspects of the process of economic convergence in Central and Eastern Europe. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Three main aspects of the process of economic convergence 1. Nominal and real convergence: what has been achieved? The first aspect of convergence relates to developments in terms of nominal and real convergence between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the euro area.
Pursuing monetary policy to stabilise inflation and raising the key rate to achieve this, the Bank of Russia curbs growth in long-term interest rates in the economy. This quarter experience is a good illustration of the above. Despite the increase in the key rate on three occasions since last March for a total of 125 basis points, the yields of long-term OFZs are currently on the same level as in late March. As far as the pace of lending growth is concerned, it remains high both in corporate and particularly retail segments. Thus, mortgages are rising by more than 25% year-on-year. In addition, retail loans are heating consumer demand. We are also concerned by the fact that lending is growing due to loans to borrowers with a high debt burden. Therefore, we resume prepandemic macroprudential add-ons on unsecured loans from 1 July and on mortgage loans with a low down payment and a high debt-to-income ratio of borrowers — from August. The Bank of Russia will stand ready to further increase macroprudential add-ons to prevent the accumulation of systemic risks and to ensure financial stability. Since our meeting in April, the balance of risks has tilted even more towards proinflationary risks. Elevated inflation expectations as a response to high inflation and low interest rates still pose a major risk. With fears of future price growth, people tend to spend more today and save less for tomorrow. This makes prices grow even more rapidly. Disinflationary risks look weaker.

According to our estimates, annual inflation is expected to be higher than we forecast in April but lower than its current level. Due to the high base effect in the first half of this year annual inflation will return to the target only in the second half next year. Third. Monetary conditions remain accommodative. Interest rates on loans and deposits are low as compared to current and expected inflation. Our decisions to raise the key rate in March and April have not yet been fully reflected in banks’ interest rates. Banks’ lending and deposit rates are closely connected with yields on government bonds, OFZs. OFZs are risk-free ruble assets for banks and the pricing of all other ruble products of banks is pegged to them. OFZ yields with various maturities change together with the key rate, though to a different extent. The key rate impacts to the most extent the yields on short-term OFZs, with maturities of up to two-three years. These yields have increased significantly over the past two months. They will impact the cost of short-term loans and also deposit rates, which have already started rising. Meanwhile, yields on long-term OFZs are largely determined by long-term inflation expectations, the assessment of the macroeconomic policy stability, and external environment. The cost of long-term financing of investment projects as well as mortgage loan rates depend precisely on the yields on long-term OFZs.