samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
19.09.2022  Inflation and economic growth in the euro area: monetary policy and the role of other economic policies* Joly Andalucía Forum Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  * English translation from the original in Spanish  *  Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me, first, to thank the organisers of the Joly Andalucía Forum for inviting me to take part in this event. In my address today I will present an overview of the economic situation in the euro area, aiming to explain the latest ECB monetary policy decisions. I will also briefly refer to the role that other economic policies should play in such a complex and uncertain economic scenario as the present one. The negative effects of the war in Ukraine on the European economy are heightened by its impact on energy markets Europe is particularly exposed to the economic effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, given its geographic proximity, its close trade and financial ties with Russia and, especially, its high dependence on fossil fuel imports from Russia, with limited capacity to replace these imports in the short term. Since the start of the war, the flow of Russian gas to Europe has decreased significantly, and recently the supply has effectively been shut off completely. Concerns about winter gas shortages have increased in some European countries. At the same time, gas prices on the Dutch TTF market, the European benchmark, have soared. The price of natural gas remains extremely volatile.

Certainly I seriously underestimated the scale of the downside risks from a potential financial crisis, and that implied overrating the ability of monetary policy to offset this shock. I will return later to the question of how a more long-term perspective might sometimes alter the desirable approach to policy. Before that, I want to discuss some issues around the MPC’s inflation projections and how we assess uncertainty. The balance of demand and supply The MPC’s projections for inflation, absent external shocks, are determined to a significant extent by our judgements about inflation expectations and about the likely developments in the pressure of demand on supply (this phrase is a better description than the more usual “output gap” – however I will now use the latter as a convenient shorthand). During my stint  4  Large (2005). 5  Gieve (2009). 2  BIS Review 27/2010  on the MPC, the way in which we have chosen to assess the output gap, as reflected in the assumptions underlying our main macro-model, has changed on a number of occasions. Of course, one model has never been the sole guide to our projections – a number of other models are also drawn on as appropriate. And the final shape of the fan charts published in the Inflation Report is the product of the MPC’s judgement including on the insights from these models.
Gazi Erçel: The role of the euro from the Turkish standpoint  Speech by Mr Gazi Erçel, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, made during the 6th International Financial and Economic Forum, held in Vienna on 9 November 2000. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank the organizers of this conference for inviting me to share my thoughts on the euro’s role as seen from the Turkish point of view. Of course, the introduction of the euro is affecting not only the economies that are members of the European Union but also non-member economies that have close links with members. These include emerging market economies much of whose trade and financial transactions is with European Union members. Those whose external debt is largely denominated in European Union currencies will be affected the most. Even though Turkey is not yet a member of the European Union, it has close ties with countries that are. Not only does Turkey carry on a large volume of foreign trade with EU members, it is also the only candidate for membership that has entered into a customs union with the EU, signed at the end of 1995. Turkey’s close relationship with EU countries and the present role of the euro in the Turkish economy are illustrated by the following: •  Europe is Turkey’s largest trading partner.

And no doubt the world economy will also have a share in these benefits. 3  BIS Review 109/2000
Although it had been tough, it is heartening to note that many developing countries have, since of late, been able to do so. But the challenge is becoming more and more intense by the day, and policymakers have to be constantly alert to developments on several fronts simultaneously, in order to continue with the same momentum. Investments have to be boosted; institutions need to be strengthened; infrastructure has to be improved; regulation has to be strengthened. In addition, all this has to happen at the same time. In the meantime, global challenges and risks loom large. Some of the downside risks are so intense and serious that those could even threaten the very foundation of the present growth momentum, and drag the developing nations as well as the entire world economy towards recession! There are many such dangers lurking. The current financial market turmoil could trigger a more pronounced global slowdown. The unbelievably high and volatile oil prices and the resulting inflationary pressures could lead to severe BOP problems, disrupt capital inflows and cause large global imbalances. The aging population, the intensification of resistance to globalization, the havoc that may be caused by global warming and the danger of terrorism could all lead to serious repercussions to the sustainable growth models that the economic planners are attempting to implement. But the good news is that there is sufficient evidence to indicate to us, that many developing countries are implementing a number of structural changes order to face upto these growing threats.

Secondly, Turkey had lived through the first stage of dollarization in which the foreign currency is used mainly as a store of value and partly as a unit of account, but not as a medium of exchange. In this context, the dollarization in Turkey can be called as financial dollarization. Distinguished Participants, After the 2001 crisis, the implementation of tight monetary and fiscal policies together with the structural reforms has enabled the country to bring the inflation down to single digit numbers and to reduce the ratio of public debt to GNP significantly. Also, financial markets have become deeper and less fragile. In this context, the banking sector reform that aimed to strengthen the regulation and supervision of the banking sector, restructure the public banks, improve the asset and loan quality and the capital adequacy ratio of the system has been of great importance. Additionally, the progress made towards economic stability, particularly the significant decrease in inflation, enabled us to drop six zeros from the Turkish currency. This currency reform has increased the credibility of the Turkish currency both in internal and external markets. The issuance of the New Turkish Lira debt instruments by foreign banks in the international markets is an important indicator of this increasing credibility. Consequently, the desire and the need to invest in foreign currency in order to hedge the value of wealth decreased significantly and investors have started to increase the share of Turkish currency assets in their portfolios.
On behalf of the Hong Kong SAR Government, I extend a warm welcome to all of you who are visiting Hong Kong from overseas, particularly those who are here for the first time: I hope that this will be an enjoyable and memorable stay. The broad implications of China’s accession to the WTO What will China’s accession to the WTO mean for China and the rest of the world? For China - which is already the world’s ninth largest trading entity - it will mean more external trade, and external trade of a better quality. There will be substantial tariff reductions among China’s existing trading partners and there will be access to more trading partners for China. At the same time, China will be cutting its tariffs on a broad range of products, from agricultural to industrial. Tariff reductions allow comparative advantage greater play. They will help eliminate trade distortions and facilitate more efficient allocation of resources among the trading partners, thus further promoting economic growth globally. The World Bank’s estimates give an indication of the growth potential of China’s trade on its accession to the WTO. China’s share in world exports will double in the space of five years: from the present 3.7% to around 7.3% by 2005. China’s share in world imports is expected to rise marginally faster than its share in exports: from the present 3.4% to 7.2% in five years’ time.

The object depicted is linked to each note’s key motif. On the 20-franc note, the object is a butterfly, and on the 200-franc, a particle collision. The key motifs of the six notes are time, light, wind, water, matter and language. As I mentioned earlier, the security features are the same for all denominations. I hope you like the new banknote series as much as I do. Now that all the notes are here, people can choose their own favourite. Before I finish, I would like to take this opportunity to Page 2/3  Berne, 3 September 2019 Fritz Zurbrügg  News conference on new banknotes  express our heartfelt thanks to Manuela Pfrunder and her team, and to congratulate them on a tour de force in designing the series. And with that, I will hand you over to our Chairman, Thomas Jordan, who will look back over the project and the challenges it presented, both for the SNB and for our partners. Page 3/3
In the course of 2005, office rental prices began to pick up in the largest Norwegian cities, with considerable variation within the various quality and location segments. The rise in consumer prices has also edged up since the beginning of the cyclical upturn. The year-onyear rise in the consumer price index (CPI) was 2.6 per cent in September. Energy products such as electricity and oil have put upward pressure on inflation over the past year. Electricity prices, including grid rent and taxes, were 48 per cent higher in August than one year earlier, while petrol prices were 1 per cent higher. Since the beginning of 2001, the rise in energy prices has been over 7 per cent on average. Variations in energy prices may also lead to wide monthly variations in consumer price inflation. As a result of high electricity prices, the rise in CPI inflation will remain steady though 2006. Energy prices are expected to fall in the spring of 2007, dampening the rise in CPI inflation. The rise in prices for non-energy goods has been moderate in recent years. Price impulses from imported consumer goods have been particularly weak. Their contribution to inflation has been negative virtually every year since the mid-1990s, partly reflecting increased trade, a shift in imports towards low-cost countries and a substantial improvement in distribution efficiency in Norway. Price impulses from imported consumer goods are expected to continue to exert downward pressure on inflation for some time ahead, albeit to a lesser extent than in previous years.

There are prospects of strong growth in the Government Pension Fund - Global. Given our assumption for oil price developments ahead (oil futures), spending in line with the expected real return on the Fund implies that the structural, non-oil deficit may increase by close to NOK 15 billion at 2006 prices in both 2008 and 2009. With a period of strong expansion in the Norwegian economy, somewhat lower petroleum revenue spending may be in line with the fiscal rule. Strong growth in the Norwegian economy is boosting tax revenues and reducing spending on unemployment benefits. Over a three-year period, the economic turnaround has strengthened the budget by about NOK 30 billion. In the structural budget deficit, which is the basis for formulating fiscal  4  BIS Review 108/2006  policy, adjustments are made for such cyclical deviations. Fiscal policy that is expansionary during a downturn and contractionary when the economy is experiencing a boom has a stabilising effect. Our projections are based on the assumption that the central government budget will generate some stimulus to total demand and output in 2008 and 2009, but somewhat less than the expected return on the Fund would imply. The path for domestic and external interest rates does not imply considerable changes in the krone exchange rate. Neither the appreciation of the krone last spring, nor the depreciation this autumn can be explained to any appreciable extent by changes in interest rate expectations. Historically, the relationship between oil prices and the krone exchange rate has been unstable.
What I now have to say about the economic situation in Sweden is largely taken from the latest inflation report, which was published about a fortnight ago. 2. The economic situation Activity is strengthening In the period since 1993, when economic activity in Sweden turned upwards after the profound crisis, growth in annual terms has averaged 2.7 per cent, which is higher than we were accustomed to in the inflationary period in the 1970s and 1980s. The growth has also had a favourable composition, coming primarily from exports and investment. This has contributed to a period of expansion without any appreciable capacity shortages. The good export performance has also led to sizable current account surpluses, making it possible to repay foreign debt. Private consumption has been restrained by the measures taken to consolidate government finance. This consolidation will continue on a substantial scale in the years ahead but its effects have probably peaked. Together with a pent-up consumer demand, this leads us to count on rising private consumption, though the labour market situation is a factor that we believe will tend to make the increase relatively cautious. GDP growth in 1996 was held back by destocking and a continued fall in public consumption and investment. We envisage that the stock adjustments are now coming to an end. Together with some increase in consumption and a continuation of strong exports, this means that the outlook for growth in the coming years is relatively bright.

This is especially the case in the most recent phase of the crisis, when sovereign debt concerns and their interaction with the strength of bank balance sheets have been central. In those euro area countries where government and banking sector balance sheets remain sound and access to external financing has been maintained, the transmission of monetary policy continues in line with historical regularities. But in those countries where the sovereign debt and bank funding markets have virtually seized up, its transmission is threatened. The interest rates on corporate loans and on mortgages, which ultimately affect real economic activity, will be higher in countries where banks are having funding problems. The increase in bond yield spreads experienced by the countries hardest hit by the sovereign debt crisis is likely to be passed through, in large part, to the cost of financing for the private sector. Indeed, the latest data on bank interest rates show that mortgages and corporate loans are significantly more expensive to service in those countries with sovereign debt tensions. For example, while lending rates on loans to non-financial corporations have tended to fall in all euro area countries since October 2008 – following the reduction of ECB policy rates – the fall has been less pronounced in Greece and Portugal. In December 2009, lending rates on loans to non-financial corporations in these two countries were approximately 1 percentage point higher than in Germany.
11 [12]  Svenska Dagbladet (2016), “Professor: Riksbanken agerar dumt och verktygslådan är tom” [Professor: The Riksbank is acting stupidly and the tool-box is empty], 1 February 2016. Sveriges Riksbank (2010), “What is a normal repo rate?” Article in Monetary Policy Report, February 2010. Sveriges Riksbank (2015a), “Why is it important that inflation rises towards the target?”, Article in Monetary Policy Report, July 2015. Sveriges Riksbank (2015b), “Minutes of the monetary policy meeting held on 11 February 2015”. 12 [12]

The role that microfinance institutions play in financial inclusion is therefore very crucial. Over the years, the microfinance institutions in Zambia have played a significant part in the provision of financial services, particularly for low-income households. Although access to finance remains low, microfinance institutions have had a somewhat positive impact on the economic activity of low income households, in both urban and rural areas. I am hopeful that the microfinance sector will continue to bridge the financing gap especially to the unserved population. However, the Bank of Zambia continues to receive a number of customer complaints on the high cost of micro loans in the country. It has been observed that the interest rates charged by some institutions exceeded 300% per annum in some cases. Furthermore, in most instances the effective rate of interest and other charges are not disclosed to the customers resulting in them paying much more that what was initially publicised to them. This has raised ethical questions regarding transparency and the role of microfinance institutions in poverty alleviation and economic development in Zambia. In addition, although, the interest rates of microfinance loans may vary significantly relative to the duration and size of the loan, it is incumbent upon all microfinance institutions to provide clear information on the cost of the loans and options available. It is also important for institutions to sensitise customers on what products may best suit their incomes and to educate them to borrow prudently.
Lars Nyberg: The Riksbank and the property market Speech by Mr Lars Nyberg, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at a lunch meeting, arranged by Connect Skåne, Kristianstad, 6 November 2006. *  *  *  To begin with, I should like to thank you for the invitation to come here to Kristianstad to speak about developments in the property market. This is a subject that certainly engages people, not merely us economists but also people who are not usually interested in economics or what the Riksbank does. The main interest is probably due to a house purchase being the largest individual investment most of us make in our lives. The Riksbank’s interest in the property market is based on the two tasks we have been set by the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament). One is to ensure that inflation remains at two per cent a year, with a tolerated deviation interval of plus/minus one percentage point. The other task is to "promote a safe and efficient payment system”, as it says in the text of the law. We wish to avoid the type of catastrophe Sweden experienced during the bank crisis at the beginning of the 1990s and we usually call this safeguarding financial stability. As I shall discuss a little later, developments in the property market can be significant for both these tasks and this is the reason for our interest.

Those are absolute prerequisites for stability in banking. Active, and sometimes intrusive, supervision of banks, and particularly of global banks, has to be at the foundation for stable banking and finance. I don’t think any reconfiguration of the structure of banking and finance is going to get us to an intrinsically safer system, taken as a whole. And we have to remember that this last global crisis, which is still with us in many ways, started not with large universal banks or large global banks, but with narrow or specialised players. Countrywide (the mortgage provider) in the US, Northern Rock in the UK, investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. It was accentuated through AIG’s Financial Products division, which played a prominent role on the derivative markets. But it was not global banks that sparked off the crisis, although they helped propagate it globally. It bears reminding ourselves of that. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  No matter how we restructure the system, no matter how we cut down or dice the pieces, banking will involve risk. And without the right culture – whether it’s about an investment bank or commercial bank or a mono-line player – and without the active and intelligent supervision, we’d have the same problems over and over again. The problems that underpinned this global crisis were old-fashioned problems – property booms that were misjudged by banks, regulators and borrowers; and the problem of banks relying too heavily on borrowing short term to invest long-term.
It would be dangerous to financial stability if we gave so large a capital carrot to banks to use the internal ratings based approach that many of the world's most important financial institutions, which account for the vast bulk of global and G10 domestic banking activity, saw a significant reduction of their regulatory capital requirement. It is the need to balance incentives with the maintenance of overall capital levels which makes this issue a difficult one. This, along with a large number of other questions about the impact of the proposals, will be further examined by the Committee in the course of a quantitative impact study to be carried out before finalising the proposals. The Bank of England has been asked to co-ordinate this work calibrating the impact of the new Accord on individual institutions and on the system as a whole. I recognise that the time allowed for this exercise is short, but I hope very much that we can count on the contribution and co-operation of the banking community. 2  BIS Review 29/2001  Turning to the second possible consequence of maintaining a risk insensitive alternative approach, we may find that the combination of having some banks on the IRB approach and some on the standard approach will, perversely, introduce a financial stability risk that is not present with all banks on the standard approach. This is that the more sophisticated institutions would have to hold more regulatory capital against weak loans than banks that remain on the standard approach.

The Committee's statement that ratings should not be 'point in time' but 'must represent a conservative view of a long run average probability of default for the borrower grades' attempts to introduce such a balance. Such ratings ought to be reasonably robust to the normal ups and downs of economic activity. The Committee has backed this up with requirements for minimum lengths of data histories to underlie the internal ratings, so helping to ensure that they incorporate some experience of economic low points. Over-optimism by banks in allocating ratings could also induce procyclicality. The Committee proposes several checks on this. In particular, supervisors will look at the ratings allocated to some individual loans, and also compare the distribution of loans across rating bands with those of different banks. Ultimately, of course, we will have to rely on those charged with daily supervision of banks, backed up by the Pillar 3 disclosure requirements, to ensure that ratings are not set in a way which risks undue procyclicality. Impact of the Basel Accord on SMEs Leaving aside the issue of how the risk sensitive capital requirements will behave over an economic cycle, I would also like to touch on the question of how they may affect the supply and pricing of finance to certain types of borrower. If risk sensitivity means a greater distinction between different types of borrower, we need to consider carefully whether the right outcome has been achieved.