samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The Fourth Industrial Revolution From the past to the future. A new technological wave is breaking. On some accounts, this wave could be as great as any seen previously. The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution is associated with the emergence of a whole new class of technologies with the potential to be tomorrow’s GPT.24 These include machine learning, Big Data, robotics, bio-technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The rise of the robot has well and truly begun.25 Machines, and indeed robots, are not of course new. Nor are fears of them rising up and taking jobs and control. The Luddites had the same concerns in the 19th century. This time, though, seems a bit different. 24 25  Klingenberg (2017). Ford (2015). 11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  11  These machines, unlike their predecessors during the first three industrial revolutions, are capable of thinking as well as doing. Although this might sound like a small step for humankind, it is a potential game-changer. So far in human history, humans have kept one-step-ahead of the machine by gravitating towards tasks out of robotic reach. That has meant cognitive tasks. This spawned the growth of educational institutions, with universal primary and then secondary education and then the rapid expansion of colleges and universities. In other words, humans used the self-same neurological advantage over machines as had earlier put them on an entirely different evolutionary arc to other animals. Except, unlike with animals, it is not clear humans will retain their cognitive lead over machines.

Mario Draghi: Short address on the occasion of the launch of the Europa series € banknote Speech by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the launch of the Europa series € banknote, Bratislava, 2 May 2013. *  *  *  I mentioned this at the end of today’s press conference, but let me say again that I’m very pleased to be here today to see the launch of the new 5 euro, the first banknote of the Europa series. The new banknote will join 15 billion euro notes already in circulation. They are the most visible and tangible symbol of European integration, used from one end of the continent to the other. With the Europa series, we are giving a face to our currency. A portrait of Europa, a figure from Greek mythology, has been incorporated into some of the security features of the new series. After centuries of division, the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its contribution to “the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”. We all know that Europe is experiencing some challenging times. Governments and citizens are making extraordinary efforts to put their economies on a sounder footing and to build a more stable future for the European Union. In times like these, it’s important to remember what the Union and the euro have achieved and what they mean in the longer term, especially for young people.
Modern communication tools allow much more flexible working, in time and space: unheard of in traditional trading environments, but eminently feasible in a world of e-platforms and algorithmic trading, even in a market that trades 24/7. And that opens the industry to a much wider talent pool, with different skills and thought processes, improving productivity and retention. Companies that fail to offer flexible working arrangements underperform their peers. 11 And that is relevant to both men and women: 89% of those responding to a 2017 survey of British businesses12 said flexible working was a key enabler for productivity. The second key change is the profound broadening in FX market participation. In part that reflects a sharp reduction in the costs of entry to, and use of, the FX market, driven by those same technological trends I’ve just outlined. Retail banks, asset managers and corporates can now access the market directly. And there is a much wider range of service providers, stretching well beyond the traditional investment banks: indeed, some of the biggest, or fastest-growing, firms in the market were unheard of 5-10 years ago. The rapid development of previously emerging economies, and progressive capital account liberalisation, has also substantially increased the geographical reach of the foreign exchange market, bringing different customer needs and perspectives.

Perhaps the cliques that existed in parts of the FX market in the past have proved more adept at self-perpetuation than might have been hoped, particularly where they extended across both sell- and buy-side. Or remuneration schemes may have continued to reward those who make particularly large profits – even if the same behaviour can also lead to particularly large losses – rather than those who deliver a higher average return with fewer fireworks. Whatever the reason, times are changing in the FX market – and fast. And that’s what makes me optimistic about the future, and the role all of you here today can play in it. The FX market of tomorrow, and why embracing diversity will no longer be an option  I want to focus on three key drivers of change: technology; broadening market participation; and culture. The most profound of these for the economics of the industry is technology. Technological advances have fundamentally changed the face of trading and revolutionised the structure of the FX market. These days, only a minority of FX trades involve people actually talking to one other. And a growing number don’t even need someone to click a mouse, as algorithmic and high frequency trading techniques take over from manual trading. That is particularly true for vanilla flow trading. To take just one example, an estimated 70% of orders on EBS – a key inter-dealing platform for spot FX – are submitted by algorithms9.
It was free from personal judgement, for fear of calling into question the Bank’s judgement. It was free from emotion, for fear of questioning the Bank’s objectivity. And it was free from split infinitives, for fear of the wrath of the Bank’s wordsworths. This reign of semantic terror is, fortunately, now long gone. In its communications, the Bank no longer backs a single horse, notable for its consistency, lack of emotion and technical prowess. Instead it has invested in a diverse stable of styles and publications. The messages they deliver are now deliberately mixed, in tone and content, to meet the mixed needs of a mixed audience. Let me give three recent examples. The first is Bank Underground, the Bank’s staff blog. Bank Underground has levels of linguistic complexity up to 4 years lower than the Inflation Report, making it accessible to up to 11 million more people, or around a fifth of the adult population. Perhaps reflecting that, it recently exceeded 1 million hits. That is around 6 or 7 times the number of readers of the Inflation Report over the same period. 39 40 41  Haldane (2015). Acemoglu and Robinson (2012). See http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Pages/conferences/2017/28290917.aspx 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  8  A second is KnowledgeBank. This is an attempt to explain the economy and central bank policies using a combination of simple prose, cartoons, videos, games and competitions. It draws on different messaging conveyed through different media.

People have more important things to do in their lives than think about interest rates and bank regulation, about price and financial stability. Or at least I hope they have. Indeed, central banks would be failing in their job if people were spending too much of their lives thinking or worrying about these issues. Nonetheless, the actions of central banks are important for most people at key decision points in their lives. At those points, a trusting and understanding relationship between the central bank and the public matters. It matters for people when making good decisions. It matters for the economy when following a good course. It matters for policymakers when setting good policy. That is why everyday economics, terrible title and all, matters to the Bank of England. 16  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  16  Annex  Figure 1 – Study of Mathematics  Per cent of total population at each age  1%  Undergraduate level  12%  A-level  75%  GCSE  100%  Pre-GCSE  Sources: HESA, Joint Council For Qualifications, ONS and Bank Calculations Notes: As mathematics is compulsory at younger ages, we assume that the percentage of students studying it pre-GCSE is 100%. Undergraduate level includes of the professional graduate certificate in education, foundation degrees, HND/DipHE and other undergraduate qualifications. This chart does not include Scottish qualifications.
My first answer to this question was a clear “no” if faith means “belief in unquestioned authority”. Central bankers should not ask just for faith, they cannot expect such faith and they cannot take faith for granted. Instead they must work hard every day to earn the trust that the public places in them. Central bankers are not super-humans, they cannot be guaranteed to be benevolent or omniscient. They will perform best within an institution that is given a clear objective and that is held accountable by the public. Conversely, the public would be ill-advised to put “blind trust” in central bankers. Price stability, preserving the value of money is the precondition for a well-functioning market economy, for economic and social stability, a free and prosperous society. Price stability is too important for society to be left “on trust” to the vagaries of the political process or to the whims of individual central bankers. It requires to build solid and strong independent institutions which are dedicated to serve and defend the common good of price stability. It is both economically sensible as well as democratically legitimate for society to delegate such a limited and well-defined task to an independent central bank. Such an act of delegation confers an obligation on the central bank to fulfil this trust and to be held accountable. Faith may be all right, but control by an attentive public will also be needed.

Prasarn Trairatvorakul: Regional trends for monetary policy and the possibility of regional collaboration Speech by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the 14th International Convention of the East Asian Economic Association (EAEA), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2 November 2014. *  *  *  Distinguished Guests, Honorable Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my pleasure and privilege to speak at the 14th International Convention of the East Asian Economic Association. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the hosts for inviting me as a part of this esteemed forum, which brings together economists, academics, and officials from all over the region. Our countries have been overwhelmed by clouds of uncertainties in both domestic and external fronts. So far, the question we have repeatedly asked ourselves is “What can ‘WE’ contribute to sustain the recovery and better safeguard our economies?” And as “WE” gather here today, I am confident that this is an opportunity for “US”, to exchange knowledge and experiences, that would greatly support the development of regional economies and strengthen our regional cooperation. Today, I would like to share my thoughts in pursuit of the answers to our question from a policymaker’s perspective. I will begin with what I see as the major contributors to the past global financial crisis. Then I will touch upon the conduct of monetary policy amongst Emerging Market Economies in response to the past crisis as well as its spillovers.
Inflation in many countries - including virtually all the industrial countries but not confined to them - is now consistently lower than it has been for ages. That in itself has contributed to lower interest rates and to the lower nominal bond yields that I have described. But, in addition to that, fiscal consolidation, which has lowered the combined government deficits of the G7 countries from around $ billion in 1994 to around $ billion last year, has helped to reduce real yields, notwithstanding the continuing demand for capital from the developing world. And the really good news is that this macro-economic discipline has been accompanied by sustained economic expansion, with world GDP as a whole growing at an annual rate of some 3½ - 4%. Now of course there have been quite marked differences in the performance of individual countries within this overall picture. Some of the transition economies have seen a brutal contraction of output which is only now beginning to stabilise. And there have been marked fluctuations in the growth rates of some of the emerging countries. Growth in parts of Asia, for example, is now moderating, cyclically, to a more sustainable pace, while parts of Latin America continue to recover from the set-back they suffered two years ago. Among the industrial countries, too, economic developments have diverged over the past two years.

So today’s orthodoxy ascribes to macro-economic policy the job of keeping demand in line with the capacity of the economy to meet that demand in the medium and longer term. Within this overall framework, monetary policy is allocated the specific task of achieving and maintaining effective price stability. This is not, as some commentators still seem to suggest, simply some doctrinaire end in itself. Inflation is seen rather as a symptom of imbalance between demand and supply in the economy. So what we are essentially aiming to do through monetary policy is to anticipate the emergence of that imbalance and head it off before it becomes entrenched. If we are successful in that, inflation will be lower, there will be less need for violent interest rate movements than in the past, and the economy will grow at a steadier, and more sustainable and predictable, rate. That, in turn, will encourage more rational, longer-term, economic decision-making and investment, which will help indirectly to improve underlying, supply-side, performance. Similarly, today’s macro-economic orthodoxy requires fiscal policy to be directed to restricting government borrowing to levels that can be sustained into the medium and longer term, without either forcing up real yields or implying the prospective need for progressively rising tax rates - which could otherwise damage the development of private sector economic activity. Now in some respects we have made considerable progress over the past two years and more.
•  Figueiredo, Ivo (2007) “Henrik Ibsen: Masken (Henrik Ibsen: the Mask)”, Aschehoug. •  Jonung, L. (2005) “Den skandinaviske myntunionen 1873-1924 – en översikt (The Scandinavian Currency Union 1873-1924 – an overview)”, in Eitrheim, Ø. and J. F. Qvigstad (ed.) “Tilbakeblikk på norsk pengehistorie. Konferanse 7. juni 2005 på Bogstad gård (Norwegian monetary history in retrospect. Conference, 7 June 2005, Oslo)”, Norges Bank’s Occasional Papers No. 37, Norges Bank. •  Kydland, F. E. and E. C. Prescott (1977) “Rules rather than discretion: The inconsistency of optimal plans”, Journal of Political Economy, June 1977. •  Minsky, H.P. (1978) "The Financial Instability Hypothesis: A restatement”, Thames Papers on Political Economy 78. •  Qvigstad, J.F. and A. Skjæveland (1994) “Valutakursregimer – historiske erfaringer og fremtidige utfordringer (Exchange rate regimes – historical experience and future challenges)”, in Berg, S. A., J. F. Qvigstad and K. Storvik (ed.) “Stabilitet og langsiktighet: Festskrift til Hermod Skånland (Stability and a long-term perspective: Festschrift for Hermod Skånland)”, Aschehoug. •  Schreiner, P. (1982) "Er Ola Nordmann smart nok? Den fulle sysselsetningen i fare! (Is the average Norwegian smart enough? Full employment in jeopardy! )", Universitetsforlaget. •  Snowdon, B. and H. R. Vane (2005) “Modern macroeconomics: Its origins, development and current stage”, Edward Elgar. BIS Review 111/2008  9  •  Steigum, E. (2000) “Samspillet mellom pengepolitikken og finanspolitikken ved et inflasjonsmål (The interplay between monetary policy and fiscal policy under an inflation targeting regime)", in Røisland, Ø. and J. F. Qvigstad (ed.)

The governor of Norges Bank is also required once a year – first in 2003 – to appear at an open hearing on monetary policy of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. What can we learn from history? We can learn from history. The experience of the 1970s and 1980s was a costly one. After the last devaluation in 1986, a fixed exchange rate policy was introduced and the economy went through a period of extensive restructuring. Confidence in the krone had to be restored to prevent persistently high inflation. This required very high interest rates. The Norwegian economy entered into the deepest recession since the interwar period. Unemployment rose from around 2 per cent in 1987 to 6 per cent in the winter of 1992/1993. Many companies went bankrupt and households faced debt problems. There was a crisis in the banking sector. Inflation only decreased to 2-3 per cent in the early 1990s. The years between 1986 and the beginning of the 1990s provide a realistic picture of the cost of bringing down inflation from a high level. 8  See Storvik (1998). 9  See Gjedrem ”Challenges in monetary policy”, Aftenposten, 4 May 1999. BIS Review 111/2008  5  Inflation has been low and stable since the mid-1990s because the objective of monetary policy has been to provide the economy with a nominal anchor. Economic agents should be able to rely on the value of money remaining stable over time.
There are many examples from other industries where modularity in organisational structure has been deployed to enhance systemic resilience. Computer manufacture is one. During the late 1960s, computers were highly integrated systems. Gradually, they evolved into the quintessential modular system of today, with distinct modules (CPU, hard disk, keyboard) which were replaceable if they failed without endangering the functioning of the system as a whole. This improved resilience and reliability. In the computing industry, modularity appears to have had an influence on industry structure. Since the 1970s, the computer hardware industry has moved from a highly concentrated structure to a much more fragmented one. In 1969, IBM had a market share of over 70%. By this century, the market share of the largest hardware firm was around a third of that. Modularity has meant the computer industry has become less prone to “too-big-to-fail” problems.

Given the possibility of persistent expectations of high inflation following the run-up of oil and other commodity prices early this year, the issue of central bank’s credibility in achieving price stability has become even more critical. Indeed, over the past few months, there was intense debate on the appropriate monetary stances to deal with the current inflation problem. The Bank of Thailand has decided to gradually withdraw the demand stimulus, by increasing the policy rate by a total of 50 basis points during the past two Monetary Policy Committee Meetings. The rationale is that uncontained demand, boosted in no small part by the presence of large real negative interest rates, as well as relatively small output gap during the first half of 2008, could potentially fuel even more severe and persistent inflation and force us to take a bigger dose of bitter medicine with significant loss of economic growth in the future. Second, to further enhance the effectiveness of central bank’s objective in achieving price stability, it is crucial to establish an understanding between the central bank and the government of the lagged-nature of monetary policy transmission, and the need for targeting stability to effectively anchor long-term inflation expectations. To this end, the recently passed BOT Act specifies that, at the end of each year, the Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee, jointly with the Minister of Finance, will be required to set an annual target for monetary policy for the following year.
I suspect that societal discourse in Iceland has seldom been as destructive as it was then. I was born in 1970, and I remember well how inflation, the labour market, and the exchange rate dominated the radio and newspapers. I thought a lot about this inflation boogeyman that everyone was always talking about but no one could control. Actually, I was lucky enough to have price-indexed income: I owned two sheep - one multicoloured and one black. And some of the many agricultural pricing committees calculated the present value of the lambs and their wool, which I deposited to the Stykkishólmur co-op in line with inflation each year. On the other hand, money kept in banks and savings banks burned to a crisp under the white heat of negative real interest rates. At that time, interest rates, including Central Bank rates and commercial bank rates, were in principle set by political leaders. This led to real interest rates that were negative by 10 - 20% for quite some time. By 1979, negative real rates had scorched Icelanders' savings to the point where banking system deposits had shrunk 30 - 40% in real terms since the start of the decade. As a result, banks and savings banks had steadily less money to lend. Iceland's key economic sectors were in a state of continuous financial distress. Residential mortgages were in short supply. But perhaps it is incorrect to refer to "burning up" in this context.

This does not mean we cannot do better, nor does it mean we need not do more. There is no cause for arrogance. I hope the worst will soon be behind us. Honoured guests: One repercussion of the past year's swift rise in inflation is the plunge in households' and businesses' real interest rates. Unfortunately, the Central Bank's brisk rate hikes have not sufficed to correct the course. Yes, real rates on new non-indexed, variablerate mortgages were 3 - 4% before the pandemic, fell to zero during the pandemic, and are now negative by 2%. Real rates on older fixed-rate loans are even more negative. Real rates on new non-indexed, variable-rate business loans were 3-5% before the pandemic. They fell to zero in 2021 and are still there. At the same time, real rates on deposits range between -5% and -10%. So in a way, history has repeated itself. Inflation and negative real rates have subsidised business investment and home purchases, and transferred wealth from depositors to leveraged households and businesses. Such a situation is unsustainable in the long run. The Central Bank has pushed against household debt collection with all its might. The Bank's financial stability measures have entailed tightening mortgage requirements by capping loan-to-value ratios and debt service-to-income ratios. These measures have helped cool the housing market and temper household demand for credit. They have supported monetary policy and reduced the likelihood that borrowers will end up in financial distress when conditions grow tighter.