samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The repo rate could then be cut, and the bond purchases extended. But there is of course a floor for the repo rate and a ceiling for the purchase of bonds – our aim after all is to get inflation up in an orderly manner. If the inflation outlook deteriorates more substantially, we could therefore end up in a situation where monetary policy can no longer do anything meaningful to raise inflation. In such a situation we would be forced to accept that it would take longer to bring inflation up. I would like to emphasise that I see a major difference between that kind of development and the increased patience with low inflation that the critics call for and that I have discussed in this speech today. My view is that the Riksbank should use its monetary policy tools to the full in order to attain the inflation target as well as possible. This does not mean that we are pursuing an inflexible monetary policy which aims to keep inflation at exactly 2 per cent all of the time, but when inflation has been clearly below target for many years we must focus on raising inflation and ensuring that inflation expectations are anchored around 2 per cent. Finally, I would like to reiterate that our main scenario is that the monetary policy we are currently pursuing is sufficient to keep inflation rising and make it reach 2 per cent relatively soon.

The Riksdag (2014), Finansutskottet utser toppnamn för att utvärdera Riksbankens penningpolitik. [The Committee on Finance nominates prominent persons to evaluate the Riksbank’s monetary policy] (In Swedish), Press Release, June 17. Rosengren, Eric S. (2015), Changing Economic Relationships: Implications for Monetary Policy and Simple Monetary Policy Rules. Speech on 16 April. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Schück, Johan (2015), 2 procents inflation är ett orealistiskt mål. [2 per cent inflation is an unrealistic target] (In Swedish), Column, Dagens Nyheter, 8 May. Stein, Jeremy C. (2013), Overheating in Credit Markets: Origins, Measurement and Policy Responses. Speech on 7 February. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Sydsvenskan (2015), Sikta lägre Ingves. [Aim lower, Ingves] (In Swedish), Editorial, 4 September. Williams, John (2009), Heeding Daedalus: Optimal Inflation and the Zero Lower Bound. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no.2, s. 1–37. Winsth, Annika and Isaksson, Torbjörn (2015), Låg inflation gynnar Sverige. [Low inflation benefits Sweden] (In Swedish), Debate article, Dagens Industri, 2 February. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches
But we must also admit that there is not just scope, but also a need, to apply judgement when producing good data and statistics. And trust plays a key role here. People can trust the ECB and the national central banks to apply expert judgement when it is needed. In my speech today, I will focus on key ingredients that have been crucial in building up the ECB’s good reputation over the past 20 years. The first is to have good data and to use them well when taking decisions. The second is to ensure good cooperation. The third is to keep pace with changing times. Good data for good decisions 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  I am aware that the need for good data may seem self-explanatory, especially for an audience of statisticians. But that doesn’t make it less important, particularly in the case of the ECB. The stakes are extremely high: whether for monetary policy or banking supervision, our decisions impact the lives of over 340 million people. This gives the data we use, and the analysis we carry out, enormous importance. Our data need to be reliable and our statistics sound. Only then will they be able to form the basis for good decisions. But not all data are created equal. Even well-collected data may fall short of answering the burning questions of our experts. With the 2008 crisis, for example, we learned the hard way why better and more granular data are necessary.

And now let me conclude with a fact of life that is all too true: dinner speeches are always too long. There is no way to spin this any other way. So thank you for all your good work, and thank you for your attention. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches
Policymakers have to be aware that the adoption of the euro represents a regime shift and thus, as Governor Constancio pointed out yesterday, need to learn the rules of the game in advance. The ECB has demonstrated its ability to act even under extraordinary circumstances – without compromising its price stability mandate. This has strengthened the ECB’s credibility. If the ECB is to continue to deliver price stability over the medium term, then the financial system has to be stable and function smoothly. It is first and foremost through that financial system that monetary policy impulses are transmitted to future price developments. It is indispensable to restore confidence and bring the global financial system back on a solid footing. It is crucial to understand the implications of globalised financial markets for the design of institutional arrangements for the prevention and resolution of financial crises. Let me conclude: We are going through a period when solid institutions are needed around the globe. And solid institutions are expected to be disciplined. As such, central banks provide an anchor of confidence and stability in difficult times. This must not be put at risk by weakening or even “lifting” this anchor. 4  BIS Review 139/2008

Long live the revolution!’, a speech by Sam Woods, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2016/the-revolution-is-over-long-live-therevolution.pdf?la=en&hash=C5A74C42F5129D9505A8FA27B211BE2404C71351, and ‘Rethinking financial stability’, a speech by Andy Haldane, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2017/rethinking-financialstability.pdf?la=en&hash=C6F5991F2DD69E1C84610B0EBE51FB03F5F62E61 3  3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  3  they were prior to the crisis (Chart 1). And UK banks’ buffers of liquid assets have increased by over 40 percent since 2010 (Chart 2). Basel III finalisation Turning back to last December’s Basel III package, it is important to remember the aim of these reforms. Their aim was to reduce excessive variability of banks’ risk-weighted assets, and in doing so making banks’ risk-based capital ratios more transparent and comparable. 8  This excessive variability is caused by the fact banks’ internal models can generate widely different risk weights for very similar assets. When the Basel Committee asked banks to calculate risk weights using their internal models for hypothetical portfolios of assets banks reported very different risk weights. The ratio of highest to lowest risk weights was as high as 2.3 for a hypothetical portfolio of trading book exposures (and 9  even higher for individual asset classes in the banking book). To put that in context, against the same portfolio of exposures, one bank might be holding £ of capital whereas another one might be holding £  This risk weight variability could reduce the stability of the banking system by impairing the link between risk and capital at the level of the system. It means banks with similar portfolios will not be equally resilient.
Building block 1: climate disclosure The field of climate disclosure is as good an example of that gap as any. No-one needs to convince public companies of the merits of regular disclosure of their financial risks and returns: their economic health depends on it; and, just in case that’s not enough, it’s compulsory. 11  https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2015/breaking-the-tragedy-of-the-horizon-climate-change-and-financial-stability 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  The incentives to disclose climate risks and returns may seem somewhat less hard-edged. Much of the early discourse on disclosure has certainly been aimed at encouraging firms to adopt such disclosures voluntarily. But that is changing rapidly. Companies at the sharp end have increasingly strong business incentives to disclose, some of which I’ve tried to summarise in Table 1. Robust climate metrics not only help with managing your own investment programme, they also signal clearly to your retail and business customers, and your employees, that you ‘get it’ and have coherent plans to address the risks over time. Doing so buys customer commitment and brand image, and helps your supply chain; failing to do so risks customer boycotts, lost contracts and poor investment planning. Something similar is afoot in capital markets too. Disclosing your plans can improve your credit rating, broaden your investor base, reduce your cost of finance, and economise on the fixed costs of meeting increasingly vocal investor requests for information.

We at the Bank of England showed one such measure, of ‘portfolio warming potential’, when we published the first full disclosure of the climate risks on our own balance sheet earlier this year.26 The measure, based on the provider’s emissions projections for each issuer with corporate bonds held in the Bank’s Asset Purchase Facility (APF), suggested that if those projections were representative of the emissions performance of corporates globally, the world would experience 3.5 degrees of warming by end-century (Chart 5). So far, so dramatic. But similar measures based on alternative forecast assumptions for the same portfolio suggested a much wider range of possible outcomes, from <1.75 to 4 degrees: a huge variation given the consequences of missing a 2 degree warming target (Chart 6). The problem stems in part from different assumptions about how the world will evolve and how different industries will need to react. For a given temperature goal, investors need to know how much carbon can be emitted, over what timeframe, and by whom, in order to assess where companies sit relative to their required trajectory.
And in this area, the most important things we can to reduce the risk of systemic financial crisis are to strengthen the shock absorbers in the financial system, both in terms of the financial cushions available to absorb losses and the capacity of the financial infrastructure to manage stress. In terms of the financial cushions, the challenge is to sustain a level of capital and liquidity that is large enough to withstand a more adverse financial and economic environment than we have experience recently. Here the job of the risk management discipline is to try to compensate for failure of imagination, to counteract the gravitational effect on measured exposure produced by recent history, and to try to anticipate the adverse effects on market liquidity that may come with a shock. This requires a healthy skepticism about models, discipline and care in the face of competitive pressures, and humility about what we can know about the future. In the world of infrastructure, the challenge is not just about the strength of the physical infrastructure, the capacity to handle volume, operational resilience, and vulnerability to single points of failure. Here the challenge is about the softer infrastructure, as well, such as the arrangements for resolving a credit event or the close out or liquidation of a complex fund or institution. The Federal Reserve is involved in a range of important initiatives on both fronts, working closely with the lead supervisors of the major global financial institutions and market infrastructure operators.

Rather, it was left on deposit or used to invest in other financial assets. The huge increase in borrowing by one part of the population was broadly matched by a big increase in saving by another part. The increase in house prices over the decade to 2007 – and the massive financial flows associated with that appreciation – represent a huge redistribution of wealth between different households within our society. Two important points should be drawn from this episode. First, any analysis of the increase in household debt over the past decade has to pay equal attention to the record accumulation of financial assets. They are two sides of the same coin. Second, changes in house prices do not result in significant changes in aggregate household wealth: for every winner gaining from higher house prices is a loser facing less affordable housing. But that does not mean that changes in house prices can not have significant implications for the macroeconomy. House price changes may directly affect aggregate spending both through their effect on the value of housing collateral, and hence on the ability of households’ to access credit, and through the different propensity of winners and losers to spend their “windfalls”. A debt hangover? Even though the accumulation of debt was not driven by excessive consumption spending, the sharp falls in asset prices associated with the financial crisis have led to a marked deterioration in households’ financial position – assets are worth less but the debts still need to be repaid.
Employment is growing sharply in the public sector and the construction industry. In recent years, consumer price inflation has been higher in Norway than among our trading partners. The year-on-year rise in prices was 2.4 per cent in September. Stable prices for imported consumer goods is contributing to containing inflation in Norway. The rate of increase in prices that is primarily influenced by domestic costs is high. It is not a new phenomenon that Norway is at a different stage of the business cycle than the euro area countries. One reason for this is that changes in the external environment often have a different impact on the Norwegian economy than other European economies. For example, a sharp rise in oil prices has a dampening impact on purchasing power and the activity level in the euro area. In contrast, this tends to boost petroleum investment and household confidence in Norway. The development of a national oil industry and restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s have also contributed to a cyclical path that is specific to Norway. For example, petroleum investment was probably one of the main driving forces behind the booms in the mid-1980s and in 1997-1998. 4  BIS Review 90/2001  BIS Review 90/2001  5  Norwegian labour costs have risen by 5-6 per cent annually in recent years, while labour costs in the euro area countries have increased by less than 3 per cent annually. When cyclical developments are not synchronised and labour costs are at different levels, interest rates will also vary.

The terms of trade measure the prices for goods and services that we export in relation to the prices for those we import. Commodities account for a substantial share of Norwegian exports. Commodity prices are subject to wide variations. Experience shows that a deterioration in the terms of trade results in a depreciation, whereas an improvement leads to an appreciation. The exchange rate thus acts as a stabiliser, a buffer that partly curbs the effects of changes in the terms of trade on economic activity. Developments in the krone exchange rate can also contribute to restraining the effects on prices of higher wage growth and other domestic cost disturbances when there is confidence that inflation will be stable over time. Oil and gas are the commodities that account for the largest share of Norwegian exports. A substantial portion of the revenues from the sale of oil and gas is invested in foreign equities and bonds through the Government Petroleum Fund. The Fund has thus diminished the impact of short-term fluctuations in oil prices on the domestic use of petroleum revenues. In the last 20 years, fluctuations in the terms of trade have been three to four times greater for the Norwegian economy including the petroleum sector than for the mainland economy. The Petroleum Fund thus relieves pressure on the krone exchange rate. The relatively low level of uncertainty that market participants seem to attach to krone exchange rate developments may be a reflection of this.
Wren-Lewis, S (2017), ‘Disentangling the UK productivity problem’, mainly macro, 28 November 2017. 27  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  27  Annex Chart 1: UK productivity, real wages and GDP per head Index, 1760 = 100 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1760  1810  1860  Productivity  1910  1960  Real wages  2010  GDP per head  Sources: Bank of England, ‘A millennium of macroeconomic data’, available online. Notes: Labour productivity per head uses GDP at factor cost. Real wages defined as nominal wage divided by GDP deflator at factor cost. Chart 2: UK productivity and real wages since 1990  Index, 2007 = 100  110  100  90  80  70 1997  2001  2005 Productivity  2009  2013  2017  Real wages  Sources: ONS and Bank calculations. Notes: Productivity defined as output per head; real wages defined as whole economy average weekly earnings divided by consumer prices. 28  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  28  Chart 3: UK productivity relative to continuation of pre-crisis trend Index, pre-crisis peak = 100 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1980  1984  1988  1992  1996  2000  2004  2008  Continuation of pre-crisis trend  2012  2016  Productivity  Sources: ONS and Bank calculations. Notes: Productivity is output per hour worked.

Hence, real sector agents, particularly firms operating in ailing sectors of the economy, are facing surmounting short-term financing difficulties and have lost sight of their future objectives. The process of restructuring in these firms has to find ways for their business to change and become efficient, in order to survive and restart growth. Finance and knowhow is particularly important during such restructuring phase. What role has the financial system in this process? We have to be clear on two issues: (1) we have constructed a financial system and pursued a financial integration strategy based on banks. In fact, they comprise more than 90% of the financial system throughout the region. We think this model is successful and with some minor revisions should serve our economies  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  in the future. For one, foreign banks bring expertise and mostly stability to the financial system. But, recent experience has softened this argument. (2) Banks should be the main vehicle of financial inflow. As converging economies SEE is expected to run current account deficits. As such, it is a capital hungry region which international banks should intermediate. A new business model relying purely on domestically generated deposits is a wrong answer to the previous extreme of huge capital inflows. A more happy medium should be sought, one based on careful and sustainable inflow of funds. How is the Single Supervisory Mechanism going to affect the work of the central banks in the region?
The EPG will be tasked to come up with bold and practical ideas on how to revitalise and strengthen ASEAN. Singapore's prospects are bright 9. Given the favourable external environment, the outlook for Singapore is good. In the first nine months of this year, we have generated more than 78,000 jobs, almost 7,000 more than the whole of last year. Inflation has stayed low. This year, we expect GDP growth to be around 5%. Next year, growth should be between 3% and 5%. BIS Review 83/2005  1  10. Singapore's financial sector has grown strongly, averaging 5.4% over the first three quarters of the year, slightly higher than the overall expansion in the economy. This was supported by robust contributions from fund management and continued growth in the Asian Dollar Market. 11. Relations with our neighbours have strengthened considerably. Economic cooperation has further deepened. Singapore is the fourth largest investor in Indonesia. In February, we signed the IndonesiaSingapore Investment Guarantee Agreement (IGA), which serves to establish a framework for investors to operate in stability and confidence. 12. Political ties between Singapore and Malaysia have improved. Trade and investments across the Causeway continue to grow strongly. Malaysia is Singapore's biggest trading partner and Singapore was the second largest group of foreign investors in Malaysia last year. Temasek Holdings acquired 5% of Telekom Malaysia. In turn, Khazanah Nasional teamed up with Telekom Malaysia to take a 30% stake in M1. Such cross-border investments will further intermesh our two economies. 13.

Singapore can offer a platform for Indian firms to build up their global exposure and branding. India is also a promising investment destination for Singapore firms. Under CECA, our domestic banks are allowed to open up to 15 branches in India, and they are in the process of preparing for expansion into this market. To deepen the linkage, MAS will allow Indian banks that meet our prudential standards to expand their presence in Singapore. We have approved the entry of two Indian banks which do not yet have a presence in Singapore. 18. The Japan-Singapore Economic Agreement for a New Age Partnership (JSEPA) has brought a new era of closer economic cooperation. Investments by Japan and Singapore in each other s markets have increased. Japanese companies which are looking to diversify some of their business operations into Southeast Asia can use Singapore as the gateway. Singapore-based companies can take advantage of not just the JSEPA but bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) Singapore has signed with other countries to expand into the region and beyond. When I was in Tokyo, I suggested that the JSEPA should be reviewed to see where it could be further broadened and deepened. The Japanese leaders were receptive. 19. The Middle East is another promising region. Middle Eastern investors are looking for suitable investment destinations and products both in their own countries and outside. Singapore has a good brand name in the Middle East and awareness about us is increasing. There are many opportunities for our businesses there. 20.