samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
There are many moving parts at the same time, the play is unpredictable, and it involves an enormous amount of tacit unseen coordination among players. Ability, hard work, and team spirit have to come together in a harmonious manner. Moreover, the outcome is highly contingent on certain events at pivotal moments. A foul here, a red card there can make all the difference. Sports commentators call these “momentum swings”. Countries must seek to make the most of these windows of opportunities to build reform momentum. Successful policies will be those that are mindful of a country’s history and leverage on prevailing political economy contexts. The long-run performance of countries hinges critically on this because the outcomes of institutional change tend to be highly persistent. How rules and norms evolve depends heavily on what they are today. Thus institutional development often follows a virtuous circle, such as in South Korea, or a vicious spiral, as in the case of Zimbabwe. From this perspective, there is an enormous amount of heterogeneity among emerging market economies. Where a country stands in terms of its history and readiness for  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  institutional change will distinguish those which are just experiencing a temporary deceleration from those that might be facing more of a structural slowdown. The destinies of emerging markets are not strictly bound to each other. Some will succeed, and a few may not. It is not useful to lump countries together into one group or under one catchy acronym or another.

Philipp Hildebrand: Switzerland and global competition - an all-purpose strategy Summary of a speech by Mr Philipp Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the University of St Gallen, St Gallen, 29 August 2005. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch)  *  *  *  Openness was one of the major factors that made Switzerland one of the richest countries in the world. A significant portion of our industry, and one upon which our current prosperity is based, is the direct or indirect outcome of foreign expertise and the efforts of foreign entrepreneurs. These people were attracted to Switzerland – particularly in the 19th century – by its openness and its stable, liberal environment. Openness promotes competition, innovation and progress, thereby securing sustained prosperity. But Switzerland strayed from the straight and narrow when it began erecting barriers to competition – barriers that provided ever greater protection to its domestic market. The ensuing insulation of the domestic market is probably one of the main reasons for Switzerland's growth slump today. External trade policies are always domestic market policies as well. Consequently, external trade policies have instruments that can be effective in opening up the domestic market from outside. This openness to external trade is of utmost importance, therefore, not only for exporters, but also for the domestic market. Being open towards Europe and towards other trading blocks is not mutually exclusive.
Percent 4  Norges Bank Economic perspectives 15 february 2018  10 Wage growth (l.h.s) Unemployment (r.h.s.) 9 3 8 2 7 1 6  0  5 2003  2005  2007  2009  2011  2013  2015  2017  1) Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. Unweighted average. Sources: Thomson Reuters and Norges Bank  Expansionary monetary policy in many countries Never before have global interest rates been as low as today over such a long period (Chart 10). The interest rate level was moving down long before the 2008 crisis. What lies behind this is a prolonged decline in long-term real interest rates owing to structural changes. Low productivity growth and weaker labour force growth have diminished the growth capacity of advanced economies and dampened the willingness to invest. At the same time, groups and countries with a high saving rate account for a larger share of income growth, partly owing to demographic changes and wider income gaps. Both lower investment and higher saving have contributed to depressing real long-term interest rates. Chart 10 Global real interest rates. Yield on 10−year government bonds adjusted 1) for inflation. 14 OECD countries.

However, if the monetary authority is not independent and focuses on other more short-term goals, it may repeatedly use monetary policy to stimulate demand above the level that would be consistent with its inflation objective, in which case an inflationary bias will be generated. In the short run, higher levels of economic activity and employment could be attained, but costs would emerge later on. The inflationary bias would ultimately be anticipated and incorporated into agents' expectations and, therefore, into price-setting and wage bargaining. The outcome would be higher inflation without any lasting improvement in the economy's level of output and employment. This would detract from monetary policy efficiency and the commitment to price stability would no longer be credible. Taking the long view that price stability requires is more difficult for political authorities, which naturally may be inclined to give priority to shorter-term considerations. In my view, the time-inconsistency argument for an independent monetary authority is also relevant – and thus, may also be applied – to the need for an independent financial supervisor. This is because short-term incentives to relax supervisory policies may have important consequences for financial stability in the long run, which may, in turn, also affect monetary policy-making. Moreover, this argument applies to both micro- and macro-prudential supervision. The importance of independence in this field is actually recognised worldwide and enshrined in the Basel "Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision".
Labour market and competitiveness Thirdly, some of the most visible and significant features of the current phase of recovery are the high rate of job creation and the reduction in unemployment by almost half a million people during 2014. The pick-up in employment is partly related to firms’ greater capacity to adapt their working conditions to the cyclical and competitive situation. This environment has helped usher in a period of wage moderation and an adjustment of relative costs relative to the euro area as a whole, which largely explains the gains in competitiveness recently attained by the Spanish economy. Turning to prices, the Annual Report pays particular attention to the factors underpinning the recent disinflationary phase in Spain. The analysis concludes that, beyond the influence the prolonged weakness of spending and the fall in oil prices may have had, there has been greater responsiveness by prices to changes in the economic situation, which might be attributed, at least in part, to the reforms in certain markets and services. Retaining this greater degree of flexibility in price- and wage-setting is vital so that, in the face of adverse shocks, adjustments may be made through relative prices and not at the expense of economic activity and employment, as has traditionally occurred in the Spanish economy in recent recessions. There has likewise been a notably sharp correction of the external imbalance, with external surpluses being attained in the past three years, albeit of a smaller amount in 2014.

Turning to prices, inflation, which has been in negative territory virtually since the recovery began, has undergone a progressive correction since the start of this year, standing at –0.2% in May further to a rise in the energy component and a gradual pick-up in core inflation. The decline in prices in Spain is proving more marked than in the Monetary Union as a whole, meaning that the inflation differential will continue to help in bringing about an ongoing improvement in our economy’s competitiveness. Inflation might be running at a moderately positive rate at the end of 2015 owing to a combination of several factors. Firstly, the progressive petering out of the effect induced by the heavy fall in oil prices in the closing stretch of 2014 is expected to bring about an automatic rise in the energy component of the CPI in the closing months of this year. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  And further, the depreciation of the euro will impact non-energy goods and services prices. In any event, the persistence of considerable slack in the economy, i.e. of substantial unused capacity, means a mild recovery in the inflation rate over the next two years is to be expected. The factors underpinning growth The favourable growth outlook is underpinned, above all, by the restoring of macroeconomic equilibria. The progress made and the measures underpinning it have allowed the confidence of both external investors and of Spanish households and firms to be restored.
The European Central Bank’s monetary policy Against the recent backdrop of high inflationary pressures, the European Central Bank (ECB) has continued with the normalisation of its monetary policy initiated last December. The Governing Council has explicitly expressed its willingness to maintain optionality, gradualism and flexibility in the conduct of monetary policy going forward. In the current climate of uncertainty, this is deemed necessary to allow us to respond to 5  incoming data to fulfil the ECB’s mandate to pursue price stability and to contribute to safeguarding financial stability. Indeed, the war in Ukraine is increasing the short-term upward inflationary dynamics, adding to the pressures generated by rising energy prices, bottlenecks and the normalisation of demand. The intensification and prolongation of these short-term inflationary pressures make it more likely that second-round effects will emerge and, therefore, that the inflation dynamics will become entrenched in the medium term. However, the war is having an adverse effect on economic growth, which could potentially be significant, particularly in the short term, in a setting where euro area GDP remains below its potential level. Overall, the upside risks to the inflation outlook have intensified, particularly in the near term. Although various indicators of long-term inflation expectations drawn from financial markets and surveys of professional forecasters put inflation at around 2%, there are preliminary signs, which will have to be monitored carefully, of those indicators being revised to above-target levels.

It is against this background that the measures adopted to soften the economic and social consequences of the war must be assessed. The National Plan to respond to the economic and social fallout of the war in Ukraine, approved by the Spanish Cabinet on 29 March,5 includes measures that will come at a direct cost of € billion in 2022, according to Government estimates.67 One area of fiscal policy where more resolute action would be desirable is the formulation of a credible commitment to budgetary stability over the medium term. This would help limit the risks of financial market tensions that could be fuelled by the current climate of high uncertainty. This commitment should take the form of a gradual fiscal consolidation programme, to be implemented once the recovery takes hold. A gradual adjustment process minimises the possibility of any abrupt changes in the budgetary policy stance that might hamper the recovery under way. Increasing the economy’s potential output would also help reduce the high level of government debt. This would require reforms that address the economy’s structural shortcomings. NGEU funds could also be particularly useful in implementing these reforms and the investments required to support the changes. 5  See Real Decreto-ley 6/2022 (available in Spanish only). 6  In addition to this amount, there is a contingent liability of € billion linked to the new ICO guarantee facility approved as part of the raft of measures to support business liquidity needs stemming from the temporary increase in energy and fuel costs.
John C Williams: The longer-run framework - a look ahead Remarks (via videoconference) by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Hoover Institution Monetary Policy Virtual Series: The Road Ahead for Central Banks, 7 October 2020. * * * It’s great to be back in California participating once again in a Hoover Institution monetary policy event, even if only virtually. These conferences have provided an excellent opportunity for academic experts, policymakers, and practitioners to share research and perspectives on critically important issues. John Taylor is both a friend and a mentor, so it’s a particular pleasure to be sharing this online platform with him today. This summer, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) completed its review of the Fed’s monetary policy framework. This culminated in August with the issuance of a new Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy.1 The FOMC put this strategy into practice in its September policy statement, explicitly tying its policy actions and intentions to the new framework.2 The new policy framework represents a substantial evolution of the FOMC’s thinking and approach since the Committee published its first framework statement in 2012. Today, I’m going to talk about what these changes mean for policy as the economy recovers from the effects of the pandemic. But what I’m really looking forward to is our conversation around these important issues, so I’ll keep my opening remarks brief.

Second, over the past decade, inflation in the United States has been below our 2 percent longerrun target most of the time, and a number of measures of inflation expectations have drifted down in recent years.3 It is important to note that these first two observations are closely connected, as emphasized in the paper with Thomas Mertens that I presented at last year’s Hoover conference. In a world of 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  low r-star and a lower bound on nominal interest rates, a standard inflation targeting approach can lead to inflation and inflation expectations that are anchored below the targeted level.4 Third, during the long economic recovery following the 2007–09 recession, we saw the unemployment rate reach 50-year lows without causing an undesired rise in inflation. Structural changes in the economy—and in particular the labor market—have greatly expanded the level of employment that can be maintained without creating inflationary pressures. But, changes like those are hard to see in real time, making estimates of the natural rate of unemployment or other barometers of the economy’s potential inherently uncertain and subject to change.5  Evolution in Our Thinking One clear lesson is the critical importance of formulating a policy approach that effectively and consistently keeps longer-run inflation expectations anchored at 2 percent. Perhaps the most notable change we announced to our framework was explicitly describing success in terms of achieving inflation that averages 2 percent over time.
Moreover, it means that the costs of entry are high for new participants, particularly for foreign competitors, not least because of marketing. The effect of distinctive national features on the market has also been apparent to Swedish participants that have set up businesses abroad and then operated under other regulatory frameworks and according to other practices. Another limiting factor is the fact that as long as Sweden remains outside the euro area, foreign companies that wish to enter the Swedish mortgage market will have to provide loans in Swedish kronor, as Swedish borrowers do not generally want to expose themselves to exchange rate risk. However, should Sweden join the euro, the interest rates offered by lenders in the different countries of the euro area will become directly comparable. With a single currency, it would be easier for borrowers to judge which institution in the euro area offers the best terms. Swedish borrowers would be able to take loans in euro without exposing themselves to currency risk, and the availability of potential lenders would increase. Differences in regulations and taxation systems, however, would continue to constitute a limitation on increased competition. Challenges for Swedish housing finance ahead of the future Looking toward the years ahead, developments in the housing finance market will be driven by a number of powerful forces: continued balance sheet adjustments, the effects of the continued internationalisation process in Europe and new rules for financial institutions. I shall concentrate on these three challenges.

As we advance forward, the reputation, image and stature of the Centre will depend on the performance of its participants and their contributions to the environment and the organisations they represent. ICLIF regards its alumni members as important and looks forward to your continuous support to building ICLIF into a regional centre of excellence for leadership development in financial services. While ICLIF has put in great efforts in working with leading international consultants and the best schools in the design and delivery of its leadership development programmes, we see this as an evolving process. In this context, we see alumni members as an important sounding board in providing feedback to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of ICLIF’s programmes. As beneficiaries of  BIS Review 72/2004  1  ICLIF’s programmes, the alumni members are the best intermediaries in making ICLIF better known to the industry. Ladies and Gentlemen, ICLIF Leadership Competency Model One of the first initiatives by ICLIF upon its inception is to develop a unique leadership competency model that will analyse and enhance the understanding of what makes for great corporate leaders in the regional context. The Competency Model was developed through a participatory process involving strategic insights by industry leaders in the country and the region. This was achieved through behavioural-event interviews as well as benchmarking exercises based on literature research and the database of leadership competency models of world class companies.
Fiscal policy will have to play a predominant role in the strategy needed to attain the objectives set in this area, both to deter environmentally harmful activities, through an internationally harmonised tax system, and to foment the public and private investment needed to develop cleaner technologies, and to alleviate the social costs of the transition. The financial sector is also called on to play a key role. To do so, it is crucial that it incorporates into its decision-making the risks associated with climate change. Environmental stress tests devised by supervisors will be a useful instrument in this connection, as will the international harmonisation of a taxonomy that provides transparency on the activities that contribute to the transition to a low-carbon economy. 4.6. Maintaining a sound financial sector I devoted my last appearance before the Parliamentary Economic Committee to analysing the challenges this crisis will pose to the financial sector. I should in any event like to stress today that, from the medium-term standpoint, the current crisis will entail additional downward pressure on profitability. That highlights the need for banks to urgently address some of the challenges associated with digitalisation and the management of cybersecurity risks, along with others of a reputational nature. An additional drive must be made to reduce operating costs and to achieve efficiency gains, to invest in technology and to improve banks’ conduct and reputation. 4.7. Addressing the new structural challenges after COVID-19. All the challenges I have mentioned were prior to the pandemic breaking.

In particular, we should set in place mechanisms for the monitoring of and individualised guidance for the unemployed, based on statistical profiling techniques targeting the unemployed and available vacancies. Possible changes in the sectoral structure of employment also advise reinforcing lifelong learning. It would also be desirable to retain the possibility of training contracts, with the greatest possible flexibility, for youths and firms. Finally, the current arrangements on hiring rebates should be reviewed and priority given to those aimed at the elderly and lesserskilled, with ongoing monitoring of their effectiveness. 4.3. Addressing the challenge of population ageing Population ageing is one of the biggest challenges the Spanish economy faces. Illustrating this is the foreseeable course of the dependency ratio, which currently stands at 29.5% and will increase by more than 25 pp in the next 25 years. The determinants include most notably one of the highest rates of life expectancy in the world and a very low fertility rate. This suggests it would be worth introducing measures promoting life-work balance, increasing support for families and offering more opportunities in the labour market, especially for young women with children. The latter are frequently economically affected to  7  a greater extent by the decision to become mothers. Further, migratory policy should be adapted to bring it better into line with labour market needs. Population ageing effects weigh down particularly on public finances.
Given the pre-crisis context, marked with rising capital inflows, falling interest rates and strong confidence, household debt started to increase. By the beginning of the crisis, it reached around 30% of GDP, with very strong growth observed in the Baltics (reaching close to 50% of GDP). As the crisis occurred, the household debt adjusted as well, but the adjustment was mild, declining by only 5 p.p. of GDP after the crisis. It even continued to increase in some countries Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and North Macedonia – facilitated by loose financial conditions with the overall perception for this segment being more diversified, with less of a risk and higher quality profile of the overall portfolio. Bank credit extended to households generally grew faster than corporate credit in most CESEE countries post-crisis. Broken down by purpose, there is a growth in housing loans, but  7  consumer loans have also expanded extensively in most of the CESEE countries. Strong growth in consumer credit warrants close vigilance by authorities, given the risks associated to consumer credit as typically unsecured loans with shorter maturity that increases the exposure to credit risk. Some countries implemented macro-prudential measures to curb consumer credit growth and mitigate potential risks from fast rising households’ credit to financial stability.

It will be clear that this is not an easy process and monetary policy alone cannot achieve this. The full benefits of the single currency will come only if there is appropriate support from other stability-oriented policies, especially fiscal and labour market policies, and if structural reforms are carried out in these areas. Thus, price stability is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for grasping all the opportunities of EMU. In this regard, it is of the utmost importance that the governments of the EU Member States continue to implement sound and stability-oriented fiscal policies, by which I mean policies aiming at the medium-term objective of a budgetary position close to balance or in surplus. As you will know, this condition is stipulated by the Stability and Growth Pact, which ensures the lasting compliance of fiscal policies with the requirement of budgetary prudence. From the perspective of a central banker, a prime reason for the establishment of the Pact was that a lack of fiscal discipline would negatively affect the ability of the Eurosystem to achieve its primary objective to maintain price stability. In this sense, the Stability and Growth Pact is one of the most important safeguards that will ensure that price and fiscal stability remains the cornerstone of EMU.