samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Not to mention, the value of that natural resource was much lower than today (Chart 1). Chart 1 Oil was cheaper before OPEC. Oil price. 2018-USD per barrel 140  2011 USD 124  1979 USD 109  120  120  100  100  80  80  1974 USD 59  60  60  40 1970 USD 12  20 0 1950  140  1998 USD 20  2016 USD 46  40 20 0  1960  1970  1980  1990  2000  2010  Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2019  1 Brofoss, E. (1970), The economic situation. Annual Address to Norges Bank’s Supervisory Council, 16 February 1970. 2  A barrel of oil was selling at below USD 2, or 12 in current US dollars. NORGES BANK  Prices then surged, reaching today’s levels when oil producing countries agreed on production cuts in autumn 1973. Perhaps what we in Norway best remember from that time is the weekend car ban in Oslo and even the King riding the tram. ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 13 FEBRUARY 2020  The surge in oil prices also came close to cutting the bloodline of what had been Norway’s most important export industry for more than a century – shipping (Chart 2). In 1975, almost a quarter of the Norwegian merchant fleet was laid up. Chart 2 Oil became the new flagship.

And it is the Open Letter system which both allows that more sensible approach to be explained by the MPC and allows the Chancellor publicly to endorse it.” Constrained discretion also provides much needed room for learning. Monetary policy remains more art than science, and its practice is riven with uncertainties and risks. As the present Governor put it in a lecture delivered in 1997 5 : ‘Inflation targets are a practical response to the fact that knowledge increases over time.’ So a framework of constrained discretion combines much needed scope to implement policy flexibly, in the light of both circumstances and experience, with the credibility benefits of committing policymakers to secure a pre-determined outcome for inflation. That, in essence, was the key difference from the failed experiments of the past. 4  The development of the MPC  The MPC got off to a good start. It inherited an inflation rate that had been low for the past 5 years. And the financial markets welcomed it by reducing the risk premia on UK assets. No one had very clear expectations about how it would behave or how it might think. While it inherited some technical features of the previous regime, the new Committee had quite a lot of scope to define its own operating procedures and intellectual framework. If not a blank sheet of paper, it was a book with many pages still to fill. As time has gone by, whole volumes have been filled. The Committee’s procedures and thinking have matured.
With the elimination of impromptu, spontaneous interactions over coffee, in elevators, and unplanned encounters, organizations need to understand the impact on communication, collaboration, innovation, and comradery. Will networks and relationships depreciate? Is there a heightened risk of silos? Are there missed opportunities for creativity in problem solving? Are there insights and knowledge being overlooked? And how do all these influence dialogue, debate and ultimately outcomes in the organization? Uncertainty. The third dynamic is uncertainty. As many industries and organizations face unprecedented businesses challenges, we know that employees are also facing unique personal challenges related to their health, well-being and job security, both for themselves and their families. While we understand that this level of uncertainty can be paralyzing for individuals,10 we should also be asking how this level of persistent and profound uncertainty may impact a firm’s culture. One potential risk is the potential for “action bias.” When feeling out of control due to the uncertainty of the environment, people are more likely to act quickly. They do this to feel as though they “did something about” an issue when in fact, more thought and analysis would result in a better business outcome.11 Even for organizations that are not as directly impacted by the pandemic, thought should be given to how uncertainty about personal and professional circumstances impacts decision making, relationships, and behaviors in the workplace. Decreased monitoring/oversight. The final dynamic is monitoring and oversight.

Modelling the desired behaviors sets a powerful example and serves as a form of behavioral risk mitigation. All of these actions reflect choices that a firm makes, either implicitly or explicitly, that can build cultural capital. On the other hand, cultural capital can also decline or deteriorate as a result of internal choices. For example, overt incidences of misconduct such as a trading scandal or a legal issue, deviations between employees’ actual experiences and a firms’ stated values, or observations of 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  inappropriate behavior that is tolerated or even rewarded can all contribute to the depreciation of a firm’s cultural capital. This decline can be self-reinforcing as certain behaviors are rewarded and individuals advance in an organization, or the composition of the workforce changes as employees choose to work at firms with higher cultural capital. The Pandemic’s Impact on Cultural Capital While the discussion so far has focused on how internal choices that a firm or its employees make can impact cultural capital, it is equally true that external factors have the potential to have a similar impact. For example, changes to social norms around what constitutes acceptable workplace practices can alter behavioral norms inside a firm. The nation-wide racial justice movement is another example of an external factor that could impact the internal culture, based on the choices a firm makes in its response. The current COVID-19 pandemic will also surely impact cultural capital in unpredictable and enduring ways.
Any change in the exchange rate regime would be on the basis of longer-term structural considerations and not on account of short-term movements in capital flows and transient shifts in exchange rate expectations. Ladies and Gentlemen, In spearheading the development of the financial sector, Bank Negara Malaysia's objective is to develop a dynamic, competitive and resilient financial sector. In the year 2005, focus will be accorded to strengthen the effectiveness of the banking sector in meeting the new requirements of the economy, enhance competition and hence efficiency and to strengthen the infrastructure for consumer protection. These initiatives would be taken in the context of preserving the soundness and stability of the financial system. An important component of a strong financial sector is the institution of a robust regulatory and supervisory framework. Two main principles will be taken into consideration in the formulation and implementation of prudential policies. First, is the creation of a regulatory environment that fosters innovation and competition, while promoting best practices to preserve financial stability. Policies will therefore balance the need to attain efficiency whilst preserving stability. Second, regulations will increasingly be "principle-based". Regulations will focus on identifying parameters within which banking institutions must operate, whilst retaining sufficient flexibility to allow institutions to determine their own individual strategies and approaches within these parameters. This is in the light of the improved corporate governance and risk management practices within banking institutions. The Board and management will be accountable for strengthening individual institutions.

For several years, central banks, including the Bank of England, had warned that financial markets were underestimating risks. So why, you might ask, did the Bank of England not do more to prevent the disaster? We should have. But the power to regulate banks had been taken away from us in 1997. Our power was limited to that of publishing reports and preaching sermons. And we did preach sermons about the risks. But we didn’t imagine the scale of the disaster that would occur when the risks crystallised. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have shouted from the rooftops that a system had been built in which banks were too important to fail, that banks had grown too quickly and borrowed too much, and that so-called “light-touch” regulation hadn’t prevented any of this. And in the crisis, we tried, but should have tried harder, to persuade everyone of the need to recapitalise the banks sooner and by more. We should have preached that the lessons of history were being forgotten – because banking crises have happened before. In the 1930s, the Great Depression saw a collapse of the banking system in the United States. So severe was it that President Franklin Roosevelt, only a week after his inauguration in March 1933, announced a bank holiday shutting the banks to provide a breathing space so that confidence could be restored.
In addition, it will not be able to offer innovative products like investment linked products, which can further diversify their investment portfolio as these products are gaining popularity among conventional insurance companies. In the absence of an Islamic banking system, takaful operators would not be able to synergise and utilise the network of the banking system through bancassurance which can not only be an effective distribution channel but also serve to drive down operating costs. The development of a comprehensive Islamic financial infrastructure in Malaysia that includes Islamic banking, the money and capital markets has reinforced the development of the takaful business. 2  BIS Review 43/2003  Today, the takaful industry in Malaysia has emerged as a fast growing industry within the insurance sector since its introduction in 1985, 18 years ago. From total assets amounting to only USD0.5 million in 1986, it has reached more than USD900 million in 2002, constituting 5.2 per cent of the total assets of the insurance sector. In the same period, the takaful operators have offerred a wide range of family and general takaful products. The Malaysian Financial Sector Master Plan represents the blueprint for the development of the financial sector over a 10-year period. The plan, which was launched in 2001, places importance on the development of Islamic banking and takaful sector as an important component in the financial system.

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Building a comprehensive Islamic financial system - new financial opportunities Keynote address by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance’s International Conference on Islamic Insurance, London, 26 September 2003. *  *  *  “Islamic banking and finance initially evolved as a form of financial intermediation for the Islamic community to conduct financial transactions that conform to Islamic tenets. Today, the Islamic financial industry has gained wider acceptance and appreciation and has expanded beyond the traditional borders of the Muslim-based economies into the major industrial economies to become an integral component of the global financial system. In a global environment that has become increasingly challenging, an environment that is subject to the powerful forces of change, and that is characterized by volatile and unstable market conditions, Islamic finance has emerged as a competitive and resilient form of intermediation. Although Islamic finance is still at the early stage of development, it has experienced rapid expansion and is fast emerging as a viable and robust form of financial intermediation with significant potential.” It is indeed an honour for me to be here today before a distinguished gathering of scholars, researchers and practitioners of the takaful industry. I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance for their efforts in organizing this international conference on Islamic insurance or takaful.
In what I have said so far, there is no presumption that small, open, and financially integrated inflation-targeting countries with floating exchange rates cannot reach whatever inflation target they choose and determine short-term domestic interest rates. You might then ask: how is it that their capacity to affect long-term domestic rates is undermined, and how is this consistent with the theory that long-term rates are determined by expected short-term interest rates (with the addition of risk premia)? The answer is that, insofar as the theory  1  This talk is thus based partly on my paper entitled “Financial globalisation: key trends and implications for the transmission mechanism of monetary policy”. BIS Papers No. 39. April 2008. http://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/ bispap39c.pdf. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  holds, it is global short-term rates that increasingly drive domestic long-term rates in small, open economies as global financial integration comes closer to the limiting case. Enough of theory. To what degree does the evidence support that this was indeed relevant for monetary policy in small, open, and financially integrated economies during the build-up to the GFC? There is significant literature on this, including one or two pieces of my own. Overall, the data are consistent with the suggestion that a significant progress of financial globalisation took place during the decade and a half before the GFC. This could be seen by quantity measures such as gross external positions and saving-investment correlations. The correlation of asset returns also reached high levels.

These examples illustrate the importance we attach to getting ahead of the curve on LIBOR transition, to condition and give clarity to market expectations about our likely policy settings, and to provide an early indication of what is possible. Conclusion With only 30 months to go until end-2021, it’s time to join the revolution and move on from LIBOR. Companies and their boards right across the sterling markets need to focus on what they must do to shift new business from LIBOR to SONIA, and planning how to mitigate their legacy risk. And lenders need to be educating their customers too. Just as importantly, though, firms should also be thinking creatively about ways to take advantage of the new opportunities of a post-LIBOR world to innovate and serve their customers better. I have tried to set out some of the ways in which this may be possible – but I am confident the best of you will quickly leave those far behind. Thank you. 11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  11
A pragmatic approach is therefore necessary, leveraging on existing infrastructure within each jurisdiction and creating a network of bilateral links between jurisdictions. Each jurisdiction will, of course, develop its own infrastructure and links according to needs, although the main lesson in this field is that it is better to be ahead of needs than behind. Let me take Hong Kong as an example. We have a reasonably advanced and sophisticated financial infrastructure, in keeping with our status as a regional and international financial centre. We have, over the past decade, extensively developed our payment and settlement systems to enable cross-border, multi-currency transactions to be conducted and settled in real time, without settlement risk. For debt settlement, we have established bilateral linkages between our Central Moneymarkets Unit and debt depositories in other jurisdictions, such as Euroclear and Clearstream, Australia, New Zealand and Korea. We have also recently set up a direct link with the GSBS in Mainland China. Hong Kong already has a real time settlement system for the Hong Kong dollar, the US dollar and the euro. We have a standing offer in the region to link up the RTGS payment system with other currencies in other centres with RTGS capability - for example Tokyo. We hope that, in time, when circumstances permit, it will be possible to extend this to the renminbi. The aim is to provide a platform that prepares Hong Kong to maintain and develop its role in the changing regional and international financial intermediation process.

To come up with its forecast, the MPC has to reach a view based on all the information available to us: data, theories, a variety of models, business and market intelligence, our own experiences and judgement and so on. But there are huge uncertainties within the information set and so there must be equally great uncertainties about the resulting judgements. That is why the one, indeed the only, thing we know for certain about any forecast of the economy is that it will be precisely wrong. That is also why the MPC puts little weight on its central projection, and chooses to communicate its judgments to the public by focusing on the range of possible outcomes and the balance of risks, as summarised in the fan chart.7 What this means is that setting monetary policy is about decision making under uncertainty. It isn’t clean. In fact it’s very messy. But nobody has a working crystal ball. The important question for us is not whether we got the central projection right but whether we set the right policy, given what we knew at the time. Crucially, we are accountable to the public, including via the Treasury Select Committee, for our policy decision. I do not think I have heard many argue that we should have done something materially different with policy during the depths of the recession in 2009 (i.e. to the extent necessary) in order to generate a different outcome for inflation now.
Figure 3 Lending interest rates without reduction in the MPR (percent) Consumer loan rates at 3 years or more  Commercial loan rates at 30-89 days  Mortgage interest rates  40  40  20  20  5.5  5.5  36  36  17  17  5.0  5.0  32  32  14  14  4.5  4.5  28  28  11  11  4.0  4.0  24  24  8  8  3.5  3.5  5  3.0 Jan. 08  20  Jan. 08  May 08  Oct. 08  Effective  20  Feb. 09  5  Jan. 08  May 08  Estimated  Sep. 08  Jan. 09  May 08  Sep. 08  Jan. 09  3.0  Simulated without MPR reduction  Source: Central Bank of Chile.

The transmission of monetary policy The Central Bank of Chile’s monetary policy operates largely through its effects on the cost of lending, as it influences the cost of bank financing. The Bank’s main instrument is the monetary policy interest rate, or MPR. It is worth noting that the level which the Board chooses every month for the MPR represents an objective for the cost of overnight lending between banks. In other words, the Central Bank operates in the interbank market, seeing that the interest rate at which banks lend to and borrow from each other overnight approaches the MPR. Therefore, it is important to understand how this interest rate, which operates in a very specific and well defined market (among banks and for a term of one day only), affects the spending and investing decisions made by households and firms even over several years. The explanation for this phenomenon is that, in normal circumstances, what matters is not only today’s level of the MPR, but the whole future path expected by the market for such interest rate. This is what ultimately affects the entire yield structure. In other words, for a five-year loan, for instance, it is more important for the potential borrower to have an idea of how the MPR will be behaving in the next five years that to know its current level. The above has first-order implications on the conduct, implementation and communication of monetary policy.
Public opinion shifts rapidly from criticising banks for their mistakes – frequently, for the mistakes “inherited” from banks that disappeared some time back – to criticising them for not sufficiently easing the way for  4/13  credit to reach economic agents; indeed, for the risk of financial exclusion stemming from potential branch closures. Like the song, it would seem we can’t live with or without them. But the truth is, with or without criticism, the role of banks remains as essential today for our economy as it was 20 or 30 years ago. However, debate has arisen over the future role of banks, set against the emergence on the scene of the so-called Fintech. This can be seen as a threat or as an opportunity. I believe it entails both. But in any event, banks must evidently adapt their business model to technological change, as Gonzalo so rightly said. If instead of looking at the small, innovative and nimble Fintech, we assess the potential effect that the irruption of one of the so-called Big Tech may have on the system as a whole, the debate takes on a systemic dimension. In this connection, the recent announcement of the launch of the “Libra” project, the virtual currency sponsored by Facebook, has potentially systemic implications. These are so serious that supervisors, central banks and credit institutions must all evaluate the possible consequences. Evidently, we must be sure that the project will not compromise the integrity of payment systems and the stability of the system as a whole.

The conditions for understanding and evaluating our actions were probably improved further when the Riksbank in 1999 began to publish the minutes from its monetary policy meetings. Now it is also possible to examine the arguments put forward. Were they the right arguments or not in the light of what has happened? On the whole, I believe that we have laid a solid foundation during these years for an in-depth assessment of our decisions. Inflation and inflation expectations So how well has the Riksbank succeeded in achieving its target in the past ten years? (Chart 3.) Looking at the average inflation rate since the target was introduced in 1993, CPI inflation has been 1.8 per cent, while the measure of underlying inflation that we in practice have used over a large part of the period to explain our policy, UND1X, has been 2.1 per cent. If we instead make the comparison from 1995, the year when policy began to have its full impact, the corresponding figures are 1.4 and 1.9 per cent, respectively. Even when average inflation has stood fairly close to the target, sharp deviations can of course occur periodically. This has also been the case; during shorter or longer continuous periods inflation has been above or below target. At the same time it is also evident that the size of the deviations depends somewhat on the inflation measure in question. UND1X has fluctuated less as it is not affected as much by changes in interest rates and taxes.