samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
As a former UK Ambassador to the EU, I know full well that there are many things in the world of EU-UK relations apart from financial regulation and financial stability. It is, however - and as I said at the outset - for others to decide those things. My point today is that we have over the past ten years achieved a step change in the governance of financial globalisation and the way in which we manage cross border risks. As memories of the crisis fade, we need to work together to sustain and reinforce the progress we have made to deal with new cross border financial sector risks – challenges like the impact of climate change on the financial sector and the technologically-driven changes we are seeing in cross border payment systems. The reforms to governance of financial globalisation also provide the direction, once the UK leaves the single market for financial services, for the development of the governance of the deep financial links that will continue to exist between us, to the benefit of all our economies. Thank you. 11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  11

Data gathering is the first step of understanding the nature of organizational culture. These three concepts—“connect,” “convene,” and “catalyze”—will continue to be our guiding principles on the issue of culture as we build on our current work and explore new initiatives. Like addressing cyber risks and climate change, the journey toward reforming culture in the banking and financial services industry is a long one. And there’s no single action that a regulator or a bank can take to make it happen. Getting it right is going to require the will and expertise of regulators, financial services firms, academics, and practitioners. And while changing organizational culture is a long-term, complex, and challenging task, I’m optimistic that we can and we will make progress. And the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is committed to being a partner on that journey. Thank you. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
But the potential sophistication of today’s attackers, and the financial, reputational and legal risks they pose to central banks are far greater than a century ago. 8  The Bank of England Archives hold a number of letters between Cunliffe, Cokayne and Strong on this subject. 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  6  As Simon Potter has already said, that is why it is so important that, just as central banks co-operate to provide the services they need to another, they must also co-operate in raising the standards and controls applied to those services to the highest possible levels – because we are only as strong as our weakest link. Raising standards means:   Within our own organisations – having robust risk-based processes for assessing counterparties and transactions, in compliance with relevant law and guidance; for controlling the access, people and system risks in central banking processes; and for monitoring and responding to potential risks if and when they crystallise.   And, externally, it means sharing intelligence and promoting best practice; and complying and attesting promptly, and with candour, to relevant international standards. Making progress in both of these areas is vital if the expansion in access to central banks services of recent years is to be maintained. I want to end on a positive note. The international system is constantly evolving. Policy regimes come and go. And the importance of specific reserve currencies may rise and fall: the minnows of today can be the giants of tomorrow.

They helped underpin the international monetary framework (which in that era meant closely-managed exchange rates, with or without the gold standard); and  3. They provided channels through which funds could continue to flow in conditions of financial emergency. Much has changed since 1917. Sterling and the dollar have traded places as the world’s leading reserve currency. The gold standard is a distant memory. The major global currencies have swapped fixed for flexible exchange rates. And the scale and sophistication of international trading and capital markets, and the number and diversity of reserves-holding countries, have expanded greatly. But amidst all that change, those three goals of financial co-operation between central banks remain fundamentally the same. Of course, the central banks of today collaborate on a much wider range of policy, supervisory and macro-prudential issues. But at our heart we are still banks – and it is our balance sheets, and the financial interdependencies they give rise to, that frame everything else we do. It is therefore an honour to celebrate with you the centenary of the events that really gave birth to it all. In my remarks today, I want to give a Bank of England perspective on those events, to describe the services that we provide today, and to touch on some of the challenges and opportunities for the future.
A referendum held in 1919 resulted in a majority vote to ban the import and sale of fortified wines and spirits. However, the ban on fortified wine imports soon had to be lifted. Fortified wine producers in southern Europe were important recipients of Norwegian fish. In the trade war that ensued, Portugal retaliated by imposing high tariffs on Norwegian dried fish. To avoid these tariffs, Norway eventually had to accept the import of large quantities of Port and Madeira wines. Chart: Rise of Norwegian shipping Trade and the cross-border exchange of goods allow countries to exploit their comparative advantages more efficiently. But – as we experienced during the prohibition period – this requires a mutual understanding of the need for open markets. As a small open economy, Norway has always stood to gain from liberal trade regimes. The upswing for Norwegian shipping that began in the mid-1800s is a good example. Shipping had long been an important export industry for Norway, but freight transport mostly comprised goods exports from or imports to Norway. This changed in the mid-1800s. In 1849, England repealed its Navigation Act. Trade with English colonies would no longer be restricted to English ships. Freer world trade led at the same time to higher demand in the shipping freight market. The Norwegian shipping industry made good use of the opportunity: we had good ships, skilled crews and experience of ocean transport. Over the course of the next 25 years, the Norwegian merchant fleet increased four-fold.

However, the industry must lose no time in tackling the restructuring that is needed, particularly in the traditional segments. In the area of alternative products, Switzerland has admittedly been successful in the fund of funds business. It is to be hoped that its financial industry will build on this success and become even more of a centre of excellence for alternative investments too. BIS Review 24/2006  1
Lending to the resident private sector in Spain continued to shrink in 2014, in line with the need for the deleveraging of the Spanish economy; that said, the rate of decline of lending eased (from 8.3% in 2013 to 6.4% in 2014). At firms not engaging in construction and real estate activities, credit fell much less, shifting from a negative rate of 9% in 2013 to a still-negative rate of 1.5% in 2014. The figures available for 2015 suggest that the year will conclude with credit running at a rate of change very close to zero or in positive territory for the first time since 2009. One key aspect in 2014 was the fact that non-performing loans (NPLs) to the resident private sector fell both in absolute terms (by more than € billion) and in terms of the NPL ratio, which declined by almost 1 pp to 12.9%. In 2015 to date, this trend is holding, as NPLs have fallen to 12.3%. Resident private-sector refinanced exposures have fallen by 4.5% and account for 14% of the total, a proportion still highly influenced by forborne exposures to real estate development and construction companies. It is also worth pointing out that households and non-financial corporations are changing the composition of their savings in response to the very low interest rate environment, meaning that bank deposits have declined while units in investment funds have increased significantly.

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.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Challenges to monetary policy Central banks in other countries are deploying strong measures to buoy up economic activity and inflation. Key interest rates in many countries are close to zero. Central banks in the US, UK and Japan have made large-scale bond purchases and thereby expanded their balance sheets in order to push down long-term interest rates. The European Central Bank (ECB) is still the bankers’ bank – not the government’s bank. But the ECB has also stretched itself, for example by providing long-term loans to banks, which must be seen in the light of low growth in Europe. The EU is working on measures to restore financial market confidence – and public confidence. In March this year, 25 countries are to sign the fiscal compact – an agreement on stricter surveillance of fiscal policy and binding deficit limits. Banks have been instructed to increase their core capital. Both measures could contribute to improved budgetary discipline in the public as well as the private sector the next time they are tempted to overspend. The Norwegian economy is still well equipped to withstand the negative effects of the financial crisis. Oil prices are high and are in large part behind Norway’s favourable terms of trade. Growth is being sustained by high activity in the oil industry. We have room for manoeuvre in economic policy. However, a number of enterprises are feeling the impact of the downturn abroad.

If the return on the Fund actually proves to be 3 percent, we will have drained almost NOK 1 trillion from the Fund over the next 20 years with the current 4 percent rule. This corresponds to the value of the large North Sea oil discovery in the Johan Sverdrup field. The phasing-in of petroleum revenues through the public sector has the effect of crowding out exposed sectors. Even though petroleum revenues are phased in gradually, a phasingout of manufacturing and other private industries may not be as smooth. Entire industries could be lost. If spending proves to be excessive, such structural changes may be difficult or impossible to reverse. The conclusion is that a more robust approach would now be to base fiscal policy on an annual expected real return on the Fund of 3 percent. Such an adjustment would underpin the main principles that were behind the establishment of the fiscal rule – stability and sustainability. (Chart 10: Structural non-oil deficit and different rules for withdrawal from GPFG) In 2011 the structural non-oil budget deficit was about 3 percent of the Fund, which is close to such a new path. Adapting petroleum revenue spending to a lower expected return should not therefore be particularly demanding. If we wait, a necessary policy adjustment could be far more painful at a later date. 3  See Norges Bank Staff Memo 6/2012.
W A Wijewardena: Central Bank – why “economic and price stability”? Speech by Mr W A Wijewardena, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Association of Professional Bankers, Colombo, 23 March 2007. *  *  *  An amendment effected to the Monetary Law Act in 2002 requires the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to pursue “economic and price stability” as one of the two core objectives of the Bank. This is somewhat a departure from the central banks in the rest of the world which have been mandated to attain only “price stability”. Hence, it may be puzzling to many whether the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has been given an additional objective to attain. It is, therefore, timely to identify the precise meaning of this phrase “economic and price stability” in the context of a central bank. The amendment to the Monetary Law came as a part of the modernization program which the Bank commenced in 2000. One of the essential ingredients of that program was to update the Monetary Law to be on par with the emerging global best practices. Up to that time, the Central Bank had been entrusted with a multitude of objectives: attaining price stability, participating in economic development, preserving the external value of Rupee, protecting banks from collapse and maintaining the financial system stability etc. These objectives were not very clear and were often in conflict with each other. They also posed difficulties in monitoring the progress or assessing the success.

A central bank cannot do anything about the increases in the cost of living, since it does not produce goods and services. That is why John Exter, the founder Governor of the Central Bank, remarked in his very first press interview that “…the Bank does not itself produce goods and services. It will facilitate it by creating right monetary conditions ” Implicit in these “right monetary conditions” is the need for attaining economic and price stability in its totality. Inflation is a much wider phenomenon than the cost of living. It entails the absence of stability in the macro economy leading to an increase in all the prices at the same time. A consumer price index measures the price impact on a consumption basket consisting of only consumer goods. In contrast, inflation occurs when the prices of all goods, consumption, intermediate, investment and inputs, rise at the same time. It elevates the general price level to a higher level, including those of the consumer goods. The above misunderstanding may lead to the pitfall of a central banker trying to stabilize the value of a cost of living index through artificial means. It can be attained by fixing price ceilings or granting price subsidies. But, it does not cure the malady of generally rising prices generated by rising nominal aggregate demand over the real aggregate supply. A subsidy could ease the burden on the cost of living of a given consumer or a group of consumers.
One possibility I consider worth testing would be to wait for some months before the Board evaluates the measures comprehensively and publishes more detailed minutes. This, in any event, is a matter to which the Board intends to return later this autumn with the aim of establishing a procedure for preparing these matters and providing information about them in ways that are appropriate to the current exchange rate regime. At the same time, it should be underscored that the arrangements we lay down will not be set in concrete. There must be some latitude for unforeseen circumstances. It is worth mentioning that when the Executive Board came into being in January 1999 and chose to work with public minutes, the interval before they were published was comparatively long, 6 to 8 weeks. Since then it has proved possible to reduce the lag to only a fortnight without giving rise to serious detrimental effects. Conclusion The main message in my address today has been that in the current monetary policy regime the exchange rate ought to be regarded mainly as one of a number of forecast variables. The problem here is that, like other currencies, the Swedish krona is difficult to forecast in the time perspective that is relevant for monetary policy, namely a couple of years ahead. The situation is complicated, moreover, in that the exchange rate is a variable that in certain situations monetary policy can conceivably affect directly. We try to use all the available information in order to arrive at our forecast.

East Asia in particular has become more integrated than ever before as manifested by the size of intra-regional trade, which now accounts for about half of the region’s total trade in 2014, and the increase in intra-regional investment flows (foreign direct investment for ASEAN-10 for example rose more than 50 percent to 17% in 2013 from 11% in 2003). Regional cooperation such as the harmonisation of rules, liberalisation and deregulation in various economic sectors, enhancing regional safety nets, has also intensified since the Asian financial crisis. The increase in the network of dialogue has also brought the region closer together. These trends have coincided with Asia’s increasing significance, influence and integration in the world economy, with the region contributing to more than half of global growth since 2008. There is hence a growing international interest to better understand the region and the implications of the greater regional integration in Asia within the context of the global economy. I believe we have an eminent and well qualified panel of speakers to provide us their perspectives on this topic. I hope you enjoy listening to their views. I am certainly looking forward to it. On that note, I wish to thank OMFIF for co-hosting this debate with Bank Negara Malaysia. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1
Policy makers in the region recognise the challenges that emanate from a more competitive environment and have continued to re-examine and redefine strategies geared towards building the capacity of domestic enterprises and thereby enhancing their contribution to growth of the domestic economy. In addition, efforts have also been made to develop new areas of growth to ensure a more diversified economy. Countries have increasingly shifted to areas of their natural comparative advantages, whether in agriculture, ICT, construction and infrastructure or services-related sectors in order to benefit from their inherent strengths. Seven, a new wave of FDI in the region Apart from intra-regional trade, intra-regional foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have increasingly operated as a strong force for growth in the East Asian region. Regional FDI has largely been traderelated. Early FDI in East Asia was mainly derived from Western multinationals, particularly the US. The second wave of FDI after the late 1970s was predominantly Japanese capital which flowed into East Asia, in search of lower costs of production. Today, the cumulative stock of Japanese FDI has surpassed that of American investments. Since the late 1980s, as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore transformed into capital surplus economies that moved up the value chain, investments by these newly industrialised economies gained significance in Asia. This has represented the “third wave” of FDI in the region. The East Asian region is thus witnessing a steady inflow of FDIs from the NIEs to ASEAN and China.

Our aim is to dampen the pressures in the Norwegian economy and bring inflation down towards the 2 precent target.1 With yesterday’s decision, we have reversed the policy rate cuts made at the beginning of the pandemic. Let me explain the reasons for our decision. Chart: Inflation is above target This chart shows two different measures of inflation in Norway. Headline inflation is shown by the dark blue line. The light blue line shows the rise in consumer prices excluding energy prices and tax changes. This is an indicator of underlying inflation that is intended to capture the longer-term inflation trend. Both curves tell the same story: inflation is high. Inflation has recently increased rapidly and at a markedly faster pace than projected in the June Report. Food prices in particular have pulled up inflation through summer, surprising to the upside. High energy prices are adding to the upward pressure on headline inflation. But prices for a range of other goods and services have also increased more than expected. Chart: Inflation is high in many countries Part of the explanation for the high level of inflation can be found outside Norway’s borders. As you can see from the chart, high inflation is not unique to Norway. In many countries, inflation is even higher than in Norway. There are several reasons why inflation has reached such a high level internationally. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic continues to linger.