samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This implied that Swedes used more cash. In recent years the use of cards has accelerated. With regard to both the number of terminals and use of cards per capita, the Nordic countries are now very close to one another. The differences in card use between Sweden and the other Nordic countries – particularly with regard to Denmark and Finland – declined rapidly after 2001. Nevertheless, cash is still used to a greater extent in Sweden than in other Nordic countries. If one suspects that cash may be a relatively expensive payment service, the more widespread use of cash in Sweden in relation to the rest of the Nordic countries could mean that the Swedish payment system is less efficient in this aspect. But why do we use more cash in Sweden? We do not have a good answer to this. However, experiences from both Sweden and Norway show that demand for payment services is pricesensitive. 1 In Norway, electronic payments, including card payments, increased very rapidly after the banks changed their pricing towards charges based to a greater extent on actual costs. For instance, they began by making a small charge for ATM withdrawals. 2 It is possible that our pricing of card and cash payments respectively – the price the consumers see – lies behind the fact that we use more cash? When it comes to card and cash payments, it turns out that it is only the retail trade which the banks subject to charges.

For instance, would we use cash less and cards more, or vice versa? Perhaps we are using methods of payment that require an unnecessarily large use of resources? This could mean higher costs than necessary and thereby higher price increases in the retail trade or less favourable interest from the bank. We at the Riksbank have devoted considerable time and effort to analysing what different forms of payment cost and how we as consumers affect the efficiency of the Swedish payment system when we choose our method of payment. BIS Review 68/2008  1  Today I intend to describe some interesting results from this research. Firstly, what are the social costs of using cash and cards respectively? Secondly, what is in our estimation the better choice between card and cash payments, from a welfare perspective? Thirdly, how does the general public choose between cash and cards in practice? One result of our analysis is that we as consumers probably use more cash and fewer card payments than we would do if we realised what cash management costs – and if we had to pay for it. Why is cash used more in Sweden than in other Nordic countries? In Sweden, card payments have increased substantially since the mid-1990s. But seven years ago Swedes still appeared to be using card payments less than other Nordic residents. At the beginning of the 2000s the number of card payments per capita in Sweden was only half as high as in the other Nordic countries.
The latest numbers for wage growth, in 2020 and  2020  1 0 3  2021, have been adjusted for the various distortions affecting the official data, and are below the headline figure. But this year’s number is still  4  5  6 7 8 Unemployment, per cent  Regular-pay average weekly earnings (AWE) in the private sector. The chart uses a Bank staff estimate of underlying AWE that strips out Covid-related compositional effects. Sources: ONS, Bank of England, and Bank calculations. noticeably higher than would normally be the case at the current rate of unemployment. (And arguably, if you think that some of those on furlough have actually been looking for other jobs while on the scheme, and therefore helping to depress wage growth to some degree, perhaps a better estimate would have both the red dots somewhat to the right, making the latest figure for wage growth look that much stronger, compared with the pre-pandemic relationship8.) However long it lasts, and whatever the long-run equilibrium rate of unemployment, there looks to have been rise in the shorter-term equilibrium (the so-called “NAIRU”). Conclusion This is an extremely challenging period for monetary policy. Despite relatively weak growth over the past two years as a whole, domestically and globally, inflation has risen very significantly. In this country it was over 4% in October.

new autos  20  Other G7  16  Total G7 (%)  Level, end 2019 = 100 140 130  New autos  120  12  110  8  Dec 19  Jun 20  Dec 20  100  4  90  0  80  -4  70  -8  60  -12 Jun 21  Contributions to percentage change on 2019 Q4. Sources: OECD Quarterly National Accounts, Refinitiv Eikon from LSEG and Bank calculations. Apr 19  Oct 19  Apr 20  Oct 20  Apr 21  50 Oct 21  Sources: Refinitiv Eikon from LSEG, US Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bank calculations. In addition, and even if the pandemic itself has receded, some of the shifts in spending it produced have proved more enduring. Working from home is still much more prevalent than before the crisis, reducing spending on travel and some other local services as well. For the same reason some of the geographical shifts – away from city centres and towards the suburbs and countryside – have also lasted longer. Third, “zero-covid” policies in some Asian countries have meant that, even though vaccination rates have risen significantly, restrictions continue to be imposed in response to local outbreaks of the virus5. Coupled with the continuing strength in demand, these have contributed to significant congestion on shipping routes, 5  There were two major port closures in the summer in China, after some workers tested positive.
Paul Fisher: Recent developments in the sterling monetary framework Speech given by Mr Paul Fisher, Executive Director, Markets, and Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, at the Manchester Economics Seminar, Manchester, 30 March 2011. All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches. *  *  *  I would like to thank Sarah Ashley, Roger Clews, Ronnie Driver, Tarkus Frost, Chris Salmon, Olaf Weeken, Iain de Weymarn and Richard Whisker for their help in preparing this paper. Introduction During the recent financial crisis and ensuing recession, the implementation of monetary policy has been the subject of intense debate. Most visibly, that debate focused on the Bank’s use of large-scale asset purchases – otherwise known as “quantitative easing” (QE) – as a monetary policy tool. But other aspects of the mechanics of setting policy have also been of great interest. In this paper, I want to focus on two issues which go to the heart of central banking: (i)  The first concerns how the Bank should seek to implement the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) decisions on the official interest rate (known as Bank Rate), so as to best deliver a flat money market yield curve between one MPC decision and the next. (ii)  The second is about how best to provide liquidity insurance to the banking system as a whole, while also encouraging banks to manage their day-to-day liquidity needs, and subject to minimising the credit risk taken on the Bank’s balance sheet.

In this context, future efforts at policy coordination should start by setting out a clear and concrete medium-term goal, then followed by a few but concrete and specific issues to be addressed or projects to be executed. A case in point is the development of a shared regional financial infrastructure such as linking the clearing and payment systems, harmonizing minimum regulations on cross-border investment flows, and developing a shared facility to promote greater flows of investment information. This type of specific efforts and projects would be easier to win region-wide political commitment and support. 2  BIS Review 66/2006  Another suggestion is that, for the market-based approach to work efficiently, we may need to engage more formally the cooperation of the private sector. On this, I think East Asia can learn a lot from the experience of the EU in engaging the private sector in planning and reviewing major financial initiatives. Specifically here, I am thinking of the Giovannini Group of private experts, established in 1996, which has done at least four useful reports for the EU Commission. Their inputs have helped the EU in introducing the necessary directives. My last point is on the role of IFI’s such as the World Bank. In recent years, in a good way, we have seen active involvement of all major IFI’s in the region’s financial market development. They contribute to research, ideas, technical assistance, policy advice, and funding. Some are even involved as market participants.
Normally, there are several possible scenarios and there can be great uncertainty over which scenario monetary policy should be based on. There is also uncertainty over which target variables should actually be used. I shall return to this question in the next section. Nine suggestions regarding monetary policy Although it may be simple in theory to determine how to manage uncertainty in monetary policy, it is not at all simple in practice. So how should the uncertainty surrounding our forecasts affect the monetary policy decisions? How should we deal with the Catch-22 of monetary policy, that monetary policy must be based on forecasts but that our forecasting ability is almost non-existent? This is what this section is about. Be clear regarding the monetary policy objective We should be clear about the objective of monetary policy. There should be no uncertainty about what this is. The Riksbank has worded it as keeping inflation measured in terms of the consumer price index (CPI) at 2 per cent a year and the Government and the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament) have expressed support for this. But the CPI is affected by our own decisions on the repo rate in that mortgage rates are included in the CPI. If we raise the repo rate to subdue inflation in the long run, this leads to inflation temporarily increasing instead of falling. We therefore also follow and analyse a large number of other measures of inflation, such as the CPI with a fixed interest rate (CPIF).

This includes how we should conduct supervision, how we formulate regulations and how we organise ourselves to be able to manage financial crises, if these should arise. In Europe, the EU cooperation gives us a joint forum for tackling this challenge. The EU’s Financial Services Action Plan was launched in 1999. It has been a driving force behind the development I described earlier. The measures proposed in the action plan have now largely been implemented. However, much remains to be done. This is evident when one looks more closely at the EC regulations that form the basis for the national frameworks for supervision and crisis management. The regulations we have in the EU at present and the way we organise ourselves is not adapted to the new conditions prevailing due to the increased integration. One problem is that the responsibility for supervision is not adapted to banks with cross-border operations. Within the EU the supervisory responsibility for banks is governed by the principle which in practice imbues all EC regulations in the financial field, namely the home country principle. This means, in brief, that the responsibility for supervision lies with the country where the bank is legally domiciled. To illustrate how this works, we can imagine a bank with branch offices abroad. The bank and its branch offices are regarded as one single legal entity. They are therefore governed by the regulation and supervision that apply in their home country. How the operations are actually divided up between the different countries in principle has no relevance.
Many of them will remain in operation, and their guarantee capital owners will have an opportunity in the future to repurchase a stake in them from the Government. Although writing down guarantee capital now is painful, it is a far less drastic measure than the shareholders of the failed banks were faced with. On this occasion, I would like to encourage all savings bank investors and employees to take this opportunity to begin building their savings banks for the future. For the most part, domestic payment intermediation withstood the shocks of 2008 and 2009, but the same cannot be said of cross-border payment intermediation, as Icelanders discovered in the fall of 2008. The Central Bank plans to work with financial institutions and the appropriate authorities in the next few weeks, with the aim of reducing risk in payment intermediation. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider strengthening infrastructure and separating infrastructure from competitive operations. *  BIS Review 39/2010  *  *  7  Honoured guests. This is neither the time nor the place to conduct an in-depth analysis of the Icelandic financial crisis. We are now awaiting the release of the report from the Parliamentary Special Investigative Commission, which presumably will generate extensive discussion. We hope that discussion will aim at getting to the bottom of the matter: determining what went wrong and suggesting improvements.

But as the weight of exchange rate-linked items in domestic balance sheets declines, and as confidence rises and the foundations for the exchange rate itself are strengthened, monetary policy can devote greater attention to the slack in the economy and the inflation outlook. In this context, three factors are most important: returning domestic financial institutions to full functionality, converting foreign-denominated debt to domestic currency, and restoring access to foreign credit and financial markets. It is important to enhance the effectiveness of the Central Bank’s monetary policy instruments and improve the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. While confidence in the financial market remains limited, the Central Bank’s policy instruments will not be fully effective because, under these circumstances, financial institutions have every reason to consider it more beneficial to do business with the Central Bank than among themselves. The Central Bank has set a framework for the money market, foreign exchange market, and bond market, thereby contributing to their resurrection, in co-operation with the authorities and the financial institutions. At this point in time, it is primarily the bond market that has  BIS Review 39/2010  3  shown signs of recovery. However, financial institutions’ conduct still shows that they are uncertain about the future, and the premises for trading are distorted to some degree. Finding a solution to this will be an important task in the coming months. At present, investment in Iceland is close to a post-WWII low.
In the meantime, the Bank and the National Statistics Office are working to establish a common direct reporting database which will permit the dissemination of balance of payments related data to the ECB and EUROSTAT. The steady flow of information between the ECB and the national central banks is equally important from the point of view of transparency and effectiveness. The latter requires that ECB decisions be communicated in each Member State as early as possible. For this purpose, the Central Bank’s communications facilities will have to be upgraded. In particular, the Bank must have an archiving system capable of receiving, storing, retrieving and sending working documents to the ECB. Such a system is being developed. Conclusion Joining a common currency area clearly involves a complex and multifaceted process with implications of both a substantive and technical nature. This has become particularly evident as the emphasis of the Bank’s preparations has shifted away from legislative issues to the implementation phase. Much useful work has already been done, the Bank has been considerably strengthened as a result and we are fully in step with the central banks of other accession countries. Looking immediately ahead, the Bank’s integration within the ESCB now requires it to be represented on all the decision-making organs of the ECB. In fact, the Bank has already been invited to nominate a representative to sit on each of the twelve committees of the ECB in an observer capacity as from April.

A recent study 2 has in fact suggested that currency union approximately doubles trade. And specifically with regard to the euro, another study has concluded that in the case of Hungary, euro area membership may raise 3 the GDP growth rate by 0.6 to 0.9 of a percentage point in terms of a twenty-year average. The euro thus lies at the very heart of the EU and it is therefore no surprise that EU membership carries with it an obligation to participate in EMU and to adopt the single currency. Participation in EMU requires a number of preparations, relating to: •  the legal transposition of the acquis on EMU into national law;  •  fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria; and  •  the setting-up of the necessary institutions and mechanisms for the co-ordination of fiscal and economic policy, which remain at the discretion of national governments. While the Central Bank will be expected to play a leading role in the event of Malta taking up the offer of EU membership, the country’s eligibility to join EMU and its ability to participate on an on-going basis thereafter, without pressures arising in other sectors of the economy, also depend on the commitment of the other policy-makers. This is because the Maastricht convergence criteria include not only a fiscal dimension, which is clearly outside the remit of central banks, but also others that are only partly influenced by the actions of central banks.
FESE Convention – “Europe’s future in global capital markets” Paris, Thursday 22nd June 2017  Closing remarks by François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Banque de France  Contact presse : Clémence Choutet (01 42 97 74 51 ; clemence.choutet@banque-france.fr). Page 1 sur 5  Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to be with you today to close this FESE convention. When reflecting on Europe’s future in global capital markets, we all agree that the Brexit vote last year has significantly shifted the European landscape. One year on, it is still bad news for all of us, but much worse for the United Kingdom itself, and each day more so. Faced nevertheless with Brexit, we should at least be consistent. And the EU-27 is being so, starting with Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel: we are hoping for a positive agreement, but there can be no cherry-picking in the single market, and no access without common rules. Furthermore, I’d like to stress two imperatives: first, do not let sources of systemic risks for the EU grow outside the EU; second, speed up the creation of a “Financing Union for Investment and Innovation” to boost productive investment thanks to a better circulation of savings across borders. Let me elaborate on these two imperatives in some more detail. ** 1. Do not let sources of systemic risks for the EU grow outside the EU Let me start with the first imperative.

Complementary steps could include creating pan-European venture capital funds and leveraging on the development of FinTechs, while maintaining a high level of consumer protection and efficient conduct of business rules in a digital environment. ** Let me conclude with a general remark. After Brexit and Mr. Trump’s election, many expected a euro area crisis. So far, exactly the opposite has happened: European growth is accelerating, at close to the pace of US growth. The French election gave a fresh political impetus to stability and reforms; public support for Europe has significantly increased: up 18 percentage points in France from last year (56% in spring 2017) according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center; and the same trend can be observed in a number of countries. Most importantly, we in the EU-27 should not devote all our energy to Brexit, at the expense of investing in our own future. In this regard, it is the right time to move up a gear. To boost European growth, financial levers are of the essence, but economic levers play a role too. This is the reason why I often speak of Europe’s “growth triangle”. In my view, Europe needs to activate three levers: the Financing Union for Investment and Innovation that I have just described, but also implement national structural reforms on the one hand and a better euro area policy mix on the other. National structural reforms are a prerequisite for each country to unleash our collective growth  Page 5 sur 5  potential.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  considerable losses for other financial institutions, including the central bank itself.5 In this environment, a bank’s private choice of liquidity buffers will not reflect what is socially optimal.6 In the presence of such externalities, there is indeed a need for explicit regulation. This leaves the choice open between regulating liquidity through prices (i.e. through interest rates) and through quantities (i.e. liquidity buffers), hence the intimate interaction between monetary policy and prudential regulation of liquidity.7 Similarly, an expectation of public sector intervention and support for banks in crisis can create moral hazard and distort the incentives faced by financial institutions.8 As a consequence, the liquidity buffers chosen by banks could be insufficient. Such considerations call again for regulators to set and enforce prudential rules, and for central banks to act in a way that jointly is socially optimal. The new liquidity regulation: Basel III liquidity standards Let me now discuss in some detail the Basel III liquidity standards agreed upon in December 2010. The international community, through the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), drew up a proposal for liquidity risk regulation. The proposal includes two ratios, the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR). Under the LCR, banks are required to hold a minimum level of unencumbered high-quality liquid assets (HQLA), the numerator of LCR, to withstand total net cash outflows over an acute stress scenario lasting 30 days, the denominator of LCR.

In alphabetical order, the magnificent seven are: Bank of China (Hong Kong), DBS Bank (Hong Kong), Bank of East Asia, Hang Seng Bank, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank, and Wing Lung Bank. I thank them sincerely for their participation as Retail Exchange Fund Notes Distributors. BIS Review 31/2005  1  Access for retail investors to the primary market of debt, not necessarily restricted to Exchange Fund Notes, is, of course, only part of our continuing efforts. To increase and sustain retail investor interest in bond products in general, we need also to provide convenient access to the secondary market at low transaction costs and reliable market information. But this is a subject for another occasion, after ideas, just recently discussed and endorsed by the new Financial Infrastructure Sub-Committee of the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee, mature and arrangements put in place, in collaboration with the industry. Allow me to conclude with a commercial targeted at retail investors. The Exchange Fund Notes are a very safe investment – you are putting your money with the Exchange Fund, which is managed by the HKMA. The Exchange Fund Notes provide you with a steady stream of fixed-interest income that is higher than interest on bank deposits. The Exchange Fund Notes are highly liquid – you can sell them any time you want. There are 26 market-makers appointed by the HKMA to make a market in Exchange Fund paper.