samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The drivers of the deceleration back then appeared, to some extent, to be idiosyncratic and short-lived, relating to the effect of emissions standards on the euro area car industry and a normalisation of world trade from its very strong growth rates in 2017.1 Yet it was clear that the loss of growth momentum could become more broad-based and persistent if two risks were to materialise: first, if external demand were to remain weak; and second, if this were to spill over into domestic demand. In the meantime, the first risk has by and large been realised. The weakness in world trade has continued, which has significantly affected the manufacturing sector. Global goods import growth2 in January reached its lowest level since the Great Recession, on the back of rising uncertainty about trade disputes and a slowdown in emerging market economies, especially China. As a result, growth in extra-euro area goods exports was negative at the end of last year for the first time since January 2016, and industrial production fell by 4.2% year on year in December – its largest decline since 2013 – before recovering somewhat in January. Indicators such as new export orders, which have historically been closely associated with industrial production3, remain in negative territory. So we are now seeing a more persistent deterioration of external demand. But a “soft patch” does not necessarily foreshadow a serious slump.

The Central Bank of Malta’s preparatory process for integration in the Eurosystem has undoubtedly benefited from its participation in ESCB committees and from the bilateral contacts established with many Eurosystem central banks, including the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland, our partner in the Twinning Arrangement on communication strategy in which we participated with Cyprus. Some Eurosystem central banks, moreover, have responded favourably to requests for entering into cooperative arrangements with the Bank for the implementation of specific operations, such as in the field of reserve management. As for the public mood, price perceptions will probably remain a source of apprehension, at least in the immediate period ahead. Although 68% of Maltese respondents who participated in the latest Eurobarometer survey said that they are in favour of a relatively early euro adoption, some responses to the other questions suggest that the Maltese are not indifferent to what they hear about the possible negative effects of the single currency. The percentage of respondents who consider that the euro will be of personal or national benefit, 2 for example, is smaller than that of those who favour early adoption. And the main concern is not unlike that in the current euro area Member States. It is not about the ability of the ECB to deliver price stability over the medium-term. It is primarily about a temporary increase in price levels after the changeover, a fear which has been reinforced by what is reported in the Italian media.
Øystein Olsen: The conduct of monetary policy Introductory statement by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the hearing before the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs of the Storting (Norwegian parliament), Oslo, 6 May 2021. * * *  Introduction The year 2020 was a peculiar and dramatic one. The Covid-19 pandemic abruptly changed the way we were accustomed to living our lives. It has been particularly difficult for those directly affected by the disease and for those furloughed or made redundant. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the Storting has approved extensive fiscal policy measures to mitigate the economic fallout of the pandemic and measures to contain it. With a view to dampening the downturn, Norges Bank reduced the policy rate in spring 2020 from 1.5 to zero percent. In addition, we took measures to improve liquidity in the money and foreign exchange markets. The pandemic is not over, but vaccination is well underway, and we will likely be able to start living more normally in a few months. The economy and economic policy will then also gradually normalise. A global pandemic The Covid-19 outbreak and the measures to contain it led to a severe downturn in the global economy. In many countries, the decline in GDP in 2020 Q2 was the steepest ever recorded. The outbreak also led to considerable volatility in global financial markets. Equity indexes fell, and bond and money market risk premiums rose.

Companies are for now able to cover the rapidly rising labour costs from their profit buffers, but in the longer perspective this will inevitably cease to be possible. Reduced profits threaten the ability of companies to invest in higher productivity and in the human capital needed for more complex and highervalue work. I have often said, and it bears repeating again today, that the key challenge in the development of the Estonian economy is how more complex work than hitherto can be accomplished with a smaller workforce. The rapid rises in wage income and household consumption boosted tax revenues in 2014, which in turn improved the state finances and helped lift the state budget to a small surplus in 2014. Going forward it is important that the government stick to the target agreed in the budget strategy of maintaining a nominal budget balance and building up its reserves. •  Here I should note that the purchases of bonds by central banks and the resulting fall in interest rates have encouraged the belief or the conviction that there is a free lunch to be had and Estonia is denying itself a feed because the Estonian state does not issue bonds. We all know full well that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Even were the central bank to purchase one quarter of the bonds issued by the state, those bonds would still constitute a debt that would have to be paid back eventually.
Encik Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid: Distribution in a digital economy - Customer @ Core Keynote address by Mr Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the General Insurance Agents Convention &quot;Distribution in a Digital Economy - Customer @ Core&quot;, Bangsar South City, 18 October 2018. * * * Let me first begin by thanking Persatuan Insurans Am Malaysia (PIAM) for hosting this convention and inviting me to deliver the keynote address. This is my first ever engagement with the general insurance agency force but also the insurance industry as a whole and I am very pleased to be here at this fittingly themed convention, “Distribution in a Digital Economy – Customer @ Core”. There is no question that we are now in an era of the Digital Economy. According to the World Bank there has been an accelerated growth of internet access of more than 170% in global accessibility in the past ten years. In 2006, only 17% of the world’s population was estimated to have an Internet connection – but now that number is 46% in 2016. During the same period, Malaysians with Internet access has increased from 52% to 79%, which is a very high number amongst many countries. With such widespread accessibility, a market presence on the Internet has never been more important.

This figure could be a lot higher if we take into account the mode of payment used by customers to pay agents, which based on anecdotal evidence, are primarily in cash and cheque. On this front, agents should work hand-inhand with insurance companies to encourage and incentivise their customers to adopt epayments. Besides enhancing the customer experience, higher adoption of e-payments could also boost the agents’ efficiency and productivity. In this regard, time and effort saved from less handling of cash and cheques can be directed to more productive tasks such as to increase sales, even by usage of WhatsApp. Second, increasing your digital accessibility to prospective clients. For a long as I am aware, the agency force has always dominated the insurance distribution 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  channel. In 2017, there was a total of over 56,000 agents constituting a market share of approximately 63%. Irrespective of whether in general or life insurance, the agency force has traditionally been the physical point of contact and engagements with clients. But, with the Internet and improved access amongst a growing number of the Malaysian population, online insurance solutions will not only become more viable, but also easier to adopt. In this, the agency force cannot afford to stagnate. Other industries with heavily digitalised services, like the air travel, hospitality and retail sectors, have elevated the digital literacy of the Malaysian population and improved their appetite for efficient delivery and transparent pricing of services.
Yet this ability to react, in particular, is of great importance for our economy, which is heavily dependent on economic exchange with other countries. The current paper money system based on an independent central bank committed to long-term stability provides an alternative, which – overall – achieves far better results than a gold regime could. Here, if you will allow me, I would like to return to the present day with a brief digression on the gold initiative I mentioned before. Although the advocates of the initiative do not wish to return to a gold standard, they do want to increase the role of gold within the currency reserves. They therefore demand that the SNB hold at least 20% of its assets in gold, that it sell no more gold and that it store all its gold in Switzerland. The initiative is both unnecessary and dangerous. It is unnecessary because, under the current monetary order, there is no link between price stability and the share of gold in the SNB balance sheet. Thus, the objective of price stability has been better achieved over the past few years than at times when the gold share was significantly higher. Moreover, compared to other countries, the SNB still holds high stocks of gold. It definitely values gold, as a part of its currency reserves, and has no plans to either purchase or sell gold. Finally, we are enormously vigilant in ensuring that our gold is stored safely in every respect, both in Switzerland and abroad.

The post-trade system is a collection of systems, infrastructures, and workflows that differ across firms, with low levels of interoperability. Many firms operate on legacy post-trade systems and technologies that require a lot of maintenance and upkeep, but are critical for the firm in its daily operations. The current system contains inefficiencies and complexities, with many firms running on systems which were developed in-house by firms during the 80s and the 90s. Many firms have run on the same systems over this time, patching and upgrading, whilst the environment we are operating in has developed, becoming bigger and more complex. There are obvious cost benefits in simplifying. But if you look at the kinds of innovation the sector has seen since it built the systems on which it runs, it is clear that there are also opportunities to take advantage of the benefits of new technologies and functions. As you would imagine, the Bank is not immune from the needs of change and development, and we have been investing in our own plumbing.
Both the Spanish economy and its banking system suffered and continue to suffer from the coincidence of these three high-intensity crises, any of which may return at any time, since the economy moves in waves. But it appears highly unlikely that the conjunction of three such crises could recur for many years. The challenges Spain had to face at the onset of the crisis were enormous. Public attention has focused on cutting the budget deficit, but the tasks of reducing the towering debt accumulated by households and firms, and that of regaining lost competitiveness within a monetary union are also huge. A Latin American colleague used a metaphor which, while exaggerated, clearly expressed the difficulty ahead of Spain: “regaining competitiveness”, he said, “is like painting a house. If your brush is the exchange rate and it is flexible, you simply let it move from the top downwards. But since in Spain you’re in the euro and you can’t move the brush, all you can do is move the house upwards from below”. The task is an arduous one but not impossible if we believe that, though it is very difficult, we are capable of changing and reforming. This is why I shall begin my speech with an optimistic message, offering you some examples showing how Spain has already progressed with some adjustments and has undertaken major reforms during the difficult times we have faced during these years of crisis.

And this takes considerably more time than addressing or doing away immediately with problems by injecting public funds. Yet this requirement to promote private solutions does not fully explain the enormous workload that has fallen on the supervisor over recent years. Insofar as it was decided at first to retain without major changes the singular legal arrangements for savings banks, and particularly their governance, this made it necessary to pursue most complex negotiations with the parties involved, namely trade unions, managers, regional governments, etc., each with very different interests from those that prevail in any mercantile company, where market discipline leads owners to worry about minimising losses and increasing shareholder value, and not about maintaining power, or the total amount devoted to early retirements, or about where headquarters should be established. In merger operations, processes such as determining shares of interest are reasonably easy to agree upon, since it suffices to make a proper valuation and to assign to each party what corresponds to it. But those who have followed the news in recent years will have witnessed the long drawn-out discussions, on a flimsy economic basis, that have been necessary to determine the power apportioned to each player in savings bank integrations. Before their transformation into banks, observance of the legal structure of savings banks meant that their restructuring could only move forward very gradually, step by step and with great prudence.
The financial sector blueprint  Let me now turn to our progress on the financial sector blueprint. While the fundamental objective of this blueprint is to achieve a financial system that best serves our country as it transitions to becoming a developed economy in 2020, the formulation of the plan has also drawn from the important lessons of the recent global financial crisis. Most important, is that growth of the financial system should ultimately be anchored to the growth in the real sector. Based on the rate of growth of the economy projected for the next decade, the financial sector is envisaged to increase in significance from 4.6 times of GDP currently, to between 5 to 6 times of GDP by 2020. Meanwhile, the contribution of the financial services sector to GDP is expected to increase from 11.7% in 2009 to 14% by 2020. Following the increased liberalisation in this decade, this expansion will be based on both domestic and foreign financial business activity. Also important, will be the changing structure of the financial system. Going forward, the financial markets are expected to have a greater role in the intermediation of funds. Hence, it is envisioned that there will be further deepening and increased liquidity in financial markets as new players and a wider range of financial instruments combine to increase the efficiency of the financial markets. Of increasing importance will be the intermediation of long-term savings, such as insurance and pension funds, and long-term investments such as investments in economic and social infrastructure.

Unless we are convinced, as I say, in general or in any particular case, that Beauty will in fact end up with Prince Charming, and not be condemned to long-term cohabitation with the Beast, then it would be better for Europe as a whole to delay until we were more confident of a happy ending. Investment will continue to flow to this country so long as we succeed in maintaining an environment offering attractive returns, and our macro-economic and supply-side policies are a much bigger factor in that than the exchange rate. Similarly the City will continue to flourish as Europe’s international financial capital so long as the strongest financial firms from all around the world continue to find it attractive to conduct their business here. I see no signs of that changing: indeed the international business of the City continues to increase; and that has very little to do with our national currency, or with an expectation that we will be among the first to merge it into the Euro. So long as we are properly prepared, as we will be, and so long as we have in place efficient infra-structure, including for payments and settlements, as I assure you we will have - in or out, then the Euro, if it comes, will be more of an opportunity than a threat to the City.
The international financial system Beyond these domestic factors, the crisis has also uncovered weaknesses in the international financial system, and raised questions about the roles of the IMF and World Bank. Several international groups are examining these issues. They have made useful proposals and recommendations to improve aspects of the global financial architecture, although some issues still remain contentious, such as how to regulate hedge funds. The task now is to implement without delay those reforms on which broad consensus has been reached. The reforms will not prevent all future crises or mishaps. However, they should make financial systems, especially in emerging markets, more robust and less vulnerable to contagion effects when the next crisis strikes. 3  BIS Review 111/2000  Rebuilding confidence and prosperity Given these conclusions, what should ASEAN do to rebuild investor confidence and achieve prosperity? Accepting globalisation First, countries have to accept that globalisation is a reality. They should take advantage of globalisation, and not fight against it. It is a powerful trend that can bring benefits to their people. Before the crisis, ASEAN had prospered by riding the wave of globalisation. Their take off had been fuelled by strong investments by MNCs, buoyant exports and freer trade and economic policies. Within ASEAN, the most open economies were also the fastest growing, whereas isolation led to stagnation. Against this backdrop, the crisis came as a profound shock, which could easily have caused a backlash against globalisation.

The Fund is approaching the nominal value of one year’s GDP and may reach two in the course of the next decade. This is based on the assumption that oil prices remain high over the next few years and then fall to about USD 30 per barrel. The government bases its withdrawals from the Fund on an average real return of 4 per cent for financing current expenditure. Given this spending rule, the return may come to finance more than 15 per cent of government expenditure in 10 years, which clearly shows that sound management of our petroleum wealth generates considerable benefits. The return represents future income that we forego if we draw on this wealth today. But even with this source of income, more than 80 per cent of  BIS Review 28/2007  13  expenditure must be covered by other sources. Financing the large pension payments that will have to be disbursed in the coming decades will be very demanding in any event. I have talked about some of the supply-side shocks that have had a positive effect on the Norwegian economy. Norway is now reaping the benefits of globalisation through increased international trade and freer labour flows across national borders. Globalisation also has its challenges and although I have not delved into these in my speech today, I would be delighted to discuss these and other issues with you in the question and answer session. Thank you for your attention! 14  BIS Review 28/2007
1990=100 140  140  Norway  130  130  120  120  US  110  100  100  90 1990  110  1992  1994  1996  1998  2000  90 2002  1)Business sector 2)Mainland Norway excl public sector Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics and Norges Bank SG 240802  Business productivity growth has been high throughout the 1990s. The chart shows development of productivity per working hour in Norway and the US. Unfortunately, I don’t have comparable figures for the other Nordic countries. I do, however, believe that they all, with the possible exception of Iceland, have had stronger productivity growth than the US over the period. BIS Review 70/2002  1  Government employment and revenues. Per cent of total employment and GDP 2001  Government employment  40  Denmark  30  Norway Sweden  Finland  20  Iceland US  10  0 0  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  Current tax and non-tax receipts Source: OECD SG 240802  Most Nordic countries have large public sectors, reflecting the fact that many services such as health and education are produced within the public sector. This is especially the case in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. General government financial balance and current account balance. Per cent of GDP.

First, the question of the financial regulation perimeter. Consider for instance ICOs and crypto-assets: even though they don’t bring something new in terms of types of risks2, the existing regulatory framework may be inadequate to address the challenges they raise. The classification of tokens into existing legal categories proves very challenging and the internetbased crypto-intermediary activities facilitate regulatory arbitrage. The same issue applies to 3rd party dependency risk. Just to pick an example, cloud computing market is highly concentrated and Amazon Web Services has built a dominant position. As the core financial functions lift and shift to the cloud, the risk of a single point of failure will emerge, but yet, cloud providers are unregulated and to a large extent out of the reach of supervisors. Second, the question of conduct. Our regulation embeds a judgment of things that are acceptable and some that are not. Technological developments are making it possible to use information that was previously out of reach of a financial intermediary. This would potentially allow a more accurate assessment of risk or a more “responsive” pricing of service. But what is possible may not be (socially) acceptable – to take one example, the current development of “social network informed credit scores” raises privacy concerns. In that context, the regulator (in some cases, the legislator) could have to revisit its stance on conduct issues. Let me now turn to new risks which are non-financial in nature but highly intertwined with the digitalization of finance. Two in particular merit scrutiny.