samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
For  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  instance, it provided banks with all the liquidity they were seeking by adopting fixed rate tender procedures with full allotment, against an expanded list of eligible collateral, and for extended periods. This helped to stabilise the funding situations of banks in Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and later on in Spain and Italy2. According to the Banco de Portugal, the ECB’s liquidity provision to Portuguese banks reached € billion in June 2012, representing more than a third of the country’s GDP. In August last year the ECB announced the Outright Monetary Transactions programme to counteract unjustified speculation about a euro break-up and to rectify the resulting distortions in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. As a result of these actions, and against the background of a renewed commitment by governments to ensure the integrity of the euro area, financial conditions have substantially improved over time and across market segments. Banks have been able to decrease their reliance on ECB funding, including by repaying (parts of the) amounts received under its longer-term refinancing operations. In Portugal, central bank funding is now back to around € billion, more than 15 percent below its peak. Euro area financial markets are gradually returning to normal. [Slide 3] So to what extent have the imbalances been corrected? The current account balances clearly show a strong correction. In the three programme countries the current account balances in percent of GDP improved by more than 9 percentage points between 2008 and 2012.

6  The higher profit margins of the past two years need to be interpreted carefully as they in part represent a rebound after the contraction in 2008-09, and are related to composition effects and capital deepening via labour shedding. 7  See ECB Structural Issues Report (2012), Euro area labour markets and the crisis, ECB Occasional Paper No 138, October 2012. 8  On average in the three Baltic states compensation per employee fell by 10.4 pp cumulatively between 2009 and 2010. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  [Slide 8] What about output? Per capita GDP has been falling steeply in Greece. In Ireland the turning point was reached in 2011; in Spain, Portugal and Greece that point is expected to come in 2013 or early 2014. Is this expectation credible? Controlling for exogenous variables, such as world demand, term-of-trade or oil shocks, the expectation depends on a resolute pursuit of the reform and consolidation policies as well as on three key interrelated aspects: the impact of fiscal consolidation; the access to finance for corporates and households; and the restoration of confidence. Let me consider these in turn. Since the sovereign debt crisis escalated in mid-2010, in the stressed countries the fiscal stance has become very restrictive, access to finance has become very limited and confidence very low. In such an environment it is not possible to isolate the short-term impact of these three elements while private and public sector balance-sheet adjustment is under way.
This is because it is inherently difficult for firms to predict which stress might tip them into failure. Firms will need to ensure that they are embedding robust assurance, governance and oversight arrangements within everyday processes so that they are always ready for the unpredictable. This is particularly important given that resolution is not something which we will have a second chance to deliver. Framing our approach around the three outcomes requires firms to think holistically and ask: “how will we be able to keep the business operating, while losses are borne by investors, and restructuring occurs?” This is more fundamental than just complying with individual policies or submitting data to authorities, and helps ensure that capabilities can be sustained for the long-term. We have also been flexible in our application of the RAF. In May 2020, in recognition of the operational burden on firms arising from the Covid pandemic, we extended the submission deadline for firms’ first reports by a year.19  19  See Statement by the Bank of England and Prudential Regulation Authority on resolution measures and Covid-19 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  8  The RAF is also designed to be proportionate. I am quite conscious that I have dedicated a large chunk of my remarks focussing on larger banks and building societies – however being able to fail in an orderly way is a concept which speaks more widely than this – and is something which all firms need to take into account.

An easing of monetary policy in many parts of the world as well as in Sweden has been an important factor behind the better tendencies in recent months and the more positive forecasts. Even though the statistics show a stronger economic trend, inflation has been in line with the Riksbank’s forecasts. For this reason the repo rate has been kept unchanged since March. 1  BIS Review 108/1999  In August the 12-month rate of CPI inflation was 0.6% and inflation’s underlying rate, measured by UNDIX, was 1.5%. It is changes in indirect taxes and subsidies, together with house mortgage interest expenditure, that are continuing to result in an underlying rate of inflation that is higher than CPI inflation. Economic prospects from 1999 to 2001 We are now moving into a period of strong growth, externally as well as in Sweden. As regards the international picture, the Riksbank judges that annual growth in the OECD area up to the end of 2001 will amount to not quite 2.5%. It looks as though effects of the Asian crisis are now dying away and that emerging market growth will become stronger in the next two years, above all in the crisis-hit countries in Southeast Asia but to some extent also in Latin America and Eastern Europe. In Japan, too, the earlier risk of negative growth has turned into cautious optimism about an upturn. Prospects for the euro area have likewise improved, with a recovery in manufacturing and stronger consumer confidence.
Under ABF2, the eleven regional central banks will invest a fraction of their reserves in the local currency denominated bonds issued by sovereign and quasi-sovereign entities in eight EMEAP markets, namely, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The passively managed style of ABF2 will help attract the interests of both domestic and international investors in the Asian bond markets, as it would provide an attractive alternative for investors who seek innovative, low-cost and efficient bond products in the Asian financial markets. Furthermore, the ABF2 Initiative would also help expedite market development and regulatory reforms at both domestic and regional levels, which would benefit both potential issuers and investors in the region. But most importantly, ABF2 would make available a new set of transparent, replicable and credible Asian bond indices which will be an important bond market infrastructure for the region. 2  BIS Review 29/2005  Conclusion To conclude, a lot of activities can be expected this year in our domestic bond market. The opportunities will come from continued momentum of investment finance, as well as from the authorities' efforts to push through a number of initiatives to develop the bond market. As for our own monetary operations, the Bank of Thailand also plans to issue more bonds, with more varieties, to support our day-to-day management of domestic liquidity. The Bank of Thailand now sees the local bond market as entering an important period of growth and market development.

As to other economic policies, these were subject to even laxer oversight procedures, and proved worthless in redressing other imbalances. The list of structural weaknesses in the area’s governance framework would not be complete without mentioning the failure to design any crisis-management mechanism capable of making a rapid and forceful response in the initial stages of tensions, preventing the problems from becoming protracted and untreatable. These shortcomings in the original design of Monetary Union have played an increasingly greater role as the crisis has advanced. Currently, investors have become fully aware of the particular fragility of the euro area countries’ sovereign debt markets, which differentiates them substantially from the debt markets of other developed countries with their own currency and central bank. I refer, naturally, to the fact that the euro area combines a single central bank and single currency with 17 independent States and, therefore, 17 different sovereign risks. Under these conditions, the well-known mechanisms that countries with monetary sovereignty have to counter potential liquidity problems on their national sovereign debt markets are blocked by the fact that the action needed would entail some transfer of income between States, action that the institutional arrangements of the euro area not only do not envisage, but which, it is assumed, must be avoided.
It would be in no one’s interests for the experience of the Covid-19 crisis and responsiveness of business interruption cover to reduce consumer confidence in the value provided by insurance for financial protection. In the life insurance sector there is an opportunity for firms to leverage their position as long-term investors in a wide range of assets and productive investment, to support our economic recovery but this must not come at the expense of policyholder protection and the provision of secure retirement income. We would expect to preserve the current, adequate level of capital in the sector whilst seeking to reduce complexity and frictional costs within the regime. A financially resilient, competitive and productive insurance sector not only ensures that individual policyholders are protected, but signals an industry that is able to support the recovery of the wider economy whilst maintaining high prudential standards. 7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  7

Innovation in the financial services industry has enabled financial institutions to obtain better insight into customer needs and correspondingly, develop new and better products to match their diverse needs, make significant improvements in operational efficiency by improving processes and business models as well as ensure more effective risk management. It has facilitated greater financial inclusion by allowing broader access to financial services in many emerging and developing countries. But the abilities to innovate will very much depend on the ability to get the necessary talent: the creativity to develop new ideas, the capacity to absorb knowledge and the capacity to acquire the new skill to turn ideas into results. This requires a talented workforce as the driving force of innovation. Building such a workforce would thus become a constant challenge for the Islamic financial services industry. In the context of Islamic finance, human capital development is all the more important given that the Islamic finance industry is still relatively in a nascent development phase. There is no doubt that the Islamic financial services industry in Malaysia has experienced an exciting and phenomenal growth. The proliferation of competitively priced Islamic financial products to match the diverse and discerning needs of customers particularly in this recent decade is quite evident. But we cannot be complacent. What has served us well in the past is unlikely to serve us well into the future. We must be mindful that being innovative in this environment of constant change and heightened complexity in itself is a challenge.
If the economy functions entirely without rigidities, that is to say with flexible wages and prices, a higher growth rate in productivity has no importance for inflation. If productivity increases, wages rise. This means that the companies’ costs do not change and consequently inflationary pressures do not change. But the economy does not function entirely without friction. If the growth rate of productivity changes, wages do not adjust immediately. This means that the adjustment, both upwards and downwards, comes after a time lag. This is exactly what we have seen in recent years. An unusually high increase in productivity has coincided with a relatively moderate wage development. This is the most important explanation as to why inflation has been low, which in turn has given us at the Riksbank the opportunity to keep the interest rate at a low level. If we look ahead, the situation is probably the reverse. Over the coming years, productivity will instead probably grow more slowly, while wages will increase more quickly than before. Altogether, this indicates higher inflationary pressures and thus a higher interest rate in the coming years. References Barrell, R., Liadze, I. and Pomerantz, O. (2007), “Import Growth, Globalisation and the Impact of Trade Liberalisation”, National Institute of Economic and Social Research Discussion Paper no. 294. Bernanke, B. (2005), “Productivity”, Speech at the C. Peter McColough Roundtable Series on International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations, January 19.

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques -may Allah preserve him- has taken a wide range of important decisions and measures aimed at restructuring and regulating the economy, updating the laws to enhance the level of efficiency and competitiveness in the economy and support optimal operation of the factors of production, apart from providing an advanced regulatory and administrative framework and attractive environment for domestic and foreign investment to achieve diversity in the economic and production environment in order to continue to create appropriate job opportunities for the sons and daughters of this country. The most prominent indicators of the economic development achieved are: the increase in the real GDP of the non-oil sector by 81.4 percent over the period from 2005 to the end of 2013, the balance of payments recorded a surplus of SAR 3.6 trillion, the actual government expenditures amounted to SAR 5.7 trillion, and the public debt to GDP ratio declined from 37.3 percent at the end of 2005 to 2.7 percent at the end of 2013. Many development projects have been approved for strengthening and streamlining the infrastructure, including roads, airports, telecommunications, water and electricity, health and education services, in addition to the Scholarship Program of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques for pursuing higher education abroad which is a long-term investment in human resources. The Kingdom has maintained high sovereign ratings of solvency as indicated by international rating agencies.
Reforms are all the more important to help the economy adapt smoothly to external shocks such as those currently observed. In many countries, governments also need to press ahead with fiscal consolidation and fiscal reform. Budget deficits in the euro area as a whole are expected to improve this year, but this will mainly be the result of strong economic growth and one-off revenues from the sale of UMTS licences. Abstracting from these factors, there has been little further progress in the consolidation of public finances on average. Moreover, current budget plans for 2001 imply that the average fiscal stance will be slightly more expansionary next year. For the first time since 1993, the primary balance ratio as a percentage of GDP for the euro area is expected to deteriorate in 2001. This somewhat more expansionary stance demonstrates that the reform strategies have, in some cases, been unbalanced. Many countries have enacted reductions in personal and corporate income taxation and social security contributions, but have not set ambitious expenditure ceilings. While the tax reforms currently being implemented or planned in a number of euro area countries are a welcome stimulus to the supply side, they need to be accompanied by restraint in government spending. The longer-term sustainability of budget positions also needs to be ensured in several countries with regard to the consequences of planned fiscal reforms, such as those of pension systems, and the reduction of taxes. The policy adjustments necessary to create the financial leeway for these reforms should be prepared now.

In the period from July to September 2000, the three-month average of M3 growth stood at 5.4%, above the reference value of 4½%. However, some indicators suggest that over recent months a moderation in monetary growth has been occurring. Let me now turn, within the second pillar, to the prospects for economic growth in the euro area, as these represent a key factor affecting the outlook for price stability in the medium term. The latest estimate by Eurostat for the second quarter of 2000 indicated a real increase in GDP of 0.8%. The pace of new job creation has remained high and the unemployment rate currently stands at 9.0%, a level not seen since mid-1992. Some monthly indicators suggest that some moderation in real GDP growth might have occurred in the second half of this year, mainly as a result of the negative impact of the recent increases in oil prices on domestic income. However, by contrast with previous periods of strong oil price rises, the euro area economy is now less dependent on oil. This should help to prevent any sustained negative effect on confidence. There are therefore good reasons to remain confident with regard to growth prospects. On the external side, euro area export growth should benefit further from the expansion of the global economy. Considering these factors together, the growth dynamic in the euro area can be expected to be maintained in the coming years.
All else equal, the removal of a considerable amount of this risk by the Fed’s purchases would be expected to lower agency MBS rates by lowering this extra return, thereby reducing primary mortgage rates, stimulating demand for housing, and prompting increased refinancing activity. Indeed,  3  See responses to June 2012 Survey of Primary Dealers. 4  For example, see Brainard and Tobin (1968), Vayanos and Vila (2009), Li and Wei (2012), Gagnon et al (2010), Krishnamurthy and Vissing-Jørgensen (2011), and Hancock and Passmore (2011). 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  asset purchases do appear to have a meaningful impact on mortgage markets. For example, in the two days following the announcement of additional agency MBS purchases at the September 2012 FOMC meeting, agency MBS yields declined by roughly 30 basis points and option-adjusted spreads to Treasury securities narrowed by about 25 basis points. Over time, the primary mortgage rate also declined to about 3.3 percent, near its lowest levels on record. Even though the Committee is communicating a monthly pace and composition of purchases, in my opinion, the predominant effect on interest rates from changes in the Federal Reserve’s portfolio holdings comes from the expectations of the total stock of different risks that the Federal Reserve will remove from private investors and the length of time that it will hold these risks.

Implementation of the current asset purchase program As you may know, one of the roles of the Desk at the New York Fed is to implement monetary policy, including the current purchase program, on behalf of the FOMC. As always, the Desk seeks to implement policy in a manner that obtains competitive prices in its transactions, minimizes market disruptions, and achieves the Committee’s policy objectives. I would like to take some time to explain how the Desk is conducting its operations, with a particular focus on our agency MBS purchases. Outright purchases of agency MBS are executed in the To-Be-Announced, or TBA market. The TBA market is a forward market that is built around a trading convention that allows market participants to trade thousands of different agency MBS backed by millions of individual mortgages. The market uses only a few standardized contracts, which are grouped based on key characteristics such as the agency, term, coupon, or settlement date of the security that will be delivered. At the settlement date, TBA sellers have the option to deliver any agency MBS that meet the contract requirements. Sellers have an incentive to identify securities that are the most economical to deliver into the contract – these so-called “cheapest-to-deliver” agency MBS are generally the least valuable because their underlying mortgages tend to have higher prepayment risk.
John C Williams: Business more like usual Remarks (via videoconference) by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Economic Club of New York, 27 September 2021. * * * As prepared for delivery Thank you for that kind introduction. It’s a great honor for me to be addressing members of the Economic Club of New York today, the first time I’m doing so since becoming the Club’s Chair. Today’s event was scheduled to take place in person, and we were really looking forward to the opportunity to come together. But predicting the future is nearly impossible, and here we are meeting virtually. I say it’s “nearly” impossible to predict the future because I plan to share my outlook for the U.S. economy with you all over the next few minutes! We’re not the only ones that expected business to be “more like usual” at this point in time. But the direct and indirect effects of the virus continue to shape the way we live our lives, do our work, and come together with others. On top of that, signs of the Delta variant’s impact are showing up in the incoming data, contributing to more uncertainty about the future. Business, in fact, is unusual in many ways, and continues to reflect the extraordinary nature of the pandemic. In my remarks today I’ll share more about how these effects relate to the economic outlook for the nation and right here in New York.

I’ll also go into some detail about the outlook for inflation. Finally, I’ll discuss what this means for monetary policy and the road ahead. Before I continue, I need to give the standard Fed disclaimer that the views I express today are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or others in the Federal Reserve System. Economic Outlook I’ll start by saying that the headline of our economic story is good news: the recovery continues to show solid momentum. But the subheading is that we’ll need to be patient. Even with the strong pace of growth we experienced much of this year, a full recovery from the pandemic will take time to complete. The adjustment to rapidly changing circumstances, along with a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, is affecting consumer spending and jobs, sustaining supply bottlenecks in sectors such as autos, and delaying a full reopening of the service sector. So, to continue with the news analogy, here’s the lede: I expect gross domestic product, or GDP, to increase around 5 ½ to 6 percent this year. My current forecast accounts for strong growth in the first half of 2021, but also balances some slowing of growth in the remainder of the year relative to the first half. Now I’ll turn to employment, something I know many of you as business leaders watch closely. Job gains by and large have been strong in recent months.