samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Nonetheless, had this economic outcome been offered as a forward contract in the early summer months, absolutely everyone would have been a buyer. So what explains this faster-than-expected recovery? And, crucially, will it persist in the face of the unholy trinity of risks from Covid, unemployment and Brexit that potentially lie in store? These are related questions because behaviours exhibited by households and businesses so far are likely to be revealing about what impact future risks might have. Habits tend to persist. That means, for all the uncertainty about the outlook, the UK’s recent economic performance does offer some signal about the future outlook. The simplest explanation for the upside surprises to UK activity over recent months would be that lockdown measures have been released sooner and faster than expected. But the pace of release from lockdown in the UK has in fact been broadly in line with what the Bank had expected in May. The biggest surprise has been the robustness of peoples’ spending behaviour in the face of lockdown constraints and other risks, not the evolution of these constraints and risks per se. 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  3  The behaviour of UK consumers has been most surprising. Based on our suite of fast indicators, UK consumption has been rising by, on average, around 2% per week since May.2 As best we can tell, consumer spending now stands at around pre-Covid levels.

Most of the work in terms of harmonising investment products across the EU has already been agreed. Progress on savings products has also been achieved. In particular, the development of the market for the Pan-European Pension Product is particularly relevant considering the situation of public finances in many EU countries and the challenges posed by population ageing. But, looking ahead, greater headway is needed over the coming years. In particular, allow me to highlight three dimensions. First, the legal framework: Insolvency regimes vary widely across jurisdictions for financial and non-financial corporations, as a result of cultural traditions and legal frameworks. This is a major obstacle for cross-country investments and, I would add, a very difficult one indeed to overcome. Second, the strengthening of European regulators. As European markets become more integrated and technologically complex, this is becoming a more essential element that policy-makers need to address. It will be even more important since, depending on the final outcome of negotiations, Brexit might increase the risk of fragmentation, as some companies and transactions may be reallocated to various possible destinations, while others may remain in the UK. 8/11  Third, more needs to be done in terms of making capital taxation more consistent. The debate has stalled in this regard. For example, the various regimes for withholding taxes, with more than 90 types of forms in different languages, are often cited as a huge obstacle for investment by market participants. Moreover, the favorable tax treatment of debt compared to that of equity has significant economic implications.
And the last seven years are not the only productivity puzzle in history that we can’t explain. Economists are still arguing over the explanation of the industrial revolution which as I said heralded the largest step-change in productivity growth ever seen But even if we can’t fully explain the puzzle, we can I think now point to an alignment of factors that suggest that productivity growth will start to move in the right direction over the next few years. This is of course the MPC’s forecast. It is not a given. We have been disappointed by UK productivity often over the last seven years. We seem now to be coming to the end of the reservoir of labour capacity and to the end of low cost labour. So if productivity were to continue to disappoint over the next few years, other, lower growth outcomes are likely to follow. I have set out why I think that is not the most likely scenario. But I for one will continue to watch the evolution of pay and productivity very carefully as it is crucial to the prospects for growth and inflation in the UK over the next three years. And, when it comes to productivity, I very much hope the UK economy as a whole will take its lead from the UK automotive industry. Thank you. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches

As a result, the Norwegian financial system only had limited exposure to the subprime mortgage market – notwithstanding some municipalities in the northern part of Norway that got involved, with a less than full understanding of inherent risks. Our banks were therefore relatively unaffected by the recent crisis when it comes to credit risk. The downturn that our economy experienced in 2009 was modest in relation to other countries – but this is of course also due to the composition of our production and exports, with oil accounting for a large share. More than two decades ago, in the early stages of the Norwegian banking crisis, Norges Bank provided a large liquidity loan to a savings bank. The bank, however, soon became insolvent. We learnt how fast illiquidity can turn into insolvency. At the time, the bank was rescued partly by Norges Bank writing off its loan. This incident showed that it was important to clarify the division of responsibilities between the central bank and the fiscal authorities. The Government Bank Insurance Fund was established, which would be able to extend loans and inject capital into distressed banks in the future. The aim was to make sure Norges Bank avoided intruding into the arena of the fiscal authorities. It is not up to an independent central bank to spend taxpayers’ money. When Norwegian banks’ funding dried up in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, government bonds were swapped for covered bonds issued by banks.
M R Pridiyathorn Devakula: Thailand's emergence from the crisis - new paradigm for sustainable growth Speech by Mr M R Pridiyathorn Devakula, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the International Conference on "Economic Recovery and Reforms", Bangkok, 28 October 2002. *  *  *  Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my great pleasure to be here with you tonight. I would like to begin by welcoming you all once again to Bangkok and to this important international conference on Economic Recovery and Reforms. I would also like to express our appreciation to the Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, the main organizer of the conference, in allowing the Bank of Thailand to co-host the event. Our appreciation also goes to the distinguished scholars who came from all over the world to share with us their perspectives on this important topic. To many of us here, especially those in the Asian region, the 1997 financial crisis has completely changed our lives. It was, in a way, a sharp reversal of fortune when suddenly things that were thought to be good before the crisis became no longer good enough. And terms like ‘restructuring’ and ‘reforms’ have then become something of a norm. This long and tiresome journey has now lasted for more than five years, and naturally begs a question, “when are we going to get out of this abyss?” This question is particularly pertinent to Thailand. After all, the Asian crisis started here.

I am thinking particularly of the injunction to smile and whistle through all difficulties. Certainly I am sometimes tempted, when asked to explain the state of opinion in London, to take refuge in a cheery smile, and to begin to whistle a mournful tune (not easy to do at the same time, you will find). Fortunately, it is not my responsibility to discuss the politics of EMU in the United Kingdom. Another good reason for me not to do so is that I would like to keep my job. As a humble central banker, a mere technician, it is more appropriate for me to focus on the economic dimension of EMU and to say something, also, about the financial market implications which concern us, particularly given the Bank of England’s position at the heart of the City of London. In both these areas - economic and financial - the Boy Scout motto is particularly apposite today. Let me explain why. At the Bank of England we have always held the view that Economic and Monetary Union is a momentous enterprise, with huge consequences for European economies. The act of irrevocably fixing exchange rates, between economies which have in many cases been managed separately for centuries, is not a step to be undertaken lightly. It is an exciting venture, almost too exciting for some, perhaps.
The policy consensus that has emerged from this experience has a more cautious view of the benefits of financial integration, a greater awareness of the damage caused by creating incentives that distort the composition of flows and a greater appreciation of the importance of having in place a strong set of institutions, in the financial system in particular. It has also fostered a greater skepticism within governments of their ability to sustain and adjust a set of limited controls on capital flows, once an economy has passed a certain point of relative openness. Money tends to move around these controls with progressive ease, and it becomes more difficult over time to counteract this force with acceptable costs to other objectives. For this basic reason, many emerging market governments that were early proponents of selective controls have moved to eliminate them. Faced with the challenges of managing policy in an increasingly integrated world economy, the dominant instinct of officials is often to try to shield the economy from volatility. But the crises of the 1990s helped demonstrate why this approach can be both futile and counterproductive. As economies become more open to capital flows, policies designed to insulate an economy from external shocks, whether they be fixed exchange rate regimes or selective capital controls and restrictions on international transactions, rarely offer durable stability, and they bring additional risks. These risks come in the form of additional distortions that might undermine future growth or magnify vulnerability to future financial volatility.

We – in this case I mean the IMF, its major creditors and the governments in the region – treated these cases as closer to the illiquidity extreme on the continuum, rather than to the insolvency extreme. In the Asian crisis countries, unlike in Russia or Argentina, there was no plausible case for arguing that the sovereign governments had accumulated debts they were unable to repay. A forced restructuring of the external debt of a country or a forced suspension of payments on those obligations would have made the crisis in Asia, and more broadly, substantially worse. These were not conditions of insolvency, but nor were they purely temporary liquidity problems that could have been addressed through the quick infusion of unconditional finance without any change in policies. The crisis economies all tried that strategy in the weeks and in some cases months before going to the IMF for assistance. Those strategies failed not simply because the governments ran out of reserves, but because they had failed to embrace a broader set of policy changes powerful enough to restore confidence in future stability and growth. It is worth emphasizing that the strategies ultimately adopted in each case were quite unorthodox and were certainly not uniform. Besides the novel approach adopted in terms of the scale and structure of financing and the degree of international cooperation in support of the programs, the policy packages were also notable in the degree of emphasis placed on, for example, financial-sector reform and improvements to disclosure.
With more than 25 million members and an average CET1 ratio of more than 26%, the building society sector was well placed to weather the storm from a financial resilience perspective, extending more than £ billion of new loans in 2020 and offering a peak of more than 300,000 payment deferrals to customers in financial difficulty. From an operational perspective, societies also adapted quickly to lockdowns and home-working arrangements, with almost all society branches continuing to serve their members through the pandemic. But the disruption caused by Covid-19 has shown why it is critically important for firms to identify the key services they provide and invest in their resilience. Societies – like all of 1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  us – have witnessed an acceleration in technology innovation over the last year. Continuing to build on these developments and incorporating them into operating models will be important, both for the sector’s operational resilience, but also for serving the evolving needs of the sector’s members. As we sit here today, the outlook looks better than we might have expected a year ago. But a considerable amount of uncertainty remains, not least as many of the bridging measures put in place by the authorities begin to roll off. Though it may now look less likely, additional financial and operational pressures may still be on the horizon, and we will be monitoring that closely.

The data shows that, between May and September 2022, companies took out green loans totalling 976 million lei (0.56 percent of the corporate loan portfolio). The composition of these green loans was dominated by credit for green buildings (42 percent), followed by loans for electricity and heating and cooling systems (24 percent) and those for energy efficiency (13 percent). Last but not least, a word on economic growth. For 2022, the annual real GDP growth is estimated to reach about 5 percent, which is lower than the one recorded in 2021. For the past year, growth was driven by the substantial advance during the first part of last year. In 2023 domestic economic activity is projected to lose significant momentum, due to certain substantial adverse influences, as previously mentioned. A favourable contribution to economic growth is expected to come, particularly over the medium term, from European funds, including the Next Generation EU programme. With these in mind, I now invite Vice-President Pavlova to take the floor. Afterwards, I wish you all fruitful discussions, stemming from the EIB Investment Survey findings. Thank you. 3/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches
In addition, forward guidance delivered in the years following the financial crisis had a clear and direct effect on driving policy expectations and financial conditions. Keeping inflation expectations anchored at the right point will depend not just on policymakers holding themselves accountable for inflation, but on their ability to clearly execute and communicate their policies. Conclusion I’ll finish with this. It’s risky to make predictions about the future. But in many ways the future is already here. Low r-star and declining inflation expectations are clear indicators of what’s to come. There’s been a great deal of discussion about how central banks around the world, and the Federal Reserve in particular, are going to deal with the challenges that lie ahead. As the FOMC engages on its ongoing framework review, it is important to state again that any changes to our monetary policy framework must and will be carefully and thoughtfully considered. As long as we double down on the fundamentals of inflation targeting by anchoring inflation expectations at the target level, holding ourselves accountable to delivering on our objectives, and being transparent about our actions, we will be well positioned to handle whatever the future might bring. Thank you. 1 Archer, David J. Inflation Targeting in New Zealand, Seminar presentation, International Monetary Fund,  Washington, D.C., March 20–21, 2000.

As I peer into the future, the question is not so much what is wrong with inflation targeting, but rather what we need to preserve and, in fact, strengthen it. Any evolution of the current framework should involve doubling down on fundamental principles that have proven to be successful. What do I mean by that? There are three fundamental elements of inflation targeting that will be crucial as central banks work to prevent inflation from drifting too low: well-anchored inflation expectations, accountability, and transparency. Inflation Expectations, Accountability, and Transparency The most critical element is anchoring inflation expectations at the right level. For those of you who lived through the 1970s and 1980s, the specter of high inflation probably still looms large. But millennials and Generation Z have never faced the prospect of paying 15 percent on a mortgage. It’s often claimed that we don’t really understand what drives inflation expectations. But, in fact, researchers have made significant progress on this topic. Research using a number of approaches has found that the history of inflation plays a big role in inflation expectations. Now, this does not mean that expectations are a mechanical average of past inflation, like in traditional versions of adaptive expectations. Instead, the key finding of this research is that inflation expectations depend on the historical behavior of inflation as shaped by the conduct of monetary policy.
BIS Review 9/2001  3  Monetary Aggregates Taking into account the assumptions for the inflation rate, the real growth of the gross domestic product and the increase in the real demand for money in 2001, it is estimated that the nominal growth in the demand for money, expressed through the money supply M1 will equal 12.0%. In 2001, the money supply M2 – Denar component and the broadest money supply M4 should increase by 12.1% and 13.3%, respectively. The projected growth in the money supply will enable regular execution of financial transactions in the economy and adequate liquidity of the banking sector, and simultaneously, will not disturb the stability of the domestic currency. Reserve money and foreign currency net-purchase The stability of the monetary multiplier, in other words the existence of stable connection between the reserve money and the money supply has been taken as an initial presumption when projecting the reserve money. Accordingly, in 2001 the reserve money is planned to increase by 12.0% in order to meet the projected growth in the money supply. The reserve money issuance is planned to be carried out through the foreign exchange transactions of the NBRM. In 2001, the supply is planned to exceed the demand for foreign currency on the foreign exchange market.

In addition, we have seen surges in demand for certain goods that have outstripped available supply. The clearest example is used cars, which are in very high demand, reflecting factors such as the needs of a remote workforce, stimulus payments, and demand from rental car companies. At the same time, the supply of vehicles has been held back by earlier production cutbacks and shortages of semiconductor chips. This imbalance in supply and demand has caused used car prices to soar. Looking forward, supply will slowly come back online, and I therefore expect car prices to stabilize and then decline over time to more normal levels. 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  We have already seen this type of dynamic play out in some sectors. The latest data show growth in wholesale used car prices slowing in the first half of June.4 And lumber prices, which soared during the pandemic as housing demand surged and supply struggled to keep up, have declined sharply in recent weeks. I expect that as price reversals and short-run imbalances from the economy reopening play out, inflation will come down from around 3 percent this year to close to 2 percent next year and in 2023. It goes without saying that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the inflation outlook, and I will be watching the data closely. The Fed’s Policy Response It’s clear that the economy is improving at a rapid rate, and the medium-term outlook is very good.
If a product needs to be recalled, the manufacturer updates the common data pool with an instruction, alerting the distributor or dispenser at the next point in the supply chain. If a recalled product has already been sold, the points of sale can be tracked and those affected can be notified. Panic is no longer systemic; it is quickly localised. (c)  Mapping the network  If data are not standardised, mapping complex networks is a high-dimension jigsaw puzzle. Understanding the underlying picture is taxing and time-consuming. Capturing the same data in a standardised way means that plotting the network becomes a much simpler game of join-the-dots. Experience with both product supply chains and the World Wide Web demonstrate the benefits of doing just that. In global product space, the recent work of Ricardo Hausmann and colleagues gives us some tantalising glimpses of the possibilities. They have recently constructed an “Atlas of Economic Complexity”.17 This is a visual representation of the product categories that contribute significantly to a country’s exports. Those product categories can in turn be mapped to measures of complexity. For example, iPhones are the fruits of a more complex manufacturing process than ice-cubes. This product network mapping provides new insights into trading opportunities and risks. For example, it allows country-specific measures of economic complexity to be constructed. These can explain almost three-quarters of the variation in income across countries.

Senior Supervisors Group (2010), “Observations on Developments in Risk Appetite Frameworks and IT Infrastructure”, December. Senior Supervisors Group (2009), “Risk Management Lessons from the Global Banking Crisis of 2008”, October. SIL International (2009), http://www.ethnologue.com. “Ethnologue:  Languages  of  the  World”,  available  at  Tett, G (2012), “Guiding light needed to cut through data fog”, Financial Times, 8 March 2012. Vise, D A and Malseed, M (2005), “The Google Story”, Pan Books. World Trade Organisation www.wto.org/statistics. BIS central bankers’ speeches  (2011),  “International  Trade  Statistics”,  available  at  17