samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Turalay Kenç: Fostering longstanding relations – opening of the Bundesbank Representative Office in Istanbul Speech by Mr Turalay Kenç, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, at the Opening Ceremony of the Bundesbank’s Representative Office, Istanbul, 26 November 2013. *  *  *  Excellency Wolke, Esteemed Dr. Dombret, Distinguished Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, At the outset, allow me to express the pleasure and appreciation of the Central Bank of Turkey on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Bundesbank’s Representative Office in our beautiful city of İstanbul. It is a distinct honour for me to have the opportunity to deliver a couple of remarks before distinguished participants in this historical opening event, as this is the first representative office in Turkey of a fellow central bank. First of all, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) is very pleased with the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) this year with your esteemed central bank. This is so, not only because the majority of the Bundesbank policies have been regarded as gold standards in central banking, but also because the Bundesbank is the central bank of Germany that is our main trading partner and highest ranking foreign capital provider. The MoU agreement manifests the commitment of both institutions to foster long standing relations.

In the spirit of the MoU agreement, a primary step in our cooperation is to establish high level policy dialogue with the Bundesbank on a regular basis, the first of which will be held in 2014. This is timely, considering that not only will Turkey assume the G20 presidency in 2015 and engage in an even closer interaction with the central banks of the G20 member states, but will also help meet the recently increased need for policy dialogues over the implementation and implications of new unconventional monetary policies. In general, the CBRT places great emphasis on bilateral relations with fellow central banks, especially those of the G20 member countries. The year 2012 is a testament to our commitment, as the CBRT opened six new representative offices, which brought the total number to ten. The first-round representative offices include those in Frankfurt, NY City, London and Tokyo. The ones opened later on are in Moscow and Sydney – to strengthen relations with other G20 presidency countries; Beijing and Kuala Lumpur – to strengthen relations with the Asian countries; Paris – to strengthen relations with the OECD, and finally Washington, DC – to strengthen relations with the IMF. In her efforts to enhance regional cooperation, the CBRT laid the foundations of the dialogue among central banks that paved the way for the establishment of the Central Banks Governors’ Club of Central Asia, the Black Sea Region and the Balkan Countries.
Taking advantage of this opportunity wisely can benefit exporters immensely. The second source of opportunities is the upcoming regional economic integration. With the advent of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), intra-regional trade volume will grow given that more trade barriers are removed. With its geographical advantage, especially its proximity to the vibrant CLMV countries, Thailand gets a head start in positioning itself as an investment and production hub for the AEC, although this requires continued efforts on minimizing regulatory burdens for businesses and increasing regional connectivity by strategic investment in logistics and transportation systems. After all, combining the capital and the technology of more advanced members with the cost advantage of newer members will result in a synergy that benefits the region as a whole. It should be noted, also, that the rising significance of intra-regional trade will serve the region well as an additional buffer against weak global environments. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  To support Thai businesses to seek investment opportunities abroad, the Bank of Thailand continues to gradually relax capital flow regulations, initially on outward direct investment and more recently on portfolio investment for Accredited Investors. On a related note, to facilitate banking integration, ASEAN central banks are also in the process of negotiating the common standard of Qualified ASEAN Banks (QABs), which will allow qualified banks to expand into other ASEAN countries with greater ease.

But despite the extraordinary policies in major economies, despite reassuring words of global authorities, despite considerable reform efforts, the healthy state of full recovery seems to be constantly pushed away from us. At this point in time, the world is still struggling in what I would like to describe as the state of “indecisiveness”. First is the indecisiveness that we have about growth prospects. Mixed signals and counteracting forces abound, and it has become less obvious how global economic forces will -equilibrate. The talk of the two-speed or three-speed world, which was heard frequently earlier this year, proves to be an oversimplication of a much more complicated reality. Among advanced economies, the U.S. and Japan seem to have gathered some tangible traction as of late. But one should be reminded that the impact of sequestration in the U.S. is still yet to be felt fully. And one should also be reminded that for Japan, contradicting policy objectives could lead to considerable trade-offs, coupled with the fact that the public debt situation there could become more sensitive to possible rises in bond yields given that we are already in the later stage of the global easing cycle. On the other hand, emerging Asia continues to post relatively high growth compared to the rest of the world. But in the absolute term, economic momentum seems to be losing some steam, and it is also possible that the extent of the shadow banking problems in China could be underestimated.
Mugur Isărescu: External deficit financing and macroeconomic adjustment during the financial crisis – the case of Romania Dissertation by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, on the occasion of being admitted to the Reial Acadèmia de Doctors, Barcelona, 24 November 2009. *  *  *  Introduction The issue of the financing-adjustment relation can be best described starting from the corporate level. Here, an adjustment programme may attract financing only if the envisaged changes are trustworthy. Corporations may raise the funds necessary to fulfil the new goals via capital increases made by owners, via taking out new bank loans or selling newly-issued corporate bonds to the public. At macroeconomic level things are much the same, but instead of a company’s balance sheet, we speak about a country’s balance of payments with its two accounts, i.e. the capital account and the current account. These accounts register the continuous changes reflecting the country’s foreign transactions. The direction of such changes may differ from one year to another. For this reason, not any change in the equilibrium of the two accounts may be defined as an adjustment. In order to describe an adjustment in the balance of payments, the key concepts are the improvement or the worsening in the balance of either account. The improvement concept may apply, separately, both to the current account and the capital account.

We have therefore appointed a special commission of inquiry into the Swedish housing market – a broader and more coherent approach which will supplement the analysis of individual issues that we and others conduct. The inquiry will be based on two perspectives – financial stability and monetary policy. …not just the Riksbank’s field Having said this, I would like to point out, or rather repeat something I have mentioned on previous occasions. Monetary policy can probably only function as a complement to effective regulation and supervision. Moreover, households have a responsibility to make realistic assessments of what interest expenditure they can manage in the long run. The current interest rate reflect the management of an acute crisis and not monetary policy under normal circumstances. And as shown in our interest rate forecast we will probably begin raising the repo rate within six months. The banks must also make responsible assessments when lending money. Here Finansinspektionen, the Swedish financial supervisory authority, plays an important role due to its task of examining banks and credit institutions from a consumer perspective. Finansinspektionen also has the possibility to implement more targeted measures than the Riksbank has. The repo rate is a blunt instrument that affects the whole economy. In February Finansinspektionen warned that even moderate falls in house prices could mean that a number of households have mortgages that exceed the market value of their property. Finansinspektionen believes there is reason to consider new regulations regarding household loans in relation to collateral to create better margins.
It was of course in those days as much a private as a public Bank and these branches soon became important sources of credit in the regional economy. The Birmingham branch was successful – in more ways than one. One of the Bank staff dispatched hurriedly to establish the new branch was an 18 year old clerk called Charles Geach. In line with the nepotism prevailing at the time, he had joined the Bank through the influence of his uncle. But he was clearly talented and energetic – so much so that when in 1836 a group of midlands businessmen decided to establish the Midland bank (or the Birmingham & Midland Bank to give it its full name) they chose the 28 year old Bank of England clerk to be its manager. th  In the dynamic and growing British economy of the first half of the 19 century, and in the heartland of precision manufacturing, the Midland Bank was hugely successful; shortly after the turn of the century it was the largest bank in the country. Geach’s rise was also meteoric; he was mayor of Birmingham before he was 40 and left the bank to enter parliament at 43 – by which time he was also one of the leading entrepreneurs in the country. This illustrious career however was cut short by illness and he died a few years later, as a result, according to his obituary, of the noxious air in the Palace of Westminster.

7  My colleague Ben Broadbent has noted that the difficult-to-reverse nature of investment projects creates an option value of waiting which increases with uncertainty leading firms to require projects not just to cover the initial cost but to do so by a wide margin. See 'Uncertain Times', Speech given by Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor, Monetary Policy at the Wall Street Journal, The News Building, London. October 2016, available at: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/2016/929.aspx. 8 Eg, Gilchrist, Sim and Zakrajsek (2014), 'Uncertainty, financial frictions, and investment dynamics', NBER WP 20038 and Christiano, Motti, Rostagno (2014), 'Risk shocks', American Economic Review 104(1), 27-65). 12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  12  Risk aversion was cited as an obstacle by 70% of the underinvesting firms. This may be due to 'scarring effects' from the crisis which markedly lowered returns from investment in 2009 and increased the cost of finance. Interestingly, nearly 40% of firms in the survey had a hurdle rate above the rate of return they had experienced on investment in the past five years, suggesting perhaps that for many firms investment has not met expectations. Such experiences may have increased both risk aversion and uncertainty. This would be consistent with other more general studies documenting enduring risk aversion (or scarring). 9  Academic literature suggests that experience of adverse events can affect future risk-taking behaviour. There is evidence that individuals who experienced the Great Depression reported lower willingness to take financial risk throughout their lives.
This is a challenging judgment for an organisation specialising in tail risk insurance, and with a broad policy remit – but initially we have focused on the public commitments to provide market-wide and firm-specific liquidity insurance through the Bank’s current set of facilities and operations. The scenarios we have so far explored are also consistent with this scope, and include examples of both domestic and international shocks, affecting banks, non-banks and capital markets. Wherever possible these are based on the scenarios used by the Bank’s supervisors in their work with industry, but with typically higher severity: consistent with the assumption that firms should be capable of surviving supervisory stress tests using their own resources. It is only when firms’ liquidity needs go beyond the level that could reasonably be covered by their own resources that the central bank is called upon to act in size: the image of the firefighter in action once again. So what do we do with the results of this work? In the private sector, of course, stress tests are used to inform desired capital levels, and that is certainly something we consider too. But they can also have a wider influence, as we found last year when we ran an exercise to evaluate the potential implications of uncertainty surround different possible outcomes of the UK referendum on membership of the European Union. The results of that work helped to inform judgments on collateral pre-positioning and haircuts, engagement with fellow central banks, and our own supervisory actions and conversations.

All of that has changed in recent years as central banks have taken exceptional actions to stabilise economies and financial systems, driving a huge expansion in the scale and complexity of our market operations and balance sheet exposures. Those actions have delivered vital policy outcomes. But they have also led to entirely appropriate demands for central banks to demonstrate the highest levels of professionalism, transparency and accountability in their management of what are, ultimately, public exposures. As Executive Director at the Bank of England in charge of our second line financial risk function, I want to explain how we have responded to these developments: setting out the new framework, structures and tools that we have put in place to monitor and challenge our own financial risk – and illustrating them with some practical case studies. A central goal of our work has been to apply the latest thinking in private sector risk management wherever we can. But that has also highlighted a number of areas where central banks have to handle risk in very different ways to commercial banks. Drawing out those similarities and differences will be a key subsidiary theme of my remarks, and will I hope help frame a lively discussion later in our session today. Central banks as financial firefighters  Let me start with two of the most profound differences, because they colour everything that follows.
All these make Singapore a natural gateway connecting India to ASEAN and East Asia, as well as a launch pad for products and services of the future. Conclusion These are exciting times in Asia. Countries have the opportunity to transform their economies, and substantially improve the lives of their people. For companies, many opportunities are opening up, which will surely be seized, if not by you then by your competitors. Globalisation is an unstoppable phenomenon, presenting opportunities to those who are prepared but threatening the unconverted. It will not be easy for countries to realise this promise of globalisation, and avoid its many hazards each on their own. They need to look beyond their borders to tap and leverage on one another’s strengths. I believe that Southeast Asia will rise to the challenge, hold its own as an attractive market and investment destination, and at the same time be an integral part of a booming Asia. India is a major part of the Asian story. I look forward to deepening and broadening the ties between these two regions, and in particular between India and Singapore, to the benefit of our economies, our private sectors, and our peoples. BIS Review 3/2004  5

Europe’s “monetary constitution” builds on the experiences of a long historical process of trial-anderror, often with painful economic consequences, which led to the insight that in order to “safeguard the currency” (Bundesbank Act of 1957) and “defend the savings” of the people (Banca d’Italia mandate), the management of the currency should be entrusted to an independent central bank, with the primary objective of maintaining price stability, and which should not be allowed to directly finance the public sector. The extensive empirical evidence collected over many years and for a wide range of countries broadly and unambiguously confirms the beneficial effects of central bank autonomy for inflation performance.6 Chart 9 clearly demonstrates that countries with more independent central banks have enjoyed lower average inflation without experiencing lower average economic growth (Blinder, 1998). Recent studies show that central banks in most countries (not only in advanced economies but also in emerging market and developing countries) have been granted higher degrees of autonomy over the past twenty years (Arnone, 2007). In addition, in the low-inflation environment currently prevailing in industrialised countries, those central banks endowed with a larger degree of independence are succeeding in maintaining price stability, as recent work at the ECB has demonstrated (Moutot et al., 2007).
Alternatively, the rise in competition, either domestically or  15  from abroad, may have limited the ability of firms to pass cost increases to consumers for fear of losing market share. Another important consideration of a more cyclical nature is firms’ profitability, which determines how much and how fast wage growth feeds into prices. To the extent that firms have buffers - comfortable profit margins - they may be able to absorb higher wage costs without increasing prices” (IMF, REO - Europe, November 2019). 7.0  2014  2012  2013  2010  2011  2008  2009  2006  2007  2004  2005  2002  2003  2018  2016  2017  2014  -3.0  2015  -6.0  2012  -2.0  2013  -1.0  -4.0  2010  -2.0  2011  0.0  2008  1.0  0.0  2009  2.0  2006  2.0  2007  3.0  4.0  2004  6.0  2005  4.0  2002  8.0  2003  Euro area  5.0  2018  Euro area  10.0  CESEE  6.0  2016  CESEE  12.0  2017  14.0  Chart 19: CESEE and Euro area labor productivity per person employed (change in percent)  2015  Chart 18: CESEE and Euro area unit labor cost (change in percent)  Source: Eurostat, SEE Jobs Gateway Database, National Statistics  Source: Eurostat and The Conference Board Total Economy  and Authors’ calculation.

These measures included tightening of debt service to income ratio (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and/or loan to value ratio rule for housing loans (the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovenia), limits to the maximum maturity of consumer loans (Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and more stringent risk weights on households loans (Poland, Slovenia, North Macedonia). Chart 9. Share of households with a DSTI above 40% (% of all indebted households and 90% confidence interval)  Source: Aleksandra Riedi “Household debt in CESEE economies: a joint look at macro- and micro-level data”, Focus on European Economic Integration, 2019, issue Q1/19  Recent OeNB study3 focusing on household debt in CESEE economies suggests that risks associated to households’ leverage have moderated post-crisis, but need monitoring in order to timely address potential vulnerabilities. The inference is based not purely on the level and dynamics, but some structural features as well, such as the currency and interest rate structure. Yet, estimated debt service to income ratio (DSTI) 4 for all households in all CESEE countries is below 40%, as commonly used threshold in the literature for potential vulnerabilities related to household debt burden. Debt service burden is lowest in Hungary and the Czech Republic, while Romania and Albania stand out as  3  Aleksandra Riedi “Household debt in CESEE economies: a joint look at macro- and micro-level data”, Focus on European Economic \Integration, 2019, issue Q1/19. The analysis uses macro-level data and data from the OeNB Euro Survey conducted in fall 2017.
François Villeroy de Galhau: Productivity - a collective enigma? Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Bank of France - France Stratégie Conference, Paris, 1 February 2017. * * * Welcome to all of you. It gives me great pleasure to be able to open this conference on French productivity, organised in conjunction with France Stratégie. The subject is one that is both topical and of great importance to central banks: productivity is one of the principal drivers of growth, and its dynamics are a strong determinant of potential growth, that which is compatible with price stability. As you can see [ slide], after the major wave of expansion witnessed during Les Trente Glorieuses, which was particularly marked in the case of France, productivity growth in advanced countries has slowed in successive stages since the 1970s. Today, it has fallen back to a pace that is historically weak. What are the common factors behind this slowdown in productivity? And is there anything specific to France? I don’t believe so: if there is one thing that is specific to France, it is the high level of hourly productivity – one of the highest in the world, alongside that of the United States and Germany. So, rather than being a French enigma, the enigma we are looking at this morning seems to me to be more of a collective phenomenon.

I would like to finish with the structural projects, on which I hope we will be able to make progress this year: the efficient firefighters of the crisis must gradually hand over to the architects. This is what I would like to see for France, centred around our two major medium-term economic challenges: insufficient potential growth, associated with the lack of skills and workforce available to businesses; and excessive public debt and current expenses. We must also strengthen our architecture in Europe: this year we must finalise regulations for traditional players (banks with Basel III, insurance with Solvency II), but also regulate new activities: cryptoassets and decentralised finance. The Banque de France and the ACPR will actively contribute to this within the framework of the French Presidency of the European Union. This French Presidency will have served the euro well in its 20th year if it also makes progress on two as yet unfinished imperatives, the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union. They are indeed a prerequisite for better channelling European savings towards the ecological and digital transformations, as I mentioned earlier. Indeed, happy New Year 2022 to Europe, to our dear country and especially to each of you! 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches