samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
On the demand side, the main changes in the first quarter were the slowdown in investment in machinery and equipment and in exports (Figure 2). This coincides with the deterioration of the external scenario in recent quarters and an inventory buildup that has not been undone as expected. On the other hand, investment in construction and other works and consumption evolved as expected, without major changes compared to the previous quarters. All in a context where various indicators show an increase in job creation. Headline inflation as measured by the CPI and core inflation (CPI excluding food and energy, CPIEFE) continue near 2% per year. In the case of the CPI, with a level that has increased somewhat in the most recent past (Figure 3). In any case, the same phenomena identified in the March Report are still present: greater competition in certain markets, wider capacity gaps than previously estimated and lower pass-through of the accumulated peso depreciation than its historical averages. II.2. Updating the structural parameters As I just said, in this Report we have updated the estimates of the structural parameters that are used to assess the state of the economy, its outlook and the calibration of monetary policy. This allowed mainly to quantify the effect of the massive immigration flow of recent years on trend and potential growth, increasing both. It was also possible to compare the impact on the neutral MPR of a higher trend growth with that of the fall in international interest rates.

MONETARY POLICY REPORT PRESENTATION BEFORE THE FINANCE COMMISSION OF THE HONORABLE SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC  Mario Marcel Governor Central Bank of Chile 10 June 2019   The June 2019 Monetary Policy Report can be found on http://www.bcentral.cl. I. Introduction  Mr President of the Senate’s Finance Commission, senator Ricardo Lagos-Weber, Senators members of this Commission, ladies, gentlemen, I am grateful for your invitation to present the vision of the Board of the Central Bank of Chile on recent macroeconomic developments, outlook and monetary policy implications. This vision is detailed in our June 2019 Monetary Policy Report released this morning. Its contents also provide the background for the decision adopted by the Board in its monetary policy meeting of last Friday. There we decided unanimously to reduce the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 50 basis points, taking it to 2.5%. Key in this decision was our evaluation that the monetary policy had to be recalibrated, because the delivered impulse was not enough to ensure the timely convergence of inflation to the 3% target in light of the new CPI figures and the new estimates for the activity gap and the neutral monetary policy rate. The vision that the macroeconomic scenario could need a different monetary impulse began to be forged in the March Monetary Policy Report, when the measurement of inflation with the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed us an increase in prices significantly smaller tan with the previous figures, postponing for about a year its convergence to the 3% target.
For around a quarter of a million households, debt is 6 times greater than income or higher. High indebtedness linked to rising housing prices As most of the debt consists of mortgages, the growing indebtedness reflects the development in housing prices. Prices of detached or semi-detached houses have tripled in the last 20 years, while prices of tenant-owned apartments have increased at an even faster rate. The rapid price increase depends on several factors, in addition to the low interest rate level. The population and income have increased, driving up housing demand while new housing construction has lagged behind, apart from in the most recent years. The abolition of property tax is also a  4 See the article "The repo rate in the long run” in the February 2017 Monetary Policy Report, Sveriges Riksbank. 5 [13]  factor that might explain the growing indebtedness, as is the fact that an increasing number of households own their own home. 5 The rate of increase in lending to households is still on a high level. The Riksbank’s assessment of future developments is that overall household debt will not rise at quite such a high rate as in recent years, due to more subdued housing price growth. But debt is still expected to increase more rapidly than disposable income. So the debt-to-income ratio will continue to rise.

Mugur Isărescu: The macroeconomic perspective in Romania Welcome speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the Romanian-Czech Business Forum, Bucharest, 20 May 2014. *  *  *  Your Excellency, President Zeman, you are most welcome here, at the National Bank of Romania, a place that holds within its walls countless pieces of history, tails of how Romania has grown into a modern state. We are privileged to greet here, today. Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, Allow me to extend a very warm welcome and thank you all for gracing us with your presence at the Romanian-Czech Business Forum. It is a great pleasure for the National Bank of Romania, and an honor for me and for the members of the board, to host what will be a substantial discussion about the challenges currently facing Europe, in particular the development of economic relations between the Czech Republic and Romania. Here, at the National Bank of Romania, we take pride in having always been a forum for debating, in an open and profound manner, the themes and trends defining our age. A few weeks ago we celebrated the 134-th anniversary of the Romanian National Bank, a central bank ranking 16-th in the world. During the break, after the working sessions, you are kindly invited to visit/walk the outstanding halls of the Old Palace of our national bank.
The real point is whether, given the bank’s particular circumstances, the risk management practices they adopt are adequate. And that, primarily, is a matter for the bank’s management to determine, although we will of course, given our statutory responsibilities, also have an interest in this. I stress these points for three particular reasons. First, because I don’t want anyone to think that we are against banks taking risk. We’re not. That’s the business they’re in. We simply want to make sure they recognise and manage the risk effectively. Second, because I want to make clear that we are not hell bent on driving banks to invest in unnecessarily sophisticated risk management systems. What’s appropriate will clearly vary from bank to bank, depending on the nature and scale of their business and the risks they run. Third, because I want to be perfectly clear that Basel II is not some underhand means of making life difficult for smaller banks by raising the hurdle too high in terms of what they need to spend on risk management and on regulatory compliance. Indeed, on the contrary, the whole thing is carefully designed so as to accommodate banks of all shapes and sizes. So, how will Basel II change banking in Hong Kong? The answer, I would suggest, is that we won’t see any dramatic changes overnight, but we will over time see some re-focusing of how the risks within banks are addressed, both by banks themselves and by the supervisors.

Beverly Hirtle: Opening remarks - Heterogeneity Blog Series Webinar Opening remarks by Ms Beverly Hirtle, Executive Vice President and Director of Research of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for the Heterogeneity Blog Series Webinar, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 4 March 2020. * * * As prepared for delivery I am delighted to be here today to introduce this webinar about our Liberty Street Economics blog series on heterogeneity in labor market outcomes. These blogs describe several ways that the forces shaping U.S. labor markets cause the experiences of workers to vary for different cohorts of individuals, including for women as compared to men; for high-wage versus lower-wage workers; and for workers who face more or less stringent constraints on their ability to borrow. These posts are based on research and analysis being conducted by New York Fed economists, part of continuing efforts by our economists to understand how economic outcomes vary for different groups in the economy. This series follows our inaugural set of posts on heterogeneity in October of last year, in what we hope will be an on-going discussion of work being done at the New York Fed and elsewhere to understand these important topics. In recent years, we have devoted considerable time and resources here at the New York Fed to develop data and analytical approaches to gain deeper insights into the experiences of workers and consumers.
This is hardly surprising given that housing loans constitute the larger part of credit extended to households. Now that the world economy is trying to shrug off the consequences of the liquidity crisis of late summer and falling house prices in America, the question as to how sound housing finance in converging CEE economies really is has become substantial. A reassuring answer to that question comes out of the analysis in a paper 7 presented in Session 4, which focuses on house prices in the CEE economies. The analysis has shown that the very rapid house price increases in our region have generally been based on fundamental factors: a boost in housing demand due to rising per capita GDP, falling real interest rates and demographic factors, coupled with the rapid development of housing markets and housing finance, virtually non-existent in the era of central planning. All in all, the house price inflation in the region seems to reflect a process of relatively fast convergence to a new equilibrium. Again, however, the question remains open whether that new equilibrium has already been reached or perhaps even overshot in some economies, and whether the rapid growth in mortgage loans that is a natural consequence of the housing boom can be safely described as sustainable. Experience has taught us that rapid credit growth cannot be ignored even if it reflects nothing more than a convergence process, as it usually means that loans have been extended to households with ever lower margins.

Krzysztof Rybiński: Rapid credit growth in converging economies – the challenges ahead Closing remarks by Mr Krzysztof Rybiński, Deputy President of the National Bank of Poland, at the National Bank of Poland International Conference of Central Bankers and Economic Educators “Monetary Policy Challenges Resulting from the Rapid Credit Growth in Converging Economies”, Warsaw, 23 November 2007. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, We have now come to the end of the conference on “Monetary Policy Challenges Resulting from the Rapid Credit Growth in Converging Economies”, and it is my honour to provide some concluding remarks. Over the last two days, we have been discussing opportunities, challenges and problems related to the rapid credit expansion in Central and East European (hereafter: CEE) economies that find themselves in a convergence process towards more advanced EU member states. In the following, let me briefly summarize the main conclusions that emerge from all the presentations and discussions. Before I proceed, I would like to thank you all for attending this conference, especially the speakers and discussants for their valuable contributions. Most of all, I would like to thank central bank governors from our region: Ms Júlia Király, Deputy Governor of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, Mr Andres Sutt, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Estonia, Mr Sławomir Skrzypek, President of the National Bank of Poland, and Mr Zdeněk Tůma, Governor of the Czech National Bank, for enriching this conference with their presence and their views.
4  Capgemini, RBS and EFMA, World Payments Report 2009, September 2009. 5  ECB, Payments Statistics (formerly known as the Blue Book) (see www.ecb.europa.eu). BIS Review 151/2009  3  Moving forward with an e-payments solution give a flying start to “SEPA for online payments”. Moreover, it could take the wind out of the sails of providers who make use of banks’ infrastructures but are not subject to the same strict security requirements. In my view, security is of crucial importance, especially for the online world. Overall, e-SEPA online services would come to the great benefit of corporate customers and consumers. At the same time, e-SEPA will be an additional revenue source to the banking sector. When can the payments industry expect to reach the full SEPA finishing line? As I have outlined, the key implication of SEPA is that the whole economy – consumers, corporates and banks – will benefit from it. So how can we bring this project closer to success? Let me mention two important ingredients, namely, first, a further improvement in the SEPA governance and, second, the necessity of a SEPA migration end date. On first point: SEPA governance. The EPC clearly plays a pivotal role in organising the stakeholder involvement around the design of the SEPA products, currently the SCT and SDD Rulebooks, and the SEPA Cards Framework. However, the governance of a project like SEPA requires that stakeholder involvement at the European level is made more balanced, bringing together stakeholders from all sides of the SEPA project.

The costs of fraud may not have reached commercially unacceptable levels, but in some countries they have reached socially unacceptable levels. So, we very much welcome the EPC taking a stance on these issues. The Eurosystem will also continue to monitor also this facet of the work on the integration of European payments. Improving information security, as well as preventing fraud should remain a key focus of attention in 2010. Ambition needed: SEPA for Cards and eSEPA A frequently asked question is whether the financial crisis has had an impact on the SEPA project and the pace of migration. During the financial crisis, banks’ retail payments business  1  Joint Statement of the European Commission and the ECB on the future SDD business model, 24 March 2009. 2  Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 on cross-border payments in the Community and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2560/2001. 3  For non-euro area banks the reachability deadline for euro direct debits is 1 November 2014. 2  BIS Review 151/2009  has proven to be a solid and stable source of revenue. At the same time, I understand that the retail payments are also a costly part of banks’ operations. The aim of SEPA is to make payments in euro more efficient, not just for customers but also for banks, which would strengthen the case for investment in the SEPA project. Despite the financial crisis, cashless payments increased, on a global basis, by almost 9% to 250 billion transactions per year in 2008.
Lars Heikensten: On clarity and flexibility Speech by Mr Lars Heikensten, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at a Center for Business and Policy Studies (SNS) seminar held in Stockholm on 9 May 2001. *  *  *  Let me begin by saying that I welcome this opportunity for a fundamental discussion on the way monetary policy is formulated. The background to today's discussion consists of a number of contributions to the debate in which it has been asserted in somewhat differing ways that the way we have chosen to formulate monetary policy is not sufficiently flexible. Our critics are of the opinion that by tying ourselves down to an inflation target of 2 per cent we risk allowing unacceptably high domestic inflation. And that we risk strengthening "bubbles" in asset prices. It has also sometimes been intimated, in so many words, that the way we have chosen to formulate policy is one explanation for the very weak exchange rate. Furthermore, in this debate, it has also been suggested that we should adopt less specific inflation targets, similar to those of the European Central Bank (ECB) and its American counterpart – The Federal Reserve. The debate has arisen primarily in three different contexts. How deregulation should be handled, to what extent asset prices should be taken into account, and the role the krona has to play in this analysis. The mainstay of my argument is that there are no simple solutions to any of these problems.

Philipp Hildebrand: The virtues of flexible financial markets - a central banking perspective Summary of a speech by Mr Philipp Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the CFA Institute Annual Conference, Zurich, 22 May 2006. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch)  *  *  *  Summary Rapid technological change and market liberalization have been the driving forces behind the remarkable evolution of global financial markets over the past three decades. The consequences of this development include a geographic rearrangement of global capital markets, a fast pace of product innovation and changes in the nature and composition of financial market participants. The benefits associated with today’s flexible financial markets are manifold. Financial markets have become much more efficient in allocating capital. New products enable a better distribution of risks and the liquefaction of previously illiquid assets. They have also increased market transparency. As a result, modern financial markets facilitated innovation and likely enhanced economic growth. Moreover, they have contributed to make economies more resilient to shocks. These extensive benefits notwithstanding, modern financial market also entails new risks. These risks tend to elicit calls for increasingly far-reaching regulation. While some regulation may indeed be required to guarantee the integrity of financial markets, the threshold for such regulation should be set high.
Jean-Claude Trichet: Interview with L’Espresso An interview with Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, conducted by Mr Claudio Lindner, published 15 September 2006. *  *  *  Mr Trichet, let us begin our examination of Europe with the message that the figures are giving us: are we in fact seeing a recovery? As early as the second half of 2005 our diagnosis was that the euro area was experiencing a gradual recovery and approaching the level of its growth potential. This diagnosis has now been confirmed by the very good data for the second quarter of 2006 which allow us to record good – and better than forecast – progress in the first half of this year. However, a word of caution: this does not mean that we are changing our diagnosis for trend growth. When we had a rather disappointing figure for growth in the fourth quarter of last year we said it did not change our sentiment that trend growth was around potential. I would say the same today after those flattering hard figures. We have to view everything from a medium-term perspective. And we should not discount the level of uncertainty that exists in the world today. Not least because the United States, by contrast, seems to be experiencing a slowdown. What counts for us right now is the overall economic situation, on a global level, and therefore not just in the United States.

These clearly create opportunities to improve payment services in at least three ways, by:  2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  Harnessing the underlying blockchain technology to improve or supplement existing processes: the Banque de France is already employing blockchain technology to improve industry processes. For example, we are using a blockchain project called MADRE to assign SEPA Creditor Identifiers, which are needed for creditors to issue direct debits. Helping to remedy market inefficiencies: this could be done in the area of international multi-currency payments, for example, with a view to improving the conditions under which individuals transfer funds abroad. Diversifying project financing methods: a prime example would be ICOs, which have enabled swift and large-scale fundraising in the network technologies sector in the past two years. 3. Yet for all that, can crypto-assets become true currencies that will revolutionise our payment system, providing the decisive innovation that will lead us to the cashless society that some people are predicting and even hoping for? For the time being, this seems unlikely because existing crypto-assets are far from perfect. As many central bankers have pointed out, today’s crypto-assets do not satisfactorily offer the qualities expected of a currency and cannot be considered as such: First, their value fluctuates enormously, preventing them from being used as units of account. As a result, very few prices are denominated in crypto-assets and not many large brick-and-mortar or online retailers accept bitcoin for example, although there are some exceptions [i.e.
The takaful industry represents an important component in the overall Islamic financial system given its role in the mobilisation of long-term funds, its role in providing risk protection, its role in the development of the Islamic capital market and as an important institutional investor, as well as its role in supporting the overall economic growth and development. Our challenge is thus to evolve a dynamic and vibrant takaful industry within the Islamic financial system. Of importance is the development of an Islamic financial system that is dynamic, responsive and sustainable. The development of an Islamic financial system needs to include the respective components comprising the Islamic banking industry, the takaful industry, the Islamic capital and money markets, given the strong linkages, interdependence and synergies among these components in the system. The spectrum of participants and the diversity of instruments are among the key attributes in creating the enabling environment for a dynamic Islamic financial system. This has been the approach adopted by Malaysia at the very onset of our journey in the development of a comprehensive Islamic financial system that is progressive and sustainable. In the initial stage during the early years of the development of the Islamic financial system, our focus of attention was on the development of the Islamic banking system and to expand the number of players and volume of activity. Following the introduction of the dual banking system, the pace of expansion increased significantly.

In two decades, the total assets of the Islamic banking industry have increased from USD97 million at the outset to USD20 billion as at end-June 2003. Similar expansion also took place in the takaful industry whereby the assets have increased significantly from less than USD30 million in 1993 to USD1 billion in June 2003. The Islamic capital market in Malaysia also recorded significant growth whereby the outstanding Islamic private debt securities accounted for USD17.8 billion, or 65% of the total outstanding private debt market while the new issuance of Islamic private debt securities in the first eight months of 2003 amounted to USD1.7 billion. What is more encouraging is that more than one third of the new issuance of Islamic debt securities were issued by companies owned by non-Muslims, some of which includes multinational companies. The evolution of an appropriate financial structure would need to take into account the role of the financial system in the economy and the objectives that need to be achieved. In the context of an emerging market economy, the financial system is a means to an end. The appropriate financial structure, particularly in emerging market economies, need to be designed to meet the requirements of the economy. The financial system needs to be in a position to support the real sector, changing and evolving with the changing needs of the economy. The strategy adopted in Malaysia is to develop a comprehensive Islamic financial system that is able to operate in parallel with the conventional financial system.