samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The development of inflation 1870-1999  Inflation 1870-1999 Percentage 12-month change 40  40  30  30  20  20  10  10  0  0  -10  -10  -20  -20  -30 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990  -30  Source: Ecowin  Without wishing to labour this comparison, it is perhaps nevertheless worthwhile emphasizing that the 20th century was a time of unprecedented economic growth; only Japan’s economy grew faster than Sweden’s. But this historical pattern came to an abrupt end in the 1970s and 1980s. Price stability does not in itself create growth and economic development. These are facilitated mainly by other factors: the legal and institutional framework, the level of education, the will to invest and the availability of capital, technological development, etc. But price stability focuses attention on the rules governing the economy. Those who set prices and negotiate wages do not have to worry about an erosion of future purchasing power but can expect price levels to remain stable. Similarly, there is less uncertainty when it comes to savings and investments, and indeed economic decisions of any kind. Furthermore, the distribution of wealth and income is less arbitrary. This was a key argument for Gösta Rehn, one of LO’s most prominent economists of all time, when he campaigned against inflation under the motto “Hate inflation”.

In that sense, the ECB’s response with unconventional measures is completely logical. When unconventional measures are applied, it is normal to have different views about their effect, including the possibility of a “Japanese” scenario. It would be wrong, however, to put the focus solely on monetary policy without taking into account what is being or not being done to address the global economic uncertainty, and also in the areas of structural reforms and fiscal policy. You have said many times that in order to be effective, the politicians’ attempts to stimulate the economy must be aimed at structural areas, like the labour market, pension reforms and education. What room for action do Bulgarian politicians have when these three areas are concerned? Do you believe that there are unused opportunities? Such opportunities exist, but they are associated with complex and sometimes time-consuming measures. They are not limited only to the labour market, pension reforms and education, but also extend to areas like health care, defence, the modernization of the technical and social infrastructure. Some steps in these fields require serious public resources. It is a good sign that they are implemented within an overall disciplined fiscal framework. Quite a few economists say that the 2% inflation goal, set by the ECB, is a thing of the past given the ageing population and structurally transforming technologies. Do you believe there are grounds to correct this goal? 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  There are grounds to conduct a strategic review of the monetary policy’s goals.
For example, ASEAN has concluded Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Japan, and India. The ASEAN-China FTA alone covers over 1.9 billion consumers and an estimated trade volume of $ trillion. As Asia grows and comes together economically, global companies that aim to have a share of the pie will have to develop strategies and production models that are customised for Asia. Singapore exists at the confluence of these emerging trade routes within Asia and as well as between Asia and other regions. We have positioned ourselves as Global-Asia hub to take advantage of Asia’s growth. Our strategic location and affinity with other Asian countries made us the location of choice for companies from the West to grow in Asia. In 2011, IBM Services set up an Integration hub here. GlaxoSmithKline too has set up their Emerging Markets & Asia Pacific HQ here to serve the Asian market. At the same time, Asian companies expanding globally often opt for Singapore as their international base. Tata Communications from India has its HQ in Singapore, as do many Chinese companies. To aid these efforts, Singapore has initiatives to attract and develop talent that can thrive globally. For example, in 2010 we set up the Human Capital Leadership Institute to bring talent together to interact with one another and to prepare for the future. Urbanisation and sustainability Second, sustainability challenges will loom larger as the growth of the global economy puts more stress on the environment.

As China’s consumption increases, its rising import demand will have a positive impact on Asia and on the rest of the world. Besides China, India’s middle class is estimated to grow to almost 600 million people by 2025, and almost 60% of Indonesian households, in a country of 240 million people, are expected to reach middle-class status by 2020. The Asian Development Bank projects that, by the middle of the century, Asia will account for more than half of global GDP and will own half of the world’s financial assets and financial institutions. I’m sure all of you are cautious about long-term extrapolations, but this projection is one of many which are reflective of the optimism and growth potential that we see not just in China, but Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. As these countries in Asia power ahead, they will drive further economic integration within this region. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Future of World Trade” study describes how new trade corridors will form within Asia as a result of this integration. In 1990, 20 years ago, the developed economies dominated the world trade map. Europe was responsible for over half of the world’s exports, although these were mainly intra-Europe flows. In 2010, this map has changed with the global shift in manufacturing to Asia, with China accounting for 9 out of the top 25 bilateral trade routes by value.
Paul Fisher: The state of the financial markets Speech by Mr Paul Fisher, Executive Director for Markets of the Bank of England, at the Institutional Investor Institute, Bedfordshire, 29 June 2011. All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches. *  *  *  I would like to thank Ronnie Driver, Andrew Harley, Tanveer Hussain, Ben Wensley, Richard Windram and Chris Young for their help in preparing this speech. Any views expressed are solely those of Paul Fisher and should not be ascribed to the MPC or FPC unless explicitly stated as such. The Bank of England has two core purposes. The first is maintaining monetary stability. That means achieving stable prices as defined by the Government and ensuring confidence in the currency. The second is contributing to financial stability. That entails identifying, monitoring, and taking action to remove or reduce systemic risks with a view to protecting and enhancing the resilience of the UK financial system. The interim Financial Policy Committee (FPC) was set up by the Government earlier this year to help meet this objective.1 It has now had its first round of meetings and a record of its first policy meeting and the associated Financial Stability Report were published just last week.2 To help meet these objectives, the Bank runs a Market Intelligence (MI) programme, which involves frequent meetings and conversations between Bank staff and a wide range of external market contacts to gather and analyse information from market participants.

The growing interest for attending the Conference confirms once again the significant contribution of the Conference to the enrichment of the knowledge and exchange of experience of the representatives of the central banks in regional and international frames. Nevertheless, the Conference would not be a unique treasure of knowledge and experience, if it did not include the representatives of the domestic financial system and the payment service providers, which by their continuous active participation and involvement in the panel discussion, contribute to the thematic comprehensiveness of the Conference. The Conference will cover the latest developments in payment and securities settlement systems, as well as payment services on global, European and national level. In the global context, Mr Klaus Löber, the esteemed expert from the European Central Bank, will elaborate on the new developments in the area of implementation of the PFMIs, work on retail payments, cyber security, digital innovations and correspondent banking. These are very important issues for central banks given that we also promote the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing and settlement, thereby supporting financial stability and the wider economy. In addition, the developments in the compliance area regarding the prevention of money laundering, financing of terrorism, insider dealing, fraud, corruption and other criminal offences are in the focus of the Conference, as well. In this context, we appreciate the contribution of Mr Oliver Schufmann, the representative of Commerzbank, who will present their experience regarding the compliance activities.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution could differ from its three predecessors in terms of scope, scale and speed. Scope Thus far, each wave of technological change has increased the importance of cognitive tasks relative to noncognitive ones. In other words, machines have largely substituted for human hands not heads. Workers have been able to improve their skills and take on newly created sets of cognitive, higher value tasks – tasks beyond the cognitive limits of machines. Rapid improvements in computing power, the increased availability of big data and advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning mean smarter machines are already replacing a broader range of human activities than before, reaching well into the range of “heads”. New technologies may increasingly provide intelligence, sensory perception, and reasoning which previously only labour could provide. Technological optimists  10  believe future automation will move beyond substituting for the ‘routine-manual’ human tasks th  technology performed in the late 20 century to almost the entire spectrum of work. 11  It may be left to people to provide “hearts” – that is, tasks that require emotional intelligence, originality or social skills such as persuasion or caring for others. And if new forms of bespoke mass creativity are made possible by the new global economy, human “hands” may once again take over (a form of cottage industry going full circle). 12  One thing that could be different is the effects of demographics. An ageing population  will lead to greater demand for care and a straight decrease in labour supply.

This practice is also in line with recommendations in economic literature. Commodity-exporting countries tend to experience wide fluctuations in their exchange rate. Australia is one example. Fluctuations in commodity prices lead to changes in countries’ terms of trade, which measures the ratio of export to import prices. Fluctuations in the terms of trade affect the exchange rate. This dampens the effects of commodity price changes on profitability in business and industry. The exchange rate thus serves as a buffer against changes in the terms of trade. In Norway, the petroleum fund mechanism and the fiscal guidelines dampen the effect on the exchange rate of changes in oil prices. We have nevertheless stated previously that we must be prepared for fluctuations in the value of our currency that are more in line with the fluctuations observed in other countries. The exchange rate will vary. The exchange rate may also act as an automatic stabiliser. In periods when economic activity is too high - or there are expectations of overheating - the exchange rate may appreciate, even if Norges Bank does not change the key rates. Similarly, the exchange rate may depreciate if the activity level is too low. 2  BIS Review 2/2003  In the long term, monetary policy determines the average level of inflation. Therefore, over time, monetary policy also has a significant influence on the nominal exchange rate. Output is determined by the supply of labour, capital and technology.
Since then, reform of the policy regime to increase flexibility, especially the exchange rate, has contributed importantly to greater resiliency and abilities of the economies in Asia to adjust to changes in the external environment. So, the fact that the Asian economies have done better this time is not only because of the policy response during the crisis, but also because of the policy choice that was made long time ago to increase flexibility. Let me now turn to the second part of my talk on the post-crisis environment and the challenges for emerging markets. The challenges for emerging markets in the post-crisis world will be shaped importantly by the forces of change that will emanate in the new global economic and financial environment. Some of these forces will relate to cyclical shifts in trade and financial flows in response to  2  BIS Review 36/2010  new configuration of risk and opportunities that arises. Others will represent a more fundamental change as the new structure of economic and financial relations between countries emerges to replace the old structure that had been dismantled by the crisis. Recent discussion on this issue has pointed to the new normal global growth, the rise of Asia, and the increased role of government in the economic system as the new economic realities in the post-crisis world. But amongst these three possible new changes, I think the most important that will have far-reaching implications for emerging economies will be the durability and the composition of global growth.

Two particularly important exceptions have been the gradual fixing of the exchange rates between members of the European Union, culminating in monetary union, and the more or less formal policies of the newly industrialised Asian countries and Japan to keep the value of their currencies stable against the dollar. Moreover, the Asian central banks have been accumulating large dollar reserves. For most of the post-war period, the quantity of central bank reserves held by Asian central banks was of the same order of magnitude as the reserves held by the G-7. Over the past 15 years, both Japan and non-Japan Asia have rapidly increased their reserves, which are now nearly ten times as large as the combined reserves of the rest of the G-7. Two thirds of these reserves are in dollars, a much larger proportion than the US share of world output. The counterpart to the Asian bloc’s current account surpluses and acquisition of dollar reserves has been large current account deficits in the US. There is nothing inherently wrong with such ‘imbalances’. In principle, they reflect the use of financial markets to allocate savings from around the world to the most profitable investment opportunities. But there is likely to be a limit to the amount of debt that one country can issue as a result of persistent deficits before investors start to worry about its ability or willingness to repay.
And, to date, many of the largest firms have considerably improved their capital levels and capital planning processes. Simply addressing the quantity of capital and the quality of the planning processes isn’t enough, though. And without elaborating too much on something I’m sure you are quite familiar with, the reasons include: •  Capital ratios and numerical targets are snapshots in time – and often a lagging indicator of financial condition. •  These snapshots don’t incorporate the future – they don’t anticipate what might happen in different economic times or in different market conditions. •  Capital ratios don’t incorporate the impact on a firm’s ability to generate revenues during stress periods – and thus don’t indicate a firm’s ability to rebuild capital as necessary. •  So, clearly, stronger capital standards need to be combined with a better ability to anticipate the future – to incorporate a more forward-looking element into assessing the financial strength of a firm. Thus, supervisory and risk management tools need to expand to include stress testing – and from this came the supervisory stress test and resulting Federal Reserve Capital Rule and the requirements in Dodd-Frank for stress testing. I think it’s fair to say that the new capital rules will and should change how firms think about risk within their organizations.

Accordingly, we expect inflation will be, with 70 percent probability, between 6.0 percent and 7.8 percent (with a mid-point of 6.9 percent) at end2015 and between 3.7 percent and 7.3 percent (with a mid-point of 5.5 percent) at end-2016. We estimate that inflation will stabilize around 5 percent in the medium term (Chart 21). In the second quarter of 2015, exchange rate movements delayed the recovery in the core inflation trend, causing the year-end inflation forecast to be raised by 0.5 point. On the other hand, the improvement in import and food prices compared to the previous Report reduced the year-end inflation forecast by 0.1 point and 0.3 point, respectively. As a result, import and food prices are estimated to offset the adverse effects of core inflation figures in the second half of the year. Accordingly, we revised the end-2015 inflation forecast, which was set as 6.8 percent in the April Inflation report, upwards by 0.1 point. We kept the end-2016 inflation forecast, which was 5.5 percent in the previous report, unchanged. Considering that the downward revision in the average oil price assumption will pull down the end-2016 inflation by around 0.1 point, this effect will be compensated for by the effect coming from the rise in inflation forecast for end-2015, so we left the end-2016 inflation forecast intact (Chart 21). We are of the opinion that base effects will continue to determine the course of inflation for the rest of 2015.
Instead, this caused a significant current account deficit widening. Therefore, in order to preserve the GDP growth trend, economic policies should focus on its sustainability. In the quest for supporting potential growth and increasing the resilience of the economy, there is no substitute for a coherent mix of macroeconomic policies and structural reforms. A durable economic growth is extremely important also from the perspective of euro adoption, as it would lead to progress in convergence, which will put us on the right track for achieving the goal of joining the Eurozone. In order to stay on course, economic growth and convergence must advance in line with economic fundamentals. Otherwise, the gains, as spectacular as they might be, could be jeopardised by abrupt setbacks. At the end of the day, forcing convergence or postponing convergence is equally harmful. I had the honour to be one of the vice-presidents of the National Committee for Substantiation of the National Euro Changeover Plan, founded last year, which prepared a set of documents that emphasise the need for a substantial degree of convergence before entering the euro area. In fact, it is the Maastricht Treaty that explicitly stipulates the need for “a high degree of sustainable convergence”. Yet, this requirement seems to have been overlooked sometimes. Let me point out that by convergence I refer to all four types of convergence that must be taken into account: nominal, real, institutional and structural. Nominal convergence is easily quantifiable, as the specific criteria are clearly defined in the Maastricht Treaty.

(2012): “Are American Homeowners Locked into Their Houses? The Impact of Housing Market Conditions on State-to-State Migration”, Working Paper No. 12-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston  10  BIS central bankers’ speeches
With this, the Banque de France became the cornerstone of the monetary and financial system spanning the entire French economy.4 Since the Bank was first established in 1800 through to the present day, our core mandate has been to guarantee monetary stability and, through our supervisory, refinancing and lender-of-last-resort policies, to  1  See the Decree of 2 May 1848, indicating that the decision of the Board of Directors of the Banque de Bordeaux was adopted on 27 April, following the decision by the General Council of the Banque de France on 24 April. 2 The branch opened its doors with the decrees of 27 April and 2 May 1848. 3 The other branches that opened in spring 1848 were in Rouen, Nantes, Marseille, Le Havre, Lille, Toulouse, Orléans and Lyon. 4 Leclercq, Yves, 1999, La formation d'une banque centrale: la Banque de France (années 1830 - années 1850), Revue économique Vol. 50, pp. 151-174  1  preserve financial stability. By establishing a branch network, we strengthened and enhanced our ability to serve the regional economies. Moreover, in each era, the Bank has tailored the approach taken to execute its statutory mandate, catering to the economic and financial environment and the institutions of the time in order to provide France's regions with the best possible support.

The first such ‘sustainability-linked bond’ was issued by Enel, an Italian electricity producer, and offered a ‘step up’ coupon penalising the issuer if it failed to meet a specific target for the share of renewable energy in its installed capacity. Such bonds are not a complete answer to the concern of greenwashing: the degree of challenge in the target remains the choice of the issuer, for example, and the use of funds cannot be traced to specific projects in the same way as use of proceeds bonds. But they do illustrate the type of innovation now underway in capital markets. Chart 8: Total green bond issuance  Chart 9: Corporate green bonds outstanding by nationality of issuer  Source: Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) data (including all selflabelled green bonds aligned with CBI’s Climate Bonds Taxonomy and with at least 95% use of proceeds financing or refinancing green/environmental projects) and Bank  Source: CBI data and Bank calculations. calculations. The billion dollar question, of course, is whether the market is yet discriminating in favour of climate-positive investment, and away from the reverse. There are some encouraging signs from recent primary issuance: green bonds issued by European companies in September priced on average nearly 10 basis points inside existing curves, and tighter than other non-green issuance over the same time period (Chart 11). That’s real money: for example, the average -15bp new issue premium on VW’s recent € green bond issues will save the firm around € a year in interest costs compared to a conventional bond.