samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In an Appendix to this Report, we forecast that the negative net worth of the Bank will go from 2% to 3.8% of GDP between 2011 and 2013. Such deterioration is explained by the composition of our assets and liabilities. In the current circumstances, expanding our reserves would further worsen our financial position. Although the Bank’s negative net worth has not been an impediment for monetary policy conduct, taking actions that increase such negative value is a cost to be paid by all Chilean citizens. Having said all this about the convenience or not of a forex intervention, undoubtedly the best way for our exporting sector to boost competitiveness in the world markets is through constant improvement of processes, both by investing in technology and developing their human capital. Likewise, it is important to be constantly on the lookout for new markets of  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  destination and product innovation, to ensure better conditions for their businesses. In any case, there are also internal issues that must be resolved to back our producers’ competitiveness, including any measures that disentangle administrative processes when creating and maintaining a firm and especially, establishing a policy that aims at developing a balanced energy matrix that can reduce energy costs. As we have said before, the cost of electric power in Chile, which is an important input of productive activity, is higher than the OECD member countries’ average. Let me now describe the macroeconomic scenario contained in our Monetary Policy Report.

The growth forecast for 2012 we are presenting in this Report, details of which I will be sharing with you in a few moments, runs higher than what we presented before the Finance Commission of this Senate last June. A number of factors have contributed to this growth, including increased personal income resulting from labor market strength, an expansion of credit to firms and households, as well as the impulse from investment in mining and complementary projects associated to the high copper price. Consumer and business confidence has risen or remained in optimistic levels. Another contributor was the drop in inflation in recent months, reflecting the prices of perishable foodstuffs and fuels. The latter, however, has tended to revert in the past few weeks. However, the macroeconomic scenario entails significant risks and, to some extent, opposing ones, that drive monetary policy to face a difficult dilemma. On one hand, the effects of the frail international conditions on world growth and external financial conditions should help to reduce the strength of the Chilean economy. In addition, there is the possibility of a further deterioration of the external scenario, with more acute consequences on our economy. On the other hand, the recent intensification in installed capacity utilization, as well as the widening of the current account deficit, reflect the persistence of a degree of dynamism of domestic demand that also entails medium term risks for inflation and the vulnerability of the country’s external accounts.
Moreover, the report also incorporates a study that examines recent developments in foreign exchange and derivatives markets by relating them to monetary policy decisions. Two boxes also clarify the new policy approach we are currently implementing. The former discusses the place of the reserve requirements in the monetary policy and its channels to influence economy, while the latter discusses the relationship between price stability and financial stability within the context of the inflationtargeting regime. Lastly, the sources of our revisions of inflation forecasts during 2010 are explained in a study that we designed within the context of our liability of accountability. Before moving on to the Central Bank’s assessments of inflation outlook and economic activity, which I will cover in detail shortly, I would like to summarize the current global conditions that continue to be determinant of the domestic economic outlook. The world economy continued to recover gradually in the final quarter of 2010, while downside risks remained a major concern for advanced economies. Financial institutions, firms and households in advanced economies are still undergoing the process of balancesheet repair, limiting the contribution of private consumption and investment to the economic recovery. On the other hand, the relatively less affected emerging economies are recovering steadily amid robust domestic demand (Figure 1). BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  This growth discrepancy between advanced and emerging economies and its implications for the Turkish economy became the key determinants for the Central Bank of Turkey’s (CBRT) monetary policy strategy in the fourth quarter.

And here I must say that I do not feel comfortable with the recent developments in financial markets. The surge in asset prices in many countries, the absence of volatility in many markets and the low level of credit spreads show that today's investors have an unprecedented confidence in the future and a strong appetite for all types of risks. For sure, economic fundamentals have improved in industrialised and in emerging countries. It is, however, hard to believe that the world economy has now entered a phase of lasting and accelerating prosperity. We must remain alert. No major financial crisis has shaken the world in recent years in spite of the Iraq war, rising oil prices, major natural disasters, various terrorist attacks and permanent rumours of new terrorist attacks. The resilience that financial sectors have shown may cause us to forget that crises are still a possibility. Thus, the major challenge for international business today is, to my mind, to keep a weather eye open even when the waters appear calm. 4  BIS Review 120/2006
Tomorrow, I will address the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership at their Movers & Shakers Breakfast, speak with staff of the Empire Justice Center, meet with Lt. Governor Bob Duffy, convene a meeting of our Upstate Advisory Board, whose members are major leaders in the upstate economy, and visit the Roswell Park Cancer Institute to learn about their role in economic development in western New York and in the broader world arena. My colleagues and I at the New York Fed continually track conditions in our District, and we have created a number of tools for that purpose. For example, my staff produces monthly indexes of economic activity for New York City, the state of New York and New Jersey. These indexes are essentially measures of local output – similar to gross domestic product, or GDP, at the national level. The measures provide a more complete gauge of activity than the employment report, which is another important metric at the state and regional levels. We have also constructed a consumer credit panel to track local household credit conditions at the county and even the zip code level, including the amount and type of personal debt and whether payments are being made in a timely way. In addition, we conduct a periodic poll about the credit needs of small businesses in the region, which are an important source of new jobs. We are just launching our latest poll that also includes questions about the skill needs of small businesses and whether the right kinds of skilled labor are available.

This stability is underscored by our latest quarterly consumer credit panel data, which shows that total household debt burdens have remained relatively low by national standards and that mortgage delinquency rates are lower in the Syracuse region than in other parts of the state and nation. However, while the national recovery has started to gain some momentum in recent months, job growth in Syracuse has remained somewhat weak. To date, the region has regained only about a third of the roughly 13,000 jobs that were lost during the downturn. So the recovery has been disappointing thus far. Despite the weak overall job growth, the region continues to undergo substantial economic restructuring. And, in fact, many parts of the economy are growing. Most prominently, the business services sector has added about 2,000 jobs since the recession ended, and the leisure and hospitality sector has also expanded. As a result of the economic restructuring in Syracuse, health and education are now among the most important industries in the region, employing roughly a fifth of all workers. While the “eds and meds” sector experienced some job losses last year, it is generally less susceptible to downturns than other sectors of the economy, and expanded before, during and after the Great Recession. No doubt, the area’s many local colleges and universities play an important role in this regard. Syracuse’s colleges and universities deserve special attention because they are important regional assets that can help Syracuse continue to actively participate in the knowledge economy.
Their numbers of company collaborations, at around 600 each year, is more limited, especially to smaller companies. The Catapult Centres have created a new innovation engine for the UK. This is great news. The less good news is that this engine has fewer cylinders than its Germany counterpart. Indeed, it serves more as an innovation than a diffusion engine, leaving largely untouched the long tail of UK companies. Nor does the UK have the equivalent of the Steinbeis system for recycling technical expertise and know-how between companies, which could help de-segment the skills-stratified UK labour market. The financial infrastructure supporting companies is also different in the UK. 48  New, upper tail UK  companies do brilliantly at attracting venture capital finance. And the UK has a large and liquid corporate bond market, totalling around £ billion for investment grade securities, which allows larger and betterestablished companies to raise money at long maturities in capital markets. 49  Where the UK financial system looks weaker is when serving smaller and less well-established companies, the type of which are more likely to occupy the lower tail. Most are not of sufficient scale or standing to attract capital market financing. For them, banks are a more natural source of financing. But options for bank financing appear to be more limited, certainly than in Germany with its three-tier structure. Lending to the corporate sector by UK banks, at 6% of their assets, is around one third of the equivalent by German banks (Table 6).

  Performance of the mining sector increased following higher output arising from increased capacity utilisation at various mines and investments into operations at various mines. Metal mining was the main driver of this growth, with copper and cobalt output growing by 17.4% and 49.4% to 819,159.19 mt and 8,781 mt, respectively.   Construction output was driven by increased public and commercial infrastructure projects around the country, as well as continued high demand for housing. This was supported by expansion in domestic production of cement. Inflation   Consistent with the favourable performance in economic growth, the country has succeeded in lowering inflation. Inflation has declined from 17.2 percent in 2003, 9.9 percent in 2009 and stood at 7.9 percent at end-2010. Inflation continued to be moderate, and stood at 9.0 percent as at June 2011.   The decrease in inflation over the years can be attributed to prudent monetary policy and a relatively stable exchange rate. The increase in food supply, arising from the favourable crop harvest, has also been a key factor in moderating inflationary pressures in light of high and increasing prices of petroleum products due to high international oil prices. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Interest rates   Interest rates have generally been on a declining trend in line with the fall in inflation and yield rates on Government securities. This trend was broken as a result of the financial crisis in 2008.
Thank you very much for your attention. 8

For this reason, the commission found difficult in making a selection as all topics were coherent, interesting and properly addressed. Nevertheless, we succeeded to identify carefully those minor variations and distinguished nuances which make the difference to the winning theses amid all the presented works. Eventually, we have come to a decision on the “Governor’s Award for the Best Diploma Theses” for 2021. Though, I would like together with the winners to thank and congratulate all the participants in this contest for their engagement, ideas, the applied methods and findings based on the appropriate methodologies. I wish this passion and devotion is part of your commitment as you advance in your careers. Let us now present the winning contestants. Thank you and happy holidays! 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
Both commercial property prices and housing prices have risen substantially for many years and although we have been able to see that the rates of increase have slowed down slightly in recent months, they are still high. I believe that property prices may well continue rising at a fairly high rate over the coming period. But in the slightly longer term such a rapid increase is not sustainable. Why is the Riksbank interested in the property market? The fact that the Riksbank is interested in what is happening in the property market is based on the tasks we have been given by the Swedish Parliament. One is that we shall ensure that inflation is kept at a reasonable level, more precisely at two per cent a year. The other is that we shall safeguard the stability of the financial system. The way the property market develops can have significance for both of these tasks. Property often functions as collateral for the loans the banks grant to households and companies. If the properties are not reasonably valued; if prices have been pushed up through exaggerated optimism or speculation, there is a risk of a heavy price fall. During the crisis of the 1990s it was falling property prices, particularly office premises, that were the cause of major losses for the Swedish banks. Developments in the property market can also affect activity in the real economy. For instance, rising house prices reduce households’ loans in relation to the value of their assets.

Around half of these loans are at variable interest rates and can thereby be initially affected by higher interest rates, and it is households with these loans who have experienced problems in paying them. Most US households still have a good ability to pay. At the same time, the financial institutions have, on the whole, strong balance sheets. This means that even a relatively large deterioration in credit quality in this sector would only lead to limited losses for the mortgage market as a whole. On the other hand, it is not impossible that developments may affect the US households’ consumption. Are there risks with subprime loans in Sweden? Can we expect to see a similar development in Sweden? No, I do not see any risk at present that we will experience this type of development in the Swedish mortgage market. In Sweden, loans to the subprime sector comprise an extremely small percentage of the total number of mortgages, no more than 0.5 per cent. The percentage is much lower in Sweden than in the United States. This is largely because our mortgage market and the US mortgage market are very different. In Sweden, lenders focus primarily on the borrower’s ability to repay. We also have greater access to information on borrowers’ incomes and assets, which makes it easier to assess credit risks. The Swedish and US mortgage institutions also have different methods of financing their lending.
These very solid foundations will help Hong Kong cope with the challenge of a possible rise in non-performing financial assets and losses in the financial markets. They also supply the conditions for moving beyond crisis towards opportunity, and for exploring what seems set to become one of the strongest and more interesting of growth engines in markets in this region and beyond: Islamic finance. Like most other asset classes, the growth of Islamic finance decelerated last year as a result of the global credit crunch and unfavourable economic conditions. New sukuk issuance retreated to $ billion last year, down from a high of $ billion in 2007. 1 And without a doubt, there will continue to be great challenges in the coming year. Market participants are reportedly expecting a slowdown in annual growth in global Islamic banking assets to 10-15% in 2009, compared with a growth of 20-30% last year. 2 Even so, a growth rate of 10-15% is robust by any standard, and especially so when set against the strong shrinkage in other areas of finance. There remains a healthy stock of sukuk issuance in the pipeline for this year, thus providing a good market to tap: one report conservatively estimates planned or announced sukuk for 2009 as being in excess of $ billion. 3 As a new asset class, Islamic finance practices banking and investments in compliance with the principles of Islamic Shariah law, which prohibits excessive leverage, risk-taking and uncertainty, and promotes ethical practices.

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Knowing Nusantara – money that made the region Opening speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the launch of “Knowing Nusantara: Money That Made the Region”, Bank Negara Malaysia Museum and Art Gallery, Sasana Kijang, Kuala Lumpur, 26 August 2014. *  *  *  The Numismatic heritage of the Malay Archipelago is as rich as the region itself. There were few other regions that had such a level of trade that has existed in this part of Southeast Asia. Every type of seafarer had been here over the centuries, bringing with them a wide range of currencies. From Chinese copper cash to South American “pieces of eight”, Nusantara has been a magnet for money of all shapes, sizes and materials. When these are combined with the indigenous currency minted in the Archipelago, the legacy is immense. “Knowing Nusantara: Money that Made the Region” explores the coins and banknotes that have circulated in the Malay Archipelago, telling a story that goes back 2,000 years and that continues to evolve. By telling this story, the objective is to create a deeper understanding of the region. The history of the archipelago is largely about contact and the interconnectivity that existed in the region even during that period. Movement between islands and the mainland are mirrored by the encounters between the indigenous and foreign peoples.
Policymakers now had the capacity to expand the size of the Fed’s liquidity facilities and other programs without the threat of compromising the control of monetary policy. This new tool immediately proved enormously helpful. The Fed was able to respond to the deterioration of conditions in the fall of 2008 by sharply increasing the size of its Term Auction Facility program and removing the limits on the size of many of the foreign exchange swap programs. These programs, along with the increased use of the Fed’s standing liquidity facilities and the start-up of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility in late October, led to a sharp growth in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet beginning in late September. The third phase is marked by the launch of the Fed’s purchase programs, starting with the agency debt program that began in December 2008 and extends through to the present. During this phase, the Fed’s overall balance sheet has actually declined slightly. The demand for the Fed’s special liquidity programs has diminished more quickly than the purchase programs have been ramped up. Although this shrinkage was not anticipated or targeted, it is a welcome indication that there has been improvement in the functioning of the short-term funding markets. 1 As market function has improved and credit spreads have narrowed, many of the Fed’s liquidity facilities have become less attractive and there has been a corresponding decline in usage.

During this stage, the Fed’s monetary policy implementation regime worked in such a way that control over the size of its balance sheet, and more specifically over the level of excess reserves, was essential to ensure that the Open Market Desk could control the fed funds rate in a manner consistent with the FOMC’s monetary policy objectives. Had the Fed’s special liquidity facilities grown sufficiently large during that period, raising the level of the excess reserves in the banking system, the fed funds rate would likely have fallen far below the FOMC’s target rate. To keep the fed funds rate around the target, the only sure-fire option was to avoid a significant expansion in the balance sheet by funding the expansion of nontraditional assets, such as TAF loans, FX swaps, and PDCF loans with similarly sized liquidations of the Federal Reserve’s portfolio of Treasury securities. Thus, over the period from August 2007 up through the time of the Lehman Brothers failure in September 2008, the total size of the Fed’s balance sheet and the level of excess reserves in the banking system changed very little. The second stage began in October 2008 when the Federal Reserve gained the authority to pay interest on reserves, including excess reserves. The addition of interest on reserves to the Fed’s toolkit effectively broke the link between the size of the Fed’s balance sheet and the stance of monetary policy.
For example, the National Payments Systems Act was enacted in June 2007, while Access Bank, the fourth largest bank in Nigeria is expected to open a branch in the country by July 2008, raising the number of commercial banks to 14. 2.6  Capital market developments  The Lusaka stock exchange performed remarkably well, market capitalisation increased by 45.0% to K18,872.9 billion compared to the increase of 13.9% in 2006. The Lusaka All Shares index almost doubled, rising by 92.9% to close the year at 3,533.52 points compared to an increase of 47.7% in the previous year. This robust performance was a reflection of strong macroeconomic fundamentals in the economy and positive investor expectations in the growth and earnings prospects for both listed and quoted companies. Government introduced 7, 10 and 15-year bonds to help deepen the financial markets in 2007. Foreign investments in Government securities rose to K830.5 billion as at December 2007 from K539.8 billion recorded end-December 2005, an indication of the rising confidence in the economy. 2.7  Fiscal developments  On the fiscal front the Government is expected to limit domestic borrowing to 1.2 percent of GDP in 2008. By reducing levels of government borrowing and enforcing prudent budget execution, this should result in greater mobilisation of domestic resources and effective coordination with the monetary authorities. Zambia has articulated its long-term development objectives in the National Long Term Vision 2030, which is aimed at raising Zambia to a middle income status by 2030.

The exact timing of the relaxation of restrictions is unclear, but once it occurs we could find that this has an impact on this supply source, with potential consequences for monetary policy. Another unknown is the impact on demand in the UK economy. It seems pretty clear that migrant workers will spend at least a proportion of what they earn here, even if many will also repatriate savings to their home countries. The second dimension is bigger picture and less direct. Indeed some may not categorise it in terms of the labour market as such as it has an impact in a number of ways. But I like to think of it in labour market terms. I am talking about the entry of the new Asian economies, and in particular China and India into the world economy, and the ability of countries such as the UK to benefit from the much cheaper wages paid in those countries by sourcing the production of both goods, and increasingly services, to such countries. There is nothing new about the process, based as it is on the age old law of comparative advantage. But what is new is the sheer size of those economies, containing as they do over three times the number of people in the EU and USA combined on the one hand, and the willingness and ability of management of firms in the UK to benefit from them.