samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
And this was an important reason why the Riksbank began to publish its forecasts and other material on which decisions were based early on in the new inflation-targeting regime. Building up confidence in the price stability target as quickly as we actually did would probably have been very difficult if we had not been as open as we were with regard to our work and our decisions. Secondly, openness and clarity are nowadays an important part of monetary policy in itself. According to economic theory, there is a correlation between interest rates with different times to maturity. And expectations of short-term interest rates, which the central bank governs, are important to the longterm interest rates. By influencing expectations of short-term interest rates, a central bank can therefore also indirectly affect interest rates with longer maturities. Greater influence over interestsetting for all maturities – the yield curve – means that the impact of monetary policy is more effective. This is often called conducting monetary policy by “management-of-expectations”. And the best way to do this is to provide good information. A third reason for working to achieve greater openness and clarity “outwards” is that it can help us to work more efficiently within the Riksbank’s walls. And this is an argument I do not think should be underestimated. Openness quite simply increases the incentives for us to do a good job as it makes it easier for others to evaluate how well monetary policy functions. 3  Sveriges Riksbank Act (1983:1385), Chapter 3, Article 3.

Stefan Ingves: The relationship between the Swedish Riksbank and the Riksdag Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Sveriges Riksdag (Swedish parliament), Stockholm, 8 June 2007. *  *  *  Independence and opportunities for evaluation and accountability Let me begin by thanking you for the invitation to today’s conference. Of course it is both an honour and an inspiration to have the opportunity to discuss in such knowledgeable company the Riksbank’s relationship to the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament) and what this means for monetary policy. In recent decades many central banks have become increasingly independent in relation to the political system. This also applies to the Riksbank. At the same time, these institutions, which have often been fairly closed and secretive, have become more open and clear with regard to their objectives, motives and means. Many central banks now conduct monetary policy with more or less explicit price stability targets and the Riksbank was one of the first to introduce this type of quantified target for inflation at the beginning of the 1990s. Both our price stability objective and our independence have been written in the law since 1999. This contributes to strengthening the credibility of monetary policy. The fact that increased independence has gone hand in hand with greater openness and clarity – what is usually called transparency in central bank language – is not particularly strange. For an independent authority to gain general acceptance and legitimacy, there must be good opportunities for evaluation and accountability.
Andrew G Haldane: Small lessons from a big crisis Remarks by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago 45th Annual Conference “Reforming Financial Regulation”, Chicago, 8 May 2009. I would like to thank Andrew Mason, Adrian Chiu, David Gregory and Nick Vause for comments and contributions. *  *  *  Macro-prudential policy is a new ideology and a big idea. That befits what is, without question, a big crisis. There are a great many unanswered questions before this ideology can be put into practice. These questions will shape the intellectual and public policy debate over the next several decades, just as the Great Depression shaped the macroeconomic policy debate from the 1940s to the early 1970s. But there are already some smaller lessons to be drawn from crisis events. That is the purpose of these comments. Seven issues arising from the crisis are discussed and their implications for policymakers and practitioners assessed. If there is a unifying theme, it is informational failure. This has been a crisis borne of, and prolonged by, lack of information. That fog of uncertainty remains dense 18 months on. Because financial markets are, first and foremost, a market in information, these informational failures have generated prolonged paralysis in financial markets. Tackling them is priority number one. Lesson 1: Finance is no golden goose Imagine having placed a hedged bet back in 1900.

On the former, recent experience suggests five lessons for emerging markets: (1)  Create a do-it-yourself (DIY) LOLR, with the aim of providing self-insurance against a liquidity crisis. There are several ways of providing such insurance. One is to build up large foreign currency reserves. This has already been taken to heart by emerging markets. China has substantial foreign exchange reserves $ billion at the end of June). And Korea, perhaps the best example of a country suffering a liquidity run on its banking system in terms of foreign currency, has raised its reserves from a low point of $ billion in November 1997 to a current high of $ billion in August. It is unfortunate that the absence of more efficient solutions to the risk of crises means that scarce capital might be deployed in this inefficient way. Building up net reserves – via current account surpluses – will reduce world demand at a time when the  5  BIS Review 95/1999  US economy is unlikely to provide as large a stimulus as over the past five years. An alternative is to create gross reserves by borrowing from abroad and investing the proceeds in liquid international securities. Both methods involve costs.
[3]John Locke, An Essay concerning the true original, extent and end of civil Government, 1690. [4]UNCTAD (2018), World Investment Report 2018: Investment and New Industrial Policies. [5]There is some debate as to whether technology will evolve in the future in ways that make  global value chains less important. Technologies such as 3D printing or robotics could allow the local production of many more goods. Some scholars find that technological change has so far only mildly slowed offshoring, while others see a more significant reversal ahead. See Koen De Backer, K., Menon, C. Desnoyers-James, I. and Moussiegt, L. (2016), “Reshoring: Myth or Reality?”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers, No 27, OECD Publishing; and Baldwin, R. (2016), The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization, Harvard University Press. [6] 8 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  [6]OECD (2018), OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2018, Issue 1, Chapter 2. [7]in ‘t Veld, J. (2019), “Quantifying the Economic Effects of the Single Market in a Structural  Macromodel”, European Economy Discussion Paper, No 094, European Commission, February. [8]This scenario assumes a counterfactual in which trade reverts to WTO-rules, and applies  Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rates as tariffs on goods. For non-tariff barriers, it relies on estimates calculated for trade between the EU and the US. See in ‘t Veld, J. (2019), op. cit. [9]As measured by PPP-adjusted GDP. [10]Excluding intra-EU trade. [11]For further details, see ECB (2015), The international role of the euro, Frankfurt am Main, July.

This partly explains the feeble economic recovery and declining potential GDP growth trend in the US (Chart 2). 6. The weak recovery in the US in recent years fell outside the expectations of many economists at the Fed. Because of the lacklustre growth, QE was extended and expanded, feeding an addiction from “low for long”, to “low for longer” and then to “low forever”, and developing a dependence on QE by the market. When the then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted at the possibility of scaling down the asset purchase programme in May 2013, the market panicked in an episode we later called the “Taper Tantrum”. 7. So, why is the present recovery weaker than in previous cycles? This is a complicated and controversial subject. I believe that both cyclical factors and structural factors, such as household de-leveraging, the high home inventory levels after the bursting of the housing bubble and structural changes in the population and labour market, are at play. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  External factors are also involved, including the European sovereign debt crisis in 2011. However, due to time constraints, I will focus on how QE may have supported US economic recovery and affected the global financial environment. 8. The prevailing mainstream view, including the major advanced economies such as the US, Europe and Japan, as well as the International Monetary Fund, is that QE is the right policy response to prop up the economy and stave off deflation.
Benoît Cœuré: Interview with Bloomberg TV Interview with Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, and Bloomberg TV, conducted by Ms Caroline Connan and broadcast on 9 July 2018. * * *  Donald Trump has pulled the trigger on tariffs on China; China is retaliating. Could that complicate the ECB’s task going forward? What’s really important for us to gauge is the impact on business confidence, which so far has been limited. We see this escalation process: we start with skirmishes and then skirmishes may turn into clashes and then, at some point, clashes may turn into a fully-fledged war. That would be very bad for business confidence. So far, the backdrop is very strong growth in the Eurozone, resilient growth in the Eurozone, meaning that what we’ve seen so far doesn’t have the potential to derail the recovery. Can the ECB just sit back and watch this trade war happening? We are never sitting back and watching; we have to understand what’s going on. So far we believe that growth is strong enough to withstand the shock. Have you already seen some companies holding back investments because of these protectionist policies risks? Yes, that may happen. We are not complacent on the possible risks. A fully-fledged trade war would be extremely bad for the world economy – starting with the United States, by the way. The first victim would be American jobs, American workers. We very much hope that this doesn’t happen.

Mr. Plenderleith considers what is new in the financial markets in the United Kingdom Speech by Mr. Ian Plenderleith, an Executive Director of the Bank of England, at the 6th Central Banking Conference, in London on 18/11/97. 1. This has been a year marked by important developments in the UK financial markets and I am delighted to have this opportunity to take you through some of the highlights. The UK’s new monetary framework 2. Perhaps the single most momentous change in the financial landscape in the UK has been the new government’s decision, in May, to give operational responsibility for interest rates to the Bank of England -- essentially, to establish operational independence for the central bank. This significant reform, which took effect immediately, and is to be the subject of legislation recently introduced in the UK Parliament, represented an immediate concrete demonstration of the new government’s commitment to monetary stability. It ensures that monetary policy will continue to be directed to the pursuit of low inflation, recognising that that is an essential pre-condition for achieving the sustained growth in output and employment that we all seek to achieve. The step was warmly welcomed by the markets, as was evidenced by the immediate fall of around 50 basis points it precipitated in long bond yields. 3. The framework put in place with that announcement has been carefully constructed and I would like to point to four features of it that I believe will be important to its long-run effectiveness. 4.
Let me simply mention that there are other potential challenges associated with SWFs, such as concerns that SWFs could pose a risk to financial stability. 17 A related concern is that asset allocation changes by some of the larger SWFs could result in disorderly market price adjustments. 18 While it is impossible to rule out such effects, these risks are clearly not unique to SWFs. Moreover, they strike me as being second-order problems, compared to the threat of the activities of SWFs unleashing a vicious cycle of financial protectionism. 14  SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, for example, points out possible conflicts of interest arising from foreign government ownership of businesses (Cox 2007). 15  Bernanke (2006) also points out that capital as a general rule has historically been flowing from core to periphery. See, for example, Jones and Obstfeld (2000) and Obstfeld and Taylor (2003) for historical evidence. 16  Lucas (1990). 17  See, for example, Lowery (2007) and Johnson (2007). 18  See for example IMF (2007). 4  BIS Review 150/2007  4. Policy response  Let me now turn to the question of how to respond to the risks associated with SWFs. As I said in my introduction, I would like to provide you with my own judgment on what kind of policy response will likely be required to address adequately the risks I have tried to outline. But before I do so, let me briefly touch upon four policy ideas that are currently being circulated.

6  BIS Review 150/2007  more they have recognised their obligation to be accountable to the public. Typically, more accountability has meant more transparency. An independent central bank is therefore likely to be transparent about how it pursues its mandate. The same may turn out to be true for SWFs. There are a number of difficult questions that need to be addressed before a set of SWF guidelines can become operational. What exactly do we mean by a non-political investment mandate? How do we gauge to what extent there might or might not be political interference in the pursuit of such a mandate? Will there be a need for a referee to determine whether a SWF complies with a particular set of guidelines? What happens if a SWF initially signs up to a code of conduct but subsequently fails to comply with its guidelines? As you can see, much work remains to be done and the timeframe is tight. Ideally, a first set of guidelines will be agreed upon jointly between the G7 countries and the most prominent SWFs by the 2008 spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. If well designed and agreed upon, such a set of guidelines could serve as a basis for determining which SWFs will continue to enjoy full market access in mature economies. 5. Conclusion  Before I conclude, let me say a few words about the capital participation of the GIC in UBS that was recently announced.
So I will conclude with this: “Bubbus, sed possum explicarle, non sed possum comprehendere.” For those of you unschooled in the language of the ancient Romans, that is Texas-ized, distorted Latin for “Bubba, I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  This afternoon I have done my best to explain to the Class of 2014 that success comes to those who best put their talents in context and who connect their substantial intellectual achievement to an equally developed emotional capacity. Those of us who lead cerebral lives must constantly strive to elevate our people skills to a level equal to our intellectual skills. I can explain that to you ad nauseam (aha! Another Latin phrase!). But you must come to understand it on your own. And if you do – if you go through your promising lives remembering that the “whole person is the best person” – my guess is that someday one of you in the Class of 2014 will be standing at this very podium giving the commencement speech to some future generation of graduates and their thousands of supporters and admirers. And having the greatest pleasure a speaker can have: Quoting your very own mom. Congratulations, God bless you and good luck! Thank you. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches

I hope that Standard Chartered Bank will lead the way in establishing affordable products and services for our small scale farmers throughout our country. I encourage you Madam Managing Director in your capacity as the Deputy Chairperson of the Bankers Association of Zambia to expand your horizon and collectively join hands with all stakeholders in addressing this problem. I thank you for your attention. 2  BIS Review 34/2009
I conclude that an exchange cross rate between Hong Kong and the Mainland which varies, or has the potential to vary, is not a problem for us, and this seems set to remain the case for the foreseeable future. The corollary to this is that there would be no advantage in attempting to hitch the HK dollar to the renminbi in some formal or permanent fashion. Other options? There are of course other alternatives which might be explored. For example, in a perfect world, if we were to set ourselves the narrow objective of sustaining our price competitiveness index at a particular level and we possessed a nicely calibrated model of the economy, and if we then applied suitable methodology, we could derive some formula for the optimal exchange rate, which would doubtless be different from that determined by the present regime, and we could then devise an operational strategy to deliver that exchange rate path. But this sort of desktop solution could be a nightmare in reality. Even if the empirical basis of the formula was entirely reliable (a wholly unrealistic assumption), imagine the possible consequences for interest rates or foreign reserves, and the practical problems in terms of operability, comprehensibility, transparency, credibility, financial market confidence, and so on. Such problems could be particularly acute, and the risks of such a strategy therefore correspondingly high, in such an open economy and open financial market-place as Hong Kong. I have deliberately exaggerated in order to make the point.

(Article 112) "The Exchange Fund of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be managed and controlled by the government of the Region, primarily for regulating the value of the Hong Kong dollar." (Article 113) "The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall follow the principle of keeping the expenditure within the limits of revenues in drawing up its budget, and strive to achieve a fiscal balance, avoid deficits and keep the budget commensurate with the growth rate of its gross domestic product." (Article 107) These stipulations confirm the continuance of the Hong Kong dollar as an independent currency; they confirm that the Exchange Fund is available to regulate the exchange rate; they rule out the use of exchange controls; and they provide some comfort that deficit fiscal financing should not attain a scale that would pose a serious threat to monetary stability. Choice of regime But within these parameters the exact monetary arrangements are not prescribed. We have chosen to operate a currency board with a fixed rate against the US dollar. I have recently written and spoken at  2  BIS Review 31/2002  2  some length on the rationale behind this choice and do not intend to repeat all of that today. But let me just reiterate one of my principal contentions – namely that monetary policy, which includes exchange rate policy, cannot determine an economy's competitiveness outside the relatively short term.
Policies are needed to address the structural strains in the demand side (at household level), while structural reforms are still needed on the supply side as well. 1  Voinea, L. and Monnin, P. (Feb. 2017), “Inequality Should Matter for Central Banks”, Blog of the Council on Economic Policies, https://www.cepweb.org/inequality-should-matter-for-central-banks/  4  Figure 1. Home ownership percent 100 90 80 70 60  50 40 30 20 10 0 RO LT SK HU BG PL LV EE CZ ES SI PT CY FI  IT BE IE SE NL UK FR DK AT DE  Source: ESRB Report on Vulnerabilities in the EU residential real estate sector - 2016  Figure 2. Household gross debt-to-income ratio  Figure 3. Household mortgage debt-to-income ratio  Source: ESRB Report on residential real estate and financial stability in the EU, 2015  5  Figure 4. Overcrowding - Households with dependent children RO  70 LV PL  overcrowding %  60  BG  HU SK  50 IT  LT  40 CZ  30  AT  EE  20 DE  10  DK  SE  UK FR NL  IE BE  55  60  65  70  SI ES  FI CY  0 50  PT  75  80  85  90  95  100  homeownership % Source: Eurostat  Figure 5. Average no. of rooms per person No.

Household access to banks or financial markets which is typically limited for low- income households defines who will be directly and indirectly affected by changes in interest rates, and thus who will react more strongly to monetary policy impulses. More generally, household response to changes in monetary conditions depends on each household’s income and indebtedness profile; that is, on their disposable income profile. All these variables indicate that two different income distributions can potentially induce many different impacts on the economy for the same monetary policy1.  Access to credit has improved after the crisis, mainly due to lower interest rates (Figure 13), income growth (in particular for low-middle income households) and the introduction of a state-guaranteed “First House” program (Figure 14) (which mainly compensated for the lack of savings by allowing for a very low advance payment). When “First House” program was changed to allow only local currency guarantees, the share of local currency mortgages skyrocketed (Figure 15), reducing the vulnerability of foreign exchange evolution, but increasing the risk of a future interest rate shock on low-middle income households.  National Bank of Romania introduced a series of macroprudential measures starting from 2004 (Figure 16). Yet, macroprudential rules put in place to foster financial stability can affect households unequally. For example, relaxing or tightening access to mortgages through caps on debt-to-value ratios may affect the distribution of household wealth.  Monetary and macroprudential policies alone cannot address the imbalances in the RRE markets.