samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Since all other demand components were falling, the manufacturing sector was able to attract resources and expand. We have not had a current account deficit since 1993. Why 2 per cent inflation and a floating exchange rate? That two per cent is the optimal inflation target has no scientific basis. However, this level gives a reasonable trade-off between the negative consequences of high inflation and the problems entailed by deflation. Furthermore, two per cent is a common target internationally. It is necessary, you see, to have a certain margin from zero inflation if price and wage formation are to work well. Separate prices and wages have to be able to grow at different rates if it is to be possible to allocate resources such as labour to their correct use. Since it is difficult to cut nominal wages, some inflation creates the possibility for relative changes in wages without having to reduce the nominal level for any group. The scope for wage increases given the inflation target is around 4 per cent. (2 per cent + 2 per cent: Inflation plus productivity growth, at a given profit share. )1 This holds if we, like the National Institute of Economic Research, assume that average productivity growth is around 2 per cent for the whole economy in the long term. If one occupational group gets 5 per cent in order to attract labour, another group has to get less than the average increase.

These differences seem to last over long periods, indicating that the problems are partly due to low mobility in the labour market. In addition, the need for labour market mobility is growing as a result of structural change. The previously typical cyclical pattern, where jobs are shed during a slump and then are recreated when the economy turns around, no longer generally holds true in all industries. Jobs that are lost in a slowdown are being replaced, especially in manufacturing, by increased productivity and information technology. Growth is leading to new jobs but in different places than before. That means that more people have to change workplace or sector, and results in the need for considerable adaptability. More jobs have to be created in, for example, the services sector, perhaps in completely new companies. The structural change that occurred when farmers and forestry workers went into manufacturing was relatively easy. Now the change often entails manufacturing workers having to go into the services sector, a transition that may be more difficult. To the extent that the weak growth in employment is due to structural change in the Swedish economy, from manufacturing jobs to services, there is reason to discuss how the functioning of the labour market can be improved and how the driving forces for new business creation can be strengthened.
For instance, large fluctuations in asset prices may modify the behaviour of agents by decreasing the level of confidence. Such fluctuations can also expose bank portfolios to a higher risk of losses, inducing banks to compensate for these risks by restricting credit. Let me stress that, although a price stability oriented monetary policy is conducive to financial stability over the long term, episodes of financial instability have been known to take place during periods of low inflation. Price stability must be therefore regarded as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Other parameters influence financial stability, among which financial integration is of particular interest from the point of view of a central bank in the Euro area. 2.2  The relationship between financial integration and financial stability is twofold:  –  First, the liquidity redistribution function has taken on a new dimension as participants in the market are dealing with a wider range of counterparties, and actually trade larger unit amounts. Some bank treasurers in Paris mention that the average face value in euro of single transaction today is equivalent to the face value of a transaction in French franc in 1998, that is, more than six times higher. –  Second, financial market integration is related to the trend towards the greater share of markets in the allocation of assets. At the end of 2000 financial assets in the euro area were 10 split almost equally between intermediated and non-intermediated assets.

(e) Payment systems The Governing Council endorsed a list of eligible securities settlement systems following an assessment of such systems against standards that had previously been laid down for their use in the credit operations of the ESCB. The list, which indicates those securities settlement systems that will be used by the ESCB and the conditions for their use, will be set out in the “General Documentation”, to which I have already referred. In addition, the Governing Council approved a report on the “Assessment of EU securities settlement systems against the standards for their use in ESCB credit operations”. It is intended to release this report during the next couple of weeks. BIS Review 72/1998
For their part, inflation rates in April 2022 stood at 8.3% and 7.4%, respectively, that is, 6.9 pp and 6.5 pp higher than in early 2021. According to the earliest leading preliminary data available for the euro area, corresponding to May, inflation has risen once again, to 8.1%. Although the Spanish economy saw a gradual recovery over 2021, which extended to early 2022, this recovery is still incomplete and uneven by sector. In early 2021, the primary 1  conditioning factor was the epidemiological developments, as they required maintaining measures to contain the disease. The swift headway made in the vaccination campaign allowed a more buoyant phase to begin in Q2, but this was tempered from mid-2021 by the bottlenecks and higher energy prices, which were compounded towards the end of the year by the spread of the Omicron variant. In the opening weeks of 2022, with this wave of the pandemic subsiding and the first timid signs of relief in the bottlenecks, it appeared that the path to recovery was beginning to clear once and for all. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February has provided a further negative shock, which I shall refer to later in detail. GDP growth stood at 5.1% in 2021 as a whole, which slowed to 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in 2022 Q1. During this period there was an intense shift in the strength of activity, with the hospitality and leisure sectors becoming more dynamic as headway was made in vaccination.

Exemptions from social security contributions for the workers affected have been approved, depending on the form and duration of the procedure, and workers subject to the sectoral mechanism will be required to follow a reskilling plan that includes training. Such arrangements have proven effective during eminently temporary shocks, such as the health crisis, suggesting that they could be equally valuable in temporary macroeconomic situations. However, they would not necessarily be as appropriate in other types of more structural processes, such as those that will foreseeably have to be addressed by the Spanish economy in the years ahead; in such instances, the sectoral form of the RED mechanism would be activated. Consequently, looking forward, it would be advisable to assess how effective this form of the RED mechanism is, compared with other mechanisms currently conceived for permanent restructurings (e.g. redundancy programmes), in terms of boosting the employability of the workers affected and maintaining their human capital, but also in smoothing the necessary cross-firm and cross-sectoral reallocation of resources. (ii) The challenge of training and increasing human capital Increasing the educational attainment level of workers and employers is also crucial to reducing structural unemployment, boosting productivity and fostering the creation of higher quality jobs. In recent decades, the Spanish population’s level of educational attainment has improved considerably. However, Spain is still behind its European peers in this respect. By way of illustration, in 2020 Spain had the highest early school leavers’ rate in the EU.
We believe that a rise in inflation expectations caused by the above factors will also be temporary. We expect that the impact of limited demand on inflation will be stable and long-lasting. Given the transmission lag of monetary policy, we should take actions already now. Based on our forecast, annual inflation will reach 3.8–4.8% by the end of the year amid the easing of monetary policy, and will further on stabilise close to 4%. Moreover, we expect a reversal of inflation trends in the middle of the year. Monthly inflation in annualised terms will begin to go down, while annual inflation will still continue to rise. As to the balance of payments, we expect that the current account balance will decline to negative values in 2020 and 2021 (to USD 35 and 18 billion respectively). This will mainly result from the slump in exports caused by the reduction in external demand and in export revenues, primarily from oil sales. I would like to point that the temporary switch to a current account deficit is an expected effect produced by the considerable oil price downturn under the influence of the fiscal rule. Receipts from fiscal rule-based foreign currency sales make it possible to support the economy and domestic consumption. In this situation, imports are contracting to a lower degree compared 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  to exports driven by the decline in oil prices. As a result, the current account balance will drop to negative values.

The decline in production and investments will be confining the opportunities for an upturn in income. Consumer demand will be shrinking. The measures implemented by the Government and the Bank of Russia will support the economy, and specifically the most affected industries. Economic growth in 2021–2022 will largely be recovery-type. According to our forecast, GDP will expand by 3–5% in 2021 and by 1.5–3.5% in 2022. GDP growth will be promoted by a further implementation of national projects. However, our baseline forecast factors in only the already effective budget support measures. An upturn in the economy and domestic demand will also be driven by the easing of monetary conditions resulting from the monetary policy pursued. This will support lending, and its growth rate will rise from 3–8% this year to 6–11% in 2021–2022. The lending potential will also be maintained owing to the regulatory easing and the expansion of the Bank of Russia’s specialised refinancing instruments. According to our estimates, the easing of monetary policy is needed to maintain annual inflation close to 4% over the forecast horizon. The slump in domestic and external demand this year will be considerably containing inflation, which induces the risk of its substantial deviation downwards from the target in 2021 and over a medium-term horizon if no additional monetary policy measures are introduced. The disinflationary pressure of weak demand will offset the effect of temporary proinflationary factors, that is, the ruble weakening and the observed elevated demand for individual products, already this year.
If the downward revision to income expectations proves to have been justified then the level of output is unlikely to return to its previous path. We don’t know yet – it will depend in part on how persistent these shocks turn out to be – but this is clearly important to the longer-term outlook for both growth and inflation. In the near term, whatever the source of the changes in perceptions of permanent income, it is likely that growth will continue to be below the previous trend until more of the real adjustments to balance sheets across the economy have been made. That includes households, the public sector, banks and other businesses. In my view we are maybe two thirds to three quarters of the way through in each case, varying both across and within sectors. There is nothing scientific or “official” in that assessment! It’s just a personal best guess on the back of how the economy is behaving plus some direct knowledge of the progress of the banks with their deleveraging plans. To be clear, we do not need to be 100% finished before growth strengthens at all, and we may be beginning to see some signs of a pick-up. And I think this prognosis is consistent with our Inflation Report central projection of  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  a gentle, albeit sustained, recovery over the next three years. That is a somewhat sobering, but not calamitous, outlook for real growth.

For regions where country-level data is not available, chart assumes that UK exports are distributed between Commonwealth and “Other” countries in proportion to the number of those types of countries in each region. BIS central bankers’ speeches  Table 1: Annual average growth rates of trade and GDP (per cent) United Kingdom(a) Exports  Imports  1701–1830  GDP 1.1  1830–70  5.0  4.4  2.0  1870–1913  2.9  3.1  1.9  1913–50  1.3  0.7  1.5  1950–73  4.4  4.4  2.6  1973–2001  4.8  5.1  2.4  Trade  GDP  World(b) volume 1500–1820  1.0  0.3  1820–70  4.2  0.9  1870–1913  3.4  2.1  1913–50  0.9  1.8  1950–73  7.9  4.9  1973–2001  5.2  3.1  1820–2001  3.9  2.2  (a) Bank calculations and Hills, Thomas and Dimsdale (2010), “The UK recession in context – what do three centuries of data tell us?”, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Q4. (b) Table 6 in Angus Maddison (2005), Growth and interaction in the world economy: the roots of modernity, The AEI Press, Washington. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7
All this must be attained in a setting in which new developments and circumstances will be emerging – and they are in fact appearing already – to make our analytical and supervisory tasks more demanding. In any event, enjoying society’s trust and recognition will involve being able to respond successfully to this challenge. To be able to accomplish our mission and reach both objectives, the Banco de España is going to have to adapt. But such adaptation must also stand on sound pillars. The first of these pillars is our independence. Independence is a necessary condition for achieving the aforementioned objectives and it is independence alone that can offer us the best guarantees of success. Secondly, the exercise of independence should be underpinned by analysis and decisions based on the utmost intellectual rigour. This is also the best base from which to address the necessary accountability and transparency to society. Thirdly, we can only properly perform our dual role of members of the Eurosystem and public servants by the pursuit of excellence in our work and by promoting the excellence of our staff. Such excellence has been and is, no doubt, one of the hallmarks of this institution. It is my firm commitment to maintain and enhance the Bank’s human capital. To conclude, I shall adhere to the tradition launched by Governor Linde when he took office and end, as he did, with a quote.

In tribute to the Governor, as I know that Fernando Pessoa is one of his favourite poets, I'd like to quote his “Odes by Ricardo Reis”, in which he reminds us of the importance of being truly committed to our work. “To be great, be whole: don’t exaggerate Or leave out any part of you. Be complete in each thing. Put all you are Into the least of your acts." Thank you all for being here. 5/5
MAS and the industry will together develop four interoperable platforms under Project Greenprint: • a Common Disclosure Portal for financial institutions and corporates to make reliable and comparable ESG disclosures;  5/8  BIS central bankers' speeches  • a Data Orchestrator to aggregate ESG data from different sectoral platforms and trusted data sources; • an ESG Registry to record and maintain ESG certifications on a distributed ledger; and • t he Greenprint Marketplace to connect green technology providers with investors and corporates. Third, COSMIC – a platform for financial institutions to collaborate using data analytics to combat the risks of money laundering. This platform for information sharing and analysis will generate a rich and dynamic data pool of high-risk actors and their webs of anomalous activities. COSMIC will enable seamless data exchange with financial institutions’ own data analytics systems so that they can effectively identify and disrupt criminal networks sprawling across multiple financial institutions. MAS has been co-creating COSMIC with six major banks in Singapore and the platform is scheduled to go-live in 2023. In its initial phase, COSMIC will focus on risks related to the abuse of shell companies, illicit misuse of trade finance, and evasion of United Nations sanctions. But the future of Finance cannot be divined without considering the future of the Internet. Plutus will be crossing paths quite often with Mercury. MERCURY AND THE ADVENT OF WEB 3.0 This new age of the Internet has been dubbed Web 3.0.

Bandid Nijathaworn: Where is global finance heading? Speech by Dr Bandid Nijathaworn, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Conference entitled, “Where is Global Finance Heading? The Stake of Emerging Economies in the International Financial System”, organised by Central Bank of Peru and Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee, Cusco, Peru, July 13-14, 2009. *  *  *  Thank you Chair First, let me thank the Central Bank of Peru and Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee for the invitation. It is an honour to be speaking to you today. The topic of this first session is “Time of upheaval: Where global finance is heading?”. This is definitely an important question given the current crisis is now almost two years old and is still evolving. Judging from the implications that the crisis has had so far on the world economy and financial markets, this is truly the first crisis of globalization. The crisis shows that financial upheaval can happen in any country, regardless of whether it is large or small, emerging or developed, and once happens, it can impart huge externalities on the rest of the world given the globalized nature of the world’s trade and payment systems. But more importantly, the crisis points to the weakness in the configuration of policies and financial regulation in the period leading up to the crisis that led to excessive risk-taking in the intermediation of global savings and investment across economies.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Nevertheless, contribution of net foreign demand to the economic growth of the third quarter is considered to be lower compared with the first half of the year. Annual improvement of trade deficit by 10.7% in the third quarter was lower than the one recorded in the first two quarters of 2010. Furthermore, trade of goods in the first two months of the fourth quarter proves a lower contribution of the external economy for the last quarter of 2010. The growing tendency of imports and an expected slowdown of exports growth may halt the process of correcting foreign trade balance and reduce its influence on the economic growth for 2011. In the aspects of macroeconomic policies, these developments suggest that strong stimulating policies for the economy may be buffered by a rapid increase in imports that accompanies the increase in domestic demand. In the structural aspect, these developments reiterate the need to continue with structural reforms, which should orientate the Albanian economy towards a more stable development model and a higher competitiveness in global markets. Among other things, these reforms, should aim at establishing a favourable climate to attract stable capital flows as in foreign direct investments or long-term capital inflow. A further increase of aggregate demand enabled the Albanian economy to move closer to its producing potential, yet remaining clearly under-utilised. Consequently, decreasing pressures on inflation continued to be present even during the second half of the year.

In particular, we invest in green because we see it as a driver of long-term value, in addition to wanting to do the right thing. Contrary to some perception that investing in green undermines return, our experience shows that many green investments that are good for the environment can also be good for investors over the long term. I see the application of green and ESG in investment as just another balancing act that investors have to perform. Exactly where and how to draw the line depends on the specific circumstances at hand. While some green bonds may produce slightly lower yield or returns as compared with the conventional bonds, I truly believe that time has come for asset owners to take a more progressive and proactive stance in supporting green finance. I don’t think there is much disagreement amongst the stakeholders on whether green finance can make a difference in promoting long-term environmental sustainability. The big question is whether the 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  stakeholders, especially the asset owners, be they pension funds or sovereign wealth funds, want to make a difference by taking concrete steps to invest in green finance. We in the HKMA are prepared to play our part and I sincerely hope our peers will join us in owning and pursuing the goal of supporting green finance. 8. Ladies and gentlemen, we have today a rich agenda and the presence of many distinguished speakers.
That has contributed to easing the pressure on the risk premium and smoothed the way for agreements in Europe, under the Stability and Growth Pact and the Excessive Deficit Procedure. The European authorities agreed last July to allow a milder fiscal adjustment path for Spain, in particular for 2013 and 2014, which is more consistent with the current macroeconomic conditions and those that will prevail in the coming years. For this improved credibility to take root, the deficit targets must be met. Information on the budget outturn in 2013 is still limited. In the first half of the year, the deficit improved relative to the same period a year earlier (without considering the impact of the assistance to the financial sector which, as is known, does not count for these purposes). The budget outturn in the second half of the year must, therefore, be very strict at all levels of government if slippage is to be avoided at the end of the year. While there are risks, I trust we can meet the target this year of cutting the deficit to 6.5%. The headway in budgetary consolidation should not mask the fact that the effort needed to ensure Spanish public finances are redressed is still most considerable. Let us not forget the distance still existing between the present situation and the requirement set in the Stability Pact and in the new Budgetary Stability Law for the medium term, which is to have a structural balance in equilibrium.

In 2013 to date, we have achieved a net financing position with the external sector, a trend which will foreseeably continue and become more accentuated over the rest of the year, to the point of placing the overall balance of payments on current and capital account for the whole of 2013 at over 2% of GDP. Nonetheless, the accumulation of major external deficits between 2007 and 2011 (amounting, over these five years, to € billion, 32% of our GDP in 2012) has led to a high debit international investment position, and years will be needed to reasonably reduce our dependence on external saving. Private-sector deleveraging continues to progress, although the unfavourable course of income is checking the speed of the process. It is moreover likely that debt/income rebalancing will prolong the contraction of credit at the aggregate level, although we may expect its impact to be increasingly less. This is compatible with a reallocation of funds towards the more productive agents with healthier financial positions. In any event, measures are needed aimed at reallocating funds towards firms with greater potential in terms of activity and employment and with financing difficulties, a situation particularly prevalent among small and medium-sized enterprises. Fiscal consolidation Let me now address the public finances situation. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The general government deficit target for 2013, at 6.5% of GDP, entails a reduction of almost 5 pp from its 2009 of 11.2% of GDP.