samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
One element of the strategy is to quantify what the ECB is aiming at in terms of price stability, namely an increase in consumer prices of below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. This provides guidance for inflation expectations. At the same time, it serves the purpose of accountability, for it sets a benchmark against which the ECB’s performance in maintaining price stability can be measured. The ECB’s monetary policy strategy also provides a clear and coherent framework for structuring analysis and our discussion in the Governing Council, and it has a remarkable role in structuring our external communication. From the start, it has helped to achieve the consistency between internal analysis and external communication which is the essence of transparency. It is also important for the ECB and the Eurosystem to clearly communicate what monetary policy can, and cannot, achieve. For example, monetary policy cannot offset short-term changes in the inflation rate which are caused by economic shocks, such as sharp oil price increases or higher administered prices. It is thus a permanent challenge to explain any deviations in inflation from the definition of price stability. At the same time, it is essential for the public to be confident that such shocks do not call into question the determination and ability of the ECB to deliver price stability over the medium term. Already the detailed public display of our monetary policy strategy as such is a very useful communication device.

Finally, transparency contributes to macroeconomic stability and long-term growth by enhancing the price and wage setting mechanism, and by improving the functioning of the labour market. A credible monetary policy strategy oriented towards price stability contributes to moderate nominal and real wage developments. Workers do not have to ask for extra wage increases to compensate for inflation risk and firms know beforehand that they will not be able to pass higher wages on to consumer prices. Overall, transparent and credible monetary policy enhances firms ability to manage their production costs, retain profitability and create new jobs. Transparency of the ECB Let me now turn to the ECB and its concept of transparency and external communication. It was understood at an early stage that external communication would be crucial for the ECB. Already during the time of the European Monetary Institute the ECB’s future communication policy was discussed; consequently, the ECB’s Governing Council adopted some communication policy objectives and principles as early as 1998. They reflect the duty and “self-interest” elements already mentioned: since then we have communicated to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our monetary policy and to make the ECB, an independent central bank, accountable. On this score, the publication of the key elements of the monetary policy strategy back in October 1998 constituted in itself a major step towards monetary policy transparency.
At end of ’99, the weight of the paid-in domestic government capital accounts for 41.7 percent, from 27 percent of the weight of the domestic government equity capital  2  While the credit outstanding in ALL is increased by ALL 17.5 billion or 128 percent, the one in foreign currency is increased by ALL 40.1 billion, or 71 percent. BIS Review 115/2006  3  Compared to end of 2004, the banking system appears with an increasing level of profit, to ALL 6.1 billion. Return on equity resulted to 22.24% at end of 2005 and 19.2 % at end of the nine-month period of 2006, while the credit quality denominated as a ratio of the net non-performing loans to total loan portfolio is at 2.3%, from 4.2% at end of 2004. However, it is still soon to judge about the credit quality, because credits are still new and their quality has to be monitored prudentially. •  Year 2005 recorded ALL 33 billion of the shareholders’ equity of the system, or about ALL 7 billion higher compared to 2004, and 19% of the capital adequacy indicator or about 3 percentage points lower than in the same previous year period, whereas for the nine-month period of 2006 these indicators are respectively: shareholders’ equity of the banking system reached ALL 39.8 billion, being increased by ALL 6.8 billion compared to year-end 2005, and the capital adequacy indicator was 18.3 % or 0.3 percentage point lower than in the same previous year period.

On the fiscal front, there has been an intensive drive to correct the budget deficit, as indicated by the significant reduction in the structural general government deficit since 2009. The increased transparency and the strengthening of the fiscal framework further to the approval of the Law on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability in 2012 assist the different tiers of government –central, regional and local – in meeting the budget targets. In turn, the reform of the pensions system is a necessary step for ensuring the sustainability of public finances in the medium term. Despite these achievements, the rising course of the public debt/GDP ratio has not yet been halted and is a reminder of the scale of the fiscal effort still required. There has also been progress in private-sector deleveraging. The sluggishness of household and corporate income is slowing the process, as a result of which the weight of the adjustment is falling on the contraction in lending extended to these sectors. That said, this contraction in credit may be and indeed is proving compatible with its appropriate restructuring. The analysis of the Banco de España suggests that, even in years  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  as difficult as the past two, the proportion of firms that have not seen a fall-off in their bank loans has been significant, around 30%. And more significantly, those that have not seen their credit decline are, precisely, those firms which, in general, were departing from a sounder position of debt and profitability.
Actual and potential GDP Logarithmed levels 14.0  14.0 GDP GDP, forecast  13.8  13.8  GDP, potential (PF) GDP, HP-trend  13.6  13.6  13.4  13.4  13.2  13.2  13.0  13.0  12.8  12.8 80  85  90  95  00  05  10  15  20  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  8. GDP gap Per cent 6  6 GDP gap (HP)  4  4  GDP gap (PF)  2  2  0  0  -2  -2  -4  -4  -6  -6  -8  -8 80  85  90  95  00  05  10  Note. GDP gap (HP) refers to GDP’s deviation from trend calculated with a HPfilter. GDP gap (PF) refers to GDP’s deviation from trend calculated with a production function. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  12  BIS central bankers’ speeches  9. Hours gap Per cent 6  6 Hours gap (HP)  4  4  Hours gap  2  2  0  0  -2  -2  -4  -4  -6  -6 80  85  90  95  00  05  10  Note. Hours gap (HP) refers to the deviation of hours worked from trend calculated with a Hodrick Prescott filter. Hours gap refers to the deviation of hours worked from the Riksbank’s assessed trend for hours worked.

Norman Chan: Facilitating financial innovation in Hong Kong Welcoming remarks by Mr Norman T L Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the HKMA Fintech Day, Hong Kong, 25 October 2017. * * * Good morning, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. 1. This is the second year that the HKMA organises a Fintech Day. I am pleased to say that, compared with the much smaller venue at PMQ last year, we have almost 1,000 participants attending today’s event, which is double of the participation last year. This is a clear demonstration of the very rapid growth in the interest as well as progress in the field of fintech in Hong Kong. 2. Talking about progress, I would like to update you on the latest developments since I announced a “New Era of Smart Banking” on 29 September at the annual conference of the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers. You may recall that I mentioned seven initiatives to prepare Hong Kong to enter into the Smart Banking Era: a Faster Payment System, Supervisory Sandbox 2.0, Virtual Banking, Open API, Banking Made Easy, Cross-border Collaboration, and Research and Talent Development. Although it is only less than a month after my announcement, I am pleased to report on the encouraging progress made in respect of two of these seven initiatives, i.e. cross-border collaboration, and research and talent development. Cross-border collaboration Singapore 3. One of the key characteristics of Fintech is that it is borderless.
Such a spiral in Spain would only exacerbate the pernicious effects of the current shock, since, in the present context, a simultaneous rise in prices and wages would erode our external competitiveness vis-à-vis other euro area countries and would aggravate the already harmful effects of the current shock on competitiveness, employment and economic growth. Further, were it to spread across the euro areas as a whole, such a feedback loop would require a more aggressive normalisation of the ECB’s monetary policy to ensure compliance with our price stability mandate. In my view, an incomes agreement, like the one I have been advocating since October, is warranted in order to ward off these scenarios. But what shape should this cost-sharing agreement take? In my view, this burden-sharing should be set out in an agreement forged under the framework of social dialogue (which we have termed an “incomes agreement between firms and workers”). However, I believe it should be defined based on certain general principles. I will specifically mention five that I feel are particularly important. First, the costs must be shared among all agents. In an extreme scenario in which firms attempt to keep their unit profits intact, a reduction in household purchasing power would ultimately translate into lower demand for firms’ products. At the other extreme, maintaining workers’ full purchasing power would pose a threat to firms’ capacity to generate sufficient funds to conduct their investments and, ultimately, would jeopardise their survival, to the detriment of employment and welfare.

The necessary coordination at national level must therefore be combined with mechanisms to ensure the agreement is able to cater to the existing productivity and activity-related differences across firms and sectors.8 Equally, where the standard of living of certain segments of households is hit particularly hard by rising energy costs, the incomes agreement should naturally seek to mitigate their straitened circumstances. In short, these considerations reveal the need to avoid overly sweeping measures to implement a potential incomes agreement that might prove too rigid for certain groups of agents. Third, any approaches that automatically link wages to past inflation or indexation clauses are also to be avoided9. The aim is precisely to reduce the risk of triggering a wage-price feedback loop. In this regard, workers with collective bargaining agreements registered up to March this year that provide for any form of wage guarantee clause linking the final wage increases agreed in 2022 to developments in inflation are admittedly in the minority. Nonetheless, the figure (30%) is notably higher than it was at the end of 2021, when it stood at 17%. Of even more concern is the fact that this figure rises to 50% of the total when considering the agreements entering into force in 2023, albeit still referring to a small number of agreements in this case. Fourth, any incomes agreement should provide for multi-year wage increase and job protection-related undertakings. This would offer households and businesses some certainty in their spending and investment decisions.
In cross-country data the scale of the economic downturn after the crisis was positively correlated with prior growth rates of debt but uncorrelated with its level (Charts 3 and 4 cover 15 European countries, the US and Japan). In longer-term data, growth rates of debt are better predictors of financial crises. Even across individual households, the rate at which debt had accumulated in the run-up to the crisis seemed to tell you more about a borrower’s subsequent difficulties than the level of gearing. I want to say a little more about this today, using various examples from the UK. Chart 3: Levels of gearing ahead of the crisis unrelated to GDP growth after it  Chart 4: Growth of debt does better  Sources: BIS total credit statistics, Datastream from Refinitiv and Bank calculations. Sample includes 15 European countries, Japan and the US. Sources: BIS total credit statistics, Datastream from Refinitiv and Bank calculations. Sample includes 15 European countries, Japan and the US. I should say at the outset that I’m certainly not claiming that levels of debt are irrelevant. It must surely be the case that, all else equal, more debt means more financial risk. It’s possible there are lots of particular, country-specific factors – things like the non-recourse status of mortgages in the US or the tax regime in the Netherlands – that make a given quantity of debt more risky in some places than in others.

Caleb M Fundanga: Setting new standards for cellphone banking Opening remarks by Mr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Celpay 2010 Mobile Payments Conference, Lusaka, 27 October 2010. *  *  *  The Chief Executive Officer Celpay International BV The Managing Director – Zain Zambia Limited Managing Director, Celpay Zambia Ltd, Mr Miyanda Mulambo The Conference Chairperson, Mr Maxwell Banda Representatives of Commercial Banks and Financial Institutions present Representatives of International Organizations present Representatives of Zambian business associations Distinguished invited participants Members of the Press Ladies and Gentlemen, It is an honour and privilege for me to officiate at the 2010 Mobile Payments Conference. This year’s conference follows the success of the inaugural 2009 conference and it is therefore my earnest anticipation that as in 2009, you will find the 2010 conference productive and beneficial. The conference provides an excellent opportunity for the exchange of views and sharing of ideas on how to continuously improve the functioning of our financial systems against the backdrop of the global financial turmoil. Mr Chairman, Allow me to begin by commending Celpay Zambia Limited, for making the mobile banking conference an annual event. I hope that the Conference will provide a forum for long-term collaboration in the area of Mobile banking to provide sustainable banking solutions to our people. The Bank of Zambia applauds this initiative which is collaborative and consultative.
Part 2: The central bank’s relationship with businesses in the wider economy •  Central bank charged with achieving and preserving stability – stability in the (internal) value of the currency and stability in the financial system. Medium-term goals, requiring a medium-term perspective. •  But what we do affects the path of the economy in the short run. On the one hand, that is why these tasks are entrusted to unelected officials in central banks: to solve the time-consistency problem. On the other hand, society is rightly hugely interested in  •  How unelected central bankers manage any short-term trade-offs  •  How to satisfy itself that we are not deviating from the medium-term goals we have been given. •  In monetary sphere, the solution has been a quantified, well-defined medium-term objective for inflation combined with transparency. Everyone is now used to this, but  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  remember that transparency in monetary policy is a relatively new phenomenon. Less than 20 years ago, the US FOMC did not even announce its policy rate. •  Transparency works well for monetary policy because almost everything can be published. •  And even there it is always possible to make improvements. Latest Inflation Report package contains new charts, richer indicators. And following a new Remit from HMG, MPC is being clearer about how we assess short-term trade-offs between growth and inflation in a way that is faithful to our medium-term inflation objective.

Before getting to the substance, I should say first that the Bank is releasing a text comprising a few bullet points around which I shall frame my remarks; and second, that I am speaking for myself this evening and not for any of the policy committees, domestic or international, of which I am a member. Speaking notes Part 1: Prudential regulation of financial firms: rules versus discretion •  Bank of England is once again the prudential supervisor of banks. And this time of building societies and insurance companies too. •  Prominence given in public debate to the Bank absolutely not adopting a ‘tick box’ approach, but instead a ‘judgment-based’ approach. This has been widely applauded. •  In fact, market practitioners tend to be schizophrenic about it. For a couple of decades at least, they have called for ‘certainty’ whenever any specific, isolated policy area is being reformed; ie clear and complete rules. But taking the resulting monstrous rule books as a whole, senior practitioners rightly condemn the ‘tick box’ regulation that almost inevitably results. •  And leaders of firms have hardly stopped their staff from making a living finding ways around rules: endemic regulatory arbitrage was at the heart of so-called ‘shadow banking’ in the run up to the crisis. •  Step back to consider the public policy purpose. Contrast prudential supervision with securities regulation as traditionally conceived. Latter works on basis of: write rules; check compliance with those rules; punish breaches.
Policymakers must support the global reform agenda, to help build a more resilient global financial system, while taking into account local and regional circumstances. In particular, as Asian economies undergo rapid transition, policymakers will have to evolve their financial systems to meet the rapidly changing needs of their economies. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  As the systems become more complex and more plugged into the global system, the risk to financial stability will increase. 10. Indeed, post-crisis, central banks and regulators are focused on financial stability and the need to be proactive with regards to the risk of asset bubbles. Many parts of Asia in particular are vulnerable to property bubbles, not only because of current liquidity conditions, but also because many investors believe that in a growing economy, the property market can only move up. Many have forgotten how the property markets in the region slumped during the 1997/98 Asian Financial Crisis. 11. As I mentioned earlier, risks can build up rapidly. Hence, not surprisingly, there has been much debate on the types of policy tools to address potential asset bubbles. In my view, there is no single tool that works best in all situations. We need a combination of tools that addresses the different facets of the issue. These tools should be simple and easy to understand. More importantly, for these tools to be effective, the intention of the authorities has to be clearly communicated. Policymakers must leave no doubt of their resolve to tackle the potential build-up of risks.

Such interactions tend to amplify the amplitude of the bussiness cycle, thereby heightening the risk to financial stability. This description of procyclicality presupposes the existence of two cycles, namely the business cycle and the financial cycle, that interact and reinforce each other. However, economic and financial decisions underlying the two cycles are not independent. They are inherently linked by the risk-taking behaviour of economic agents: the behaviour which is prone to change in response to incentive, perception of risk, regulation, and new information. It is this change in risk-taking behaviour that explains large swings in investor sentiment, from a period of optimism when risk is disregarded to a period of pessimism when there is no willingness to  BIS Review 160/2009  1  take risk. And it is this change in risk-taking behaviour that underscores the abrupt change in financial behaviour, and in the direction and momentum of economic activities. It follows therefore that procyclicality is a mechanism that encompasses the interactions of at least three reinforcing cycles that move in tandem. They are the business cycle, the financial cycle, and the cycle of risk-taking beheviour represented by fluctuations in asset prices or the asset price cycle. The three cycles are self-reinforcing, and it is the ways the cycles interact with each others that define the amplitude and the momentum of the cyclical flunctuations, as well as risk of a financial crisis. Interactions of the three cycles can be illustrated with reference to a typical boom-bust cycle.
In addition to the unified money market in the euro zone, we should aspire towards the full integration of capital markets. Simplified procedures for the adoption of secondary legislation that regulates the financial services area are an important step forward. The convergence of financial markets calls for a more extensive harmonisation of the legal environment in various countries. But it also requires closer co-operation between various national supervisory authorities and/or better co-ordination of supervision functions on the EU level. In addition, it should be taken into account that capital transfers between the member states would be easier if business laws and regulations of different countries are harmonised. Here I could mention rules governing companies’ mergers and takeovers, bankruptcy procedures, state aid distribution terms and conditions. A flexible labour market is extremely important for the effective common monetary policy purposes. However, it is unlikely that in the near future Europe will see any notable crossborder migration of the labour force - it is not expected to happen before or after the EU enlargement. Therefore, limited flexibility of the labour market should be offset by an efficient internal market, high capital mobility and greater flexibility of the domestic labour market. Fiscal policy - fiscal federalism In addition to the above-mentioned supply-related issues, the EU and its member states’ fiscal policy principles in the context of the common monetary policy have been under special scrutiny. It has been stated that enhanced co-operation within the fiscal policy area will allow to mitigate potential economic difficulties in various countries.

He also serves as an Associate Editor at Econometrica and as a member of the Board of Editors at the American Economic Review. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 2010. Prior to Harvard, he received an undergraduate degree from the Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece. In addition to this Bernácer prize he has received numerous honours and awards. These include a Sloan Research Fellowship awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Excellence Award in Global Economic Affairs, from Kiel Institute for the World Economy. For those who know him he is a tireless worker and a perfectionist, who always dots his i’s and crosses his t’s. But he is also very approachable, a man of great humour and always very generous with his time. He combines a brilliant mind and outstanding organisational capacity with great didactic skills. One of his assets is how passionate he is about what he does, transmitting his knowledge and inspiring those around him. Loukas Karabarbounis is one of the most highly cited young macroeconomists in academia, and his research interests comprise macroeconomics, labour economics, and international 1  finance. His latest research has focused on topics such as the global decline in labour's share of income, productivity and capital flows in southern Europe, and the effects of unemployment insurance policy on macroeconomic outcomes.