samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The experience from the crises that nevertheless arose, for instance the year 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst, was that one could also manage more difficult situations. However, the financial crisis 2007–2008 and the deep and protracted downswing that followed have meant that central banks have been forced to closely examine things that were previously taken for granted. In this way, the situation is a little reminiscent of the situation at the beginning of the 1990s when inflation targeting was introduced. Then, too, there were crises that made it necessary to question the prevailing monetary policy doctrine. 1  Many papers have been published on this theme recently. See, for instance, Bayoumi et al (2014) and the various contributions in the anthology by Reichlin and Baldwin (2013). 2  See, for example, Issing (2009) for a description of the Jackson Hole consensus. The expression comes from the fact that the town of Jackson Hole in the United States hosts an annual conference that gathers central bank governors and other economic policymakers from around the world. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  And then, too, it was the central banks that – of necessity – took the first steps and adjusted their strategies and practical policy before there was any real consensus from academic research to lean on.

GROUND BREAKING CEREMONY OF THE NEW BARCLAYS BANK ZAMBIA PLC HEAD OFFICE  SPEECH BY DR. DENNY H. KALYALYA GOVERNOR – BANK OF ZAMBIA  THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2019 LUSAKA, ZAMBIA  GROUND BREAKING CEREMONY OF THE NEW BARCLAYS BANK ZAMBIA PLC HEAD OFFICE FUNDED BY THE ABSA GROUP LIMITED, SPEECH BY DR. DENNY H. KALYALYA, GOVERNOR – BANK OF ZAMBIA – 6 JUNE 2019  The Absa Group CEO, Mr Rene van Wyk; The Director, Bank Supervision Department, BoZ, Ms. Gladys Mposha; The Director, Economics Department, BoZ, Dr. Francis Chipimo; The Deputy Group CEO and CEO Absa Regional Operations, Mr Peter Matlare; Deputy CEO, Absa Regional Operations & Chief Operating Officer Absa CIB, Mr Temi Ofong; The Barclays Bank Zambia Board Chairperson, Ms Chishala Kateka; The Barclays Bank Zambia Managing Director, Mrs Mizinga Melu; Executives from Absa Group; Representatives from Sunshare; Staff from BoZ; Management and Staff of Barclays Bank Zambia Plc; Distinguished Invited Guests; and Members of the press. It is my great pleasure to officiate at this ground-breaking event of Barclays Bank Zambia Plc New Head office. Distinguished Guests, the construction of the new Head office for Barclays Bank Zambia Plc, which will be rebranded as Absa Bank Zambia from next year, is a demonstration of the efforts and commitment by Absa Group Limited to become a Pan-African organisation, that is interested in the sustainable development of the financial sector and the economies of the countries they operate in.
As of March of this year, 10 percent of all borrowers in the state were either 90-plus days delinquent on their mortgages or their homes were in foreclosure – above the national rate of 7.7 percent. In Essex County, that rate had reached 16 percent, and in Newark it was 30 percent. In our recent small business survey, which we conducted in May, we asked firms to report on their first quarter sales and their future outlook. The results were encouraging. Over twothirds of firms told us they had stable or increased sales in Q1, up from 50 percent last year. When asked about their future outlook, while the majority of business owners, 56 percent, were neutral – many more said they were optimistic than pessimistic – 37 percent compared with only 7 percent. Conclusion These debt and delinquency figures, together with the weak jobs picture, suggest that New Jersey faces a number of challenges. In the near term, the key issue will be to expand jobs and reduce unemployment. At this point it is difficult to say when the pace of recovery in the state will pick up, but several factors appear encouraging. A continued expansion of output and employment nationally would clearly help to expand activity and employment in a number of industries in the state, including professional and business services and the goods distribution industries.

These conversations will help me to represent all of my constituents in my work at the Fed as I consider how best to manage interest rates and make other monetary policy decisions. Northern New Jersey is important to me not just because it is a large and important part of the New York Fed’s District but also because it is my home. My wife and I have made our home in Cranford – her home town where she can be near her mother. While my colleagues and I are pleased to work with the business community – and I know that Jason Bram and Rae Rosen of the Fed have addressed this group in the past – we also have a number of initiatives specifically targeted to help low- and moderate-income groups, particularly here in Newark. For the past three years we have provided the Newark/Essex County Foreclosure Taskforce with data and analyses on the latest mortgage conditions and trends through a range of outlets including round tables, presentations and newsletters. This Taskforce was formed in response to the rise in foreclosures in Newark and surrounding towns in late 2007. The Taskforce is comprised of representatives of over 40 community development corporations, nonprofit housing counseling and legal service providers, government and community development officials and advocacy organizations working to address this serious issue. Over the past two years we have partnered with Bank on Newark.
And even if they could replicate them, humans might still prefer humans to carry them out. The future could see a world of work in which EQ rivals IQ for skill supremacy. Professions involving high degrees of personal and social interaction – such as health, caring, education and leisure – could see demand rise. Indeed, it is possible the balance between cognitive and social skills might alter significantly even among jobs which traditionally have been cognitively-intense. Take medicine. The doctor of the future might be valued far less for their clinical competence in diagnosing illness and prescribing solutions. In a world of individual medical records and data-hungry diagnostic algorithms, much of the process of diagnosis and prescription might fall to machine rather than human. Indeed, the UK Prime Minister has recently suggested a strategy to deliver just that. 60  But that is unlikely by itself to eradicate the need for doctors. Patients are still likely to want to discuss their diagnosis and prescription. And they will want this advice delivered personally and empathetically. In surveys of patient satisfaction it is a doctor’s bedside manner, rather than clinical competence, that matters most. 61  In future, that balance between social and clinical skills may shift further. And, most likely, those  social skills will be demanded from flesh-and-blood rather than robo-doctors. If both the nature of a career and the skills it requires are changing, does this carry implications for educational institutions? That seems likely.

In this latter context banks have traditionally played a key role in financing the corporate and household sectors, earning their return by gathering information about, and assessing and monitoring, the creditworthiness of private sector borrowers, especially those who do not or cannot cost-effectively provide the comprehensive, public, information that would allow them to access the capital markets. Much of the banks’ lending, while nominally at short-term, for example in the form of callable overdrafts, is in practice illiquid and non-marketable. So a further  BIS Review 13/1997  -2-  distinctive characteristic of banks is that they typically function with a mismatch between their highly liquid liabilities and their less liquid, non-marketable, assets. There is no need, I think, to labour the importance to the economy as a whole of these distinctive banking functions, or the damage that would be caused if the banks’ role - as the repository of liquidity, as the core payments mechanism, and as the principal source of finance to at least a large part of the economy - were seriously interrupted. That in itself helps to explain the public interest in the effective functioning of the banking system, or why banks collectively have been regarded as special. But beyond that, the distinctive banking characteristics that I have described, of liquid liabilities and less liquid assets, give rise to special needs. Given the banks’ role in the payments system they may need late access to liquidity to square their positions vis-à-vis each other after executing payments instructions on behalf of their customers.
We strongly support the endeavors of the experts and leaders of this institution to improve their work and we join the requests of the State Statistical Office to the competent state institutions to make efforts to provide better and more stimulating work conditions of this institution that is vitally important for the country. Improvement of the statistics Ladies and gentlemen, Econometric modeling and econometric analyses are worldwide developed practices, in which the National Bank and our country, in general, are still taking the first steps. Given the fact that econometrics is based on statistics, having adequate and consistent statistical data at disposal is of key importance for the development of this type of contemporary analyses. Therefore, again we call for making greater efforts in the area of statistics and for increased awareness of all competent institutions in the country about its vital importance for the national economy. The employees of the State Statistical Office are best aware of how important it is to have detailed statistical databases which are public and easily accessible for the users. They know how important it is to improve the statistics in the area of gross domestic product on a quarterly basis, which is very important for regular and updated monitoring of the economic activity. They have our full support and cooperation for the purpose of providing that statistics, too.

Therefore their quality, impartiality and timeliness are crucial for successful functioning of the economy of any country. In addition, the statistical indicators are also a basis for the comparative analyses with the economies of other countries and are essentially relevant for positioning of the economy, worldwide. Statistics in the National Bank The National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia is largely focused on the design and the development of the statistics. Two years ago, in the process of reorganization of the National Bank operations, a separate Statistics Department was formed that unites all macroeconomic statistics, previously processed in several departments. Its establishment constitutes a centralized organization of the macroeconomic statistics maintained by the National Bank. It ensures larger coordination, methodological conformity and consistence between each type of statistics. The National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, together with the State Statistical Office are main institutions that prepare statistical data in the country.
It is obvious that there will be need to rebalance fiscal and monetary policies in these economies once growth becomes more broad-based and entrenched to avoid a build up of inflationary pressures. As the crisis was mainly a result of weak regulatory framework and poor supervisory oversight in advanced economies, there is also need to continue undertaking measures to reform the financial systems and enhance global standards for the supervision of the financial sector. Zambia weathered the crisis relatively well, with growth in 2009 actually increasing to 6.3% from 5.7% in 2008. This growth was largely driven by increased output in the mining and quarrying, construction, agriculture, and energy sectors. Although the Zambia’s financial sector was not directly exposed to toxic assets, the financial crisis and the global recession that it triggered did impact Zambia’s macroeconomic environment. The Zambian economy suffered reversal of short term capital flows and a slowing down of foreign direct investment, which had an adverse impact on the exchange rate of the Kwacha against the major currencies. The collapse in commodity prices as global demand contracted also impacted on Zambia’s mining sector and its related support industries, leading to losses in output and employment that fed back into the deterioration in the loan book of commercial banks. Nonperforming loans in the banking sector, for example, rose from around 6% in June 2008 to 12.6% at the end of 2009.

In some cases, new guidelines are altogether needed for regulating new products and innovations such as mobile banking, internet banking and Islamic banking. The need for quick and appropriate responses to market developments and innovations while important also need to be balanced by a well designed regulatory framework that ensures the maintenance of a stable and sound financial system. Chairperson, the stability and soundness of the financial system is in turn, heavily dependent on the adequacy of capital. It is essential for the right balance to be struck between the need for banks to hold adequate capital to absorb losses and the need to ensure that capital requirements do not unduly constrain from lending to the real economy. It is also important that banks are not so highly leveraged relative to common equity as to create incentives for excessive risk taking. The required capital ratios should therefore be viewed in the context of the high quality capital – Core Tier 1 and Tier II definitions and should exclude subordinated debt as providing relevant support. Distinguished delegates, Basel II provides a pragmatic approach to determining overall capital levels. It introduced a new approach to the definition of relative capital requirements to be held against specific asset categories. The challenge in this approach is in deciding what an optimal level of capital is especially in light of massive scale of economic losses now being suffered as a result of the banking system collapse.
17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  17  Chart 11: Pay growth strengthened as slack absorbed Four-quarter wage growth (per cent) 4.0 UK  3.5  Darkest values are 2019  3.0 2.5  US  2.0  Euro area  1.5 1.0 0.5  Lightest values are 2013  0.0 3.0  4.0  5.0  6.0  7.0 8.0 9.0 Unemployment rate (per cent)  10.0  11.0  12.0  Sources: ONS, Eurostat, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Bank Calculations Notes: The UK wage measure is Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) regular pay, the US wage measure is Employment Cost Index (ECI) wages & salaries, and the EA wage measure is compensation per employee. Data frequency is quarterly. **************************** Over the past year, the broad economic trends in the period following the EU referendum have deteriorated (Charts 12a and 12b). The global economy moved from a broad-based expansion to a widespread slowdown. Uncertainties and growing concerns over the fracturing of the global trading system have been weighing on global activity, likely pushing down the global equilibrium interest rate, and exacerbating concerns about limited monetary policy space. The pace of growth in the UK has slowed below potential, owing to the weaker external backdrop and a persistent drag from entrenched Brexit uncertainties.

In the extreme, this risks undermining trust in monetary policy makers and the constituency for operational independence. Again, it bears remembering that distributional considerations are rightly the responsibility of governments not of independent technocratic monetary policy committees that are narrowly mandated to achieve price stability. In the event, Bank of England research shows that income and wealth inequality has been stable in the UK since the early 1990s, and fell in the years after the crisis when the MPC used unconventional policies. Those who gained least from the higher asset prices that resulted from the MPC’s asset purchases gained more from its broader effects supporting jobs and activity. 38 Simulations using the Bank’s main forecasting model suggest that the Bank’s monetary policy easing in response to the crisis measures raised the level of GDP by around 8% relative to trend and lowered unemployment by 4 percentage points at their peak. Without this action, real wages would have been 8% lower, or around £ per worker per year, and 1.5 million more people would have been out of work.39  See ‘Renewal of the Inflation-Control Target: Background Information – October 2016’, Bank of Canada. See Bunn, P, Pugh, A and Yeates, C (2018) ‘The distributional impact of monetary policy easing in the UK between 2008 and 2014’, Bank of England Staff Working Paper No. 720. 39 See ‘The Spectre of Monetarism’, Roscoe Lecture given by Mark Carney at Liverpool John Moores University, 5 December 2016.
But the official sector could possibly mitigate their cost by establishing a coherent framework for crisis management, with payment suspensions as one of the tools. None of this is at all to suggest that the issue of standstills - in or outside the Bank of England - is fully articulated and concluded. It is a difficult area requiring contributions from all sides and the  BIS Review 70/2000  8  intellectual argument is ongoing. Finding the right balance between rules and discretion, in this area as in so many, remains a key issue for policymakers. There is work to be done on the modalities of how standstills might operate in different crisis cases. What is the role of the IMF in the standstill process? Does the process need to be underpinned by statute or would non-statutory principles suffice? And when might a standstill require capital controls to guard against leakage? The Bank is currently working on some of these issues, practical and conceptual. I would encourage those among you with an interest in international public policy to help us in addressing them, joining the growing number of, in particular, US academics who are exploring this topic. It is very much a live debate and I have no doubt these issue will be discussed at length, at and around the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Prague later this month. Conclusion I have now talked myself - quite literally - to a standstill.

First, would standstills risk cutting-off capital flows to the emerging markets - if you like, killing the goose that lays the golden egg? History offers some clues here. For example, there appears to be no evidence from 1930s experience of defaulting countries having fared worse than non-defaulting countries in terms of subsequent output growth. And looking across a broader sweep of history, some empirical evidence has failed to find any discernibly negative long term effect of a country’s prior debt-servicing record on the terms or volume of its borrowing. That is not to say that default is costless, certainly in the short to medium term. The loss of access to capital markets and the time and effort involved with restoring credibility with creditors is, quite correctly, a strong deterrent for any country contemplating default. Historical evidence may in any case be uninformative about investor behaviour in the future under a more structured framework for international crisis resolution. If this framework helped resolve the collective action problem among creditors, it ought to benefit creditors as well as debtors. Indeed, by reducing the risk to creditors in this way, standstills should be mutually beneficial to both parties. If that is the case, there is no reason to believe that, in a world of structured standstills, there is much risk of the golden-egg-laying goose being cooked. Second, might the prospect of standstills prompt a pre-emptive rush for the exits? In a world of structured standstills, there is perhaps some risk of skittish investors rushing for the exits sooner.
But, as the months have passed, firms have been registering a greater sensitivity to tighter financial conditions. The lags between the incidence of the financial shock last summer and its impact on spending in the economy have been fairly drawn out. It is striking that through the autumn and perhaps even into the spring, a number of commentators thought this was essentially a problem for Wall Street not Main Street. We need more research to help understand those lags, and whether the credit shock has been more potent for its coinciding with the climb in commodity prices. 11  David Miles has recently made a broadly similar point in “The cost of bank debt: rethinking the neutral rate”. 12  I owe this point to Mervyn King. 13  See Curdia V, and Woodford and M (2008), “Credit Frictions and Optimal Monetary Policy”, a paper discussed at the BIS Annual Conference in June 2008. 6  BIS Review 112/2008  That assessment has informed my view that slack will accumulate, leaning against – but not eliminating – the current upside risks to inflation. Indeed, the best gauge of our view of monetary and credit conditions is to be found in our periodic forecasts for growth and inflation. Nominal trends A hazard, given the current paradigm in monetary economics, is that its all too easy for policymakers to fall into the habit of never mentioning anything nominal – apart from inflation expectations.

For a given path of nominal demand, that would tend to reduce the pressure of demand on global commodity prices, as many of the largest EME economies are, basically, commodity importers themselves. But persistent elevated inflation in the EMEs would also increase the nominal price of some of our imports, unless an adjustment in nominal exchange rates were permitted. In fact, over recent months there have been some steps towards taking domestic monetary action across a number of emerging market economies. But there is a risk that higher EME inflation will persist if, left unchecked, it becomes embedded in inflation expectations. With inflation also elevated across the major industrialised economies, this underlines the risk to global inflation from imbalances in global supply and demand. Individual countries can suffer exogenous shocks to inflation from commodity prices, but that is essentially a relative price shift, to which the world economy has to adjust. By contrast, a persistent rise in inflationary pressures cannot be exogenous for all countries collectively. In that respect, the international monetary regime, and the global imbalances it has sustained, continues to pose risks to the outlook for our economy. Indeed, in terms of where we find ourselves, we must take care not to put the cost shock and the credit shock in completely separate boxes. They both owe something to global imbalances.