samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The study focuses its analysis through another form of ‘turning point’ – 1  BIS Review 114/2000  the ‘hub’ – in positioning Hong Kong as a logistical, financial and digital centre of intermediation between the Mainland and the rest of the world. Indeed, China’s entry into the WTO, along with globalisation and technological advance are the three processes that I believe will shape Hong Kong’s role as such a hub over the coming years. 5. I have recently spoken in some detail elsewhere on the economic implications, and, in particular, the implications for Hong Kong’s banking and financial sectors of China’s entry into WTO. So I shall deal with these only briefly here, before turning to the other two processes of globalisation and technological advance. To summarise the research by the World Bank, the HKMA and other organisations: China’s share in the world’s external trade is predicted to double in the space of five years as a result of WTO entry – from around three-and-a-half per cent to more than seven per cent. This rapid growth in the Mainland’s share of world trade, coupled with a projected growth in trade volume at the rate of 7% per annum, is likely to mean yet more Mainland-related business for Hong Kong, just as it will undoubtedly also mean a great deal more business for Shanghai and other Mainland cities as well.

For Hong Kong, we have in our linked exchange rate system the most extreme case of an exchange rate target that is perceived to be impregnable – and has been proved to be impregnable under the most adverse of conditions. The link, in combination with sound fundamentals and well managed banks, has helped us through the recent crisis: not without hardship, it must be acknowledged, but with considerably less damage and uncertainty than we would have experienced had it not been in place. The tight discipline it exerts on our economy is helping to propel improvements in productivity, an important element in our current robust recovery. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that Hong Kong experienced one of the fastest rebounds in productivity growth in the region. Labour productivity, measured in terms of GDP per person employed, registered the strongest gains of 10% in the post-crisis period, well above other Asian economies, whose gains were in the range of 5 to 8%. Because the exchange rate link suits an externally oriented, entrepot economy, it will continue to serve Hong Kong well in its expanding role as a regional and international hub, as China enters the WTO. And this applies, it should be added, regardless of the path taken by the renminbi – a path that will likely involve careful and controlled experiments with greater exchange rate flexibility in the not too distant future, and cautious and considered moves towards currency convertibility in the fullness of time. Technological advance 20.
In addition, market regulations such as blanket guarantee on foreign exchange deposits and lack of supervision supported the process of dollarization, as well. As of 2001, Turkey was one of the most dollarized emerging market economies with a share of 58.2 percent of foreign exchange deposits in total deposits. The same ratio was 49.3 percent in Romania, 46.8 percent in Russia and 47 percent in Peru, which were generally accepted as highly dollarized economies. Today, looking ahead from the year 2001 we have been experiencing a reverse dollarization for the last four years. As of August 2006, the ratio of foreign exchange deposits to total deposits decreased to 36.7 percent. Similarly, the ratio of investment instruments denominated in domestic currency has pursued an increasing trend, while that of foreign currency has been decreasing accordingly. I can say that as long as the floating exchange rate regime is implemented properly and inflation is kept under control through credible macroeconomic policies, the floating exchange rate regime along with the inflation-targeting regime has a crucial role in decreasing the level of dollarization. However, I would like to add that the level of dollarization is not declining fast, and it is still high. Although diminishing to some extent, we are still observing some lingering behaviors inherited from the past inflation period. That is why it is so important to continue with current policies and structural reforms. Dear participants, The third factor that stands as a challenge for central banking is sustainability of fiscal discipline in emerging economies.

Under this framework, central banks today operate mainly with the overriding objective of price stability either explicitly or implicitly. Dear guests, The establishment of the single mandate as price stability has also had significant implications in the institutional design of central banks. In fact, as is clearly seen especially in emerging market countries, price stability can only be achieved through long term and determined policy implementations. It is at this point that independence, as an assurance given to the public to ensure long-term price stability, comes to the forefront as the crucial feature of institutional design of central banks. In my view, of all the changes in the face of central banking in the last two decades, the most important one is the increasing emphasis that has been placed on central bank independence. 1  Issing, O. (2000). “Should We Have Faith in Central Banks?”. BIS Review 88/2006  1  While inflation was falling and independence was becoming an important feature of central banking around the world, Turkey was unable to experience the same process. It was not until 2001 that the Central Bank of Turkey gained independence close to global standards. In 2001, with the amendments made in its Law, achieving and maintaining price stability was stated as the primary objective, and the Central Bank of Turkey was provided with the direct authority to set monetary policy and choose instruments at its own discretion to achieve price stability.
The costs of fraud may not have reached commercially unacceptable levels, but in some countries they have reached socially unacceptable levels. So, we very much welcome the EPC taking a stance on these issues. The Eurosystem will also continue to monitor also this facet of the work on the integration of European payments. Improving information security, as well as preventing fraud should remain a key focus of attention in 2010. Ambition needed: SEPA for Cards and eSEPA A frequently asked question is whether the financial crisis has had an impact on the SEPA project and the pace of migration. During the financial crisis, banks’ retail payments business  1  Joint Statement of the European Commission and the ECB on the future SDD business model, 24 March 2009. 2  Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 on cross-border payments in the Community and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2560/2001. 3  For non-euro area banks the reachability deadline for euro direct debits is 1 November 2014. 2  BIS Review 151/2009  has proven to be a solid and stable source of revenue. At the same time, I understand that the retail payments are also a costly part of banks’ operations. The aim of SEPA is to make payments in euro more efficient, not just for customers but also for banks, which would strengthen the case for investment in the SEPA project. Despite the financial crisis, cashless payments increased, on a global basis, by almost 9% to 250 billion transactions per year in 2008.

Hence, the keel has been laid for a single market for retail payments. And not just the single market for the euro area, but for Europe as a whole. SEPA and also the Payment Services Directive (PSD) are standardising retail payments across the EU-27. So what does that mean for the UK market? The UK banking market is highly interconnected with the euro area. We also see that several UK banks are actively involved in the SEPA process. They have recognised that the implications of SEPA extend to their UK business too. Ladies and Gentlemen, SEPA is not just about cross-border payments in euro and in continental Europe, it is about changing the retail payments infrastructure throughout the whole of Europe, including the UK, about bringing it up to a higher level of efficiency, quality and security. For example, the European PSD will significantly reduce transaction times to a maximum of three days and requires full transparency on the currency conversion. This will bring significant benefits to all bank customers – consumers and corporates, also in the UK. Let me in the following give you three major achievements of the SEPA process and outline briefly the way forward of the SEPA project. What has been achieved so far, and what are the next steps? The SDD launch has been the greatest SEPA achievement this year, and perhaps even of the entire project. The preparations for the launch of SEPA Direct Debit have taken up a lot of the banking industry’s time and energy.
Capacity utilisation in industry Index and percentage deviation from HP trend respectively, seasonally-adjusted data 5  100  4 95  3 2  90  1 85  0 -1  80  -2  75  -3  Statistics Sweden, actual capacity utilisation in industry (left scale) NIER, current capacity utilisation in manufacturing industry (left scale) GDP gap (right scale)  -4  70  -5 96  98  00  02  04  06  08  Note. Trend calculated using the Hodrick-Prescott filter. Broken lines refer to the Riksbank's forecasts. Sources: National Institute of Economic Research, Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Figure 6. Resource utilisation indicator Index and percentage deviation from HP trend respectively, seasonally-adjusted data 5  5  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1 -2  -2 Resource utilisation indicator Hours worked gap Employment gap GDP gap  -3 -4  -3 -4 -5  -5 96  97  98  99  00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  Note. Trend calculated using the Hodrick-Prescott filter. The standard deviation of the resource utilisation indicator is normalised to that of the GDP gap. Broken lines refer to the Riksbank's forecasts. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  BIS Review 66/2009  11

Disclosure of climate-related information should therefore become mandatory and more standardised under the revised Non-Financial Reporting Directive, while ensuring proportionality to avoid imposing an excessive burden on small and medium-sized companies. [9]  A role for central banks in fighting climate change? What then, if any, is the role of central banks, and monetary policy in particular, in supporting the transition towards a low-carbon economy? [10] The starting point for answering this question is the ECB’s primary objective: price stability. Climate change, if not addressed swiftly, can be expected to affect the economy in a way that poses material risks to price stability in the medium to long term. On the one hand, the longer the risks of global warming are ignored and policy action delayed, the higher the risks of very large and persistent shocks to output and inflation. So far, most central banks could afford to look through climate-related shocks, mainly because their most visible effects were largely local and temporary. The coronavirus pandemic demonstrates the challenges central banks are facing in countering large and persistent global shocks, while remaining faithful to their primary mandate. It is with this motivation that we are currently investigating how to integrate climate-related risks into our core macroeconomic models. On the other hand, the ability of central banks to react to such large shocks may be impaired. Rising temperatures and an increased frequency of natural disasters may further suppress potential output growth and hence the real equilibrium interest rate around which central banks have to calibrate their policies.
In the wake of the Great Depression, the UK abandoned the gold standard and Norway followed suit. After the Second World War, there was a substantial shift in economic policy. Direct regulation and an active fiscal policy were regarded as more effective instruments than the interest rate, also in terms of promoting price stability. This was an international trend, but few countries supported the new thinking more than Norway, spurred to a large extent by the negative legacy of the policy of parity. In practice, the interest rate was thereafter to be set by the government, and as a main principle the interest rate was to be kept low. Norges Bank’s discount rate was set at 2.5 percent in 1946 and was changed only once over the next 23 years. 1 Credit would be channelled to promote policy priorities and kept in check by means of regulation and foreign exchange controls. The policy regime eventually started to falter. In the 1970s, domestic inflation spiralled out of control, as it did in many other countries. In Norway, the government responded with stimulus measures, wage and price freezes and devaluations, but the measures had limited effect. High inflation had become entrenched. A policy change was needed to bring down inflation. The low interest rate policy was discontinued in the wake of the oil price collapse in 1986. Norges Bank was given broader responsibility for the conduct of monetary policy.

22 Of course, it is crucial to evaluate policy and require it to be effective, whether the policy is state contingent or time contingent. 23 My impression is that the issue of whether fiscal policy should play a more active role and whether the fiscal frameworks should be reviewed is starting to be raised more and more in the economic policy debate: see, for example, Calmfors (2021) for Sweden and Ubide (2021) and Lane (2021) for the euro area. This is also underlined by the fact that the ESO, the Expert Group for Public Economics, is planning a study in this field; see https://eso.expertgrupp.se/pagaende-projekt/. However, it should be pointed out that this study will only refer to the interaction between monetary policy and fiscal policy in times of crisis, which I do not think is sufficient. A month ago, representatives of the government parties also argued, in a newspaper article, that the review of the fiscal policy framework planned for 2025 should be brought forward (Svenska Dagbladet, 2021). In the Statement of Government Policy on 30 November, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson argued that Swedish public finances are so strong that shifting from a surplus target to a balance target is justified. There are also, of course,  12 [17]  To be even more concrete, one idea could be to give the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council, or some other body, the task of continuously evaluating whether fiscal policy is keeping to the announced plan and delivering the expected results.
The dash-dotted green curve shows the inflation outlook published after the interest increase of September, which was based on a constant three-month Libor of 1.75%. The red line is clearly lower than the green one. This is partly due to falling oil prices and partly results from the dampening effect of today's interest rate increase. The level of inflation expected in 2007 is 0.4%. However, as is evident from the inflation dynamic, the effect of a 2.00% interest rate is still expansionary. Continuation of previous monetary policy With today’s decision to increase the three-month Libor by 25 basis points, we are adhering to our previous monetary policy course of gradual normalisation. In so doing, we are pursuing the goal of continuing to ensure long-term price stability. If the economy performs as expected, we will further pursue this strategy. Observed inflation December 2006  BIS Review 123/2006  3  Inflation forecast of September 2006 with Libor at 1.75% and of December 2006 with Libor at 2.00%  The National Bank’s 100-year anniversary Ladies and Gentlemen, before concluding, I would like to say a few words on a completely different topic: The Swiss National Bank will celebrate it's 100-year anniversary in 2007. We are happy that we can celebrate this anniversary at a time when Switzerland’s economy is in good shape. And it is also with a certain sense of pride that we can look back upon a long phase of price stability. We will celebrate our anniversary in a festive, yet modest way.

The major global banks have raised $ billion of new equity over the past few years and are on course as a group to meet the Basel III standards more than four years in advance of the deadline. In the UK, all major banks and building societies now have in place credible plans to achieve the Bank of England’s thresholds for capital and leverage. To finish the job, international regulators need to agree over the next year new rules for capital to be held in banks’ trading books, a simple leverage ratio and a guideline which governs the stability of banks’ funding. Alongside these efforts to increase resilience, our focus is on solving the problem of banks that are too big to fail. Systemic resilience depends on being able to resolve failing banks in a way that does not threaten the entire system. Fairness demands the end of a system that privatises gains but socialises losses. And simple economics dictates that the UK state cannot stand behind a banking system that is already many times the size of the economy. Moreover, without a credible means to resolve failing banks, regulatory Balkanisation will continue as national regulators seek to protect their own interests, threatening the efficient operation of the international financial system and accordingly London’s competitiveness. To avoid these risks, we need to make the resolution of global banks a real option. Successful cross-border resolution requires coordination and cooperation between authorities across multiple jurisdictions.
We believe improving our credit provision infrastructure in this way can improve credit allocation and support firms to get the credit they need to grow, primarily by reducing information asymmetry between the creditor and the lender. Typically in the UK, it is only an SME’s bank that has ready access to the data needed to price a loan. This makes it difficult for firms to shop around and get the best rate. Our approach 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  4  prioritises using technology to more accurately and competitively identify creditworthy borrowers, as a means to increasing aggregate credit flowing to SMEs. Open to changing the way we work  My third theme is the importance of the Bank of England being open to changing the way we work. Of course, it is not just the private sector who should be embracing change. We, as central banks, need to reflect on our own way of working. In particular, if we are going to regulate the digital economy effectively we will need to equip ourselves with appropriate digital tools. Central Banks ingest and analyse huge volumes of data in the course of our regulatory activity. This is necessary for our surveillance, but comes at a cost to the firms we regulate. The bill for regulatory reporting in the UK is estimated at between £ and £ a year. We want to leverage modern technology so that the way we collect and analyse data becomes cheaper, faster, and more effective.

In particular, I will stress the importance of three dimensions of openness: o  Being open to new ideas;  o  Being open to new businesses entering financial services; and  o  Being open to improving our own operations. “New Economy, New Finance, New Bank”, available online at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk//media/boe/files/report/2019/response-to-the-future-of-finance-report.pdf. 1  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  2  Openness to New Ideas  Being open to new ideas and new ways of doing things is crucial for innovation. New approaches can improve the quality and inclusiveness of the financial services our people receive. However, this openness should not compromise our existing standards. Instead, we must weigh potential benefits to efficiency and resilience, against potential risks to financial stability. Let me give an example from our work in the U.K on machine learning that clarifies our approach. New general purpose technologies like AI and machine learning hold the promise of increasing economic productivity and providing better products across the economy, including in financial services. However, if not overseen appropriately, this technology could introduce new risks and enhance existing ones. The challenges posed by AI/ML are well documented - I will not dwell on them here. AI raises a range of ethical, operational, consumer protection, and competition issues. What is more, these issues are not theoretical. We have already seen the potential for new financial risks from technology during flash crashes in algorithmic trading, reminding us of the potential for introducing new instability.
The usual role of a central bank is to limit this rate of money creation, so that an excessive expansion of money spending does not lead to inflation. But a damaged banking system means that today banks aren’t creating enough money. We have to do it for them. And as private sector balance sheets contract, public sector (government and central bank) balance sheets have to take the strain. The way in which the Bank of England expands the money supply is to purchase government gilts from the non-bank private sector and credit the bank accounts of people from whom the gilts are purchased. Please note that we are not giving money away. What is the effect of these purchases? They push up the price of gilts thus lowering yields. As the sellers of gilts use the proceeds to buy other assets, the price of those assets also tends to rise. Increases in asset prices boost wealth, and at the same time reduce the cost of borrowing for companies and households, which helps to stimulate spending and hence output. The size of these effects is of course uncertain. But there can be no doubt that our economy would have followed an even more painful path over the past few years in the absence of asset purchases. Some question the scope for further purchases, or their likely effectiveness. I do not have any concerns on the first point.

And when Bank Rate eventually starts to return to a more normal level, as one day it will, the Bank would then have no income, in the form of coupon payments on gilts, to cover the payments of interest on reserves at the Bank of England that we had created. The Bank would become insolvent unless it created even more money to finance those interest payments, and that would lead ultimately to uncontrolled inflation. That is a road down which the Bank will not go, and does not need to go. I suspect that the advocates of “helicopter money” and related ideas are really talking about a relaxation of fiscal policy. It would be better to be open about that. Enough of what the Bank of England should not be doing. So what should we be doing? Since the Monetary Policy Committee last published an assessment of the economic outlook, other central banks have been active. The European Central Bank announced its plans for Outright Monetary Transactions, the Bank of Japan expanded the scale of its asset purchases, and the Federal Reserve committed to continue with its asset purchases until the outlook for the labour market improves substantially. Our current programme of asset purchases will be complete by next month. What happens after that will depend upon the outlook, beginning with an appraisal of where we are today. Judging the present state of the UK economy is far from easy.