samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Interestingly, if you go finer still, and measure the same sort of variance in sales across individual firms – something our Decision Maker Panel (DMP) survey allows us to do – you find that quite a bit of it has occurred within sectors, not just between them. 15  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  15  One possible reason is that there appear to have been shifts in spending not just across different sectors but also across different parts of the country. We can’t tell from official data, in any timely way, exactly what’s happened to activity in different regions. Firms in the DMP still report weaker demand in urban than rural areas, relative to pre-pandemic levels (Chart 19). Charts 20(a)-(c) plot a few “real-time” indicators of consumer spending – restaurant bookings and Google tracking numbers for different kinds of shopping trips – for London and for the rest of the UK. In all three cases the figures for the capital are still a long way short of pre-pandemic levels, those for other parts of the country close to or some way above it. One would need to do a little more digging to check the point. But it would make sense that more working from home should have reduced consumer demand in city centres and increased it elsewhere. We know that the same has happened to the demand for housing, in the UK and in other countries.

And it’s therefore possible that some firms in urban areas are keeping people on furlough even as those in the same sector, but outside cities, are finding it hard to recruit people. Chart 19: Firms in DMP see worse effects of pandemic in urban area13  Sources: Decision Maker Panel, ONS and Bank calculations. 13  Results are based on the question: ‘Relative to what would otherwise have happened, what is your best estimate for the impact of the spread of Covid-19 on the sales/employment of your business in 2022+?’. Locations of companies’ headquarters are allocated to a rural/urban location based on the 2011 Census Rural Urban Classification. 16  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  16  Chart 20a: Restaurant bookings still well down on pre-pandemic levels in London, higher elsewhere  Sources: OpenTable accessed July 2021 and Bank calculations. 7-day rolling averages of year-on-year growth. Chart 20b: Google tracking data suggests recreation spending also weaker in London  Sources: Google LLC "Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports" https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/ Accessed July 2021 and Bank calculations. 7-day averages relative to January-February 2020. Chart 20c: Same for grocery spending  Sources: Google LLC "Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports" https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/ Accessed July 2021 and Bank calculations. 7-day averages relative to January-February 2020.
Through their asset purchase programmes, central banks in the UK, US, Japan and the euro-area have purchased government assets totalling around $ trillion since the start of 2010. But they have clearly not been alone. Most global banks have increased their holdings of safe government assets and central bank reserve balances. Among US banks, the ratio of liquid assets to total assets increased from 11% in 2009 to 15% in 2014, while among UK banks it rose from 20% to 23%. 4 That has been in part for precautionary purposes and in part in anticipation of new regulatory requirements. Among companies in the UK, US and Europe, there has been a significant increase in their liquid asset holdings, of around $ trillion since 2008, mostly for precautionary purposes. And among institutional investors, there has been a further portfolio switch into bonds since the crisis. Since 2009, the size of US bond funds has more than doubled, rising from $ trillion to $ trillion. As after the Great Depression and the Asian financial crisis, this precautionary behaviour has not been confined to the government bond market. It has affected spending behaviour among households and companies too. And, as previously, the consequences for the wider economy have not been benign. In 2008, households and companies were running a combined financial deficit (income less spending) of 2.4% of GDP in the US and 1.5% of GDP in the UK, while in the euro-area they were running a small surplus of 2.4% of GDP (Chart 10).

But of course speculative situations cannot be ruled out either in the present ERM or in ERM 2, as is clear from developments in Finland in recent months. The Swedish position has been to avoid making the new exchange rate arrangement mandatory. Basically, we consider it would be better to achieve coordination in Europe with a single inflation target. We find the present construction of Swedish monetary policy satisfactory. But we can get along with the system that has been chosen. Cooperation will not be mandatory, which means that monetary policy can be conducted with an inflation target as well as with a fixed exchange rate with the euro. Still it is clear that there will be strong pressure on us to participate in ERM 2. It is also conceivable that a period of participation in the exchange rate mechanism will prove to be a condition for EMU membership. In any event, as a EU member state we have undertaken to conduct exchange rate policy as “a matter of common interest”. Changeover plan for the financial sector It is the Riksdag (Sweden’s parliament) that decides if Sweden should join EMU. The Riksbank has the task of helping to ensure that Sweden does in fact have a choice when the time comes to decide, so that Sweden is ready to join if a Riksdag majority so requires. The Ministry of Finance and the Riksbank each have an organisation for the euro’s practical introduction.
Social networks mean it is likely to propagate faster and further. They mean popular narratives are likely to emerge and spread  53  Communic@tions Management Inc (2013). Gallup (2016). Pew Research Center (2016). 56 Reuters Institute for Journalism (2016). See also Shafik (2017). 54 55  14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  14  faster and further in a self-reinforcing fashion. They make for larger, louder, hermetically-sealed echo chambers. And that is true whether this is old news, new news or fake news. (c) The changing nature of language  Operating alongside these seismic shifts in the nature of media and trust have been equally-large shifts in the public language. As Mark Thompson discusses in his recent book, public language has become shorter, sharper and shriller, with higher impact and wider reach, aided and abetted by new media. 57  Twitter, as a  media medium, ticks every one of these boxes: personalised, socialised, distributed, short, sharp and shrill. ‘Twas not ever thus. Once upon a time, when trust in institutions was high, complex language posed no trust problem. Little was published, even less read. Public discourse was infrequent and attentive audiences were narrow. Complex language added to the “mystique” of institutions, including central banks, and as a sign of technical competence. As Stella Artois was reassuringly expensive, central banks were reassuringly inexpansive. Today, the situation is different. Trust in institutions has been eroded despite a great deal more being published, including by central banks.

Despite a huge increase in the volume of central bank reporting, neither understanding of, nor trust in, central banks has improved. These trust and understanding problems are not unique to central banks – they are common across banks, business, government, the media. Nonetheless, what explains these trends? The financial crisis and the slow recovery from it are likely to have been one factor, but not the whole story. Let me highlight three other factors to have played a role, for central banks and more broadly. (a) The changing nature of trust  Trust has been studied extensively by philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists over many years. 49  These studies have shown that trust can take a variety of forms and can change shape quite fundamentally over time. Such a mini-metamorphosis appears to have taken place over recent years, in particular among trust in institutions. 50  The traditional model of trust was a fairly simple one. To a significant degree, it was anonymous, centralised and institutional. The actions of institutions, like the Fed and the Bank, were trusted by the general public, even when few of them understood what it is these institutions did and why. And having a trusted third-party, able to exercise a degree of control over monetary and financial affairs, was a source of comfort. This institutional structure, in the main, served society well. Not least, it lasted for several hundreds of years. Some have argued that a good chunk of society’s success over this period can be attributed to these institutional foundations.
Nevertheless, it is true that there has been substantial capital inflow into the Mainland, leading to a very rapid accumulation of foreign reserves. The Mainland authorities are well aware of the risks of this, in terms, for example, of an asset price bubble that could be quite destabilising to the financial system when it burst. They have, in fact, made quite intense efforts to deal with the inflow through a number of strategies. Under the Mainland's present exchange rate system, the accumulation of foreign reserves is matched by an increase in the renminbi monetary base, which needs to be sterilised if the undesirable consequences of credit expansion are to be contained. The People's Bank of China has been carrying out sterilisation quite actively both through the recently introduced programme of issuing central bank bills and through reducing lending to government and financial institutions. There is scope for securitisation of these loans to produce more financial instruments for money market operations. Another tool available to the authorities is to change the reserve requirement for banks, and indeed this requirement was raised in August from six per cent to seven per cent. Further options include making changes to interest rates to discourage further capital inflow (though obviously this may have undesirable effects on the asset markets) and opening up relief valves in the capital account.

I take this opportunity to invite all the economic agents to consider the benefits, that our national currency provides, impassively, as the best long-term instrument for protecting their savings and as the greatest buffer to wealth volatility. To Albania, the Lek has been, is and will remain a successful currency. The Lek serves as an anchor for all our European initiatives. In the last 17 years, the Lek has managed to withstand the inflationary pressures and the pressures deriving from the foreign markets. Therefore, it should be left alone. It should move freely on its path, concurrent with the market demand and supply. The Lek is the icon of the Albanian economy that will guide us through the European gates. I take this opportunity to invite the media to comprehend this message and transmit it to the public at large. Before giving the floor to our dear friend, I would like to briefly introduce Governor Yilmaz. Mr. Yilmaz obtained his BA in Economics from the City University of London and his MA degree from the University College, University of London. Mr. Yilmaz started to work in the Foreign Exchange Department at the Central Bank of Turkey in 1980. After a long and successful career, Mr. Yilmaz was appointed Executive Director of the Workers’ Remittances (Non-Residents FX Deposits) Department in 2002. One year later, in the Shareholders Ordinary General Meeting held on 7th April 2003, Mr. Yilmaz was elected Member of the Board of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
The simple fact is that there are real risks as well as real potential benefits in monetary union; and it would be foolhardy just to assume that the enterprise, if it is embarked upon, will inevitably bring about the political harmony and economic prosperity across Europe that anyone in their right mind wants to see. It is hugely important to all of us that Europe’s political leaders stand back and weigh the risks as well as the potential benefits, dispassionately, before any irrevocable step is taken. If the debate in this country encourages open debate elsewhere then we will be doing a service to Europe as a whole. It is something of a fashion these days to describe economic conditions in terms of fairy stories. I have heard the steady expansion in the United States, and more recently in this country, described as the “Goldilocks” condition - with the economic temperature not too hot, not too cold, but just right. In the same vein I might describe European monetary union as Beauty and the Beast. The Beauty of it lies in intra-European exchange rate certainty. And if you don’t find that instantly seductive I suggest you speak, as I have, to some of Britain’s exporters. They have seen, over the past six months or so, an erratically sharp appreciation of sterling, against the core European currencies in particular, which can’t be adequately explained in terms of economic fundamentals.

There are those who sometimes give the impression that they think the Euro could - by regulation or restrictions - be confined to within the territory of the Euro area, and that this would be “a good thing”. That I have to say is not our experience. In practice unnecessary or ineffective domestic regulations or restrictions have often been the cause of financial activity growing up elsewhere. In any event we live in a global financial world and the Euro is bound to become a widely-used and actively-traded currency internationally. Its liquidity is likely to be a key attraction to domestic and foreign users alike. The City of London both contributes to, and thrives upon, liquid markets, and the Euro-market, or the euro-Euro-market if we are an “out”, will be no exception. That can only be good for the development of financial activity - the provision of competitive financial services - across Europe as a whole, because we are not talking here about a zero-sum game. Euro-activity in London is likely to stimulate financial activity in other centres and vice versa; and much of that activity will be undertaken by branches or affiliates of the same major financial firms. The first ecu-Euro bond raised last week by a European borrower and managed from London by a Swiss/British and a French bank and by another French bank in Paris, is a good example not just of London’s international role as it is today, but of how it is likely to continue.
These measures include, for example, the Federal Council’s decision in 2012 to increase the capital requirements for mortgage loans with a high LTV ratio, i.e. a high ratio of the mortgage loan to the value of the pledged property. Furthermore, banks’ selfregulation rules were revised and tightened in the years 2012, 2014 and 2019, which, in particular, imposed more stringent requirements regarding the amortisation of mortgage loans and own funds brought in by borrowers. An important factor was also the activation of the CCyB in 2013 and its subsequent increase to 2% in 2014. The CCyB was deactivated last year. This decision was made against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis in order to  Page 10/12  broaden the scope for banks to lend to companies in these exceptional circumstances – in spite of the existing vulnerabilities on the mortgage and real estate markets. The measures implemented between 2012 and 2019 were important to strengthen the banks’ resilience and curb the increase in vulnerabilities. 12 They could not, however, fully prevent the rise in risks. The current situation will therefore continue to demand our full attention. I would like to highlight two reasons: First, current price developments in the residential property sector show that there is no reason to sound the all-clear. As outlined in our Financial Stability Report published in June, the coronavirus pandemic has not slowed down price momentum. On the contrary, price growth in the residential real estate market has in fact increased.

Encik Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid: Prevention of corruption in project management Opening remarks by Mr Encik Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Talk entitled "Prevention of Corruption in Project Management", Kuala Lumpur, 3 April 2017. * * * It is my great honour and pleasure to welcome officers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), particularly the speaker for today, Assistant Commissioner Mr Mohan Munusamy. A warm welcome is also extended to the project teams comprising the steering committees, contractors and consultants. My appreciation also goes to all my fellow Bank staff who are here today. In more recent times, the Bank and MACC have collaborated on a number of fronts. The recent strategic cooperation between the Bank and MACC, together with LHDN to combat financial crime, particularly corruption, signifies our commitment to work together in this area. From the Bank’s perspective, this demonstrates our effort to instil integrity for and beyond our regulatees in the financial market. Integrity is taken very seriously at the Bank where we continually and consciously maintain the highest standards, given that we enforce these standards on our regulatees in our supervisory capacity. We proactively manage integrity hazards and corruption risks and tackle those risks pre-emptively. Corruption is not simply a crime on its own. Its consequences can be far-reaching in terms of economic losses and irreparable reputation damage. Thus, we must actively keep abreast of the management of integrity risks.
Lorenzo Bini Smaghi: Looking beyond the euro's first decade Speech by Mr Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at “The euro’s second decade: status quo and perspectives”, British Embassy, Berlin, 18 February 2009. *  *  *  It is a great pleasure to be here today. The publication of David Marsh’s new book, shortly after the euro’s tenth anniversary, is a good opportunity to review the status of the currency and its prospects in the coming decade. It’s a real “Marsh book” – a pleasure to read, even though some quotes and statements might sometimes be controversial. In any case, David Marsh seems to have taken to heart the main lesson of the current financial crisis: avoid excessive risk. Indeed, he is walking along a kind of tightrope, often quoting people or presenting views in such a way that they contradict or contrast with each other. That way, he is likely to come out on the right side of things, whatever happens. Let me give an example, by quoting the very last paragraph of the book, which looks forward to the next ten years: “The lesson of the first decade is there is no certainty that the single currency will survive the next one unscathed. Yet if the Euro overcomes its trials and becomes a durable success, that accomplishment, measured by all that has gone before, will truly be the richest of triumphs.” In other words, either it’s a real success, or…it’s a real disaster.

Good hedging, indeed! I will not review all the themes addressed in the book, but would like to touch on a few key issues that can help us get a better understanding of what has happened over the last ten years and how the euro is likely to develop over the next ten. David Marsh is cautious when assessing the euro’s first ten years. In his introduction, he even sounds Solomonic, suggesting that: “It’s too early to say”. There is nothing wrong with such skepticism, and it’s always better to be prudent. Such prudence nevertheless reminds me of the answer that Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai gave in the mid 1970’s to a question about the impact of the French revolution of 1789. He too remarked: “It’s too early to say”. Today, I would like to start by presenting some facts about the last ten years. Then I’ll consider the main hidden message of the book, which is that monetary union is a political union. Finally, I will try to give my own perspective on the next ten years. Facts of the last decade Any assessment of the first ten years of the euro should consider what the objectives were at the start of Monetary Union. In particular, we should avoid attributing to the euro merits or demerits it should not have or never aspired to. Let me consider some of the objectives of the euro and the expectations it gave rise to.
The French spread may also temporarily react to political uncertainties, but remaining in the euro over the long term continues to be our best protection. All economic players are benefiting from lower interest rates: households – when they purchase a property – and companies that invest, as well as governments and hence taxpayers. Some critics would like to leave the euro to let deficits rise without being constrained by European rules. But that is wishful thinking: the financing of deficits would be much more costly for euro area countries leaving the single currency, if we were to return to the spreads before the euro. Exchange rate stability and the strength of the single market The euro also helps consolidate the single market, which the European Member States have constructed step by step since the Treaty of Rome in 1957, 60 years ago. In order to achieve greater trade integration, it was necessary to reduce currency fluctuations: Europe first attempted this, as of 1979, with the European Monetary System, built on a common currency, the ECU. But this mechanism was insufficient to ward off speculative attacks: remember the severe crisis of September 1992 which forced the Italian lira out, making it lose 21% of its value, and which destabilised the European economy. The single currency put an end to these serious disruptions. It also considerably simplifies day-to-day life: there are no longer any conversion fees for individuals, or any more uncertainties relating to exchange rate volatility for companies.

Moreover, from 12 at the start, the number of participating countries has risen to 19 today: 7 countries decided democratically to join the euro, and none has wanted to leave it. These are the concrete economic benefits that make the 340 million citizens of the euro area attached to their currency, to our currency. This attachment, which has been measured since the outset, has remained strong throughout the crisis. 70% support the euro today, i.e. the highest level since 2008; a large majority of French citizens support the euro (68%). Support remains strong in Italy, albeit at a lower level (53%). The euro is not a technocratic utopia: it is a political and democratic decision, supported 25 years on – with hindsight – by a clear majority of citizens. II. However, there are four doubts about the euro. I will address them seriously, even though I think that these ideas are erroneous. a) The euro is enemy of growth and employment Some say that the euro acts as a brake on growth, employment, and competitiveness. However, at 1.7% in 2016, growth in the euro area was higher than US growth (1.6%) and above all there are major economic successes among euro area countries.