samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
However, my assessment is that the low inflationary expectations are making it take a longer time before overheating tendencies are expressed in increasing consumer prices. This leads me to make the assessment that prices will not start to rise until the end of the forecast period but that price increases will then be stronger than the majority believes. My assessment is therefore that inflation at the end of the forecast period, in my main scenario, will end up marginally over the forecast that was reported in the last inflation report, which the Executive Board majority did not find reason to revise. My assessments of developments during the next two years differ then only marginally from the majority view. I am more concerned about the price tendency and the risks I see in developments after the forecast horizon. The assessments of the use of resources and future production possibilities are uncertain. Structural changes of the Swedish as well as the international markets make it particularly difficult to draw conclusions about future growth prospects. There is a risk that we go to excess. High, increasing indebtedness calculated as a share of GDP for both households and companies make me concerned for financial imbalances that can be on their way to being created, although our knowledge of what can be assumed to be long-term sustainable development is small. In my view, there is a risk that we overestimate potential output in the coming years and that we therefore accept an excessively high level of demand in the economy.

As there is normally great uncertainty in the inflation assessment of the main scenario, the Riksbank also produces risk scenarios; we also publish estimates of the probability distribution of different inflation outcomes. The distribution around the probable outcome is taken into consideration when decisions on the interest rate are taken. In the third place, we can make different assessments as to how monetary policy is to be conducted to strike a reasonable balance between fluctuations in growth and inflation. As I mentioned earlier, the Executive Board has agreed that we can decide not to bring inflation back to target within one to two years if CPI is affected by temporary factors or if the economy is affected by extensive disturbances. Making assessments and evaluating when - within these frameworks - there are sufficient reasons for avoiding output variations by extending the control horizon is far from self-evident, however. To maintain the credibility of monetary policy aimed at price stability, it is important therefore to justify such departures. In the fourth place - and I am now starting to sound as if it is not at all possible to conduct monetary policy with a demand for clarity - we do not know exactly the stimulation or tightening produced by a particular interest rate. This depends on our, like everybody else’s, limited knowledge of the “transmission mechanism”. It is also due to it being difficult to exactly define at what real interest rate, monetary policy has a neutral effect on demand.
4  BIS Review 43/2006  demand for highly-qualified labour in relation to less qualified. However, the possibility that increased competition from low-wage countries is also part of the explanation cannot be entirely ruled out. So far, it appears as though Sweden has managed the structural transformation well. The Swedish Institute for Growth Policy Studies (ITPS) demonstrates in a study that Swedish-owned industrial companies which increased the number of their employees in low-wage countries during the 1990s at the same time increased their demand for labour with higher education in Sweden. This is in line with the development that has taken place in the United States and the United Kingdom. According to the Swedish Labour Market Administration’s figures on redundancy notification and ITPS’s media monitoring, few jobs moved abroad as a result of companies transferring their operations abroad during 2005. 4 In total, the number of jobs was 2 000-4 000, of which 1 500 involved a move to another EU country. The major challenge for the future probably does not lie in the number of jobs moving abroad, but in managing the transition required to make it possible to create new jobs as new employment is created mainly in other countries/regions/sectors. This demands a good corporate climate and a good capacity to attract knowledge and capital. It requires flexibility in the labour market so that employees can retrain as smoothly as possible, and move to new sectors and new regions. If this is not successful, then structural unemployment could become entrenched at high levels.

There are always disturbances in the economy that cause inflation to deviate from the target level. If we were then to rapidly bring it back to 2 per cent, we would sometimes be forced to change the interest rate to unreasonable levels. This would also lead to undesirable fluctuations in production and employment. We therefore consider carefully what is a reasonable period of time within which to bring inflation back on target. This is what is known as flexible inflation targeting. At present, our forecasts also indicate a fairly rapid growth in employment – the number of redundancies is declining and the number of new vacancies reported is increasing. The number of persons employed increased by just over 70 000 between the last quarter of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006. Assuming that economic developments are as favourable as we and most other analysts predict, open unemployment will fall to around 4.6 per cent in 2008. The reason why this will not happen more quickly is because the supply of jobs will increase. So, all in all, prospects look much brighter now than they did one year ago. As inflation will probably be low for some time to come it would have been possible for the Riksbank to wait a few more months before increasing the interest rate, without jeopardising the inflation target. One can regard it as a choice between beginning to increase the interest rate relatively early in small steps, compared with waiting and then increasing in larger steps later on.
Ravi Menon: MAS Marks 50 Years Serving Singapore Welcome remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at MAS 50th Anniversary Partners Appreciation Evening, 7 October 2021. * * * Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Chairman and Board Members of MAS, ESM Goh Chok Tong, Friends and Family of MAS Welcome to the MAS’ 50th Anniversary Partners Appreciation Evening – the first in a series of events to commemorate our Golden Jubilee. This evening is a time for thanksgiving. There are about 50 of us here at the MAS Building and about 800 friends and family joining us virtually. This includes our friends from the financial industry, consumer and governance groups, tripartite partners, academic institutions, and international organisations. And of course, our family – past and present staff and leaders of MAS and our colleagues in the broader Public Service. This is a special occasion for me personally. I joined MAS in 1987 and have spent most of my professional career here. So much of what I have learnt and how I have evolved, I owe it to the many bosses and colleagues I worked with in MAS over the years. MAS was already a highly competent organisation in 1987, and I have seen it grow over the decades to become what it is today – a central bank and financial regulator highly regarded among its international peers and the global financial industry.

MAS has played a critical role in Singapore’s economic development – keeping inflation low, managing Singapore’s official foreign reserves, preserving financial stability, and promoting Singapore’s development as an international financial centre. What MAS has achieved reflects the strategic vision of its past leaders – its Chairmen and Managing Directors – and deep professionalism of generations of MAS officers. They worked hard, to keep our exchange rate strong, our reserves healthy, and our financial sector safe yet dynamic. MAS was fortunate in the outstanding leaders it has had. This evening, we are honoured to have one of them, PM Lee address us. PM has a long history with MAS. This is the third time he is speaking at a MAS anniversary; he spoke to us when we were 30 years old, then 40 years, and now when we’re 50. And of course, PM was Chairman of MAS from 1998 to 2004, when he spearheaded a series of bold reforms to liberalise the financial sector. But MAS could not have done it alone – even with its exceptional staff and outstanding leaders. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  MAS has succeeded because Singapore has succeeded. If Singapore’s public finances were not strong, our monetary policies would not have worked as well. If Singapore did not have a sound legal and enforcement framework, our regulatory policies would not have worked as well.
We believe it is important that internal information systems are capable of capturing the full range of exposures to individual counterparties across the firm; that potential future credit exposure is measured realistically, including through stress tests at the counterparty level and across the firm’s portfolio, and managed to prudent limits relative to capital; that credit limits and terms reflect the quality of information provided by the counterparty about its risk profile and risk management systems and are not eroded by competitive pressures; and that the risk management process tries to capture the risk to the firm that could result from the rapid unwinding of positions by leveraged counterparties. A second challenge relates to the growth in volume and complexity of new instruments for risk transfer, which has advanced, as it typically does, ahead of improvements in the trade processing infrastructure and risk management and control practices. Although these innovations seem likely to reduce overall risk in the financial system, shortfalls in the infrastructure leave the market more vulnerable than it needs to be to adverse dynamics in conditions of stress. These gaps are evident in the degree of manual processing required for trade capture and settlement; the substantial backlog of undocumented or unconfirmed trades; the prevalence of assignments of trades without the consent of counterparties; and in the slow adoption of market services for automated processing. Shortfalls are also evident in the limits of models and other techniques for measuring potential exposures in conditions of stress.

Under the baseline forecast, next year inflation will come close to the target of 4–4.5%. Our policy rate will range between 7.3% and 8.3% on average over the year. That level is relatively high but necessary to bring inflation back to target in the course of next year as we work towards that. I would like to stress again that the Bank of Russia’s policy will not hamper economic activity. On the contrary, it will foster sustained and balanced growth. We have to understand that sustained growth rates are certain to be lower than in the current rapid economic recovery. The key rate is on course to return to the so—called neutral range in the years to come, which is projected at 5–6%. That is the range when inflation neither accelerates nor decelerates. I will briefly outline the alternative scenarios. The alternative scenarios are not built in the abstract, but in order to see how the situation might change and how monetary policy would change then. We construct three alternative scenarios. Scenario one is ‘Pandemic Expansion’; scenario two is ‘Global Inflation’, and the third is ‘Financial Crisis’. Should the pandemic intensify, we would promptly change over to monetary policy easing to help the economy live through restrictions. In contrast, were the Global Inflation scenario to prevail, we would tighten monetary policy for quite a while. In the Financial Crisis scenario, the key rate would first be raised to deal with volatility and financial market problems, and the policy would thereafter become accommodative to support a recovery.
Indeed, from the business perspective and being the international financial centre of China, we must position ourselves for and try and make the best of the opportunities that come with the inevitable process of financial liberalisation of the Mainland. So we spend much of our time and attention on monetary and financial issues on the Mainland. But I must still confess an occasional inability to understand exactly what goes on there. With a high savings rate, rapid economic growth, and the attraction of an emerging market of mammoth dimensions and ample opportunities, the Mainland of China can afford to adopt a cautious approach to financial liberalisation. Even with continuing, tight capital controls, there is no lack of foreign direct investments. The size and strength of the economic magnet of Mainland China are such that it has become, for a number of economies in the region, one of the largest trading partner and destination for outward direct investment. Foreign portfolio investments into the Mainland of China, to the extent that these opportunities are available, for example, in the stock market of Hong Kong, are also in great demand. With an abundance of domestic savings (the savings rate is around 30% to 40%), the emphasis is on financial sector reform, to enhance the efficiency of domestic financial intermediation, in order to sustain growth and development, rather than to attract an inflow of foreign savings.

First is a relative shift of dependence on foreign savings, as against domestic savings, as a source of funding domestic (fixed and portfolio) investments. Second is reduced availability of such funding, as evidenced by Asia being a net exporter  2  BIS Review 66/2004  of capital. To be sure, there has correspondingly been more efficient allocation and use of scarce funding on a global basis, made possible by the freer mobility of capital and the freer convertibility of currencies. But there has also been a change in the dynamics of financial intermediation in Asia, in that there is a process of recycling of Asian funds through the developed markets back into Asia that has become quite significant. And not only is it significant, it is also quite potent and demanding. Whether we like it or not, the behaviour of foreign savings in the hands of foreign financial intermediaries is quite different from that of domestic savings. To start with, they are more volatile than domestic savings and more sensitive to shifts in market sentiment and in macro-economic policies, to a degree that has proven, in the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, to be brutally destabilising. Given also the existence of some forbearance, in terms of, for example, the disclosure of activities and the maintenance of concentrated positions, in the interest of sustaining the presence of foreign financial intermediaries and foreign savings, there is a much greater likelihood of market overshooting.
The BNB Governor made it clear that the only exit from the current regime would be the replacement of the lev with the euro at the currently fixed exchange rate. The whole process of accession – first to the Banking Union and ERM II, and next to the euro area – could not substitute for the good macroeconomic practices and business projects, Mr. Radev said. A country refusing to comply with this is sure to suffer serious economic and financial difficulties whether inside or outside the euro area. The two proven pillars of good macroeconomic policy in Bulgaria are the fiscal stability and the monetary regime stability. Should these conditions, together with the continuous improvement of institutions, be present, the preparatory process and subsequently the accession to the euro area would be a catalyst for the social and economic prosperity of our country. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches

But attempts to target a particular level for the exchange rate or the slope of the change in the rate in response to different conditions will, as the capital account becomes more open, inevitably, come with substantial risks to monetary and financial stability. Managing the transition to a more open capital account and a more flexible exchange rate regime is not a simple task. These transitions need to be handled with care and attention to the development of a strong institutional framework for monetary policy and the financial system. The more successful transitions came in contexts where the monetary authorities were independent of political constraint, where balance sheet problems and currency mismatches in the government and the financial system were not acute, where the prevailing legal framework provided reasonable protections for property rights and the enforcement of contract, and where there was effective supervision of the banking system. Where these conditions were weaker, the transitions from fixed exchange rate regimes were more traumatic. These conditions seem exacting, and the understandable need for caution often is invoked in defense of protracted and very gradual transitions. A certain degree of caution is wise: there is a great deal of risk in a poorly managed and premature shift toward flexibility. But there is risk in gradualism too. Delay magnifies the costs of living with the distortions caused by a managed rate.
Beyond augmenting our talent pool, foreigners living and working in Singapore enrich our culture and diversity. They help us to develop an even more cosmopolitan outlook, and keep our city state abuzz with vibrancy and energy. External linkages Besides restructuring our domestic economy, we also need to expand outwards, to invest in the region and ride on its growth. To do so, we need to expand our horizons, to understand more deeply the world around us, of which South Asia is a major focus of our interest. The Singapore Economic Development Board will be setting up an office in Mumbai. This will be its first office in India, to better service Indian companies which are looking at investing in Singapore and our region. More importantly, our companies also need to venture out of Singapore, to ride the growth of India. To better appreciate conditions and opportunities in India, Singapore plans to set up a South Asian Institute (SAI) later this year. The Institute will be part of the National University of Singapore. It will track economic and political developments in the subcontinent and collaborate with key institutes in India and elsewhere. The SAI will complement the work of the current East Asian Institute (EAI) and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). Together, these institutes will provide us with a more comprehensive assessment of the region within a seven-hour flight radius, and so encourage more of our companies to venture abroad.

John C Williams: Opening remarks – “Racism and the Economy: Focus on Health” Remarks (via prerecorded video) by Mr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at “Racism and the Economy: Focus on Health”,9 September 2021. * * * As prepared for delivery Good afternoon, and welcome everyone. I’m John Williams, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I’m here to kick off what is now the eighth installment of a landmark series on the topic of Racism and the Economy sponsored by the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. These events examine structural racism’s toll on the economy and identify potential actions that can improve economic outcomes for all segments of society. There is no facet of our society immune to racism, health included. So, this afternoon, we will be looking at key issues around race and the economy through the lens of health—a focus never more urgent and critical. Before we move on with the program, I’d like to share more broadly why this is so important for the Federal Reserve, what we’re learning, and what we’re doing. And with that, I must give the standard Fed disclaimer that the views I express are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Open Market Committee or anyone else in the Federal Reserve System. Having poor health is a challenge on many levels. We’re keenly aware that health can be a huge driver of economic inequality.
W A Wijewardena: Microfinance – issues in the current context Keynote address by Mr W A Wijewardena, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Seminar on Microfinance Services in Sri Lanka, Colombo, 29 June 2009. *  *  *  A new word that has been added to Sri Lanka’s vernacular usage recently has been “sakvithi”. This word has so far not got into lexicographers’ lexicon in its new sense. Literarily, it means the “Chief God of Heavens”. But, the contemporary media have used it in a different sense, drawing on a recent episode of fraud that had ended up pauperising many investors who were ambitious of high gains. Hence, its contemporary meaning has been clear even to its first-time spotters. The picture created in the mind when one hears the word is not that of a god but a man: a man bent on deceiving others with false promises of unusually high gains, but at the end, finishes up by appropriating to him their wealth. It is also the picture of a man who has played with the psychological frailties of people with crafty marketing and propaganda by projecting himself as a saint, friend and saviour. Those who fall for his artful schemes will get one thing for sure: complete loss of their life-time savings. It, therefore, foretells of shattering of hopes which they may have cherished about a better future as well. Sakvithi’s lessons for microfinance Sakvithi episode is not an isolated incident of breach of trust.

Related to all this, the EU must ensure that requirements to clear through CCPs apply also to exchange-traded derivatives and to vital cash markets, not just to “standardized” OTC derivatives. Whatever anyone says, there is really no excuse for where things currently stand on this in Europe. The MIFID II package provides an opportunity to correct it next year. 1  Thanks for comments to Andy Haldane, Edwin Schooling-Latter, Anne Wetherilt, Graham Young and David Lawton (FSA). BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Those who argue that the gap in the EU’s framework should persist are serious about private gain but, sadly, not about stability. The crisis that threatens to engulf us all illustrates why we should give no room to such sentiments. 3. CCP default and resolution  There is a big gap in the regimes for CCPs – what happens if they go bust? I can tell you the simple answer: mayhem. As bad as, conceivably worse than, the failure of large and complex banks2. We therefore need effective resolution regimes for CCPs (and other financial market infrastructure). The Financial Stability Board will drive this forward as part of our work on the resolution of SIFIs. (A comprehensive package on the resolution of banks and dealers will go to the G20 Leaders Summit shortly. If endorsed, and Finance Ministers have already given their endorsement, it will become a Standard to which countries/jurisdictions pledge to abide.) The EU’s own work on resolution regimes has been a hugely positive input to this global process.