samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Having a work force that feels they are contributing to the greater good should benefit the organization in its effort to recruit the best minds, but also in the effort to recruit those with the best hearts (who presumably will be less likely to become malefactors). The last item that I will leave out is “short termism.” Permit me to describe the concept. With increasing frequency, people working in a financial services firm have no loyalty to their employer because they do not intend to work there long. Instead, the idea is to get some experience and a decent bonus and then move to the next employer – or, if the bonus is large enough, to work for oneself. 9 10 Given the specialization that tends to accompany various financial services, people with near‐term career horizons tend to develop loyalty to the special group of individuals with whom they transact business and who might provide the next job opportunity. These specialized bankers or traders increasingly resemble independent contractors or freelancers – careerists with no institutional loyalty. In foreign exchange, for example, we saw people orchestrating a manipulative scheme across a network of individuals at many institutions. This is all rational and understandable – specialists need the long-term allegiance of their network to continue to ply their trade, and this allegiance is far more consequential than loyalty to the organization currently employing them. So, when in conflict, career trumps institution. Some of this is simply generational; there is more employment mobility now than thirty years ago.

You would agree with me that it is quite difficult for a central bank, like ours, to implement monetary policy effectively in an environment characterised by inadequate banking facilities. It is for this reason therefore that I commend the Management of Stanbic Bank Zambia for bringing banking facilities closer to the people. In this regard, I wish to assure you that on our part we shall continue to support you in your endeavours to open more of such branches, because we firmly believe that you are making our work and that of the Government much easier. However, may I take this opportunity to advise the Management of Stanbic Zambia that if you want this branch or many of such branches you intend to open in future to be beneficial to the communities in which they operate, kindly be flexible on the requirements for opening accounts as well as lowering  BIS Review 13/2005  1  the minimum account balances to be maintained by your clients. I say so because communities like Matero and the surrounding areas comprise mainly of people who are in the informal sector. Therefore, it would be unreasonable for you to ask an unemployed prospective customer to bring a letter from their employer before an account could be opened with your branch! In other words, I strongly urge you to tailor your banking services to the needs of the community you operate in.
First, we appointed a start-up correspondent at the national level [Maurice Oms], and we will soon have start-up correspondents in the regional French Tech capitals. The Banque de France’s innovation laboratory, the Lab, is working with numerous actors in the field. This year, we inaugurated a new site in Singapore, one of the epicentres of the Fintech industry. And recently, Paris was selected alongside Frankfurt to house the European branch of the BIS’s Innovation Hub. At the ACPR, we are doing our utmost to facilitate contact with Fintechs at all stages. First, there is a single point of entry: the Fintech-Innovation Unit. Since 2016, it has met and advised between 100 and 150 project leaders per year, to help them flesh out the initial outline of their project before potentially submitting it for approval. The approval procedure has also been simplified with 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  the creation of a digital portal, and we have adapted certain procedures to recent developments: introduction of a streamlined post-Brexit procedure in 2019, and of a simplified procedure for a large number of payment service providers (PSPs) in 2020. On top of this, in our day-to-day supervision, we apply the regulation using a proportional approach. For example, for small establishments, we allow a single individual to hold more than one key positions.

An obvious reason for why inflation can be higher or lower is the kind of risk for different economic developments that I have just talked about. But one factor that has puzzled us is the surprisingly low wage growth in Sweden bearing in mind how the economy has strengthened in recent years. 17 Even though we have seen that wages are now rising more rapidly both abroad and in Sweden, uncertainty remains over the strength of inflationary pressures. This is also a reason why we are expected to proceed very cautiously with repo rate rises in the coming years. The Swedish krona may grow weaker or stronger than our forecast, but as we have tried hard to get inflation to rise towards the target, we are more concerned about the potential effects of a rapid and sharp appreciation of the krona. The fourth and final category of uncertainty factors concerns ongoing major structural changes, the effects of which are very difficult to assess “in real time”. I have mentioned two factors today: the trend of low global real interest rates and the increasing interest-rate sensitivity of households. But there are also other factors that I have not discussed today, but that are nevertheless very important to consider. The mega trend towards greater digitalisation is changing many parts of society, and at the Riksbank we are affected not only as regards monetary policy but also as regards our other operations, such as our responsibility for a safe and efficient payment system.
In addition to the international trade channel, what we should be even more concerned about is higher financial market volatility. While market sentiment on the U.S. and the Eurozone will determine the direction of capital movements, we anticipate volatile capital flows into Asia given the region’s continued strong growth prospects compared to advanced economies. Over the period ahead, capital inflows into Thailand also owe to the fact that monetary policy in advanced economies will likely remain exceptionally easy, which means excess global liquidity and capital inflows into emerging markets. The third channel that the U.S. and the Eurozone crises may affect the Thai economy is through inflation. Generally speaking, global demand slowdown will likely lead to lower oil and commodity prices, hence the lower imported price pressures. So in contrast to the first two channels, this is a positive one. Nevertheless, domestically, as the flood situation improves, public and private spending will pick up thanks to reconstruction spending and fiscal stimulus. This, coupled with inflation expectations that will remain high over the months to come, points to significant upside risks to inflation that will need to be monitored. Ladies and Gentlemen, Given enormous challenges both at home and from abroad, moving Thailand forward will require policymakers to utilize a wide range of policy instruments at their disposal. At the very least, it is crucial to ensure a proper, integrated conduct of fiscal and monetary policies.

Likewise, exports from EMEs to EMEs increased from $ trillion to $ trillion during the same period. The increase in the volume of trade among EMEs has, to some extent, reduced the adverse effects of the weak course of external demand from advanced economies. Thereby, production and employment levels in EMEs have achieved a rapid pace of recovery after the 2008 global crisis. In line with the increased importance of these economies, we also witness significant changes in decision-making mechanisms worldwide. A wide range of important decisions on issues ranging from food and energy security to strengthening the global financial system are made at the Group of Twenty (G20). In line with the recent increase in their role in the G-20, the voice and representation of EMEs among international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the Basel Committee and the Financial Stability Board is increasing as well. Distinguished Guests, EMEs withstood the global turmoil better than expected. A certain degree of decoupling has been observed between emerging and advanced economies in this regard. Underlying this resilience were several distinct factors, including sound fiscal fundamentals, a relatively low degree of leverage in the private sector, a lower reliance on wholesale funding as part of a more traditional banking business model and minimal exposure to toxic financial products. Improvements in the financial sector regulation and supervision frameworks have also added to this resilience. Although EMEs proved resilient during the global financial crisis, they have experienced new challenges in the aftermath of the crisis.
The most recent episodes when inflation has been below target – at the end of the 1990s and the start of this decade – have been characterised by unexpectedly high productivity, unexpectedly low imported inflation and other more temporary supply shocks. The low inflation has not been because we have actively tightened monetary policy and dampened demand. In reality, monetary policy has been very expansionary. With the aid of the repo rate the Riksbank can influence demand. How companies then meet this demand by varying the number of employed depends on how productivity develops, and that is nothing that monetary policy can control. Nor have we any possibility to govern how many people enter or leave labour market policy measures. Is Swedish wage formation competitive? When an economy is in balance, with wage and profit shares constant, companies’ real wage costs increase in parallel with productivity growth. But the relationship between wage increases and competitiveness is different under a fixed and floating exchange rate. With a fixed exchange rate, competitiveness is determined first and foremost by how big wage increments in Sweden are compared with other countries. If wage costs increase too rapidly, costs crises arise that can result in higher unemployment or that force the country into devaluations with a view to restoring competitiveness, as was the case in Sweden during the 1980s. The problem with the repeated devaluations was that they eroded the fixed exchange rate’s credibility.

For example, there is a high level of employment protection legislation in Norway, Sweden, and Finland but not in Denmark. In Denmark, agreements between the social partners can stipulate firing rules. The negotiating position that employment protection offers employees can induce companies to go farther in safeguarding employees' interests in the event of restructuring. The social safety net – unemployment benefits and the more permanent benefit schemes – probably also make it easier to gain support for rationalisation. But this safety net has also become a pretext for not addressing the problems at hand. The increased use of our welfare schemes is increasingly becoming the Achilles’ heel of the Norwegian economy. Sickness absence has risen sharply in Norway and a steadily higher share of the working-age population is on disability benefit or rehabilitation schemes. Many choose to retire under contractual early retirement schemes at the age of 62, and these numbers will probably increase ahead. In Norway, close to 600 000 persons among the working-age population are outside the labour force and on benefit and retirement schemes. This accounts for 25 per cent of the labour force. Sweden has seen a similar development. BIS Review 15/2007  17  The sharp increase in benefits cannot be explained by the population’s state of health, which is steadily improving.
At the same time, Norwegian importers have been able to shift demand to new markets in central Europe and Asia, which has led to a fall in prices for many imported consumer goods. The terms of trade have improved by about 40 per cent since 2002. This has resulted in a vigorous rise in Norway's disposable income. Even excluding oil, there has been a marked improvement. Second: An ample supply of labour has boosted output growth. In particular, the supply of foreign labour has increased sharply after EU enlargement in 2004. Over the past two years, these labour inflows have accounted for over 30 per cent of growth in the labour force in Norway. At the same time, this has enabled Norwegian companies to be bolder in accepting new assignments and making investments, in the knowledge that they can procure labour  BIS Review 100/2007  1  throughout Europe. High inward labour migration and the scope for relocating portions of production abroad have led to increased competition in the labour market and have probably curbed wage growth. Third: The Norwegian business sector has been quick to adopt new technology and to reap the benefits. In comparison with other countries, productivity gains in service sectors stand out in particular. On balance, these factors have contributed to the economy’s high capacity for growth. But strong activity growth has now resulted in a high level of capacity utilisation. Shortages of labour and other factor inputs have been reported.

In the first half of the year, annualised growth was close to 6 per cent, and even if GDP growth in the third and fourth quarters should be zero, annual growth will be well over 4 per cent. As the chart shows, a four-year period of such strong growth has not been seen since 1971. The strong rate of growth has only to a limited extent fed through to a higher rise in prices for consumer goods and services. Consumer price inflation adjusted for tax changes and excluding energy products (CPI-ATE) has admittedly picked up gradually since late summer 2006, but in relation to the economic situation, underlying inflation remains low. After hovering around 1-1½ per cent over a longer period, the year-on-year rise in the CPI-ATE was 1.8 per cent in August. Other measures of underlying inflation show approximately the same rise in prices. The year-on-year rise in the total consumer price index (CPI) has been just under ½ per cent in recent months. This is because electricity prices have been substantially lower this year than last year. There are a number of reasons why inflation has been low in an environment of high economic growth. First: Norway’s terms of trade have improved. Prices for export goods such as oil and gas, freight, fish, industrial commodities and engineering products have increased considerably. In addition, market growth abroad has provided market opportunities for Norwegian export goods.
Barbro Wickman-Parak: Some reflections on the current situation Speech by Ms Barbro Wickman-Parak, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Handelsbanken, Stockholm, 19 September 2008. *  *  *  Hawks and doves – opinions may differ on this way of trying to characterise me and my colleagues on the Executive Board of the Riksbank, but it cannot be denied that it has had a major impact. How often the terms are used in the media varies somewhat over time depending on how great the difference of opinion among the Executive Board members is assumed to be at the moment. Prior to the most recent repo rate decision, the terms were used quite frequently and it was claimed that there was a fight between the hawks and doves on the Board about the direction the interest rate should take. The minutes of the latest monetary policy meeting, which were published the day before yesterday, reveal that I am one of the doves – if I myself should now lapse into this ornithological terminology. This time, I would like to add – it is not my intention to characterise myself as a permanent dove, no more than I intend to become a permanent hawk. As a monetary policy decision-maker you cannot sit in a predetermined rut, even though this would make life easier for those who like to express themselves in clichés. The minutes also reveal that the Board was divided right down the middle, as was indeed speculated on beforehand.

And if it were possible there would be no real reason to let the monetary policy decisions be made by a Board with six members. It would be enough to have a single wise decision-maker. In recent decades, however, the trend has been in the opposite direction. All over the world, it has become more and more common to let monetary policy decisions be made by a group of individuals – a committee or board – rather than by a central bank governor alone. Probably the most important explanation for this is that many central banks have become more independent in this period. This has made it seem more natural to delegate the right to make decisions to a group of people rather than to one individual. This development has meant that research on monetary policy decision-making in groups has accelerated. 1 One result that has emerged is that groups tend to make better decisions than individuals. 2 This may be because the members of the group have different backgrounds, knowledge and experience that they can bring to the monetary policy discussion. These differences mark the decisions that the group makes in different ways so that these decisions tend to be better than the decisions that an individual would have made alone – the whole becomes greater than the parts. This applies irrespective of how the decision is made – by voting, as at the Riksbank, or in some other way.
The fact that in previously cycles this did not happen is good news, but a series of good output numbers in the US, a few higher‐than‐expected inflation prints, or a change in the strategy on how to manage the balance sheet of the Fed could, trigger a significant increase in long term rates. 7 BIS‐based Real Exchange Rates; for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, México, Perú and Venezuela. 3  The current trajectory of the Dollar/Commodities/Credit Spreads provide mix evidence  Other dimensions suggest we are somewhat in between the 1994 and 2004 episodes.  The dollar has strengthened in multilateral terms in the last quarters, similarly to what was seen in 1994. Commodities have shown a mild upward trend. Definitely smoother than their trend in 2004, but also markedly more bullish than in 1994. Finally, EMBI spreads have decreased in tandem to what they did in 2004. Indeed, capital inflows have returned massively to the region in the last few months. In other words, while commodities are not as supportive of emerging economies as they were in the previous decade, markets are showing a high appetite for emerging market debt.  This suggests two things. On the one hand, there is room for a recovery in emerging economies, and markets are pricing that in. But on the other hand, this recovery will not be supported by a commodity cycle as we experienced in the 2000s, so the region is more exposed to financial shocks coming from a disorderly normalization of monetary policy in the United States.

The impact of the Fed’s tightening cycle in the 1990s on emerging markets was not as widespread as the 1980s episode had been, and countries like Chile and Colombia were able to  st  1 Remarks at the 2017 IIF Latin America Economic Forum, Asunción, Paraguay on Saturday April 1 , 2017. I acknowledge the support of Diego Gianelli and Mauricio Hitschfeld in the preparation of this speech. These remarks do not imply endorsement by the Central Bank of Chile or any of its Board members. 2 There is a third episode between June 1999 and June 2000. This process of 150 bp hikes can be understood as the final adjustment along the 1994 episode. 3 See, for example, the discussion in García‐Herrero, A., 1997, Banking Crisis in Latin America in the 1990s: Lessons from Argentina, Paraguay and Venezuela, IMF Working Paper 97/140. See also Sachs, J., A. Tornell and A. Velasco, 1996, Financial Crisis in Emerging Markets: The Lessons from 1995, NBER Working Paper 5576. 1                weather this period relatively well and to keep high growth rates.4 But there is ample evidence that, in a context of several macroeconomic imbalances in several emerging economies, the 1994 episode triggered a series of difficulties and crisis that configured the macroeconomic map in the developing world in the second half of the decade. In contrast, the monetary policy normalization process starting in 2004, did not have a negative effect on emerging economies.
We must therefore be vigilant and be careful when taking the decisions that lie ahead. The Central Bank’s next comprehensive analysis of economic developments and prospects will appear in Monetary Bulletin in mid-May. Honoured guests: As has been reported, the Central Bank bought large amounts of foreign currency in 2015 and has continued to do so this year. From May 2013, when the Bank began its regular FX purchase programme, until the close of business yesterday, the Bank was a net buyer of foreign currency in the amount of 471 b.kr. Some of this currency has been used to pay down foreign debt and the rest to increase the size of the foreign exchange reserves. Both of these measures increase the proportion of the reserves financed in krónur. At the end of February, the reserves totalled 721 b.kr. including 382 b.kr. financed in krónur. This has reduced foreign liquidity risk, of course, but it would also have a large negative impact on the Bank’s finances if such an arrangement persisted, as domestic interest rates are much higher than the rate of return on the reserves. This point is discussed in greater detail in the Bank’s Annual Report, which is available here today. The report states that, as of year-end 2015, the negative interest rate differential on the Bank’s foreign exchange balance was 18 b.kr. on an annualised basis. The forthcoming auction of offshore krónur could change this position radically, however, and as a result, there is no reason to despair about the Central Bank’s finances.

Furthermore, our analysis6 shows that there are only limited spillovers from the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve to euro area inflation and output. This suggests that ECB monetary policy actions are, by and large, able to shield the euro area economy from spillovers from US monetary policy. But undoubtedly, there is evidence that US monetary policy is a driver of a “global financial cycle”.7 In step with such a financial cycle the risks to euro area financial stability can change as well. Current financial stability concerns in the euro area As you know, our characterisation of the main risks to euro area financial stability has remained broadly unchanged over the recent years. We see four main risks: The most prominent risk stems from the possibility of a disorderly increase of global risk premia. The second risk is related to renewed debt sustainability concerns, for sovereign debt in particular. The third risk is that banks’ intermediation capacity may be hampered by their continued low profitability. Finally, we are of the opinion that possible liquidity strains in the investment fund sector constitute a growing risk. All four risks are intertwined and would have, if they were to materialise, the potential to be mutually reinforcing. In 2018, a growing economy and improved banking sector resilience were important positive factors supporting financial stability. Now, however, the assessment is affected by a weakening economic growth outlook for the euro area.