samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
At the end of June, the Bank announced a set of macroprudential actions designed to mitigate the risks from the housing market (not to control house prices per se). The Bank was able to construct policies which would operate directly on the flow of debt arising as a result of the housing market. It was clear that the FPC should take the lead in using these tools, but drawing on a common macroeconomic assessment (provided by the MPC’s forecast, with policy analysis coming jointly from across the Bank) and a micro assessment provided by the PRA. The FPC could then set the overall macroprudential parameters by a Recommendation, with the particular policies being implemented by supervisory processes consistent with the PRA’s objectives, and by the rules of the FCA. Indeed it is worth noting at this point that the coordination circle does include the FCA – the CEO of which sits on both the FPC and the PRA Board. One could extend the three-committee analysis in this lecture to four. That brings us to the question of the policy levers themselves. Is it the case that each committee has instruments which are both sufficiently effective and independent? The MPC clearly has strong influence over the price and quantity of money. Bank Rate is a basic price of money: the rate paid to commercial banks on their reserve holdings at the Bank of England.

It was an exercise designed to assess the level and depth of banks strategic thinking about responses to future challenges, including the challenges to core business models from changes underway in the technologies around money. The exercise provided the Financial Stability and the Prudential Regulation Committees of the Bank of England with a number of important insights. We will be following up with banks on the results of the exploratory exercise. Conclusion  Thinking about the future in this way is a key part of our responsibility for the money of the UK. The way we use the social technology of money has a long and very varied history. Money has manifested itself in very different forms over the centuries. The confidence that lies at the heart of the technology that is money has been supported in very different ways. The technology has, on occasion, been abused and misused: to borrow Mill’s analogy, the ‘machine’ has gotten ‘out of order’ and done serious damage. The Bank of England has a very long association with the development of money. As I noted at the outset, it has been argued that the creation of the Bank, over three hundred years ago, was the institutional invention that brought public and private money together, providing the liquidity, efficiency and security in the money supply upon which the development of modern economies depended. The way we exercise our responsibility for the ‘machine’ that is the nation’s money has of course changed over time.
So there is a lot you can feel positive about in the past year’s achievements and in the start you have made to 1999. But, looking ahead, the world prospect remains uncertain. Notably, the emerging markets crisis has had an immense impact on international financial flows, and the economic adjustments that those shifts will bring in their wake are likely to have important impacts on the bond markets and on your business activity. As a measure of the impact of the emerging markets turbulence, the Institute of International Finance recently published data which show that total net private capital flows to the emerging markets (broadly defined) fell from some $ billion in 1996 to around $ billion last year. Within this, nonbank lending and portfolio equity inflows also fell back by around $ billion (to around $ billion). Although direct investment in the emerging market countries held up pretty well (at around $ billion), and despite a big increase of nearly $ billion in official lending, there was a sudden huge decline in the overall availability of finance to the emerging market economies. And that left many of them with sharply weakening exchange rates, and little choice but to contract their domestic economies. The immediate international priority last year was to contain the financial contagion – and there was some progress in this direction following the initial shocks in Asia.

Similarly, in the sterling market here, lower grade spreads widened from around 80 basis points to over 150 basis points but yields paid fell from just over 7% to around 6%. The result has been a notably effective contribution by the bond market to meeting the financing needs of the corporate sector. The past year has, also, in a real sense been the year of Europe. In any event, the prospect then advent of the euro was undoubtedly a major factor driving the increase in bond market activity. Issues by European borrowers accounted for some 25% of the total, and issues in European currencies rose to nearly 30%. Many issuers took the opportunity to issue tributary or parallel bonds which were fungible with the launch of the euro. Others offered large benchmark issues with provision for redenomination into the euro. In parallel, 1998 saw a further rapid expansion in the volume of equity issuance by European names, fed partly by privatisation sales, but reflecting also increased corporate use of the equity market to finance expansion and acquisitions. Even more remarkably, merger and acquisition transactions in Europe rose nearly 50% in 1998, continuing a trend which has seen this area of activity increase by around 35% a year over the past five years. BIS Review 17/1999  –2–  Moreover, January 1999 has by all accounts started the New Year in an even more active vein, with a very high volume of bonds issued, and with the euro accounting for over a third of the total.
Finally, I would like to briefly discuss an important unresolved part of the story: the future of central bank swaps of the type initiated between the US Fed and several other central banks  8  See IMF discussion paper on “Cross-Border Bank Resolution: Recent Developments”. June 2014. 9  I have described this case in more detail in other publications and speeches. See in particular: Már Guðmundsson and Thorsteinn Thorgeirsson (2010) op. cit. Már Guðmundsson (2011) “The Fault lines in cross-border banking: Lessons from the Icelandic case”. OECD Financial Market Trends. Vol. 2011, Issue 2. Paris; and keynote address at the “Eighth High-Level Meetings for the Middle East & North Africa Region: Recent Policy Developments for Strengthening the Resilience of the Financial sector”, Abu Dhabi, 28 November 2012. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  around the globe during the crisis10. It should be noted, however, that there are several other arrangements around the globe which, with time and modifications, could become partial substitutes for these swaps. Examples of this are the multilateralisation of the Chiang Mai Initiative in this part of the world, swap lines among BRIC countries, and the bilateral swap network of the People’s Bank of China. But as they are currently constructed, these are not well suited to large-scale and speedy provision of liquidity in reserve currencies more or less directly to internationally active banks.

Given the particular importance of the banking sector, with two big banks which hold a key position in the domestic loan and deposit market, the “too big to fail” and “too big to rescue” issues have particular significance for Switzerland. Consequently, we need to be very conscious of the fact that measures may be needed over and above any international standard. For this reason we are dependent upon political support in order to make our financial system more resistant and more stable with regard to the “too big to fail” and the “too big to rescue” issues. If this succeeds, the competitive position of the Swiss banking sector will be reinforced in the long-term as a result of increased safety, reliability and credibility. The fact that the Swiss Federal Council has appointed a commission of experts on the subject of “too big to fail” is an important step, which we welcome. The willingness of the big banks to participate actively in elaborating solutions to the “too big to fail” and “too big to rescue” issues is also welcome. These latest developments clearly show how urgent the problems are. Ladies and gentlemen, if we do not manage to fundamentally reform the financial system, it is to be feared that a future crisis of even greater dimensions will trigger such a strong protectionist and regulatory reaction that the damage done will extend even to the market economy to which we owe our prosperity. We owe it to future generations to take action against this danger.
According to a recent article in The New York Times, the poor forecasting record of economists was a principal reason for such cutbacks. A re-examination of the results of a survey conducted by the author found another possible explanation for corporate disenchantment with their economists. It appears that many business economists have not furnished information that can be employed in business planning.”3 Neither the story of the young economist nor Casson’s findings should de-motivate those of you who think of venturing into business after university. There are two conclusions to be drawn. The first is: the professional quality of the business economist is important. But professional quality alone is not sufficient. Quality may easily be drowned in a flood of bad management following from an overcomplex organisation. This leads to a second conclusion: every young economist confronted with bad management has a choice. Albert O. Hirschman distinguishes two possibilities of reaction besides ‘loyalty’, i.e. keeping mum, namely ‘exit’ or ‘voice’.4 In my story the young economist decided to exit the corporation. This was fine because he made his way elsewhere. Had he chosen ‘voice’, i.e. had he stayed with the company and fought for its improvement he would have had a good chance of succeeding within the organisation instead of outside of it. Indeed, not a few of our young economist’s colleagues who stayed with this or similar companies and helped to drive them forward were duly rewarded. Today some of them are even on the companies’ boards. 5.

Niklaus Blattner: Economics is what economists do Speech by Professor Niklaus Blattner, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Opening Session of the Integrated Master Programme, Faculty of Economics and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Economics, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau, 22 October 2004. * 1. *  *  Introduction  This is an important moment in the professional life of all of you who have chosen to participate in one of the three Master Programmes starting today and offered by the University of Freiburg. Your choice was either the Master of Economics and Politics, the Master of Finance or the Master of Internet Economics. A common denominator of all these programmes is economics. I felt it might be worthwhile, right at the beginning of your undertaking, to draw your attention to what economics stands for. This begs the question of what economics is. Jacob Viner (an eminent international trade theorist, 1892-1970) gave a slightly disturbing answer: “Economics is what economists do”. This sounds less scientific than you might have wished. But Viner has a point: when talking about a subject that has a history of constant change and development, why not simply look at the empirical facts and take instruction from what one observes? This is exactly what I propose to do. - I base on my own experience and observation.
In the present scenario, pressures on the current account are being reinforced by the steady upward trend in international oil prices. Markets often view wide current account deficits as a sign of vulnerability, thereby fuelling volatility in capital flows. So far, a number of NMS with a flexible currency arrangement have managed such volatility through exchange rate flexibility, a tool which might, however, be progressively lost in the run-up to the adoption of the euro. Developments in financial intermediation may also pose significant challenges in this regard. Thus far there has been a tendency for credit to be relatively low compared to economic activity in NMS, as banks, which are largely foreign-owned in a number of these countries, have been generally averse to advancing a significant amount of credit to enterprises, although tending to step up lending to households. 7 This implies the possibility that with a further internationalisation of the financial sector on account of the introduction of the euro, there could be a more rapid credit expansion through bank borrowing from abroad, with the attendant dangers of overheating and the formation of asset price bubbles. 4  Schadler et al (2005)  5  Begg et al (2003)  6  For example Cipriani (2000), Kovacs (2002) and Mihaljek and Klau (2003)  7  Schadler et al (2005)  2  BIS Review 53/2006  These considerations have important implications for the maintenance of financial stability in the NMS.

01.04.2022  Conference "Rebuilding Social Capital: the role of central banks” Banco de Portugal Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Thank you very much Pedro. Thank you, Mario for the invitation. And congratulations to all the staff of the Banco de Portugal for this commemoration. The Banco de Portugal has indeed built an excellent reputation among the central bank community over all these years. It is surely a good starting point for the Banco de Portugal to rebuild social capital here in Portugal. As Lucrezia said, the topic of the conference — the role of central banks in building social capital — is a rather complex question. I will try to simplify it a bit, perhaps too much. I will approach the topic from one angle, which is related to the reason for the specific institutional setting that we, central banks or supervisors in general, have as compared to other public authorities, which is essentially one of independence, or autonomy, if you prefer. It is interesting to go back to the original reason why we want central banks and supervisors to be independent. This is based on the evidence that we have on the determinants of longterm growth, which points to the importance of the quality of institutions. Good quality of institutions is important in particular to allow long-term considerations to be incorporated into the decision-making process. This is, for me, the most relevant argument justifying independence of central banks.
World growth is slowing and is overshadowed by major uncertainties. According to the latest forecasts, world GDP should expand by 3.0% in 2019, down from 3.8% growth last year (IMF), largely as a result of the slowdown in emerging countries, especially China, and to a lesser extent in certain advanced economies. In the euro area, our forecasts are for 1.1% growth in 2019, down from 1.9% in 2018. The main uncertainties weighing on growth are the risks of an escalation in protectionist measures and of a no-deal Brexit which could lead to a tightening of financial conditions in Europe. The rising tendency in macroeconomic risk is helping to maintain and reinforce accommodative monetary policies, as well as the “low-for-long” direction of and expectations for interest rates. This low interest rate environment is fuelling an increase in household and corporate debt, in both advanced and emerging economies. In France, private sector debt reached 132.3% of GDP at end-2018 (+45 percentage points since 2000). Household debt has risen by 8 percentage points of GDP since the end of the crisis (59.8% of GDP). In Europe, bank profitability is coming under increasing pressure from a number of risks: The first of these is the maintenance of a low interest rate environment for a long time. This is not just the fault of the central banks: an accommodative monetary policy is justified in light of the euro area’s economic situation; but beyond this, low long rates also reflect a structural weakness in growth.

Local authorities can establish who in their area has such difficulties and then they can provide help by delivering cash to homes or help with paying electricity bills and so on. The experiences of other countries can’t simply be copied straight across here, but it is worth discussing them to see whether we could use them in some way to provide cash and payment services to people all across Estonia. I am certain that the commercial banks in particular, though also the state, should be able to provide better solutions than has been the case so far, and I would invite the banks, state institutions and local authorities to take an active role in the discussions about access to banking services. Eesti Pank is of course ready to join the discussion and I do not believe that any solution should be ruled out. Thank you for your attention and I am quite happy to answer any questions you may have. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
All in all, activity in the Swedish economy during the final quarter last year appears to have been slightly higher than we expected in February. Productivity on the other hand showed weaker development than in the assessment in the Report. Survey data clearly suggests  4  BIS Review 30/2008  however that a slowdown is occurring in most parts of the business sector and that the increase in the demand for labour is on the point of slowing. The turmoil has once again increased in the financial markets around the world. This suggests that these are complicated processes that can be protracted. The so-called TED spreads, which is the spread between interbank rates and T-bill rates, have risen once more, above all in the United States but even in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Credit spreads are still high. In recent days the spreads on the mortgage market in Sweden have increased. This is linked to the unrest on the mortgage markets in a few other European countries. Credit insurance premiums have risen recently both in the United States and Europe. New reports about losses related to the US subprime sector are being received. Share prices in Europe and the United States have fluctuated somewhat, but are at present somewhat lower than at the time of the monetary policy meeting. The krona has strengthened somewhat, especially against the US dollar.

The outcome had not been published at the time of the monetary policy meeting, but it was largely as expected. Households in the euro area appear to have been very restrictive with their consumption expenditure. Retail trade turnover fell at the end of last year and it is also possible to discern from survey data that household confidence has declined. As in the United States, more prolonged problems in the financial markets can lead to developments being weaker than in the main scenario. My view in February of developments in Sweden Inflation has gradually risen in Sweden in recent years. On average, measured in terms of the CPI, inflation was 2.2 per cent last year, which is close to the inflation target. The upswing in inflation was partly due to resource utilisation in the economy having increased and cost pressures having risen. Hourly wages increased more rapidly than before at the same time as productivity growth slackened considerably. Inflation has been very low for several years, but in 2007 rising cost pressures were a factor that contributed to inflation reaching the target. Underlying inflation, measured in terms of the CPIX, was however 1.2 per cent as an average for 2007. During the autumn of last year inflation rose very quickly and, measured in terms of the CPI, reached 3.5 per cent in December. Underlying inflation, measured in terms of the CPIX, rose to 2 per cent in December.
Joseph Yam: One country, two financial systems Speech by Mr Joseph Yam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the luncheon of the British Chamber of Commerce, Hong Kong, 20 October 2006. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today on the subject of "One Country, Two Financial Systems". The continuing strong British presence in Hong Kong since 1997 - in all areas of business and society – has been one of the many positive features of the "one country, two systems" policy: it is also a measure of the success of this policy. The British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has played a leading role not only in representing the interests of British companies in Hong Kong, but also in promoting Hong Kong to the world. The British commercial presence in Hong Kong is a rich and diverse one, covering a vast range of economic activities. These include, of course, the everexpanding financial services sector, which benefits both from Hong Kong’s dense economic connections with the Mainland of China, as well as from the "one country, two systems" policy. It is this subject that I now wish to explore with you. I believe it was Deng Xiaoping who first coined the phrase "one country, two systems".

Bank of France reports industrial output continued to make progress in June 1997 BANK OF FRANCE, MONTHLY BUSINESS REVIEW, June 1997. According to the business leaders surveyed by the Banque de France, industrial output continued to make progress in June. Output of consumer and intermediate goods advanced significantly, with a more moderate increase for capital goods, whereas it levelled out in the food-processing industry and slightly dipped in the automobile industry. Capacity utilization rates recovered. Overall demand strengthened both in France and abroad. Export sales grew considerably, in particular to Great Britain, Italy and the United States. Domestic demand rose, stimulated to some extent by inventory replenishment. Order books seem generally satisfactory. While they have emptied out somewhat in the food processing industry, they remain on the full side in the capital goods sector. Inventories are only just above desired levels, despite an increase in the consumer goods sector, and above all in the automobile and food processing industries. In the coming months, activity is likely to intensify across the board, except for the automobile sector which is expected to stabilize. Overall, raw material and finished goods prices changed little. The cost of supplies climbed in certain branches of the intermediate goods sector, mainly due to the rise in the dollar, although these increases were not passed on to sales prices. Business managers continued to take a cautious stance on investment. The little capital expenditure there was primarily concerned the modernisation of equipment and bringing it into line with standards.