samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
But, as we have gotten closer to the range of estimates of neutral, what appeared to be a bright point of light is really a fuzzy blur, reflecting the inherent uncertainty in measuring r-star. 4 More than that, r-star is just one factor affecting our decisions, alongside economic and labor market indicators, wage and price inflation, global developments, financial conditions, the risks to the outlook… the list goes on and on. I’ve talked a lot about normalizing our policy around interest rates. In addition, about a year ago we started the process of gradually reducing the Fed’s balance sheet as we work to unwind the 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  asset purchase policies put in place during the crisis. In the now-standard Fed practice of communicate, communicate, and communicate, we published detailed plans well in advance on how we would gradually and predictably reduce the balance sheet.5 This process has proceeded smoothly without creating undue market disruption or volatility.6 With balance sheet normalization well underway, the Fed is studying the question of what exactly the new normal looks like. We have indicated that we plan to shrink the balance sheet to the smallest size consistent with the efficient and effective conduct of monetary policy—and that, in the long run, the asset side of the balance sheet will consist primarily of Treasury securities. 7 That’s our strategy, but its execution will depend on the operating framework of monetary policy, among other factors. Here, the Fed basically has two choices.

Therefore, we devote considerable effort to monitoring and analysis of developments around the world to understand how our actions affect the global economy and indirectly feed back to our own economy. These considerations play an important role in my thinking about the economic outlook and the appropriate path for monetary policy, as well as how we best communicate our perspectives and plans. Moreover, we actively engage with international counterparts in a range of forums, such as today’s. These exchanges help us understand economic and financial conditions affecting our respective regions and provide opportunities to share perspectives and insights. A key lesson about policy-making in an interconnected world is that transparency and open lines of communication are critical to minimizing misunderstanding, market disruption, and volatility that can interfere with our common goals of having strong and stable economies. As I have mentioned a number of times already, effective communication that provides clarity and predictability to our policy actions is a critical component of successful policy-making. Conclusion Monetary policy-making has perhaps never been more challenging than it was following the financial crisis. But, as we move toward more “normal” conduct of monetary policy, we must not rest easy. We will confront our own fair share of future challenges. The most important monetary policy challenge in the United States today is sustaining the long economic expansion 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  without allowing risks to grow that ultimately undermine economic prosperity.
[31]On the principle of separation between the monetary policy and supervisory functions, see Article 25 of the SSM Regulation and the Decision of the ECB on the implementation of separation between the monetary policy and supervision functions of the European Central Bank (ECB/2014/39), OJ L 300, 18.10.2014, p. 57. [32]Article 284 TFEU and Article 15(3) of the Statute of the ESCB. [33]Articles 20 and 21 of the SSM Regulation. [34]Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament and the ECB on the practical modalities of the exercise of democratic accountability and oversight over the exercise of the tasks conferred on the ECB within the framework of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, OJ L 320, 30.11.2013, p. 2. [35]Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of the European Union and the ECB on the cooperation on procedures related to the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), 11.12.2013. [36]The Governing Council’s quantitative definition of price stability adopted in 1998 is as follows: "Price stability is defined as a year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area of below 2%." In 2003 the Governing Council clarified that in the pursuit of price stability, the ECB aims at maintaining inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. [37]Article 1, first paragraph, of the SSM Regulation stipulates that the supervisory tasks of the ECB should contribute “to the safety and soundness of credit institutions and the stability of the financial system within the Union and each Member State”.

As for personal independence it should be also noted that the members of the Supervisory Board, apart from that of the Chair,[28] Vice Chair[29] and the ECB representatives[30] , are not protected under the SSM Regulation against arbitrary dismissal. There is also no legislatively protected minimum term of office for them. Second, the ECB’s accountability for its supervisory tasks is different from and more enhanced than that for its monetary policy task owing to the potential impact on taxpayers of the manner in which microprudential supervision is conducted. Throughout the financial crisis, taxpayers had to bail out banks supervised at national level. Even though, under the new EU resolution regime, the cost of bank failures is intended to be borne by bank shareholders and creditors, there is still a residual scope for public financial support, as we are currently witnessing. A further argument for a functional interpretation of the principle of independence is the principle of separation between monetary policy and banking supervision under the SSM Regulation. [31] Moreover, while the accountability obligations for monetary policy tasks are laid down in primary legislation,[32] the ECB’s accountability obligations for banking supervision tasks are subject to a specific regime set out in the SSM Regulation[33] and further detailed in an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament and the ECB[34] and a memorandum of understanding between the Council of the EU and the ECB.
Fintech and bigtech companies are responding to widespread customer demand for ever faster and more convenient payment solutions. These companies have developed innovative solutions using technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and high-speed data processing. In a fast-moving world, the ability to analyse data in real time is of paramount importance. This has led to a data revolution in the financial industry, which is also reflected in payment services. The second challenge is to enable interoperability between old and new technologies, such as distributed ledger technology – DLT for short. DLT makes it possible to represent and manage assets such as money and securities on a shared system of ledgers. In principle at least, this means that traditional financial institutions are no longer required for making payments. It is too early to speculate where all this is going. What is clear, however, is that innovation should ideally thrive in a way that does not jeopardise the security and efficiency of 4  The SIC system is operated by SIX Interbank Clearing Ltd on behalf of the SNB. Page 4/11  payments. This requires a common vision for the Swiss financial centre – a Swiss Payments Vision. To make this vision a reality, we must find ways to enable cashless value transfers directly from the payer to the recipient in a fast and secure way and to seamlessly integrate new payment instruments, forms of money and technologies. We need to improve the speed and interoperability of payments while upholding our three principles.

Tokenised account balances at commercial banks correspond to account balances in the form of book money, except that these account balances are made available in the form of tokens on a distributed ledger. Tokenised account balances allow end users to exploit the potential of DLT. Private token money promises parity with book money by allowing tokenised money to be converted into book money at par value at any time. Like today’s account balances at commercial banks, tokenised account balances at commercial banks do not necessarily have  Page 8/11  to be backed one-to-one with high-quality liquid assets at all times. Stablecoins, as a rule, are collateralised. 6  Payment settlement of token transactions Another important question is how exactly should transactions be settled. There are two options (cf. slide 9). The first is integrated settlement, where both money and other assets exist in tokenised form on the same DLT infrastructure. This integration allows for the secure and efficient atomic settlement we talked about earlier. Technically, such integrated settlement would be possible with both private token money and CBDC. The second is synchronised settlement, where the cash leg of the transaction is not represented on the ledger but is synchronised with it. Both private book money and central bank book money can be used as the means of payment here. For transaction settlement, the transfer of tokenised assets on a DLT infrastructure is synchronised with the transfer of money in conventional payment systems.
Michael Gondwe: Mobile payments and mobile banking in Zambia Opening address by Dr Michael Gondwe, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the 4th Annual Celpay Mobile Payments Conference, Lusaka, 12 September 2012. *  *  *  •  The Chairman of the Board of Celpay Zambia, Dr. Jacob Mwanza  •  The Chief Executive of Celpay International, Mr. Lazarus Muchenje  •  Senior Government officials  •  Representatives of Embassies  •  Chief Executives Officers of Commercial banks and Financial Institutions  •  Representatives of International Business Organisations  •  Representatives of Zambian Business Organisations  •  Distinguished participants  •  Members of the press  •  Ladies and Gentlemen  It is an honour and privilege to officiate at the 4th Mobile Payments Conference being hosted by Celpay Zambia Limited under the theme “1st Decade Mobile Payments, 2nd Decade Universal Mobile Banking services”. The Theme for this conference is appropriate and timely as it provides an opportunity for participants, and especially stakeholders, to not only reflect on what has been a decade of tremendous achievement and growth, where major changes have occurred in banking due to the introduction of mobile payments and mobile banking, but also an opportunity to gaze into the future and take a pioneering role in charting out how mobile payments can ultimately provide more banking services remotely, and away from traditional banking.

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: The importance of financial literacy among women in Asia Special address by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the CitigroupINSEAD Women’s Financial Education Summit 2004, Hong Kong, 2 November 2004. *  *  *  Introduction Asia represents the fastest growing region in the global economy. Of significance, is that more than half the population in Asia are women. The participation of women in the economy would therefore not only enhance their own economic well being but would also contribute towards raising further the economic potential of Asia. Women are already engaged in both the informal and formal sectors and are increasingly emerging as a more important force in the economy. The effective participation, however, needs to be an informed participation. Financial literacy among women becomes an important part of this process, regardless of the income constituency to which they belong. There needs to be a better understanding of their financial rights and responsibilities, and their opportunities for income generation and the associated risks and costs involved. This is particularly important for Asia, where rapid economic and financial transformation is occurring. Financial literacy among women is thus a vital part of this process, not only to promote greater engagement of women in the current economic environment, but also to prepare them for the future. It is my great honour and pleasure to be here today to speak on the importance of financial literacy among women in Asia.
Returns on shares are usually negatively skewed; that is, there is a greater chance of a return below rather than above its expected value. During the course of this year, the degree of negative skew has fallen in the US, suggesting that market expectations of further sharp falls is share prices have diminished. Of course a reappraisal of the future growth of productivity could yet occur. The recent fall in IT spending will, at least in the short run, reduce the contribution to higher productivity growth from capital deepening. It is never easy to detect changes in underlying productivity growth because a large quantity of data is needed to distinguish clearly between changes in trend and cyclical movements. Nevertheless, there is no evidence to suggest that the rate at which computing processing power is increasing – doubling every eighteen months according to Moore's Law – has diminished. Indeed, there have been suggestions that the pace of doubling of processing power is now closer to twelve months. But there is one reason for caution about estimates of higher future productivity growth, and that is the conventions used to measure output and hence productivity. It might seem obvious that a higher level of gross domestic product, produced by the same number of person-hours, is an improvement in productivity. But gross domestic product, GDP, is not value added.

Investment in IT, which had been growing at around 20% a year, actually fell in the first quarter. As a result, and as in the UK, the US has experienced a fall in manufacturing output while consumption and the housing market appear more resilient. Prompt action by the Federal Reserve has so far limited the slowdown to a downturn in inventories and fixed investment. Whether the slowdown in the US will be more prolonged than is embodied in the current consensus view will depend critically upon personal consumption. And, in turn, that will depend upon expectations of future productivity and hence income growth in the US. If there were to be a reappraisal of the extent of the increase in productivity growth in the US, then there might be a further downward revision of asset prices and a lower path for consumption spending. So far, the evidence, both from consumption directly, and financial markets indirectly, suggests that no major reappraisal has occurred. Share prices have fallen from their peaks of last year. But price to earnings ratios remain well above historical levels. The average P/E ratio in the US since 1900 was around 14. The ratio peaked at over 30, falling back to current levels of well over 20. Interestingly, the divergence of valuation between hi-tech and other companies has virtually disappeared in recent months. There has also been a reduction in the perception of downside risks to equity returns.
these parameters will be equal for national and cross-border payments). The following assumptions have been made to achieve the objective: -  a coherent and technically neutral (i.e. independent of any specific type of devices) legal framework should be provided for all payment services within the European Union (excluding cash handling and cheques); this framework should allow for the implementation of various solutions,  -  uniform technological and business standards should be provided for suppliers of payment services,  -  self-regulating mechanisms in business relations between participants of payments should be provided; simultaneously, intervention of legislative authorities should be kept at minimum. European authorities play an important role in the implementation of SEPA. The European Commission and the European Parliament are the main initiators and promoters of the idea of SEPA. They stimulate works on the project by issuing specific regulations and directives. 3  P O Gourinchas, H Rey, “From World Banker to World Venture Capitalist: US External Adjustment and the Exorbitant Privilege”, UC Berkeley Working Paper, August 2005. 2  BIS Review 97/2006  The European Central Bank is also an active participant of the SEPA project. However, it acts only as an observer in the EPC. Central banks of individual Member States do not directly participate in the EPC works on SEPA. Their involvement is important in groups organised under the aegis of the ECB, especially as regards the works within the Eurosystem.

But since 1995, the gap has started to widen again as ICT investment has boosted productivity growth in the United States. The empirical evidence suggests that one of the most successful ways to speed up convergence in productivity is to promote international trade and investment, and openness more generally. Within manufacturing, the rate at which the productivity gap between Britain and the US closed during the 1980s and early 1990s was greater in the more open than the less open sectors. Against that background, let me suggest three areas for questions: First, why is the gap in the level of productivity between the US and the UK so persistent? And what are the obstacles that prevent the gap from narrowing - are they in the fields of trade, technology transfer, or flows of investment? What are the respective roles of business and government in removing them? Second, can the UK benefit as much as the US from the IT revolution? Is it a question of the speed with which business adapts? Or is it the need to fund our research-based universities on the scale of the best elsewhere in order to exploit our comparative advantage in the English language and regain Britain’s place at the frontiers of knowledge? Or is it a matter of raising standards of education in schools to enable the workforce as a whole to use the new technology?
In the banking sector, there have been no bank failures in the recent past, reflecting stability in the financial sector Mr Chairman, the Government has shown commitment to continuing the economic reform programme. To this end, measures are being taken to ensure that the macroeconomic gains attained so far will be consolidated in 2007. Accordingly, Government is targeting Real GDP growth of 7.0% and inflation of 5.0%. Pursuit of these objectives is within the context of the long-term development objectives well articulated in the national long term vision, 2030. Part of this vision is enshrined in the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) from 2006-2010 whose broad macroeconomic objectives for the plan period are as follows: •  to accelerate pro-poor economic growth;  •  to reduce and stabilise inflation; and  •  to sustain a viable balance of payments and external and domestic debt position. At this juncture, Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to share with you my understanding of the role of the leasing sector in economic growth. Clearly, the remarkable economic gains that I have outlined above would not have been possible without the leasing sector’s contribution. Leasing companies are specialized lenders that provide asset-backed finance. The assets financed by leasing companies include plant and machinery and motor vehicles. Traditionally, these assets have excluded chattels or personal moveable assets. Though the leasing sector has existed in Zambia since independence, the formal supervision of the leasing sector by the Bank of Zambia only began in the 1990s.

Caleb M Fundanga: Winning with leasing Speech by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the “Winning with Leasing” seminar, Lusaka, 21-23 February 2007. *  *  *  • Mr Chairman • Chief Executives and representatives of Banks and Leasing Companies • Representatives of businesses organizations; • Distinguished ladies and gentlemen Let me first express my sincere gratitude for being invited to officiate at this important regional Leasing Seminar. It is my hope that this interaction will give us a better understanding and appreciation of the important contributions that the Leasing sector has made and continues to make to the economic growth of this country. As the title of the seminar “Winning with Leasing” suggests, it is only by winning in all our efforts that we will provide meaningful contributions to the development of this country. Mr Chairman, before I talk about your role in the growth of the economy, allow me to first give a brief account of the macroeconomic developments in Zambia in the recent past. I know that many of you have been following the economic developments in the country. The economy has performed relatively well in recent years, with positive real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and inflation as well as interest rates coming down. During the period 2001-2005, growth in real GDP averaged around 5% per annum. More recently, in 2006, it is estimated that the economy grew by close to 6%, marking the eighth consecutive year of positive real growth in output.
The Rt Hon Sir Edward George GBE: What the Bank of England is trying to do through the Monetary Policy Committee in its conduct of monetary policy Speech by The Rt Hon Sir Edward George GBE, Governor of the Bank of England, at the Yorkshire Forward/Bank of England Regional Dinner, for Yorkshire and the Humber Business and Civic Leaders and MPs, held in Sheffield on 16 January 2001. *  *  *  Mr Chairman, I am delighted to join with you in welcoming everyone to dinner this evening here in Sheffield, and I should like to begin by thanking you, Master Cutler, for allowing us to host the event here in the Cutlers’ Hall. I have had the pleasure of speaking here before – some five years ago, at the Cutlers Feast – and it is indeed a privilege which we greatly appreciate. Thank you. Since then, of course, the Bank of England has been subject to new legislation. The new Bank of England Act confers upon us – specifically upon the newly-created Monetary Policy Committee independent responsibility for the conduct of monetary policy; but it also expanded and increased the role of our Court of Directors, including giving an oversight responsibility to the Non-Executive Members of Court to ensure that the Monetary Policy Committee has collected the regional, sectoral and other information necessary for the purposes of formulating monetary policy. These changes, inter alia, have made the Bank especially conscious of the importance of its regional presence.

There are really three key areas: •  First, there is uncertainty about what in fact is happening on the supply-side of the economy, that’s to say how rapidly can aggregate demand be allowed to increase before it begins to run ahead of supply and put upward pressure on inflation or, alternatively how rapidly must demand increase in order not to run below supply-side capacity and cause inflation to fall significantly short of the inflation target. The target is, of course, symmetrical;  •  Secondly, and specifically in relation to the labour market, at what point does the growth of employment or the fall in unemployment lead to a rate of increase in pay settlements, or earnings growth, which would subsequently lead to accelerating inflation in goods and services markets; and  •  Thirdly, what is happening or is likely to happen to the rate of growth of aggregate demand in the economy anyway. Now, as I said earlier, there is not a great deal that we – through monetary policy – can do directly to affect the first two of these areas of uncertainty, which relate to the supply-side of the economy. The major challenge for us in these areas is in assessing – or quantifying – their impact. And that’s not at all easy because, while the effects gradually become apparent over time, many of the relevant developments cannot be directly observed or measured; nor therefore can they be predicted with any great confidence.