samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The famous economics author Neil Irwin, in his book titled “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire”, called the Governor of the German Reichsbank at the time, the “worst central banker in history”! Let us also look at the other extreme case of price movements, namely deflation. The example that will come to anyone’s mind is Japan, which underwent what was known as the “lost decade”. Now it is termed the “lost 20 years”! Since early 1990s Japan experienced deflation, a continued decline in prices of goods and services. One may think that this is great! But what could be considered good for a consumer in the short-term may not be good for the entire economy, as evidenced by the experience of Japan. Since then, the Japanese economy had experienced negative economic growth, a drop in nominal GDP, declining wages and negative interest rates! Some indications of sustained growth in Japan are seen only now. Fortunately, Sri Lanka has never experienced such episodes in the past, and clearly we want neither hyperinflation nor deflation even in the future. But what about double-digit inflation hovering around 10-20 per cent, as experienced in Sri Lanka for several decades from 1970s? Empirical evidence clearly shows that this kind of double digit inflation is bad for sustained growth.

Urban Bäckström: Swedish economy in transition  Speech by Mr Urban Bäckström, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank and Chairman of the Board of Directors and President of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Independent Academy of Building & Construction, on 2 October 2000. *  *  *  Thank you for inviting me to talk with you this evening about the Swedish economy and monetary policy. The issues I have chosen to consider are why the Swedish economy is performing so well and what can be done to ensure that this continues. As you know, output and employment are rising rapidly at present. Annual output growth has averaged 3% over the past six years and the current rate seems to be somewhere between 3 and 4%. Unemployment has come down and is still falling to levels that few had believed possible some years ago, particularly in view of the high European rate. At the same time we have seen that even comparatively low nominal wage increases can result in higher real wages. As a matter of fact, the real wage increases have exceeded most people’s expectations and been higher than for many years. Moreover, inflation has remained low in spite of all this. But monetary policy may still have challenges to face as resource utilisation in the Swedish economy becomes increasingly strained. The current situation also contains a number of risks that have to be assessed.
With respect to the former, in each country or set of countries, processes to establish specific rules must occur to ensure that more local issues are addressed in an appropriate manner. In the United States, as in the EU, that process will be a very formal one. While the national rulemaking is going on, banks and supervisors around the world will also need to think through the practical implications surrounding implementation. To be sure, implementation of the New Accord will require a substantial resource commitment on the part of both banks and supervisors. However, I think it is important to emphasize that the efforts banks will need to undertake to comply with Basel II build, to a very significant extent, on the good work that many large and well-managed banks already have in train to improve their own risk management and measurement approaches. For example, many banks have for some time been devoting increased attention to the tracking of loan performance, and to the more sophisticated assessment of their loan quality. Further, banks have been analyzing their managerial processes - making sure they have the right system of checks and balances, with appropriate use of independent experts who would not gain from overly favorable assessments. Time and effort has also been invested in developing richer and more meaningful data on past, and likely future, credit performance - data that are needed to fuel management information  BIS Review 15/2003  1  and control systems for senior management use.

The GFC has also taught us that even the largest banks in the world are not immune to failure in risk control and management and, when they failed, there would be devastating effects on systemic stability and on the society at large. 4. Fellow INEDs, while you may have come from a rather diverse background, I believe most of you know each other quite well already. This is because all of you have worked for decades in your respective fields, crossing the paths of a wide spectrum of industries, and have achieved proud accomplishments in different shapes and forms. It is your unique experience and expertise, your reputation and your willingness to serve the banking sector that have brought you together as INEDs today at this Conference. 5. As INEDs, you play a crucial and irreplaceable role in the governance of the banks in Hong Kong, serving not only the shareholders but also the public at large, given the special and important role of banks in the society. I think you will agree with me that in the interest of good governance, a board of directors has to provide the needed steer, guidance and checks and balance to the bank. Clearly this can only be achieved if the INEDs can function effectively and efficiently. Without functioning INEDs, the board is just another gathering of the senior bank management. We may as well abolish the board of directors as it would serve no real or useful purposes. 6.
Initially, appreciation places downward pressure on prices of imported goods and services, which account for around 25% of the basket of commodities  1 2  Cf. Bean, Charles et al. (2015), Low for long? Causes and consequences of persistently low interest rates, Geneva Reports on the World Economy 17, BIS (2015), 85th Annual Report, Chapter I: Is the unthinkable becoming routine? Another important reason for the upward pressure of recent years is the generally higher level of uncertainty in the financial markets, manifesting in a greater desire for safe investments. The Swiss franc – along with the US dollar and the yen – are commonly considered safe haven currencies – cf. Ranaldo, Angelo and Paul Söderlind (2010), Safe haven currencies, Review of Finance, 14, pp. 385–407. Page 3/10  used to calculate the Swiss consumer price index. An appreciation of the Swiss franc therefore translates into a decline in the inflation rate. Furthermore, appreciation impairs the price competitiveness of the domestic export industry and dampens foreign demand for Swiss goods and services. This, in turn, adversely affects domestic growth and therefore also indirectly weighs on inflation. As you are aware, the SNB has a statutory mandate to ensure price stability while taking due account of economic developments. Thanks to the introduction of the negative interest rate in Switzerland, the original interest rate differential to the euro area could at least partially be restored.

Lars Nyberg: The Riksbank's cooperation with Sida Speech by Mr Lars Nyberg, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at a seminar arranged by Sida, Stockholm, 13 December 2006. *  *  *  Let me begin by thanking you for this opportunity to briefly describe the Riksbank’s work on aid issues. I would also like to say that it is particularly pleasing to see that the Nobel Peace Prize has this year been awarded to efforts in the financial sector in Bangladesh. Otherwise, the financial sector is often sadly forgotten in aid contexts. Foreign aid to developing countries often concentrates on combating poverty in all its forms, which is of course commendable. But it is easy to forget that a financial sector with functioning institutions is necessary to achieve long-term stable economic growth. A high inflation rate in one country may, for instance, quickly lead to greater poverty among large sections of the population than even the best type of poverty combating measures have time to counteract. A wellfunctioning central bank and responsible monetary policy can therefore make a significant contribution with regard to combating poverty. The Riksbank has cooperated with Sida for some years now in building up and reinforcing capacity within the central banks of Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Uganda. We do not call this foreign aid, but quite simply “Staff Exchange Programmes”.
“Eventually, the Riksbank has realised that its policy was wrong and has made a 180-degree turn.” The last part of the criticism is that the Riksbank rather late in the day realised that it had been wrong all the time and therefore made a 180-degree turn. I have indirectly answered this in part as well. Let me, to be able to make the points I wish to make, describe how I view the way the Riksbank has been conducting monetary policy. In the same way as the conventional flexible inflation-targeting framework in some situations needs to find a balance between stabilising inflation and stabilising economic activity, one may sometimes also need to take various risks into account in the deliberation. The risk that the Riksbank has included to some extent has thus been that a rapid and persistent rise in housing prices and debt could cause setbacks later on and potentially lead to major problems for the development of the economy in general and for monetary policy. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  Leaning against the wind is a question of degrees – not either or But it is important to realise that it is a question of achieving a balance. Allowing risks of this nature to influence policy-rate decisions does not mean neglecting the traditional monetary policy objectives. For one thing, the purpose of trying to manage the risks is to stabilise inflation and economic activity in a sustainable manner, by avoiding, or at least alleviating, dramatic downward adjustments in housing prices and indebtedness.

Krugman, Paul (2014b), Apologizing to Japan. The Opinion Pages, The New York Times, October 30. Malmqvist, Peter (2014), Låg ränta bäddar för överhettning. (Low repo rate paves the way for overheating) Svenska Dagbladet Opinion, 19 July. Mian, Atif and Sufi, Amir (2014), House of Debt. University of Chicago Press. Mitelman, Henrik (2014), Nu blir Ingves börsens bästis. (Now Ingves is the stock market’s best friend) Dagens industri newspaper, 29 October. Münchau, Wolfgang (2014), What central banks should do to deal with bubbles. Column, Financial Times, July 13. OECD (2011), OECD Economic Outlook, No. 89, May 2011. Schularick, Moritz and Taylor Alan M. (2012), Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles and Financial Crises, 1870–2008. American Economic Review 102(2). Smets, Frank (2013), Financial Stability and Monetary Policy: How Closely interlinked? Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 2013:3. Jubilee issue. Stein, Jeremy C. (2013), Overheating in Credit Markets: Origins, Measurement, and Policy Responses. Speech at “Restoring Household Financial Stability after the Great Recession: Why Household Balance Sheets Matter”, research symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Summers, Lawrence (2014), Washington Must Not Settle for Secular Stagnation. Financial Times, 5 January. Svenska Dagbladet (2014a), Krugman har fel om svensk bubbla. (Krugman is wrong about a Swedish bubble) Interview with Lars Svensson, SvD Näringsliv (business section of Svenska Dagbladet newspaper), 14 January. Svenska Dagbladet (2014b), ”Nollränta är som att kasta bensin på en brasa”.
It was common that central wage agreements  2  BIS Review 93/2006  signed in the 1980s contained price development guarantees, wage development guarantees, earnings development guarantees, control stations, etc., which led to prices and wages chasing one another in an upwards spiral. The work on changing wage formation can be divided into three important steps. The first step entailed the Government appointing the Rehnberg Commission in March 1990. On the basis of the Commission’s proposals, stabilisation agreements were signed covering the greater part of the labour market, which meant that the rate of wage increase fell from around 10 per cent in 1990 to 3-4 per cent in 1992-1993. The fact that a lower rate of wage increase was not yet fully established in the mid-1990s is, however, shown by the fact that wage increases rose again to around 6 per cent in 1996, after the 1995 wage bargaining rounds. The second step entailed the social partners in the industrial sector signing a new cooperation agreement in March 1997, known as the Industrial Agreement, whereby the parties took joint responsibility for wage formation in their part of the labour market and had agreed on a regulatory framework for negotiating wage agreements. The agreement was followed by similar, but not as farreaching, agreements in other sectors. The third step meant that the new National Mediation Office began its operations in 2000. This established a third, independent party in the labour market, which could actively promote an efficientlyfunctioning wage formation process.

According to the estimates of GDP growth for the fourth quarter, the economic expansion extended into the final part of 2015, setting the rate of growth at 3.2% for the whole year. Spain thus recorded the strongest economic growth amongst the main economies in the euro area. Certainly, these developments were supported by some tailwinds, whose impact on growth rates is expected to decay over time. I refer here to the fall in oil prices, the depreciation of the euro and the easing in financing conditions. But, quite obviously, these factors were also present in other economies which posted significantly lower growth rates. This underlines the fact that elements of a more permanent nature lie behind the recent performance of the Spanish economy, these elements being linked to the correction of the previous imbalances and the reforms that have been undertaken. Concerning prices, the latest estimate for the harmonized price index in Spain was moderately negative in January (minus 0.4%), due to a decline in energy prices, and it is expected to remain in negative territory for the coming months. The indicator that excludes energy prices went up moderately in the course of last year, in line with the reduction in the degree of slack of the economy. In the euro area, overall prices showed an increase of 0.4% in January, that is, 0.8 pp above the rate recorded in Spain. Thus, the Spanish economy continues to gain competitiveness vis à vis the euro area.
In my view, if we were faced with the same problem today now that we have a special resolution regime for banks, there is little doubt that Northern Rock could have failed in an orderly way under the resolution regime. But this wasn’t possible in September 2007. And given the number and size of depositors, Northern Rock could not be allowed to fail in a way that would have jeopardised the funds of those depositors. It was therefore a stark illustration of the need for a resolution regime. In February last year emergency legislation was introduced in the form of the Banking Special Provisions Act, or BSPA, which created a temporary resolution regime, temporary insofar as the BSPA had a one year sunset clause. The BSPA, which facilitated taking Northern Rock into temporary public ownership, also contained broad powers for the Treasury, as the lead authority in that regime, to protect financial stability and the public interest by statutory transfers of the property of UK banks. The Treasury was also able to override or modify contractual property rights in order to give itself more room for manoeuvre. Creating this regime turned out to have been prescient, because in September of last year it was used to resolve Bradford and Bingley by transferring part of its business, namely Bradford and Bingley’s deposit taking activities, to Santander, leaving the rest in public ownership. The BSPA therefore enabled a new home to be found for the deposits over the course of a weekend.

Ardian Fullani: Recent economic and monetary developments in Albania Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the joint press conference with the Albanian Minister of Finance and the IMF Mission Chief for Albania, Tirana, 22 June 2011. *  *  *  Dear media representatives, In the last two weeks, a team of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led by Mr Gerwin Bell, Mission Chief, visited Albania. During this visit, we had intensive discussions on the current economic developments, the economy’s expected performance and appropriate orientation of macroeconomic policies. This visit in the framework of Article 4 Consultation focused also on structural issues of the Albanian economy, highlighting the steps to be made for ensuring sustainable long-term growth. Brief overview of key issues discussed First, the 2010 and early 2011 economic and financial developments showed that, overall, the Albanian economy overcame the global crisis effects with success and has the prerequisites to generate economic growth in the period ahead. Foreign demand was the main contributor to the 2010 economic growth, while the current year is expected to be characterised by a resurgence of domestic demand and slower growth rates of Albanian exports. Overall, the macroeconomic situation is balanced, characterised by low and controlled inflation; safe, liquid and well-capitalised financial system; improving financial markets; and improved current account position. These developments reflect, inter alia, the relevant policies, which have proven effective in buffering large shocks from the global crisis.
The east European trade is particularly important to the Swedish economy, which is already one of the most open and trade-dependent economies in Europe, at the same time as we have strong historical ties to several eastern European countries, particularly the three Baltic states and Poland. Already, central and eastern Europe as a whole is a larger market for Swedish foreign trade than, for instance, Japan or East Asia. When the Riksbank makes its inflation forecasts, central and eastern Europe will move gradually from being a brief footnote to becoming an important area in the international forecasts. The importance of membership The recipe for success behind the trade integration between the EU and eastern Europe is a littleknown international trade agreement. While the WTO and NAFTA steal the headlines, few people are aware of the agreement that created the boost in east-west trade in Europe, the “Europe agreement” between the EU and the eastern European countries. There are major shortcomings in this agreement, but it includes free trade for almost all industrial goods and thereby enabled the rapid changeover to become reality. However, a decisive factor for the success of the Europe agreement is that all of those involved knew that actual membership of the EU would come in the near future. Membership is that major and important step, when the rules of the game are confirmed and investors know that the institutional conditions are stable and up to EU standards.

A remarkable growth in trade However, in one area the figures show clearly how great the changeover has been: trade. Many who have not had the opportunity to study the former planned economies in central and eastern Europe believe that they, for historical reasons, are fairly closed and that their trade is relatively Russiaoriented. In actual fact, the candidate countries are among Europe's most open economies, with a larger percentage of trade in their GDP, and a larger percentage of this trade with EU countries, than many EU countries have themselves. The EU's trade with the 10 candidate countries is increasing more rapidly than that with any other geographical area in the world. During the period 1995-2000, i.e. in just five years, this trade has doubled. The percentage of intermediate goods (components) for western companies is growing, as is the percentage of goods with a high technology content. There are numerous examples of how eastern European companies are specialising to adapt to sophisticated co-operation with western European companies. Hungary is now competing with Ireland to attract the assembly of computers and cars, Estonia is a large sub-contractor to both Swedish clothing firms and to Ericsson, Nokia and their suppliers. st  Eastern Europe may be Europe's major opportunity at the beginning of the 21 century, after having trailed behind the USA in terms of growth at the end of the 1990s.
It is when the investors sell off assets that are seen as risky and return to safe assets. Typically, they sell off things in emerging markets then move their money to safe things like the US Treasury. We see that happening today but fortunately for us in Thailand, risk-off trade is not a very substantial risk because we are solid on the balance of payments or the external front. We have a low level of external debt compared to our high level of international reserves and are running large current account surpluses consistently in the years preceding the crisis. Therefore, our overall external position is strong. Unlike other countries in the region, which have lower international reserves or higher external debts, they are more vulnerable to these swings in investor sentiment and resumption of risk-off trade. This transmission channel is thus not very worrisome for us as we are in a good position to handle capital outflows given our external strength. The second channel is the impact on the real economy from trade and investment, both direct and indirect. The direct channel is very small as the share of Thai exports to Russia and Ukraine are only about 0.4 percent of total Thai exports, and the same applies to investment flows. The main issue we are more concerned about is the indirect effects that the situation will lead to supply chain disruptions or other impacts on the world economy that will have a knock-on effect on Thailand.

They include the fact that the probability of the zero lower bound constraint binding is likely to be materially  17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  17  higher than it has been historically. Recent simulation studies have suggested this probability may be as high as around one-third, if r* remains around current levels (for example, Kiley and Roberts (2017)). Implications for Future Research  The link between the competitive structure of product markets, the macro-economy and the setting of monetary policy is a relatively under-researched area. This paper has only scratched the surface of this important topic. But trends in concentration and market power have clear potential to impact on the macroeconomy and monetary policy, justifying ongoing research on the topic. To that end, we conclude with a few reflections on potentially fruitful future research avenues. First, the framework used here to understand the macro-economic implications of increased market power assumes a particular competitive structure – monopolistic competition. This has limitations, assuming as it does that no one firm is sufficiently large to have a significant bearing on others’ behaviour. In practice, strategic interactions between firms are likely to be important in many markets, especially network markets (for example, Bramoullé, Kranton and D’Amours (2014)), with potentially important implications for pricing and the Phillips curve. Second, the framework developed here also sidesteps questions about the competitive structure of the market for inputs, especially labour inputs.