samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The Deputy Governor shall be appointed by the Government following a proposal by the Governor and must meet the same conditions as the Governor. The six elected Council members shall be appointed by the Government following a proposal by the Minister for Economy and Finance, after consultation with the Governor. They must be Spanish and have recognised competence in economy or law. Finally, the two elected members of the Executive Commission shall be appointed by the Governing Council of the Banco de España, following a proposal by the Governor, from among the Council's elected members. 5  Only prosecution for deliberate crimes, permanent disability, incompatibility arising during the term of office or serious non-fulfilment of obligations can be causes for dismissal. 5  3 Formal independence: a necessary but insufficient condition Although independence must be based on a sound legal framework, formal “independence” is a necessary but insufficient condition for independent agencies. Independence must be effective and, therefore, it must be credible. In other words, an “independent” agency must be recognised by society as one that operates independently within its area of competence. This requires there to be complete trust that its actions are governed exclusively by true and fair compliance with the mandate entrusted to it, because this is the best way in which to serve the general interest. In consequence, connecting channels with society must be maintained and reinforced. This should result in a pro-active exercise in institutional transparency and accountability in the fulfilment of our mandate, as I shall detail later.

6  Authorising credit institutions; authorising the acquisition of qualifying holdings; ensuring compliance with EU legislation on prudential and governance requirements; conducting supervision on a consolidated basis over credit institutions; conducting supervisory reviews and stress tests; participating in supplementary supervision of financial conglomerates; performing supervisory tasks in relation to credit institutions’ recovery plans and the adoption of early intervention measures. 7  The criteria for determining whether a credit institution is considered significant are the following:  — Size and economic importance: total consolidated assets exceed € billion or 20% of the GDP of the country where the institution is established, or it is one of the three largest institutions of a Member State. — Cross-border activity: it has subsidiaries in more than one participating country, whose cross-border assets or liabilities represent more than 20% of its total assets or liabilities. — Public financial assistance: it has received or requested direct financial assistance from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) or the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). 4  The SSM Regulation also provides for the task of adopting measures in pursuance of macroprudential stability to be conferred on the ECB.8 To ensure full coordination with the national designated authorities in this area, the latter must give advance notice of their intention to activate macroprudential tools to the ECB, which may object to it.
Depositors will then try to withdraw their funds before the bank runs out of cash and other liquid funds. The bank will in turn be forced to sell its longterm assets – its loans. This is a slow and loss-generating process. Normally, a bank will fail long before it gets that far. 4  At that time, Norges Bank had already injected NOK 10 million in share capital as part of a new share issue totalling NOK 50 million in autumn 1922 (see Rygg, Nicolai (1950) Norges Bank i mellomkrigstiden [Norges Bank in the interwar years], p. 90 (in Norwegian)). 5  Ibid, p. 119. 6  For a description of the relationship between bank lending and deposits, see McLeay et al. (2014), “Money creation in the modern economy”, Quarterly Bulletin Q1 2014, Bank of England. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Until recently, such bank runs were usually associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s. That is, until 2007, when the UK bank Northern Rock failed, with long queues of depositors outside its doors. This was a forceful reminder that banks may also be vulnerable today. The closure of a bank can create fear that also other banks will have to close, and depositors and other investors may begin to withdraw their funding from a large number of banks at the same time. Problem banks can infect other banks, partly because banks have claims on one another.

The authorities are to devise a strategy in advance for managing the bank if it is danger of failing. If the bank is large and important, there is to be a plan to ensure continued operation. If the bank is so large and complex that it probably cannot be resolved without the use of public funds, it can be restructured. The resolution authority can demand that complex parts of the institution be transferred to separate subsidiaries. As a last resort, the authorities can demand that large banks be broken up into several smaller ones. There should also be a plan for how continued operations can be funded. All systemically important banks in Europe shall hold a minimum amount of liabilities that can quickly be bailed-in. This entails a limit on the share of short-term and secured debt banks may issue. The authorities must also ensure that large banks and systemically important investors do not invest too much in other banks’ risky debt. This is a new perspective on banks’ funding structure. In the future, banks will have to ensure that portions of their liabilities can quickly be written down and converted to equity. Bail-in as an instrument will be implemented in the EU on 1 January 2016, a year after the rest of the Directive. The Directive must be followed up in Norway under the EEA Agreement. Norway’s own bank resolution legislation must be updated. As regards the Norwegian framework, the new elements are in particular the requirements for resolution plans and bailin.
Regarding economic activity in the euro area, data available for the first two months of 1999 do not yet reveal evidence of a rebound in economic growth. Labour market indicators show signs of a somewhat decelerating level of employment growth towards the end of 1998. Meanwhile, preliminary April figures from the European Commission on confidence indicators point towards some first signs of an improvement in industrial confidence. Recent price trends have been consistent with price stability. Inflation for the euro area as measured by the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) has been close to 1% since the fourth quarter of 1998. As has been emphasised on previous occasions, the current low inflation rates are to some extent the reflection of the large fall in energy prices during 1998. HICP data for March 1999 show an annual increase of 1%. The slight increase relative to January and February reflects the fact that goods prices are subject to some upward movement in the short term owing to the reversal in energy price trends expected by the Governing Council at the beginning of April. However, the effects of changes in energy prices on rates of HICP increase may only be of a temporary nature. More lasting effects on future consumer prices normally come from changes in the overall monetary and economic situation.

The elimination of this main risk will also foster the development of uniform market standards so that government bonds in the euro area will become rather close substitutes, creating a large and liquid bond market. Obviously, this requires sound and sustainable budgetary policies that ensure that credit risk spreads remain small. Concluding remarks Following a remarkable period of disinflation in most member states, the Eurosystem has had the good fortune to commence its operations in an environment of price stability. The success enjoyed by the euro in its first five months can be certainly attributed to a number of factors. Above all, the successful efforts of member states made possible a smooth changeover to the euro. The independence of the ECB and the clear mandate to maintain price stability were 7  BIS Review 60/1999  crucial for ensuring a high degree of credibility of the Eurosystem’s monetary policy. As a final observation, I should simply like to mention that without the positive echo of financial markets and the permanent support of banks and financial institutions, a single currency in Europe could not have become a reality. BIS Review 60/1999  8
The South of the EU has actually not been converging towards the North for more than two decades. Therefore, the convergence of standards of living is not a sure thing, and should not be taken for granted. And we all know the notion of keeping up with the Joneses, or in a more modern version – keeping up with the Kardashians, a notion that is apparently even more important today in a highly globalised world with a free flow of information. If the Joneses or the Kardashians are getting a new Mercedes, people are bound to like something similar even though just two decades ago they were driving Ladas or Trabants or Polski Fiat. So despite the progress achieved so far, citizens will continue to want more. And why shouldn't they? Converging to what? Since the EU stopped converging, and actually diverged, from the US in mid 1990s the question is should the goal be to converge towards the EU style labour, product and financial markets,  4  or maybe more efficient ones? Converging towards the structures that are themselves underperforming might not be a right choice. For example, integration of the CEE banking markets with the West European ones through entry of banks into the CEE region at an early stage of the transition has certainly being beneficial in bringing better technology and banking culture, as well as facilitating the transfer of capital.

The Albanian economy will continue to have spare capacities in the capital and labour markets, avoiding potential wage – inflation spirals and producing contained inflation pressures in the medium run. In addition, imported inflation is expected to decline and administered prices effects are expected to be eliminated in the medium run. In the presence of anchored inflation expectations by economic agents, the Bank of Albania deems that consumer price inflation will gradually settle close to its target of 3% in the period ahead. *** Drawing on the information above, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania deemed that inflationary pressures remain, in the short run, high. However, they are controlled and in the medium run they are expected to follow a downward trajectory. In the absence of unexpected shocks, inflation is expected to be within the target band of the Bank of Albania throughout the monetary policy time horizon. Inflationary expectations of economic agents continue to be within the inflation target range, which is essential under the conditions of the simultaneous presence of the negative output gap and high foreign prices. The Bank of Albania is fully committed for anchored inflationary expectations in compliance with its inflation target and stands ready to accomplish its mandate, by preventing materialisation of constant pressures on inflation. We deem that the monetary conditions are appropriate to stimulate economic growth, without generating additional inflationary pressures. Given the fragile equilibriums of the Albanian economy, this philosophy will continue to lead our activity in the period ahead.
That requires substantial investment in information technology (IT). The best performing euro area banks I mentioned earlier increased their IT spending by around 60% between 2009 and 2017, whereas the remaining banks increased theirs by just 10%. Such investment is expensive, but has proven worthwhile. The cost-to-income ratio for the median of the best performers fell by 5.5 percentage points, whereas that for the median of the other banks increased by 3.1 percentage points.12 The other source of higher costs for euro area banks is the adjustment to a suite of post-crisis regulation. This includes holding greater amounts of high-quality capital and debt instruments that can be “bailed in” should resolution become necessary. It is also more difficult now to increase measured profitability by increasing leverage. And whilst international requirements on loss absorption only apply to the most systemic banks – so-called G-SIBs – and the Basel standards typically apply to internationally active banks, in the euro area such requirements are applied to all banks. Of course, such regulations have been put in place in recognition of the significant public costs borne throughout the banking crisis. And regulation cannot be seen as the main driver of costs – Nordic banks operate under the same regulatory framework and have been able to attain a high rate of profitability. But one key element in regulation worth noting is the lack of waivers for liquidity and capital in the euro area.

(b) Timely conversion is defined as a bank’s ratio falling below the trigger level no less than one month and no more than one year before a “crisis”. The number in this column is the proportion of “crisis” banks for which timely conversion does not occur (i,e, there is a Type II error) at this trigger level. (c) For each metric, the threshold for a signal of impending distress is as given in Charts 5 to 8. 18  BIS central bankers’ speeches
An article in the Monetary Policy Report published in July 2013 presents a conceptual framework for taking into account financial imbalances in the monetary policy assessment. 3  For a review and categorisation of various points of view on the question of how monetary policy should give consideration to financial stability, see Smets, Frank (2013). 4  See Svensson (2011). 5  In Canada, inflation has also been below the target for a period of time, but before this situation arose, unemployment had fallen back to its pre-crisis average. New Zealand had an inflation rate in the lower end of its target interval of 1–3 per cent during a few quarters before they began to say in early 2013 that they did not want to see increased financial stability risks as a result of developments in the housing market. They have not, however, expressly spoken of a trade-off between bringing up inflation and subduing developments in the  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The situation in Norway has been similar to ours, in that inflation has also been clearly below the target for a relatively long time, from the beginning of 2011 until the middle of 2013. Since spring 2010, Norges Bank has often discussed the build-up of imbalances linked to a low interest rate as a factor that is included in its monetary policy deliberations. But there are clear differences here, too. Throughout this period they have had a resource utilisation that was close to or even above the normal level.

It is important to show with one’s actions that it is the inflation target that is the central focus for monetary policy decisions.18 I therefore think it was very welcome that a unanimous Executive Board was able to agree on an interest-rate cut in December after the weak inflation outcomes in the autumn. Moreover, we lowered the repo-rate path, that is, our own forecast for the repo rate, quite substantially. However, there is some element of leaning against the wind even in the current repo-rate path. As described in the most recent Monetary Policy Report, an even lower repo rate is expected to bring inflation back on target sooner and steer unemployment towards a long-run sustainable level faster. Given this, I felt at both the monetary policy meeting in December 2013 and the one in February 2014 that the alternative of an even lower repo rate needed careful consideration. My one reason for not advocating an even lower repo rate was that I felt the timing was wrong. Increasingly strong international developments and rising resource utilisation here in Sweden were nevertheless expected to lead to inflation rising gradually. It is unusual for central banks to cut their policy rates substantially or repeatedly during an economic upturn. However, there is a risk that inflationary pressures will prove to be even weaker than we have assumed. Inflation in January and February proved to be somewhat lower than we were expecting when we made our decision in February.
In most countries central banks play an important role in financial stability. Because of their monetary policy function, central banks have an indepth knowledge of the financial system. They are independent anchors for monetary stability. They also have a clear interest in financial stability because of its beneficial impact on the macroeconomic environment. And, last but not least, central banks are the ultimate source of liquidity. For all these reasons, central banks often have an explicit mandate in the area of financial stability. But typically this mandate is formulated in very general terms, and it would have been written before growing recognition of the key role of macro-prudential oversight. Financial stability is not and cannot be exclusively an issue for central banks, namely the ECB and the European System of Central Banks. It must be shared with micro-prudential supervisors. They have a key role, because stable institutions are an essential and necessary condition for achieving financial stability. This is also the reason why the ESRB and the ESAs will form together a European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS). So in the analysis of systemic risk, the three ESAs will also have an important role to play, both on their own and within the ESRB. In collaboration with the ESRB, they will develop a set of indicators to identify and measure systemic risk. On their own, they will further draw up guidelines and recommendations for individual financial institutions to take account of the systemic risk they pose.

In the euro area, the renewed intensification of financial market turbulence is leading to very high interest rates in some countries, to potentially damaging volatility, and to very low trading volumes in some government bond markets that at times cease to function appropriately. The tensions to some extent resemble those of May 2010, but in some respects they are more broad-based than what we saw at that time. It is clear that sovereign debt challenges in individual euro area countries – no matter their size – can undermine the stability of the euro area as a whole. In view of these developments, the authorities in the euro area have taken a multi-pronged approach to address the concerns about sovereign risk and its impact on the financial sector. Regarding fiscal support for crisis countries, euro area governments announced on 21 July a second support package for Greece and the introduction of additional flexibility for the European Financial Stability Facility and the future European Stability Mechanism. In this respect, the full and timely implementation of the 21 July agreement between heads of state or government is crucial. A renewed commitment by all euro area governments to the agreed fiscal targets is of course equally essential. The ECB has also stepped up its responses, reflecting its full commitment to ensuring a continuing smooth functioning of the key euro area market segments, a necessary prerequisite to achieve price stability in the euro area.
Seamless integration with these new trading processes is essential for CCPs to contribute to financial stability. The financial crisis also highlighted the significant gaps that existed between the data collected and the data necessary to adequately monitor developments in the global financial system. In addition, the crisis underscored an important limitation of the current data structure: the inability to combine data effectively across jurisdictions in order to develop a comprehensive view. As a consequence, policymakers often did not have timely access to  3  See Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Board of International Organization of Securities Commissions (2013) Margin Requirements for Non-Centrally Cleared Derivatives. 4  See Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (2012) Principles for Financial Market Infrastructure. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  key information that would have informed both the diagnosis of emerging problems as well as the likely efficacy of proposed interventions. As we all know, it is difficult to safely steer a fast-moving car if outward vision is impaired by a windshield that is largely obscured. In response, the G20 in April 2009 instructed the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to detail these information gaps and to develop proposals for resolving them. The Data Gaps Initiative (DGI) was the response to carry out this important work.

Yet we have been, somehow, controlling, or we claimed to have been controlling, the monetary base ever since the linked exchange rate system was established in October 1983. 16. Even assuming that the definition of the monetary base is well understood, there is then the important question of how it should be controlled. Herein lies one of the most interesting subjects in monetary management and that is the choice between discretionary control with people making decisions, and automatic rule-based control with no discretionary decisions involved. Associated with this are considerations concerning, and possibly another choice between, flexibility in management and the credibility of the monetary system. Even the most professionally competent central banker can be wrong. A system that involves discretionary decisions is therefore subject to human errors of judgement that may undermine the credibility of the system, and some would go as far as to argue that this would eventually lead to failure of the system. On the other hand, an entirely rule-based system without any discretion is inflexible and may not serve the best interest of the community, even though short-term interests may sometimes be involved - witness the many calls for lowering interest rates even when the exchange rate is under pressure. 17. Another related conceptual issue that needs to be put across clearly is that the classical currency board system, as structured in the old colonial era, whilst still theoretically sound, has long become impracticable in coping with the complexities of modern finance.