samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It may help to reduce that tension to attempt to manage the float to some degree, by supporting appropriate domestic policy action with exchange market intervention, though I agree that such intervention may serve as little more than a signal where a currency is internationally widely traded and held. Similarly there can, I believe, be circumstances in which domestic discipline may be reinforced by an exchange rate peg, but it is vital in that case that the authorities should identify a clear exit strategy before serious tensions are allowed to emerge. That – I know from our own experience – is much easier said than done! Mr Chairman, these dilemmas are certainly not new. But clearly they are liable to be accentuated by the massive increase in global capital flows over recent years, which has not only complicated the choice between alternative possible exchange rate regimes but also made the management of any of those regimes substantially more difficult. So there is a further question we need to address which is whether there is anything we can do to reduce the volatility of these massive capital flows beyond pursuing disciplined macroeconomic policies. That of course is the subject of a whole series of conferences on its own; and there is certainly a good deal that we can do. Let me conclude by mentioning some of the items on my own shopping list in this context.

Mr George outlines monetary and exchange rate policies for sustainable growth Speech by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr E A J George, at The Central Bank Policies Conference, Macau, 17 May 1999. Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me begin by saying that it is a real pleasure to be here with you today in Macau and to participate with such distinguished central bank colleagues in your conference. One of the very agreeable things about coming to the other side of the world to participate in an event like this is that it enables me to step back from the daily hubbub of my office, the financial markets in the City of London, and the media, and reflect in a broader way on what it is we are all actually trying to do. It is in fact much more agreeable than working! In a broad sense, of course, our ultimate objective as central bankers is clear, and it is reflected in your conference title when you talk about “leading the way to sustainable growth”. I would add high rates of employment and rising living standards to that objective. Very often in the past, certainly in my own country, but not just in my own country, that fundamental objective was seen to be largely a matter of demand management – of pumping up demand by expansionary fiscal and monetary policies – with too little regard to the structural, supply-side, capacity of our economies to meet that demand.
It reflects, to a large extent, the gradually subsiding supply-side shocks on inflation. The decelerated rise in primary commodity prices in the global markets, the low inflation in Albania’s trading partners and the stable exchange rate have generated reduced imported inflation rates. However, despite increasing, inflation remains low due to the incomplete utilisation of capacities in the economy, which is reflected in weak pressures on the rise of wages and producer prices. At the same time, economic agents’ inflation expectations are low and growth of money is in line with the demand of the economy for money. In addition, the absent rise in regulated prices has contributed to the low inflation rate over 2012. While making an analysis of the economic developments, the Supervisory Council noted that the reappearance of stress in the global financial markets in the current month has heightened the uncertainties in these markets markedly, being translated into more strained financing conditions for the public and private sector. The fall of foreign demand and the higher perceived risk for the entire area have started to affect the performance of economic activity in the countries of the region. The statistical information available for the first quarter of 2012 provides evidence for a sluggish economic activity. This performance, among others, has been also affected by temporary factors arising from the severe weather conditions. However, the analysis of available indicators reaches the conclusion that both domestic and foreign demand remain sluggish.

Ardian Fullani: Recent economic and monetary developments in Albania Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the press conference on the Monetary Policy Decision of the Bank of Albania Supervisory Council, Tirana, 29 May 2012. *  *  *  Today, on 29 May 2012, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania reviewed and approved the monthly Monetary Policy Report. Based on the analysis of Albania’s latest economic and monetary developments, and following discussions on their performance outlook, the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania decided to keep the key interest rate unchanged at 4.25%. This decision reflects the Supervisory Council’s opinion that the actual monetary conditions are adequate to meet the Bank of Albania’s inflation target in the medium run. It holds the key interest rate at a record low, thereby maintaining the strong stimulating nature of monetary policy, in order to boost aggregate demand and economic growth. This decision also reflects the heightened uncertainty deriving from the external economic environment and, particularly, from the recent economic developments in Greece. Let me now proceed with an overview of the economic developments and key topics discussed at today’s meeting. *** Annual inflation marked 1.6% in April, continuing to pursue an upward trajectory over the last two months and approaching the lower limit of the target band. After marking a minimum low in February, the rising trend of inflation was expected and communicated by the Bank of Albania.
In response, the Met Office made huge efforts to improve their data capture and computing power as a basis for improving their weather forecasting. The results have been dramatic. Over the past 30 years, the Met Office’s forecasts have improved significantly. Their 4-dayahead forecasts are now as accurate as their 1-day-ahead forecasts were 30 years ago. These are improvements on a scale economic forecasters would give their left arm for (unless, like me, it was their bowling arm). It suggests improved data can pay real dividends. To that end, the Bank is investing in improving its own data architecture and analytics. Perhaps a more timely reading of the economic and financial tea leaves can be found by scraping the web or by semantic search on social media sites? Recent research has  3  Barnett et al (2014)  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  suggested just that.4 These are the sorts of question the Bank’s rocket scientists can help us answer. Uncertainties are no less acute when it comes to modelling the economy. Unlike rocket science, economics has few, if any, physical constants or fixed laws of motion. Like cricket, economics is a game largely played in the head; nine parts psychology to one part physics. Understanding and modelling the brain has so far eluded neuroscientists, but this has not stopped them trying.5 Economists are in the same boat, just with bigger holes.

Andrew G Haldane: The corridor of uncertainty Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Chief Economist and Executive Director, Monetary Analysis and Statistics, Bank of England, at the Scarborough Business Ambassadors’ Dinner, Scarborough, 18 June 2014. *  *  *  The views are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee. I would like to thank Gareth Anderson, Andrew Bailey, Maria Barriel, Charlie Bean, Venetia Bell, Stephen Burgess, Matt Corder, Shiv Chowla, Jeremy Franklin, Jack Leslie, Bob Gilhooly, Varun Paul, Jon Relleen, Matt Roberts-Sklar, Jumana Salaheen, Matt Trott, Martin Weale and Tom Wise for comments and contributions. It is wonderful to be back in Scarborough. I say back because many of my earliest and fondest childhood memories were of summer holidays spent here. Being a cricket fan, the Scarborough Festival – the cricketing jamboree held at the end of August each year since 1876 – has always held a place in my imagination. Alas I have never been, but am hoping one day to break my duck. I want to discuss the economy and the role of monetary policy in supporting it. And with apologies to the non-cricketers in the audience, to do so I will borrow a cricketing metaphor – the “corridor of uncertainty”. The corridor of uncertainty is every bowler’s dream and every batter’s nightmare.
Even in this century, however, there has been a conflict between fiscal and monetary policy – that is, fiscal policy has not supported monetary policy sufficiently, as it would if fiscal policy were anchored on a nominal expenditure plan several years ahead. This has proven difficult to carry out.2 It is hard to apply such a rule if exchange rate volatility causes  1  In recent years, the Central Bank has presented proposals for such reforms in two reports to the authorities. 2  An attempt to adopt such a rule was made in connection with the Government-IMF economic programme, but it appears to have been abandoned when put to the test. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  instability in Treasury expenditures (and revenues). Furthermore, Iceland lacks a proper institutional framework – either a domestic agency (such as an independent financial council) or a foreign body – to support such policy and exercise a measure of surveillance and discipline over fiscal authorities. 3. In the third place, the source of poor performance may lie in Iceland’s economic structure, e.g. its volatile export sectors and relatively undiversified economy. The structure of the Icelandic economy is not that different from other developed countries, however. Public and private services constitute the largest sectors of the economy. Although commodity-based exports could be a source of instability, Iceland is far from being the only developed country in such a position.

The reduction in the Eurosystem's monetary asset holdings is expected to be pursued in a predictable and gradual manner, with the first principles being announced in December. This will undoubtedly change the financing environment which borrowers have grown accustomed to. The most immediate impact will be on money markets and government bond yields, which later propagate to the cost of bank and corporate debt. Indeed, euro area sovereign yields have already risen markedly since last year and could increase further when balance sheet normalisation starts. Turning now to Malta, while the transmission of the latest monetary impulses to bank lending and deposit rates appears rather slow, government bond yieldsin Malta have already begun to increase. Such increases and tighter financing conditions abroad will eventually be reflected in a higher cost of funding for domestic banks, and eventually, households and corporates. It is essential to be reminded that on monetary, financial and economic terms Malta is very much integrated with the rest of Europe and that the decisions taken in Frankfurt ripple across the whole euro area, Malta included. 2/5  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  The transmission of tighter monetary conditions to the interest rates that banks offer to their customers is necessary for inflation to return to the policy target of 2% in a timely manner. But it is not sufficient. Other policy actors also need to do their part. In particular, fiscal support has to be temporary and targeted, so that it avoids supporting demand for longer than is necessary.
If we do this what will we call it? We thought perhaps we could go for: “strong and simple”. I rather like this, but perhaps others will say it is clear why we are not in the advertising industry. Simple design  In designing a strong and simple regime we will have to decide on two things:   first, which firms are in it; and    second, how to simplify requirements. On the first of these, size measured by total assets is likely to be one good proxy – not least because it is simple. But other factors could also perhaps be brought in. For instance, purely as an illustration we could consider making eligible all firms with total assets of less than £ and who are also:   not systemically important;  6 In fact, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended) is explicit that it is not our role to ensure that no firm fails. 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  6    not internationally active;    not involved in trading activities;    not approved to run an internal model for capital requirements; and    capable of exiting the market in an orderly way, for example through solvent wind-down or an insolvency procedure. Now I’m quite sure that our disgruntled bank chair will be spluttering over their coffee at one or other of the items I just listed.

What I believe most people understand by this concept is a return to the standard operating mode of monetary policy, i.e. the withdrawal of the unconventional policy tools deployed during the crisis, which would entail a gradual increase in short-term interest rates and a gradual unwinding of bloated central bank balance sheets. The latter is by far the most challenging process, as the impact on global asset prices is a delicate issue, which not only requires good planning and favorable macroeconomic conditions, but is also bound to be lengthy. As regards the other element of policy normalisation – the increase in short-term interest rates –, while less controversial, it is by no means problem-free, considering its implications for financial stability. To quote the BIS Annual Report 2017, “policy normalisation presents unprecedented challenges, given the current high debt levels and unusual uncertainty”. The increase in short-term interest rates is an element of normalisation that also applies to the central banks that did not step out of the conventional framework – and this is the case in most Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European countries. Personally, I see normalisation as amounting ultimately to a return to real positive interest rates. I doubt, however, that this will be a swift process. In the case of Romania, the steps taken so far along the road to policy normalisation, were facilitated by two favourable developments in the banking sector.
On the face of it, that would seem to square with the dotcom/telecom boom and bust. At least for the UK market, it does not obviously lend support to the suggestion in some earlier papers that there may have been an underlying increase in idiosyncratic volatility. For example, see Campbell J, M Lettau, B G Malkiel and Y Xu (2001), ‘Have individual stocks become more volatile? An empirical exploration of idiosynchratic risk’, Journal of Finance, vol 56, no. 1 pp 1-43, which covered the period from 1962 to 1996 for the US market. 8  Using a Dividend Discount Model. Further information on the Dividend Discount Model can be found in Panigirtzoglou N. and R. Scammell (2002), ‘Analysts’ earnings forecasts and equity valuations’, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Spring 2002, pp 59-6. BIS Review 2/2007  3  volatile than in the past. Another candidate explanation is related to the possibility that the other component of the discount rate – the equity risk premium – may have risen since the late 1990s. If, as a result, the overall discount rate were broadly unchanged, a given shift in the default-free curve would not necessarily have a greater proportionate effect on equity prices than in past decades. Indeed, a bigger question would seem to be how to square the possibility of a rise in the equity risk premium with apparent falls, since the turn of the century, in term premia on default-free government bond yields and in credit risk premia across a wide range of assets.

In short, given the current conjuncture, the avoidance of excessive borrowing both by the public and private sector; preference of longer maturities in all borrowings, opting to borrow in TL as much as possible and managing risks efficiently will considerably strengthen the resilience of Turkish economy against external shocks. The monetary policy adopted by the Central Bank is composed in a way to make price stability and financial stability complementary. In this context, I would like to evaluate how the CBRT will use policy tools in the upcoming period within the framework of possible scenarios provided in the inflation reports. As also demonstrated on the slide, the current conjuncture supports the CBRT’s stance of keeping policy rates constant for some time, and at low levels for a long period. On the other hand, developments in the aggregate demand composition necessitated that instruments other than the policy rate be brought to pre-crisis levels. In this respect, we have largely completed the exit strategy measures that we announced in April 2010. 2  BIS Review 174/2010  In the October Inflation Report, we stated that our baseline scenario was based on an outlook where domestic demand is stronger compared to the previous reporting period, external demand continues to restrain economic activity, and thus aggregate demand conditions continue to support disinflation, albeit to a lesser degree.
•  Not long after, in the 1870s, the next wave of excessive optimism had to do with rapid industrial development, not least the construction of railways. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, for example, was in difficulties at the height of the crisis in 1878. •  Another serious setback for what was then the “new economy” occurred in 1907. The potential profits from hydroelectric power and electrification, forest industries and iron ore had been exaggerated. •  Then we have the undue optimism after the end of World War One, with a major investment boom and speculation in real estate and shares that peaked in 1921. It may be worth mentioning that measured in constant prices, it was not until the 1980s that turnover on the Stockholm stock exchange again reached the level in 1918. That says something about the strength of the speculation at that time. •  After that, as we all know, there was 1929 and the early 1930s, with a falling stock market, banking problems and the Kreuger crash as prominent events in Sweden. •  More than fifty years then passed before Sweden experienced another period of genuine financial turbulence in the late 1980s. The world, including Sweden, was hit by the stock market collapse in October 1987. A bubble developed in Sweden’s real estate market and subsequently burst, severely damaging the financial system. Resolute action by the political system in the early 1990s did, however, prevent a financial meltdown that might have plunged our country into an even deeper crisis.

However, the growth of the industry has to extend beyond the numbers to sustain its growth momentum. This is of particular importance in today’s environment of growing global uncertainties and when considerations that prioritise the linkage of finance to the economy, justice and fairness, and sustainability and inclusion and which have been regarded as essential elements of a modern financial ecosystem. Islamic finance, with these inherent features and ethical dimensions, therefore has an immense potential role as a transformative agent in the economy, particularly in serving the requirements of the real economy and the broader society. Of importance is thus the role of the global Islamic financial marketplace in facilitating greater linkages with the real economy and inclusion and thus balanced growth. In evolving into the next growth phase, it remains an imperative for the Islamic banking industry in the global marketplace to reinforce meeting the very objective of its existence as an effective form of financial intermediation that serves the real economy and that complies with the requirements of the Shariah. As an extension to this, Islamic banks have the potential to extend its role to also include the role as an investment intermediary. This would require the diversification of banking business to expand beyond credit intermediation to investment intermediation, in which the alternative modes of risk sharing contracts can be applied. In performing investment intermediation, Islamic banking institutions not only strengthen further the linkage of finance and real economic activity, but also contribute towards more inclusive and more balanced growth.
Mr Latter gives a tour d’horizon of the current situation on the world financial markets  Text of the opening address by Tony Latter, a Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, to the Asia Pacific Issuers and Investors Forum, in Hong Kong on 7 December 1999. *  *  *  As we leave the twentieth century behind, the major regions of the world economy appear to be in quite good shape. North America is buoyant; Europe is positioned for more solid growth than of late, albeit only by its own rather modest standards; Japan may be moving forward, even if we have seen too many false dawns to be entirely confident; and the rest of Asia has recovered from the 1997 setback more strongly and quickly than most people expected. Meanwhile, major stock markets look set to end the millennium at or near all-time highs, with the notable exception of Japan, where the Nikkei is still at only about half its peak of more than ten years ago. It is also a confident end to the decade, century and millennium for “markets” in a broader sense. The 20th century has witnessed a considerable ebb and flow of fashions in economics, between allegiances to systems which afford primacy to market forces and those which yield varying degrees of control to the state. As it turns out, the former have held sway.

In a rather arbitrary exercise I have looked at the return from investing in 7-10 year government bonds in different countries from mid-1986 (selected only because it was the starting point of the particular data set) to the present. The assumption is that the non-dollar currencies were purchased out of US dollars at the outset and changed back at the end, so that the comparison is on a US dollar basis. It emerges that the average annual return for the period was nearly 12% for Australia, 11% UK, 10.5% Japan, 10% Canada, 8% Germany and 6.5% Switzerland - with the US itself at 8%. How many of you would have got this right ex ante? I hesitate to try to draw any profound conclusions from this, other than that, with US inflation averaging about 3%, there was clearly a reasonable real return to be had everywhere. You did not have to be greedy to survive. The argument of the monetarist school that - to put it in a slightly condensed form - monetary factors do not have a lasting effect on real developments, was especially fashionable during the 1970s when governments were criticised for conceding to inflation in the mistaken belief that they could thereby sustain or stimulate activity. Subsequent experience has proved, if anything, that the optimal monetary stance is, quite simply, a continuing steady one, and that variance on either side - whether too tight or too loose and after allowing for any real shocks - may incur lasting economic losses.