samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In Thailand, there is an acute problem of skill mismatch; that is, skills produced through formal schooling are found to be different from those which firms find useful. Ladies and Gentlemen, Japan’s direct investment here has contributed to skill improvement for Thai businesses and workforce, mostly through learning by doing, training and other knowledge transfers. But beyond that, to reduce mismatch in demand and production of skills, Japanese firms can play a direct and beneficial role. The solution is to break down the barrier between work and school early on. Firms can get involved in training vocational students while potential workers can get a glimpse of what’s really needed out there in the real world. If done well, I think it gives incentive for firms to invest in training these students because it gives them the opportunity to identify and select the best workers before they enter the workforce. To the students, there are potential gains as an incentive as well. With the opportunity to be trained by the best and getting to know its corporate culture first-hand, student trainees are more likely to compete for limited hires by improving their performance. This sort of apprenticeship program has long been practiced in Germany, and has been shown to reduce skill mismatch in the workplace as well as improve firms’ profitability. Practiced here, it could also reinforce mutual understanding between Thai workers and the ways Japanese firms do business. That said, human capital development takes vast and continuous effort over a long period of time.

Businesses and governments are looking for best response strategies to ensure smooth expansion of their enterprises and the economy in general. Tonight, I would like to focus on 3 related and timely subjects. I will begin with my view on the outlook of the Thai economy and the risks surrounding its prospects. Then, I would like to outline what I think is necessary for monetary and exchange rate policy going forward. And lastly, I would like to talk about how we can foster private investment and what Japanese businesses can do, in your role as investors and employers, to help make Thailand an even better place to invest. Ladies and gentlemen, As you well know, the Thai economy had to weather through a host of challenges over the past 2 years. To my mind, and from the view of the Monetary Policy Committee, domestic political uncertainty, high and rising energy prices and sharp US dollar decline were at the top of our concern. Indeed, political uncertainty, coupled with rising retail oil prices, took a toll on private sector confidence and consumers’ purchasing power. These negative developments dented domestic demand during the first 9 months of 2007. The fall of the US dollar, while widely anticipated, had been a major risk that could disrupt Thailand’s robust export activities. In fact, the risk was even greater after the extent of the US financial crisis became clearer during the second half of 2007.
The low level of long-term interest rates can be attributed to the high level of saving in Asia and oil-exporting nations. Surpluses, particularly on China’s foreign trade balance, have soared. Interest rates are again moving down in the US and a number of other countries. Interest rates are being cut to address weaker economic growth prospects. However, in view of the high level of unsold homes and properties, it is uncertain whether the interest rate weapon will be as powerful as in the past. Thus, there is a risk that the US economy will enter into a prolonged downturn in spite of the interest rate cuts, drawing with it large parts of the world economy. In the event, the surpluses in Asia will decline as the value of exports falls. Moreover, there is a risk that low interest rates may in the next round sow the seeds of new bubbles, restrain saving in the US and extend the period of large US current account deficits. The optimal solution would be to redress this imbalance through an increase in US saving. In order to buoy up growth in the world economy, Asia and Europe must then replace US consumers as the engine of global growth. The prospects for achieving this are perhaps not the best. Inflation is on the rise in both Europe and Asia, and this will necessarily be reflected in economic policy, at least for a period ahead.

Financial education can play a key role in getting to these outcomes. The financial education supports not only the individual well-being, but also the financial stability in one economy. Referring to the recent financial crisis, consumers that can make informed and sound decisions about financial products and services are helping to promote sounder  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  economic stability. Not only the consumers will gain knowledge through financial education, but more important is that they are assured of fair treatment. Consumers need to apply the economic way of thinking while making their important financial decisions. In order to develop important skills, we need to provide them good quality education that will enrich their behavior with critical thinking and decision making skills as well. To provide contextual and conceptual effective financial education, we need to include financial education in the schools curriculums. Financially literate consumers can assess risks and make informed decisions about the suitability of financial products to their specific situation. The individual responsibility for financial planning takes on greater importance. Consumers need to clearly understand how the system works and what the new products really offer. At the institutional level, in 2011, the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia launched its own Financial Education Project that has been growing and developing year after year, embracing many different activities mainly focusing on financial education for children and youth.
The time we used to spend queuing at the bank can now be used in a more fun or more productive manner, or hopefully both. I am not one of those who enjoyed standing in a queue at the post office on a Saturday morning to pay my bills. The savings in resources attained through improvements in the efficiency of the payment system since the days of the brown envelopes have actually been estimated at around five per cent of GDP. This is a productivity gain from which we all benefit. In many emerging economies the potential productivity gains from a functioning payment system would of course be even greater. Sweden - an IT country Sweden and the other Nordic countries are currently, alongside the USA, world leaders in the use of IT. If one looks at the percentage of households with access to the Internet, in 2000 Sweden with an estimated 61 per cent held second place in the EU. Only the Netherlands had a higher percentage. If we instead look at expenditure on IT in relation to GDP, Sweden came top among the EU countries in 2001. Sweden is an IT country. Why have developments moved so quickly in Sweden? There are many answers to this question, but allow me to mention a couple I believe to be important. One concerns the deregulation of the telecommunications market.

Thomas Jordan: Real estate prices falling in the US, rising in Switzerland – implications for the SNB’s monetary policy Summary of a speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft, Chur, 18 December 2007. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  Developments in the real estate market are important for monetary policy. Real estate markets can influence inflation and economic cycles, but also the stability of the financial system. Property bubbles can result in a massive misdirection of capital and thus give rise to lengthy and difficult adjustment processes. Therefore, the SNB closely monitors developments on the real estate markets both in Switzerland and abroad. The economic outlook is still clouded by undesirable developments on the US real estate market, notably in the period 2004-2006. Given the size of the United States and the broad international spread of investments in the US mortgage market, these distortions have had a serious impact on the world’s financial markets and on global economic development. For some years now, Switzerland too has been experiencing a construction boom and a relatively sharp rise in property prices in certain regions and in given market segments. Comparison of the Swiss and US real estate markets shows, however, that these markets differ in a number of key respects.
Also, as long as our primary objectives are not threatened, we should do what we can to support other objectives of economic policy. These include favourable economic growth, high employment, etc. It means that we should conduct monetary policy in such a way that we do not cause unnecessary fluctuations in production and employment. In practice this again comes down to difficult empirical questions which need to be weighed up carefully. If we see that financial imbalances are building up, and come to the conclusion that these either threaten the security of the payment system or risk leading to an abrupt real adjustment in the future, with negative consequences for economic growth or employment, we then have, in principle, a motive for taking action with the interest rate. Whether the knowledge that we can act diminishes the risk of "bubbles", is a different question, but it is a link in the chain of argument which strengthens the case for monetary-political activism. Another thing is that this is naturally not a simple decision to take in any given situation. There are also possibilities of working with other instruments, for example, capital requirements on financial institutions, supervision, etc. Our Financial Stability Reports are intended to play a role in this context. They should bring problems of this sort into the open, partly with the intention of attempting to contribute to improvements on a voluntary basis.

If so, presumably this should be supported by other central inflation indicators, such as the overall utilisation of resources in the economy. If one is sufficiently convinced about this, there is, as I see it, an argument for taking action. But precisely as with the previous case involving deregulations, it is necessary to make a good case for deviating from the normal rule. It is also necessary to make clear what one stands to gain by acting now. This leads me to the question of what approach central banks should take to developments in asset prices which are not thought to immediately endanger price stability, but which risk leading to financial  2  BIS Review 38/2001  imbalances or real imbalances. There is no consensus on this in the academic literature. The prospect of intervening immediately poses the next question: how can we know if an asset is over-valued or not? If one does decide to act, a third question is raised: how can one burst the "bubble" in an organised way? Listing these problems is usually sufficient to make many of my colleagues in the central bank world come to the conclusion that monetary policy should not be used to try to stabilise asset prices. My own opinion on this question is, however, somewhat different. In any case, it is reasonable to put the argument in a larger perspective. Apart from price stability, the Riksbank has the objective of promoting an efficient and stable payment system.
Chart 7: Productivity levels relative to the US Per cent 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% AEs  40%  EMEs  30% 20%  World  10% 0% 1950  1958  1966  1974  1982  1990  1998  2006  2014  Sources: Penn World Tables 9.0 and Bank calculations. Notes: Median TFP level at current PPPs; USA = 1  31  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  31  Chart 8: UK and Germany firm-level productivity (Productivity Leadership Group (2017))  Sources: McKinsey & Company Inc. analysis of Orbis (2013) data, as shown in Productivity Leadership Group (2017). Available at: https://www.bethebusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/how-good-is-your-business-really.pdf  Chart 9: Enterprises’ broadband connectivity by firm size in 2016 for OECD countries Per cent 100  90  80  70  60  50  All enterprises  10-49 employees  50-249 employees  250+ employees  Sources: OECD  32  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  32

The global financial crisis (plus the sovereign debt crisis in the case of the euro area) resulted in a considerable amount of slack in labour markets and capacity utilisation. In the euro area, the post-crisis focus on fiscal consolidation meant that the fiscal stance was not supportive of domestic demand until quite recently. Given these forces, the ECB has adopted an accommodative monetary stance, which has been characterised since 2014 by a combination of: (a) a negative policy rate; (b) an asset purchase programme; (c) targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs); and (d) forward guidance on the path of policy instruments. This policy stance has been successful in warding off deflation risk and, more recently, in supporting a resurgence in wage inflation (through the accumulated reduction in labour market slack). However, ongoing monetary accommodation is still required in order to ensure the robust convergence of price inflation to our aim. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  This sustained period of below-target inflation reflects both the extent of post-crisis slack in the economy and the inherent gradualism of inflation adjustment in this environment. In particular, while above-target inflation can be countered by sharp monetary tightening, lower bound limits on policy space mean that policy easing measures must take the form of less-sharp adjustments that are maintained over an extended horizon.
Már Guðmundsson: The work of the Monetary Policy Committee Opening remarks by Mr Már Guðmundsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, at an open meeting of the Parliamentary Economic Affairs and Trade Committee on the work of the Monetary Policy Committee, Reykjavik, 17 November 2014. *  *  *  The last meeting between representatives of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and the Parliamentary Economic Affairs and Trade Committee took place on 5 March 2014. At that time, inflation had recently fallen below target, while short- and long-term inflation expectations were still above it. By now, inflation has been below target for nine months and is expected to be at target well into 2015, at least. The main difference in the situation now versus that in March is that inflation expectations have fallen back towards the target and, by some measures, are quite close to it, particularly short-term expectations. The big picture is that the economic recovery is now well enough advanced that spare capacity is disappearing. There still appears to be a sizeable current account surplus, although it has diminished since last year. The surplus covers net capital outflows and significantly more, as the Central Bank has bought foreign currency on the market for the equivalent of 95 b.kr., or 5% of GDP. According to the Bank’s forecast from early November, GDP growth is projected to measure just under 3% this year and then rise to about 3½% in 2015 before easing back to 3% in 2016.

On 5 November, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announced its decision to lower the Bank’s interest rates by 0.25 percentage points. This was done in view of the rise in the Bank’s real rate caused by the past few months’ decline in inflation and inflation expectations, which has been more pronounced than previously anticipated. The rise in the real rate was greater than is warranted by the business cycle position and the near-term outlook. In other respects, for the rationale behind the decision, I refer you to the MPC statement and the speech I gave at the Iceland Chamber of Commerce’s monetary policy meeting the following day. Naturally, we are also ready and willing to answer your questions about both this decision and the interest rate outlook. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Finally, I would like to mention that the MPC has been examining its monetary policy instruments in the recent term and, although certain changes have been made, this review is still underway. According to the statement from its March meeting, the aim of this review is primarily to ensure that monetary policy instruments are optimally suited to the achievement of monetary policy objectives, given that it is also desirable that monetary policy implementation be as effective, comprehensible, and economical as possible in terms of the Central Bank’s balance sheet. We are ready and willing to answer any questions that you have on this topic. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches
Norges Bank will increasingly use the Fund’s properties in developing investment strategies ahead, with particular emphasis on taking advantage of the Fund’s size and long-term investment horizon. BIS Review 45/2008  5  Norges Bank’s mandate sets the tracking error limit at 1.5 percentage points. Given this limit, the actual portfolio return is likely to deviate by less than 1.5 percentage points from the benchmark portfolio in two of three years, but it also implies a risk that active management may reduce the return by more than 1.5 percentage points every sixth year. In light of the size of the Fund, this will be a substantial amount in krone terms. Losses from active management must be expected in periods. Losses are not necessarily an indication that active management is not conducted professionally or not using the right strategies. The performance of the Fund’s investment management must be evaluated over a long time horizon. Even if the contribution from active management was negative for the first time in the Fund’s history last year, it does not change our confidence in and conviction that our organisation will contribute to achieving excess returns in the longer run. Thank you for your attention.

The economic situation Since the mid-1990s, inflation in Norway has been low and stable and it has been fairly close to, but somewhat lower than, the target of 2.5 per cent, unlike the situation in Norway in the 1970s and 1980s when inflation was high and showed wide fluctuations. The Norwegian economy has on the whole also exhibited solid growth since the beginning of the 1990s, despite a mild downturn in 2002 and into 2003. Over the past four years, the mainland economy has been in a strong upturn, with average annual growth well above 4 per cent. Preliminary accounting figures suggest that growth was particularly strong in 2007. Information from Norges Bank’s regional network also indicates that growth was strong in 2007, but that it slowed somewhat towards the end of last year. Employment has risen sharply over the past two years. In both 2006 and 2007, the number employed increased by over 3 per cent. The number employed increased by 93 000 between 2006 and 2007, the highest increase for decades. Employment growth has partly been offset by a decline in unemployment and an increase in the labour supply, as a result of increased labour participation among the existing population and labour inflows. Unemployment has not been as low since the last half of the 1980s, and the number of vacancies is record high. The labour market is tight. The present economic expansion differs from previous upturns in that inflation has remained low so far despite strong growth and increasing capacity utilisation.
This must include not only the member’s adjustment plans, but also its institutional and political capacity to deliver this adjustment. This also means that the cooperation between authorities and the Fund must be good and capable of generating constructive team-work. It has been easier to define this framework than to implement it. To some extent, this is not surprising, as one cannot avoid that a strong element of judgment will influence the assessment of the three above-mentioned conditions. And when there is room for judgment, there is always room for political interference. Moreover, if we add the fact that the alternative to large financing very often is the prospect of a full-blown crisis, with unpredictable but certainly high - and possibly systemic costs - it is not difficult to understand why the international community has often condoned sub-optimal decisions. One way to improve the situation and to eliminate this decision bias towards excessive Fund financing would be to find ways to involve more consistently the private sector in the resolution of crises and thereby in burden sharing. Once again, this is easier said than done. Progress in this respect has been disappointingly slow to emerge. Should we conclude that it is too difficult for the IMF to say no? I would definitely not go that far. While recognizing that capital crisis decisions may be too important to leave only to experts, bending the rules too often can also have serious consequences.

In the last talk today, Stan Zin will cover how different investors will change asset weights over time. He will also discuss what kind of risks an investor is exposed to through rebalancing and why investors might look at the same risk-reward trade-off differently. All of these exciting papers we will discuss today offer interesting perspectives for academic researchers and practitioners alike. As I argued at the start of my talk here, the challenges facing the management of our fund overlap with the research frontier of financial economics. However, we should not expect final and absolute answers. CAPM, partly developed by our own Jan Mossin, represented a huge leap forward in 1966. Today it has been replaced by better tested theories, just as future research will make today’s research frontier look antiquated. Rounding off the day, the CEO of NBIM, Yngve Slyngstad, will present the Norwegian Finance Initiative. This is part of NBIM’s efforts to build capacity to ensure our strategies have a well-founded theoretical basis. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches