samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
4 [15]  after, in 1668, Stockholms Banco was nationalised and Sveriges Riksbank was established.3 Other countries followed suit and established similar note-issuing institutions. A prominent one was the Bank of England, founded in 1694 to assist in financing England’s participation in the Nine Years’ War. For centuries, the Bank of England was a privately-owned company with the exclusive right to issue banknotes. Being publicly backed, the notes did not take long to become a trusted and widely used means of payment in London. They should soon also serve other purposes as I will explain shortly. Sadly, the very first deputy governor of ‘the Bank’, my British counterpart three hundred-odd years ago, Michael Godfrey, did not experience that. Long-distance payments were still a mess, and in 1695, this brave man was on duty to pay the troops in Flanders. Invited for dinner by the king, the two men decided to visit the nearby trenches by Namur, in modern-day Belgium. Here, Mr Godfrey literally forgot to keep his head down when cannonballs were fired. Times and duties of central bankers have changed, I note with great relief. Outside England, multiple issuers of banknotes were allowed, with the United States as a prominent example. The latter’s monetary history is rich and dramatic. One particular period was the ‘free banking era’, prompted by President Jackson’s refusal in 1832 to renew the charter of the only nationwide bank at the time. As a result, note-issuing banks mushroomed, and hundreds of notes circulated around the country at varying discounts.

And for those individuals with an account, cross-border payments are still slow, expensive, and not very transparent. This is why the G20 countries have developed a comprehensive programme aimed at enhancing cross-border payments. The programme is organised as a roadmap containing 19 building blocks, where 16 are focused on enhancing current systems. Building blocks 17, 18, and 19, on the other hand, look at possible ways to explore future, not yet fully operational, means to enhance cross-border payments: multilateral platforms, stablecoins, and CBDCs. I am very much involved personally in this work as I chair the ‘Future of Payments’ working group that comprises these three building blocks. The roadmap is the modern version of the Postgirot intervention – on a global scale – if you like. The public sector – dissatisfied with the current situation – takes action to guide, but also push the private sector. I want to be clear about this: this is an area where the public and private sector have to work together. Cross-border payments are heavily reliant on harmonisation, standards, and  11 See Petition to the Swedish Riksdag 2018/19:RB3 The state’s role on the payment market, https://www.riks-  bank.se/globalassets/media/betalningar/framstallan-till-riksdagen/petition-to-the-swedish-riksdag-the-statesrole-on-the-payment-market-summary.pdf  14 [15]  trusted legal foundations. These are areas where the public sector has a lot to offer, but ultimately, it is the private sector that has to deliver the services towards the end-users.
BIS Review 71/2004  5  This was already in hand when the Chancellor of the Exchequer commissioned Chris Allsopp, a former member of the MPC, to assess how well the ONS’s provision of statistics matched the needs of policymakers. The Allsopp Report, published earlier this year, has recommended some fundamental changes to the way that key economic data are put together. These concern regional and service sector data; and the ONS’s capacity to respond to changes in the structure of the economy. First, Allsopp recommends that the national statistical system should be reoriented to produce better quality regional data. This is likely to involve, for example, establishing an ONS office in every English region – not dissimilar to the Bank’s Agency network. The ONS’s main business surveys are also to be expanded to obtain greater regional coverage. For example, the Annual Business Inquiry - a major workhorse of economic statistics, which provides detailed information on, for example, employment, production and investment – is likely to be trebled in size. Monetary policy operates at the level of the whole economy, and cannot target particular regions or countries of the UK. But to the extent that better measurement and understanding of regional activity leads to improvements in the quality of UK national statistics, as the Allsopp Report expects, this development will improve the information base on which monetary policy is founded.

Without going into detail at this stage, I will just mention: •  the work on the regulatory framework applicable to systemic banks, which will be pursued with the idea of taking into account that, owing to their size relative to a domestic market, certain banks can generate major systemic risk in a given country;  •  the finalisation of liquidity regulation, which must revisit the stress test scenarios applied to banks’ assets and liabilities as well as the scope of assets deemed to be liquid;  •  the adaptation of the French regulatory framework for all of the institutions that are currently credit institutions according to our national definition but which will lose this status under the new European definition, which is much more restrictive;  •  the overhaul of the banking crisis resolution mechanism, with the French mechanism – in anticipation of the forthcoming European projects – not having been updated to integrate the more powerful crisis management instruments resulting from the G20 guidelines;  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  •  the deliberations, in both the European and French frameworks, about better organisation of banking activities and of the relationships between investment banking and retail banking. The ACP will ensure that there is coherence between these different initiatives so as to avoid any unanticipated negative impacts. *** Before handing over to Jean-Philippe Thierry, I would like to stress that, although the difficult macroeconomic context persists, I remain confident about the robustness of the French financial sector.
The credit conditions facing emerging economies have tightened, which is causing financial, exchange-rate and inflationary difficulties in those where vulnerabilities built up during the boom. Special attention deserve the economies with high external financing needs, including not only emerging ones but also some in peripheral Europe. Finally, there is still the risk associated with the complex fiscal and financial situation of the Eurozone. Add to this the  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  intensifying geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which could significantly affect the oil price, causing negative effects on world growth and higher pressures on fuel inflation. In Chile, although the economic slowdown is underway, it is possible that final demand, particularly private consumption, continues to adjust at a slower-than-desired pace, increasing the risk of higher inflation and a constant or growing current-account deficit. The risk of a wider current-account deficit would increase in a scenario of further deteriorated terms of trade. However, as we have pointed out before, this deficit comes largely from investment flows into the tradable sector – especially mining – financed by foreign direct investment. The recent slowdown of investment and the exchange rate depreciation are some of the adjustments needed. Moreover, the evidence shown in a box in this Report suggests that the mining investment cycle is maturing. This will moderate domestic demand and pressures over internal resources, the labor market and imports of capital goods. Meanwhile, the startup of mining projects has driven volume exports up.

Accordingly, our baseline scenario has revised the growth outlook for the world and our trading partners for 2013 and 2014 slightly downward (table 1). The portfolio realignment originating in the transition to a more balanced configuration of the external scenario has not been without volatility, which again was evident in the weeks before the close of this Report. Although the authorities of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) have pointed out that the unconventional stimulus program will be withdrawn gradually – helping to tone down the reaction of the markets – most recently volatility has been on the rise. Capital flows to emerging economies have retreated and become costlier, especially in the most vulnerable economies. The U.S. dollar depreciated against the currencies of developed economies, but appreciated in the emerging world. As I said at the beginning of this presentation, the latter has complicated macroeconomic management in some countries because of its inflationary and financial effects, and has led to reverse previously adopted exchange rate interventions. In the developed markets, long-term interest rates have risen again, internalizing that the Fed will soon begin reducing its asset purchases. In Chile, since our June Report, domestic output and demand have continued with the gradual normalization process that began this year, growing less than in 2012 for the second consecutive quarter. In the second quarter, GDP expanded 4.1%, confirming the slowdown (figure 2).
Likewise, bringing the safety car in when the danger is passed will also have an impact. These can be difficult judgments to make. They need to be coordinated with the Monetary Policy Committee so that the latter can take them into account in steering demand in the economy as a whole. But the focus of the FPC is financial stability risk: ensuring the system is robust to stress and taking steps to make periods of stress less likely and less severe. That is its comparative advantage. I want to finish by setting out two recent examples of how the Committee approaches this task: first, the stress test of the major UK banks which is currently in train, and second, the action the FPC announced last week on the housing market. In April, the Bank of England launched a stress test of the 8 major UK lenders, as part of an EU wide exercise. Stress testing is one of the tools developed in the aftermath of the financial crisis to test the resilience of the financial system. In essence, a stress test sets out a so called “adverse scenario” in which the economy gets into trouble and financial risks materialize. Together with the banks, we can then look to see how they would cope with a scenario like this. Of course, supervisors in the UK have regularly stress-tested individual banks. But this is the first time that we will test all the major lenders at the same time.

The Supervisory  12  BIS Review 154/2010  Council continues to have a mix of administrative and supervisory duties, but its tasks were delimited by the Act of 1985. 40 The Supervisory Council shall supervise the Bank’s activities and ensure that the rules governing the Bank’s operations are observed. The council has its own secretariat, adopts the annual accounts of Norges Bank and approves its budget. The Bank continues in part to be the Storting’s bank. A substantial change has taken place over the past decade in that the Supervisory Council shall no long submit a report on its activities to the Ministry of Finance, but directly to the Storting. This is a partial reversal of the change to the Act that was made in 1949. In my judgement, the tasks of the Supervisory Council could be broadened. Among other things, it should be able to play a greater role in appointments to the Executive Board and Bank management, for example, through a formal right to make recommendations. 41 This could give the Supervisory Council an even greater sense of ownership over the organisation and strengthen their sense of commitment. In central banking circles it is easy to confuse independence, expertise and long-termism with infallibility. 42 Central bank independence in the use of instruments is contingent on central bank transparency and disclosure of the background for its decisions. This provides a basis for evaluating the Bank’s decisions. Moreover, the central bank is accountable.
In 1998, the early days of the Great Moderation, GDP-at-risk was benign – that is, even in a tail outcome the level of GDP was expected to be higher three years out. Through the next decade, though central case GDP grew steadily, risks were gradually building. By 2007 a fifth percentile draw was expected to leave GDP 3.5% lower three years out. As the crisis hit, GDP-at-risk shrunk rapidly as risks crystallised. Since then, risks have been relatively stable reflecting post-crisis balance sheet repair, the implementation of comprehensive macroprudential frameworks, and relatively subdued economic activity (Chart 6). Chart 6: Risks grew during the Great Moderation but are now standard 2007  Latest  Probability density  1997  0.14 0.12 0.10 0.08  Risks increasing  0.06 0.04 0.02 0.00  -10  -8  -6  -4  -2  0  2  4  6  8  Cumulative GDP growth over 3 years (%)  10  12  14  [Chart 6 uses same data as Chart 5. For each distribution, shaded area denotes the tail; the line marks the 5th percentile]. 14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  14  2. Impact on growth The second set of differences between macroprudential and monetary policy concern the interaction between their objectives and growth in the short and long terms. Both monetary and macroprudential objectives apply at all times.

Jacques Necker, who had been born in Geneva, was Minister of Finance under Louis XVI. After the French Revolution, Geneva began to evolve into an important wealth management centre. 1 In 1857, the first Swiss stock market was founded in Geneva, before those in Zurich and Basel. The Geneva stock market soon ranked fifth among European stock markets. Geneva remains one of the major world financial centres today, particularly when it comes to private wealth management. 2 The financial sector in Geneva is an engine for the regional economy. In 2014, around 120 banks were based in Geneva. The financial sector creates a significant part of cantonal value added and is a major employer. 3 A strong financial sector, such as that in Geneva, makes a substantial contribution to economic growth. It is therefore a crucial foundation, both for the regional economy and for the Swiss economy as a whole. A robust financial sector is also very important for the Swiss National Bank (SNB). The SNB interacts closely with the financial sector, and in particular with the banking sector. I will talk about this later. In my presentation, I will begin by explaining how the SNB and the financial sector are interlinked. Then I will discuss the importance of an independent monetary policy in providing stability as a long-term asset. However, in the short term, this long-term stability may generate costs. I will then explain the SNB’s current monetary policy and our reaction to international developments.
At the same time, euro area labour markets have been characterised by favourable trends in the last few years. Since 1999 the euro area has witnessed an increase of more than 12 million in the number of people employed and a substantial decline in the unemployment rate from 10% to 7.9% on average in 2006 and 7.2 % in March 2007. Looking forward, it is important that this favourable trend in labour markets continues, so contributing to the diminishing of unemployment as well as a prolonged and robust economic growth. In this respect, the Governing Council of the ECB considers decisive that the social partners continue to meet their responsibilities. Wage agreements should avoid wage developments that would eventually lead to inflationary pressures and harm the purchasing power of all euro area citizens. Beyond this, it is important to point out that particular wage agreements should take into account price competitiveness positions, the still high level of unemployment in many economies and productivity developments across sectors. Wages should be sufficiently differentiated across countries and sectors to reflect these factors. More specifically, moderate wage developments in the euro area as a whole reflect an aggregation of diverse wage developments across euro area countries with important implications for cost competitiveness. Indeed, over longer horizons we observe that euro area countries that have been able to preserve a low level of unit labour cost growth have also experienced significant gains in employment.

It is aiming at preserving and improving the situation of employees and of all our fellow citizens in the euro area. Such a responsible policy directly benefits those who are unemployed by significantly improving their employment possibilities. It benefits all our fellow citizens by supporting the purchasing power of their income, thus preserving the well-being of euro area households. And it contributes to meeting one necessary condition for sustainable long-term growth and active job creation in the euro area, which is price stability. Naturally there are also a number of other factors that are contributing to sustainable growth and job creation, in particular sound public finances and, as I already said, structural reforms that enhance competition, increase productivity and foster economic flexibility in order to elevate the growth potential of our vast euro area economy. Augmenting the growth potential of Europe is a major goal for all of us. Background information Table 1: Compensation per employee growth (whole economy) across euro area countries  2  BIS Review 52/2007  Table 2: Unit labour costs growth (whole economy) across euro area countries  Table 3. Labour productivity growth in the euro area countries  BIS Review 52/2007  3  Table 4. Employment growth in the euro area countries  Table 5. Unemployment rates across euro area countries  4  BIS Review 52/2007
We cannot write a rule to take care of every situation that may occur, and as a forward looking supervisor we are applying judgement in conditions of uncertainty about the future. How firms deal with the uncertainty of the future will also shape their culture. I firmly believe that what we can best do in this area is to provide a clear sense of direction and guidance through open communication starting with those of us at the top, in which we are clear on what we expect of firms. Open and transparent communication of this sort should then be supplemented by the clear understanding that we will all stick to the script. Trust is important. Consumers need to be confident in the firms that they choose to use, and inevitably trust is an important part of that confidence. Likewise, as supervisors, our judgements are inevitably conditioned on whether we can trust the people with whom we deal. Good culture is a product of trust and it matters a lot for both prudential and conduct regulators. Culture is everywhere and nowhere in firms; everywhere in the sense that it is shaped and determined by all the features of the firm – its people, organisation, reward structures etc; and nowhere because culture is not a tangible thing sitting on a shelf that can be prodded and changed of itself.

It is understood that the previous mitigants and supporting measures taken by central banks, including the Central Bank of Kuwait, are were to survive coronavirus induced health/economic crisis, and had been unwound once they were no longer needed. The challenges and risks seen today differ from those we experienced during the past two years, and require attention, monitoring of their impacts on our economy and banking and financial sectors, and applying the appropriate measures and policies to face them. Among such risks is deceleration of the global economic growth. IMF forecasts in July indicated a decline in growth to 3.2% in 2022 and 2.9% in 2023, driven by several shocks, most notably is deceleration of the American and Chinese economies, Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the geopolitical risks in Southeast Asia, the elevating tensions between China and Taiwan, continued supply and demand imbalance as a result of disruption of supply Page 3 of 4  chains of many basic commodities (mainly food and energy), risks of the continuous rise in global commodity prices and decade-old high inflation rates, especially in USA and major European economies. To contain the prolonged and far-reaching rise in inflation rates, many central banks tightened their monetary policies, by withdrawing the stimulus packages they had taken to withstand the negative impacts of the pandemic, reduced asset purchase programs, and increased interest rates. Such actions are expected to result in inevitable economic costs and we, however, hope that these would not adversely affect our economic sectors, banking and finance in particular.
Interest rates in France are also among the lowest in Europe: the average nominal rate on new bank loans is currently less than 2% compared with 5% in 2007. Lastly, SMEs generally have little difficulty obtaining investment loans: according to the Banque de France’s survey, in the third quarter of 2015, 92% of loan applications were accepted (i.e. at least 75% of the amount requested was granted), although there is still room for improvement in the case of VSEs. At the same time, bond financing is increasing. The trend towards the diversification of debt financing appears to be more marked in France than in neighbouring European countries, with companies increasingly turning to capital markets to meet their funding needs. The disintermediation rate, that is the share of bond financing in overall corporate debt, has risen from 24.2% in 2008 to 38.6% in 2015, compared with respective rates of 14.1% and 13.5% for Germany and Italy. Nonetheless, in France, market financing is mainly the preserve of large corporations, accounting for some 70% of their total financial debt, compared with 25% for mid-caps and less than 5% for SMEs. Yet forcing them to switch to disintermediated financing would make little sense: this diversification of funding has to remain optional, driven by demand from companies themselves, rather than being imposed according to a set timetable and predefined objectives. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  c) The priority of increasing equity funding can be achieved via several channels.

François Villeroy de Galhau: Innovation and change Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Annual Exchange Conference “Innovation and change”, Paris, 19 January 2016. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, It gives me great pleasure to respond to Stephane Boujnah’s invitation and take part in this annual conference, the subject of which is key to the French economy today. Our economy, which is at the frontier of technology, must be able to innovate continuously – and thus change – in order to improve its growth prospects. As a result, business investment, which is one of the keys to innovation, must be able to find new financing. This does not mean that traditional financing through bank loans is no longer necessary, far from it. It means that funding must become more diverse in order to meet companies’ financing needs, regardless of their size, age or sector. And of course, in this area, Euronext and the entire financial community have a vital role to play. But before addressing in more detail the financial levers of business investment, I would first like to talk about the economic levers that precede the need for financing. I. In economic terms, how are France and the euro area currently faring, and how can we move things up a gear?