samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Payment systems  In 2015, the Bank of Albania undertook a series of measures to improve the regulatory framework and oversight procedures for the payment systems. The approval of the Regulation “On licensing, regulation, and oversight of payment systems and clearing houses” is one of the main steps that will promote private initiatives for the clearing and settlement of payments. In October 2015, the National Committee of Payment Systems met for the first time. The Committee will serve as a forum for discussing issues related to payment systems and instruments, to support the decision-making process by the relevant institutions. Another development in the area of payments is related to the methodology “On the reporting of electronic money instruments by electronic money institutions”, which preceded the licencing of two electronic money institutions in 2015. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  ii. Currency issue  In the framework of its unique function as the issuer of the national currency, the Bank of Albania continued to fulfil the needs of the economy for banknotes and coins, in accordance with contemporary standards for their quality and security features. Compared to 2014, the structure of the currency in circulation has changed. Thus, the number of higher denominations, ALL 2000 and ALL 5000 increased. Also the use of coins increased, as their value rose by 8.2%. iii. Foreign-exchange reserve management  The reserve management continued to be conducted in accordance with the regulatory framework in force. The primary objective of the reserve management is the principle of liquidity and security.

This is in sharp contrast to the first half of the year, when the payroll tax cut expired, tax rates on higher income households were raised, a series of taxes associated with the Affordable Care Act took effect, and spending was reduced due to the sequester and the gradual winding down of foreign military operations. Moreover, the sustained contraction in spending and employment by state and local governments appears to be nearing an end. I wish that I could report that the improved pace of growth of economic activity led to a corresponding increase in the rate of improvement in labor market conditions. But such was not the case. As I noted earlier, the average monthly change of nonfarm payroll employment over the second half of the year, at 184,000 per month, was somewhat below the 204,000 average monthly increase of the first half. In addition, growth of aggregate hours worked by private sector employees was somewhat slower in the second half than in the first. The source of this apparent anomaly is the fact that labor productivity, or output per hour worked, rose rapidly over the second half of the year after being essentially unchanged over the first half. This is a perfect example of the double-edged sword of productivity growth. In the longrun, sustained strong productivity growth is what boosts real living standards. However, in the short-run it can depress job creation.
Perhaps a more neutral, if less catchy, description of these trends is needed. In terms of their economic impact, these trends have had the effect of making work more “divisible” than in the past. The fall in unionisation has made workers more divisible at the level of the profession, sector or firm. Wage bargaining 1  See, for example, Abel et al (2016). IMF (2017). See www.gov.uk/government/groups/employment-practices-in-the-modern-economy 4 Solow (2015). 5 For example, Hook (2015). 6 Hudson-Sharp and Runge (2017). 7 Chapman (2017). Also see OECD (2017) for some discussion of ‘job quality’. 2 3  4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  4  is less likely to be collective, and more likely to be idiosyncratic, these days. Similarly, the rise in self-employment and part-time working has made work more divisible at the level of the individual worker. People are more likely these days to be paid by the task or the hour. In short, these shifts have meant work and workers may have become more diffuse, more granular, more divisible than in the past. This increased “divisibility” of jobs and work potentially raises a number of important issues, economic and social, about the relationship between employee and employer, many of which are being tackled by the Taylor Review. I want to explore just one dimension - the extent to which they may have influenced wage-setting in the economy.

Annual wage growth1) and unemployment2) Per cent 8  8 Annual wage growth  6  6 4  4 Unemployment rate  2 0 1993  2 0  1995  1997  1999  2001  1) Average for all groups, including the cost of additional vacation days 2) Registered unemployed and on labour market programmes as a percentage of the labour force  Sources: TRCIS, Directorate of Labour and Norges Bank Fafo og Makt- og demokratiutredningen 6. september 2002  High wage growth affects the exposed business sector in two ways. First, it erodes earnings and reduces employment. Second, monetary policy has to be tightened. This leads to an appreciation of the krone, with a further reduction in earnings and employment. BIS Review 50/2002  7  Annual wage growth in enterprises in the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry 8  8  Salaried employees1)  6  6 Total employees1)  4  2  2 0 1993  4  0 1995  1997  1999  2001  1) Includes costs of additional vacation days  Sources: TRCIS and Norges Bank Fafo og Makt- og demokratiutredningen 6. september 2002  It is combined wage growth for all groups that influences the outlook for inflation. However, substantial wage increases for some groups can trigger wage spirals. Wages for salaried staff in the business sector have exhibited sharp growth over several years.
For financial markets, however, shrinking government bond markets have a number of potential implications that could be relevant to financial stability. First, government bond markets have tended to be more volatile in recent years. Volatility makes government bonds less reliable as a hedge and as a benchmark for pricing, and market participants have been exploring other instruments, such as swaps and securities issued by public sector agencies. Indeed, US, European and prospectively Japanese agencies are playing an increasingly important role in the bond markets, with for example, Freddie Mac's € billion annual debt programme in Europe and European agencies such as KfW also bidding to position their issues as substitutes for government debt. Given this trend, the Bank continues to follow closely the debate in the US over the credit status of the US federal agencies, which are not in fact government-guaranteed. 4  BIS Review 15/2001  A second issue is that the growth of private sector debt relative to government debt puts a greater premium on credit risk management. This of course brings us back full circle to my earlier remarks about credit transfer markets. More generally, though, bond investing seems likely to be a higher risk and higher return business than before. The growth of a European high yield market over the past few years and the fall in prices of many of those issues in the second half of last year, mean many of you will need no reminding of this.

You have shared data on technical issues, and you helped to make our quantitative impact studies possible. Your efforts have helped to inform ours and have assisted us in strengthening the quality of our proposals. We will take the time needed to consider the comments with care to ensure that we meet the high standards you expect from us, which is to develop an intellectually sound and also pragmatic and cost-efficient proposal. The members of the Committee and I understand that our efforts must not be unnecessarily constrained by deadlines and timetables, although we all believe strongly that it is important to move forward with the New Accord and bring it to finalisation as soon as possible. Overall, the comments we received through the consultation were constructive and in many senses positive. Indeed, even among the most critical of respondents, one finds support for most of the New Accord. There is support for its three pillars and its intentions to align capital more closely to risk; to introduce greater consistency in the supervisory review of capital adequacy; and to promote effective market discipline by enhancing transparency. It was, moreover, satisfying for us that most commentators acknowledged substantial improvements in the proposals since the release of the second consultative paper in early 2001. Not unexpectedly, respondents have raised a large number of points worth closer consideration. Some letters addressed fundamental concepts as well as several issues that have been debated throughout the entire process.
As a general rule, then, the further into the future a commitment extends, the vaguer it tends to be. Along these lines, the FOMC periodically reiterates its commitment to do what it is legally mandated to do: pursue full employment, price stability and a stable financial system. But getting from there to an actual prescription for the funds rate isn’t straightforward. If it were, FOMC meetings wouldn’t take eight-plus hours of discussion and hundreds of pages of briefing materials. Delphic forward guidance is less binding than Odyssean guidance. Like the responses of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, it is more obscure, more enigmatic. It amounts to saying, “Here’s what we think we are going to want to do if the economy evolves as we currently expect.” Delphic guidance clarifies your current thinking about future policy without making any promises – even contingent promises. Our current FOMC statement is chock-full of Delphic guidance.

This is the very best we can offer you, whether you are from ancient Ithaca or Delphi or modern Hong Kong. Those who think we can be more specific in stating our intentions and broadcasting our every next move with complete certainty are, in my opinion, clinging to the myth that economics is a hard science and monetary policy a precise scientific procedure rather than the applied best judgment of cool-headed, unemotional decision-makers. We will cross the river that separates us from a normalized economy and a normalized monetary policy by feeling the stones. We may slip on occasion, but you should not underestimate our intention to apply whatever talents we possess as policymakers to do what is right to advance economic prosperity while strictly adhering to our commitment of containing inflation and maintaining market stability. Thank you (謝 謝). 7  6  Richard Fisher joined Mario Draghi, Mark Carney, Joachim Fels and others at a symposium on “Financial Stability and the Role of Central Banks,” organized by Jens Weidmann and Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt am Main on Feb. 27–28, 2014. BIS central bankers’ speeches
I might add here that the currency of Macau, the pataca, has been linked to the Hong Kong dollar since as long ago as 1977. But not all economies are in a position to meet the preconditions necessary for linked exchange rates to endure. In the aftermath of financial crisis in Asia and elsewhere, many economies are searching for new approaches to exchange rate management. The recent trend is clearly towards more flexible exchange rate mechanisms. We cannot ignore a smaller camp, though, that is opting for greater fixity of exchange rates, supported by more robust institutional structures than have sometimes been in place in the past. The integration of European monetary systems in the form of EMU is an obvious example. Similarly, a handful of economies have successfully adopted currency board systems similar to our own. We must recognise, however, that many economies do not currently have the preconditions to make such a regime work successfully. It seems inevitable that they will have to live for the time being with some sort of managed float. The disadvantages of this system are that the lack of a transparent anchor and of a clear commitment to some well-defined policy objective make credibility difficult to establish. These conditions invite over-shooting in financial markets, as speculators attempt to test the limits to which the authorities are willing to let the exchange rate move. How can the authorities anchor policies and expectations in such an environment?

Philipp M Hildebrand: From monetarism to the inflation forecast 30 years of Swiss monetary policy Public lecture by Dr Philipp M Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the University of Berne, Berne, 23 November 2004. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  Following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the Swiss National Bank, in 1974, was one of the first central banks to adopt a monetary policy with monetary aggregates as intermediate targets. The monetarist phase of the National Bank lasted until 1999. During this phase, the National Bank repeatedly changed its monetary targets. In the course of time, it adopted an increasingly pragmatic monetary policy and paid more attention to the development of the exchange rate. In December 1999, the SNB introduced its current monetary policy concept, which uses an inflation forecast as the basis for monetary policy decisions. On the whole, monetarist ideas had a positive influence on Switzerland’s monetary policy. They brought the realisation that price stability is important, thus furthering the process of disinflation in the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, monetarism caused the SNB to make its monetary policy more transparent and rule-based. The use of monetary aggregates as intermediate targets, however, was more problematic. With money demand proving to be too instable, simply controlling money supply growth was not sufficient to achieve price stability.
This is the fifth occasion in just the past eight years on which I've had the pleasure of giving this biennial report on the state of the UK economy to our Scottish stakeholders. On each previous occasion I have been able to report to you relatively steady growth of overall output, a continuing fall in unemployment and stable low inflation. But I've then gone on to discuss the risks and uncertainties ahead and to worry out loud as to whether or not we could keep it up. On each occasion I have concluded - usually somewhat tentatively - that we could. And indeed we have in the UK - as a whole, though I have to admit it was a close run thing last winter in the wake of the unexpectedly sharp economic slowdown that hit the whole of the industrial world from the beginning of 2001. Despite that global economic shock - which produced near-simultaneous recession in the world's three largest economies, the US, Japan and Germany - we in the UK - at the overall, aggregate, level have now enjoyed continuous quarter by quarter growth at an annual average rate of 2¾% throughout the past 10 years. That is far and away the longest period of consecutive quarterly growth since quarterly estimates began nearly 50 years ago - and the annual average growth rate has remained somewhat above most estimates - at least until recently - of the longer term trend rate of some 2¼% - 2½%.

The people of this country are actually willing to put aside some of their earnings into safe and viable investments. However, safety and viability is only assured with professional investment management which can be offered by people like yourselves. Ladies and Gentlemen, in March 2008, the Lusaka Stock Exchange in partnership with the Bank of Zambia and the Bond Exchange of South Africa conducted a training and consultative workshop to enhance the Zambian bond market. Among the outcomes of this workshop was that one of the modes of collecting funds from the so called “small investors” in the economy is through Collective Investment Schemes. Collective investment schemes can be beneficial to small investors who may not have enough money to carry out a diversification and proper allocation of their assets. Small investor can benefit from diversification techniques usually available only to wealthy investors. With these few benefits in mind, I wish to earnestly appeal to you and other collective investment scheme providers that as you go about doing your business think innovatively about ways you can capture Zambia’s many small investors. Think about how you can provide them with an opportunity to invest in a broad range of assets at affordable cost. I have little doubt in my mind that as you take up this challenge, you will be able to create financial stability by being a good investment manager to this segment of investors.
It would take years to restore confidence in paper money and banks in France. Sweden had a similar experience with paper money following an economic collapse in the 1750s. For that reason, Sveriges  BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  European Central Bank and the central banks in the UK and the US are using money they have produced themselves to purchase government bonds and other securities. They are taking advantage of the confidence the central bank enjoys to buy time to enable European countries to tackle the underlying problems. Some lessons Tonight’s theme is “Learning from history”. And in this title lies a question, in both the positive and normative senses. The answer to the question of whether we actually learn from history would probably have to be “yes and no”. Sometimes we learn, sometimes we do not. Economic crises seem to be a necessary precondition for learning. And this may still be the case. We have some capacity to learn from our own mistakes – particularly if they are traumatic enough – but limited capacity to learn from other people’s mistakes. This is something we recognise from raising children. To the frustration of their parents, children seem to be more interested in having their own experiences than listening to parents’ advice, however good it might be. The answer to the normative question “should we learn from history?” is obviously “yes”. And which lessons should we learn?

improved economic confidence following the attainment of the enhanced HIPC Initiative Completion Point in April 2005, which resulted in reduced external debt service obligations, and;  v.  increased foreign direct and portfolio investment, reflecting increased market confidence in the economy stemming from the greatly improved prospects for the copper sector, the cancellation of the bulk of Zambia’s external debt, and the continued commitment to prudent fiscal and monetary policies. Mr Chairman, all these factors have accounted for the current strengthening of the Kwacha. This has led to an outcry from some of our exporters of nontraditional commodities that they are losing external competitiveness and may close down their businesses. While I appreciate this outcry, I wish to state that the exchange rate alone does not determine external competitiveness of exports. Exporters should look at those areas in their production processes where they can attain efficiency gains and improve productivity. Besides the appreciation of the Kwacha which has an impact on inflation is beneficial to non-traditional exporters in several ways: •  reducing cost of capital goods  •  reducing cost of imported raw materials  •  reducing cost of freight/fuel  On its part, the Government can assist this process by directing investment in infrastructure and structural reforms, including labour laws, so as to reduce the cost of doing business in Zambia. Mr Chairman, in the Government securities market, developments in yield rates were mixed in 2005.
This has afforded banking groups some discretion when deciding how to comply with ring-fencing requirements, reflecting their current operations and preferred business strategies. Some groups have restructured so that the vast majority of their business will sit within their ring-fence, with only a small amount of prohibited activity sitting outside (a ‘wide’ ring-fenced bank). Others have chosen to place as much activity outside their ring-fence as the legislative requirements allow (a ‘narrow’ ring-fenced bank). The PRA’s rules have been designed to ensure the objectives of ring-fencing can be achieved irrespective of the banks’ choices in this regard. A key aspect of ring-fencing is ensuring that ring-fenced banks have the ability to make decisions independent of their wider groups, and this forms a core part of the PRA’s ring-fencing rules and our supervisory agenda. The ring-fenced bank’s own interests must not be compromised for the sake of those of the wider group. Ring-fenced banks’ boards should have a majority of independent non-executive directors, one of which should be the chair. And no more than a third of the board should sit on the boards of other group entities. But the PRA’s approach is proportionate to the risks posed by the firm’s governance structure. If, for example, a firm has a very ‘wide’ ring-fenced bank, with just a small amount of prohibited activity remaining outside of its ring-fence, it is unlikely that entities outside the ring-fence could exert undue influence over the ring-fenced bank.

From Construction to Maintenance: Patrolling the ring-fence Speech given by James Proudman, Executive Director, UK Deposit Takers Supervision  Cass Business School, London 26 November 2018  I am grateful to Simon Debbage for preparing these remarks and to Michael Ainley, Sadia Arif, Charlotte Bull, David Eacott, Jeremy Leake, Duncan Mackinnon, Ben Martin, Alex Michie, Simon Morley, Rhys Phillips, Josh Sadler and Philip Sellar for their helpful contributions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  Introduction It is a great pleasure to be here again at the Cass Business School, and I am very grateful to the Associate Dean for inviting me. In fact, Andrew and I have quite a lot in common. We share a birthday, for a start, and a home county (Hampshire). For a while, we also used to share an office, back in the far off days before the financial crisis, when – as young(ish) economists – we used to debate the relevance of the ‘corporate veil’ for determining macroeconomic outcomes. Nowadays, we don’t discuss the corporate veil so much as the banking ring-fence, and that is the focus of my speech tonight. A decade on from the financial crisis, one of the largest ever reforms to the structure of the UK banking industry is coming into force. By 1 January 2019, the largest UK banking groups must have implemented the ‘ring-fencing’ – or separation – of their UK retail business from their international and investment banking operations.