samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
With lockdown-easing having concluded, some services segments are still affected by restrictions on operating normally, and the proportion of workers affected by furlough arrangements continues to be a majority. This is the case of the accommodation, air transport and travel agency segments where, at end-June, the reach of ERTEs was still between 70.4% and 53.7%. The very high proportion of workers protected by an ERTE in these specific services segments is in striking contrast to the 8  percentages in manufacturing industry and construction (8.9% and 4.2%, respectively). That highlights the deeply asymmetric effects of this crisis on different productive activities. In absolute terms, at the end of Q2 almost half the workers on ERTEs were in the retail and hospitality sectors. In response to this situation and to the high uncertainty over the recovery, the ERTE support measures - initially programmed to end-June - have been extended, albeit with amendments, to the end of Q3. The new conditions include the possibility of increasing Social Security exemptions in the event of a fresh outbreak of the virus, which is an explicit acknowledgement of the uncertainty surrounding the recovery. These new conditions also attempt to square the objective to continue providing support to firms and workers temporarily affected by restrictions on operating normally with the aim of providing incentives for a progressive reallocation of employment towards activities with a better future outlook.

In particular, along with the adverse impact that the social distancing measures we may have to maintain in the future may exert on activity, there is a further effect. This is more difficult to measure a priori and relates to the possible and potentially persistent changes in agents’ behaviour in response to the “new normal”. These changes might include modified patterns of consumption and saving, or changes in supply chains or in certain aspects of firms’ operations. All these considerations would warrant qualifying the current recovery as uncertain, to take the second of the adjectives I used earlier to characterise this recovery. Additionally, from the standpoint of the sectors of activity, not all of them suffered on a comparable scale the consequences of the pandemic lockdown measures, as they are not equally susceptible to the imposition of social distancing measures. And the gradual startup in activity is not taking place at the same pace in the different sectors. The earlier normalisation of manufacturing and of certain services coexists alongside a slower than usual recovery in levels of activity in those other services, such as leisure and hospitality, where personal interaction is greater. Here, full normalisation is not likely to be attained until we have an effective medical solution. These differences in the pace at which normal levels of activity in productive sectors are being restored allows us to characterise this recovery as uneven, taking the last of my three adjectives.
Given that net zero is both an imperative of climate physics and a commitment by 120 countries; companies, banks, insurers, pension funds and investors will increasingly be expected to develop and disclose their transition plans. For companies that could mean:   Commitment to a net zero target (for scope 1, 2 and ideally scope 3 emissions) by a specific date;    Assessment and disclosure of how the transition to a net zero business model will impact strategy;    Short term milestones to track progress; and    Details of governance, including whether executive compensation is tied to success and how risks are managed at the board level. In turn, there are several possible ways for the providers of capital to assess the level of preparedness for the transition. To support the assessment of who is on the right side of history and therefore presents the most promising investment opportunities in the transition, providers of capital could measure and disclose: 1. The percentage of assets that comply with TCFD disclosure; 2. The percentage of assets that are Net Zero-aligned (“Paris aligned”);  14 See e.g. Giuzio, M. et al. (2019), Climate change and financial stability in the Financial Stability Review of the European Central Bank, May 2019;  and Piera de Silva, L. A. (2019) Research on climate-related risks and financial stability: An "epistemological break"?, speech at at the Conference of the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), Paris, 17 April 2019.

6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  6  3. Progress on transition as assessed against industry-specific transition pathways to help identify the leaders and laggards in the transition; and 4. Degree warming potential of the portfolio, which assesses the quality of transition plans relative to the Paris goals. Firms such as Aviva, Axa and Allianz have already voluntarily disclosed this information. They are now feeding into a TCFD group that is considering whether the warming potential, or any other metric, is the best way to measure the potential opportunities in the transition. For COP 26, we intend to leverage the success of existing groups and coalitions, like the Net Zero Asset Owner alliance, Climate Action 100+ and the UN PRI to build a large coalition of asset owners and asset managers who expect their portfolio companies to become Net Zero aligned. MDBs and Innovative Finance The work on reporting, risk and returns will put in place the foundations for private finance to help drive the transition to net zero, but much more must be done across the full spectrum of the financial sector. Multilateral Development Banks and Development Finance Institutions have essential roles in mobilising blended finance for adaptation, resilience and mitigation, especially in the communities most exposed to the devastating effects of climate change. As the Secretary of State noted, we will be asking these institutions to develop robust implementation plans for Paris Alignment in the run up to COP26.
•  The increasing use of cards places increasingly high demands on safety and on the reliability of the technical infrastructure that supports the cards. Banknotes retain their value as a means of payment even if the technical infrastructure is off line. Cards only work when the infrastructure does. •  Private individuals feel a greater sense of security with cash than with cards. If card usage is to increase, it must become safer to use cards in shops as well as on the Internet. Clear information on the frauds that are committed can also serve to reduce uncertainty among consumers. •  Good technical conditions exist for the continued rapid development of both existing and new means of payment. •  The Riksbank’s task is to guarantee confidence for cash in society. Confidence in the cards must be guaranteed by the banks and the card companies. Consequently, increasing responsibility for this rests with the market participants. BIS Review 7/2010  7

The political debate is in a sense being taught to keep the long term in view. The public then knows from the national debate that fiscal discipline is good for the country and if “accountants” or other nations in Brussels criticise your budget policies, there is a greater chance of the criticism being interpreted as a help towards fiscal soundness. The Swedish trade unions, for example, are among the most vocal defenders of our budget target. However, the framework might still not be strong enough - the 2 per cent over-the-cycle target has been slipping somewhat out of view given that the government, as I mentioned, is focusing more on the short term recently. Sweden would perhaps need an even more formal external fiscal evaluation. This leads to an important conclusion for the Pact. Perhaps the solution to regain credibility is neither to water down the Pact, nor to impose even stricter rules centrally. The solution is perhaps to build from below - to complement the European level with national frameworks in the respective European nations so that they come to internalise the need to balance their budget over the cycle and to ensure that the same transparency exists on the fiscal side as on the monetary side. While pressure from fellow finance ministers has apparently not worked well enough, the present attempts at national processes with transparent targets have a better track record.
Lars E O Svensson: Why a low repo rate for an extended period? Speech by Mr Lars E O Svensson, Deputy Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, at Handelsbanken, Stockholm, 4 May 2010. *  *  *  The opinions expressed here are my own and are not necessarily shared by other members of the Riksbank’s Executive Board or staff. I would like to thank Claes Berg, Per Jansson, Stefan Laséen, Christina Nyman, David Vestin and Staffan Viotti for discussions and comments. Björn Andersson, Joanna Gerwin, Tora Hammar, Lina Majtorp and Magnus Åhl have contributed to this speech. In this speech I would like to present my view of how monetary policy can best focus on stabilising both inflation and resource utilisation. I advocate an “extended” repo-rate path where “extended” refers to the period with a low repo rate of 0.25 per cent being extended until the end of the fourth quarter 2010. Here I will explain why. As I am sure many of you know, over the past year I have advocated a more expansionary monetary policy than that chosen by the majority of the members of the Executive Board. I entered reservations and advocated a lower repo rate and repo-rate path at all of the monetary policy meetings from and including the meeting in April 2009 to and including the meeting held in February 2010. Such a repo-rate leads to a better utilisation of resources and a better attainment of the inflation target without threatening financial stability.

It is therefore of course desirable that the extended repo-rate path is perceived as credible. As I mentioned earlier, it is possible that the extended repo-rate path with an unchanged repo rate further ahead would be perceived as less credible than a lower repo-rate path with a reduced repo rate now. In this case the effects are shown by the curves marked “Unexpected”. However, as the extended repo-rate path can be justified by the fact that it provides better outcomes for inflation and resource utilisation than the main scenario it may perhaps be perceived as being more credible, in which case the effects are shown by the curves marked “Expected”. 4  4  The effects of deviations from the repo-rate path of the main scenario on inflation, output and hours worked are calculated using the Riksbank's model Ramses with the methods described in Laséen and Svensson (2009) for expected deviations and Leeper and Zha (2003) for unexpected deviations. They are discussed in more detail in Svensson (2010c). The lower repo-rate path gives as an expected deviation (unexpected deviation in parenthesis) a largest increase in CPIF inflation of 0.42 (0.22) percentage points, in output of 0.33 (0.21) per cent and in hours worked of 0.35 (0.22) per cent. The extended repo-rate path gives as an expected deviation (unexpected in parenthesis) a largest increase in CPIF inflation of 0.48 (0.25) percentage  BIS Review 60/2010  5  Figure 2.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House. 1  As the recent IEA report3 stresses “the global pathway to net‐zero emissions (…) requires all governments to significantly strengthen and then successfully implement their energy and climate policies. Commitment made to date fall short of what is required”. Meanwhile, the world has been hit by the Covid 19 health crisis. This is a crisis that is due to lack of prevention, unpreparedness at national levels and flaws in international cooperation. This is a crisis that has forced governments to lock down hundreds of millions of people and has stopped or reduced economic activity. This is a crisis with huge macroeconomic costs and which has forced governments to provide substantial fiscal support and central banks to intervene with bold monetary policies, in order to preserve favorable financing conditions. As regards climate change and the environment, scientists as well as the authors of the Green Swan try to explain to us what could happen if we don’t act. On the health front, we experienced “skin in the game” what an unexpected, severe, global crisis can be, because we did not collectively act on time. In advanced economies, thanks to vaccinations, we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. This is a relief. However, other crises could occur; there is no vaccine against climate change and environmental risks. This tangible experience makes the Green Swan even more interesting to read and to meditate upon now, than when it was published.

Captive risks will differ from traditional insurance, and they also vary significantly between different types of captives, depending on ownership and structure, scope of business and nature of risks insured. Managing these risks cannot simply be addressed at an institutional level. Macroprudential 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  measures might have relevance in certain circumstances. For example, a pure captive insurer that merely underwrites the risks of its parent may pose low financial and consumer risks, but if the parent is an economically significant entity, with critical financial linkages, a different regulatory response and approach might be warranted. To a large extent, our ability to design suitable regulatory frameworks for captives remains constrained by the paucity of data on captives. This needs to be addressed as a matter of priority. Broader measures need to be taken, both at a national and global level, to collect better data on captives to understand their nature, evolution and impact on macro-financial developments. Increased efforts by governments to tackle profit shifting and tax base erosion (BEPS) have been another factor behind recent regulatory developments. Significant changes have taken place affecting offshore financial centers in the past decade, shaped by heightened expectations for enhanced transparency and exchange of information between tax authorities. These winds of change are likely to pick up speed for captives. And they will change the way captives have operated in the past. Very likely it would pave the way for the transformation of offshore financial centers.
It is not as big as the RCEP but TPP-11 will eliminate most existing tariffs among the eleven economies across Asia and Latin America, simplify customs procedures, and introduce strong provisions to boost modern services and a digital economy. Trade and investment linkages between China and ASEAN, in particular, are deep and have been growing over the years. Bilateral trade between China and ASEAN has increased by an average 13% per annum since 2005. 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  China is ASEAN’s top trading partner and third-largest source of foreign direct investment. In short, the fundamentals for growth in ASEAN and China are strong. And if we can deepen and broaden the integration between our two regions, it will help soften the impact of external trade protectionsim and sustain Asia’s dynamism and long term growth. Key Achievements of the CCI Against this broader imperative to strengthen trade and investment connectivity between China and ASEAN, the CCI has made good progress. Mayor Tang has highlighted the key achievements of CCI. Let me highlight just a few examples which may be of interest to our friends from China here. Chinese firms continue to benefit from raising capital in Singapore’s financial centre. As of August this year, 51 CCI qualifying cross-border financing deals worth $ billion have been completed. The scope of cross-border financial services has extended beyond Chongqing to other parts of Western China, and new channels for cross-border financing have opened up.

Ravi Menon: Expanding connectivity amidst rising trade tensions Keynote address by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Singapore-China (Chongqing) Financial Summit, Chongqing, 2 November 2018. * * * Mayor Tang Liangzhi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. First, let me thank the Chongqing municipality for hosting this inaugural Singapore-China (Chongqing) Financial Summit. Your warm hospitality, efficient arrangements, and sumptuous dinner last evening have already gotten this Summit off to a very good start. This year, we are especially pleased to have with us guests not only from Singapore and Chongqing but also from ASEAN and China’s Western Region. This Summit marks a new milestone in the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (“CCI”). The CCI will begin to play a key role now in strengthening connectivity not only between China and Singapore, but between China’s Western Region and ASEAN. A Troubled Trade Landscape: Asia’s Response Our efforts to deepen connectivity have taken on added significance amidst the troubled trade environment we are witnessing globally. Ongoing trade tensions will pose risks for Asian economies – which rely heavily on global trade. The immediate impact of the tariffs imposed to-date has been mild; they affect about 2% of global trade. They are estimated to shave off about 0.2% points from China’s GDP growth in both 2019 and 2020. ASEAN’s exposure to US-China trade flows amount to about 0.7% of the region’s combined GDP on a trade in value-added (“TiVA”) basis.
This presupposes that inflation expectations are not affected and that other factors, for example cyclical activity and the exchange rate, do not pull in the other direction. The picture of inflation does, however, include other features that probably have to do with the high resource utilisation during the latest upward phase. During the past year underlying inflation has gradually moved up. But meanwhile, economic activity — here as well as in the rest of the world — has been slowing markedly. If one is to believe Statistics Sweden’s latest figures for the national accounts, GDP growth this year will hardly exceed 1.5 per cent. This will probably tend to dampen any price pressure — as long as nothing unforeseen has happened to our economy’s long-term growth potential. Before the terrorist attacks there were some signs that manufacturing activity was stabilising, not least because the weak exchange rate has lowered relative costs. During the late summer it looked in general as though the inflow of manufacturing orders was falling less steeply than before. In the past, this has usually been the first sign of a stabilisation. However, the picture varies between industries. Orders have already turned upwards in some and in others the decline has slowed, while for telecom products, for example, orders are still falling sharply. That the krona’s relatively large depreciation has not yet led to an upturn for total exports is largely explained by the export product mix and market conditions in certain key industries, for example the decline in tele- and data-communication.

At the same time, households adjust their consumption, not least of capital goods, to a more realistic assessment of income’s long-term trend. Seen in the context of innovations, there is no ready-made pattern for either the occurrence of a cyclical downturn or how quickly it can be reversed. A third basic insight from the Austrian school concerns economic policy’s limitations. If a leap forward in technology leads to a period of unsustainable growth of investment and consumption, there is bound to be a recoil. As argued in the 1970s not least by Fredrich Hayek, perhaps the foremost of the Austrians and a Nobel prize-winner, the necessary adjustment after a supply shock cannot be avoided by trying to bridge the trough with measures of economic policy. As an adjustment to more realistic expectations must come, a bridging policy will simply postpone it and presumably make it more difficult when it eventually happens. But history also teaches us that after a period of what I would call growing pains, optimism about the new technology’s potential will be restored in a more orderly and realistic form. Neither the sudden downturn in the global economy nor the terrorist attacks on 11 September should have changed the grounds for a positive appraisal of the new technology in the somewhat longer run. Signs in the summer of stabilisation in the United States During the summer there were signs that economic activity in the rest of the world was becoming more stable.
The issue is, nevertheless, worthy of further investigation. 5. The objectives of monetary policy: credit and asset-price boom-busts  We now return to the relationship between monetary policy and credit/asset-price boombusts. As discussed in Section 2, a case can be made that monetary policy played a bit part in the rapid expansion of credit in the run-up to the crisis, together with the attendant compression in risk premia and the boom in asset prices, especially that of housing. That prompts the obvious question as to whether a different monetary policy setting could have materially reduced the likelihood or magnitude of the banking crisis. In the period immediately preceding the crisis, there was a lively debate amongst central bankers as to the best way to respond to rapid credit growth and rising asset prices. On the one hand, economists at the Bank for International Settlements and elsewhere (e.g. Borio and White, 2003; Cecchetti, Genberg and Wadhwani, 2002; White, 2006, 2009) argued that, despite the stability of inflation, monetary policy was nevertheless too loose. Moreover, the credit/asset-price boom was storing up trouble for the future. Central banks should, they argued, “lean against the wind” (LATW) by holding policy rates higher than suggested by, for instance, a suitable Taylor Rule so as to mitigate these risks, even though the inflation objective might not be immediately threatened.

Retail activity, which was buoyant in May, fell back in June partly due to poor weather conditions. In aggregate, activity was up over the last two months. The construction and civil engineering sector1 recovered in the second quarter of 1997 primarily as a result of seasonal factors. Employment levels held steady in industry, except for the automobile sector, where there was a further contraction, and the building, retail and market services sectors. Wherever possible, companies sought to enhance workforce flexibility via temporary staff and overtime, in order to cope with fluctuating demand and organize themselves for the summer vacation period. __________________ 1  Unadjusted data. BIS Review 70/1997