samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
When the economy began to grow again, there was plenty of labour available, enabling the growth rate to be high without causing inflation to accelerate. Another reason was the IT boom towards the end of the 1990s, which also contributed to productivity growth. How high can future productivity growth be? It is difficult to say for certain, but we believe that it could be somewhere mid-way between the trends of the 1980s and 1990s, i.e. around 2 per cent. Finally, a decisive factor for growth is the number of hours we work. As we know, the amount of sick leave taken has increased dramatically recently, which means that the number of working hours per employee has declined. There are also other reasons why fewer hours are worked on average today; the amount of overtime worked has declined, part-time work has increased and absence to care for children has also increased. Three years ago the number of hours worked increased by 2.7 per cent. Last year the figure decreased by 1.2 per cent. It is thus not sufficient that labour supply in terms of the number of persons increases. If we are to retain our level of growth, or even increase it, we need to take measures to ensure that the number of hours we work on average increases. Calculations made by the National Institute of Economic Research indicate that the growth rate could be as much as 0.4 percentage points higher per year during 2003-2008 if the government’s target to halve sick leave is achieved.

However, this is no consolation - on the contrary, a poor development among our trading partners could cause further  2  BIS Review 17/2003  difficulties for our own economy. Moreover, it is our own ambitions in welfare policy that should be put in relation to our growth capacity. The future age structure has great significance for labour supply and production. This is because labour force participation varies in different age groups. It is higher in the age group 25-54 years (87 per cent) than in younger and older age groups. The age group 16-24 years studies more today than at the beginning of the 1990s. Labour force participation for the oldest age group has also fallen over the past decade. One reason is that the retirement age from the labour market has been lowered and now the actual pension age amounts to 62 years. The only group that has increased its participation in the labour force in recent years is older women. This could be because those who are reaching a more advanced age today have a higher level of education than their predecessors. The age structure accentuates the problems. According to Statistics Sweden’s forecasts, the age group 20-64 years will need to support an increasing percentage of younger and older age groups. While the number of elderly people increases, the number of those between the ages of 20 and 64 will become an ever smaller percentage of the population.
What does a good culture look like? How can leaders in the industry establish a positive culture 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  within their firms? And perhaps hardest of all, how do you ensure that a firm’s culture adapts to the changing world, but still stays true to its values and purpose? An Ethical Dilemma Consider this:2 A junior banker on a successful real estate investment team is asked to run projections for future rental income for a mall in Hong Kong. As part of her research she notices a number in a spreadsheet that inflates future cash flows by 4 percent. She asks a senior analyst if the number should be flagged as an optimistic assumption, so it’s clear it’s not based on evidence. The senior analyst responds by saying the number is a more conservative estimate than many. He says it’s a “judgment call” and that they can discuss it once the project has concluded. But the project comes and goes, everyone is busy, and the senior analyst doesn’t bring it up again. This scenario raises numerous questions: Should the junior team member raise the issue again or should she let it go? What was driving the behavior of the senior analyst? And why did no one else on the team view the situation as an ethical dilemma? These are the kinds of issues that people often face in a work environment. And this example demonstrates many of the ways culture influences behavior.

Aside from QR codes, we have made a very good progress in terms of PromptPay, which is our electronic payment system and we have seen a very high uptake in usage of PromptPay, especially during the COVID crisis. The number of transactions per person per year increased and reached an all-time high. We have also extended to cross-border payments. We now have in place cross-border payments using QR codes with many of our neighbors such as Cambodia, Vietnam, as well as Japan. Most recently, we have connected our payment system, PromptPay, with that of Singapore, PayNow. This was the first global fast payment linkage and we have also seen a very satisfactory uptake on that front. Another opportunity for us in this area, building upon the digital infrastructure that we put in place, is mobile banking. We have seen a very rapid rise in the usage of mobile banking applications in Thailand. Thai people love their mobile phones and we have seen Thailand ranked number one globally in terms of usage of mobile banking applications for three years in a row. I think this is an example of opportunities that may arise and will come about as a result of putting in place the right kind of digital infrastructure to enable these things to happen. Aside from the initiatives I mentioned on the digital front, another important initiative that we have been undertaking is on CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency.
Inflation will nevertheless be curbed by slower wage growth from 2008 and a gradual rise in productivity growth. Somewhat further ahead higher wage growth will push up the rise in prices. The krone exchange rate has appreciated from weak levels. Combined with the fall in prices for imported consumer goods measured in foreign currency, this will push down the rise in prices for consumer goods in the short term. Consumer price inflation is expected to fall to somewhat below 2 per cent in 2010, and then gradually pick up to around 2.5 per cent towards the end of the projection period. Interest rates are low, resulting in renewed growth in household consumption. At the same time, house prices are rising. Over time, household borrowing may surge again and saving  14  BIS Review 139/2009  may fall. With low productivity, higher corporate costs, growth in household demand and higher capacity utilisation, inflation may gradually become too high. This would indicate that the interest rate should be raised. On the other hand, a marked increase in the interest rate in Norway and a wider interest rate differential between Norway and other countries may entail a risk of a stronger-thanprojected krone, resulting in an inflation level that is too low. This would indicate that the interest rate should not be raised too rapidly. Monetary policy cannot fine-tune developments in the economy, but it can mitigate the most severe effects when the economy is exposed to shocks.

This is very low compared with other countries. 12  BIS Review 139/2009  The decline in employment has been less marked than the fall in activity would imply. Unemployment may be low partly because it may have taken time for enterprises to adapt their workforces to the sharp fall in production, and partly because some enterprises have decided to maintain their workforces in anticipation of a pickup in demand. In many sectors, the level of employment is nevertheless high in relation to output, and productivity in the past year has been at its lowest level since 1988. The projections are based on the assumption that productivity will gradually improve, reducing the pressure on firms’ costs somewhat. The projections are also based on improved profitability through an increase in prices. If firms instead reduce employment more rapidly and markedly in order to improve productivity, that will lead to higher unemployment and lower wage and price inflation than projected. The interest rate may then be kept lower for a longer period than currently envisaged in order to ensure that inflation returns to target. Wage growth is projected to decrease to around 4 per cent in 2009. Weak manufacturing profitability as a result of both a fall in product prices and a low productivity level suggest moderate wage growth ahead. At the same time, wage growth among trading partners is low. As a result, the competitiveness of internationally exposed industries may weaken further in the period ahead. In isolation, this may contribute to curbing wage growth.
Ecological resilience is becoming increasingly prominent as the world comes to terms with the threat from climate change. In my role as Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking I’ve recently talked about the importance of resilience in the Bank’s operations.2  What I want to focus on today is economic resilience, by which I mean the ability of an economy to withstand and recover from unexpected difficulties – what economists call “shocks”. This is of particular relevance to two of the Bank’s policy committees that I am a member of, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and Financial Policy Committee (FPC). Economic resilience is a subject I first really got  Chart 1: Google searches for “resilience”  interested in when I became Chief Economic Adviser at  Index: 100 = maximum 100  the Treasury in 2007. At this point the UK economy had been growing continuously for 15 years, a period characterised by solid growth, falling rates of unemployment, and low and stable inflation. And a similar pattern had held across other advanced economies. 90 80 70 60 50 40 30  The question economists were asking themselves,  20  including in the UK, was what explained that pattern. 10  Was it just good luck – had the economy been hit by  0 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018  fewer or smaller unexpected shocks than in previous decades? Or was it more down to good judgement – was the economy now, including because of  Source: Google Trends.

Broken lines refer to the Riksbank’s forecasts. 10  07  08  09  10  11  12  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  BIS Review 111/2009  7.High unemployment throughout the forecast period Unemployment, per cent of labour force, seasonally-adjusted data 14  14  12  12  10  10  8  8  6  6 Unemployment 16-64 years Unemployment 15-74 years September July  4 2  4 2 0  0 80  85  90  95  00  Note. Broken lines represent the Riksbank’s forecast, 15-74 age group. 05  10  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  8. CPI and CPIF Annual percentage change 5  5 CPI  4  4  CPIF  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1 -2  -2 00  01  02  03  04  05  06  Note. Broken lines represent the Riksbank’s forecast. BIS Review 111/2009  07  08  09  10  11  12  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  11
Moreover the type of deals has broadened out to include a wide range of asset classes. For example, this month’s deals included credit card, auto loan and lease, equipment leasing, insurance premium and mortgage servicer securitizations. Second, the market for such deals is not wholly reliant on TALF financing. TALF loans have accounted for a bit more than half of total issuance volume of ABS, with considerable variability from subscription to subscription period. We view this as a good thing. This means that the TALF is helping to restart the market, rather than the TALF being the market. Third, and most importantly, spreads on consumer ABS have been coming down sharply from their peak levels reached late last year. For example, the spreads on AAA-rated credit card ABS have narrowed from a peak of about 600 basis points over LIBOR to slightly above 200 basis points currently. Encouragingly, spreads of even lower-rated ABS – securities that are not TALF eligible – have also narrowed quite significantly. Although it is still too early to say the TALF has been a resounding success, we at the Fed are encouraged by the results so far. While we are generally pleased with how the TALF program has been evolving, many challenges remain. One challenge is in striking the appropriate balance between sufficient protections against abuse of the program, on the one hand, and a degree of red tape and restrictions that could make the program unattractive to issuers and investors, on the other.

Monetary policy cannot simply wait until we have a clearer understanding of whether we are correctly measuring employment, whether the Phillips curve has shifted down, tilted or both – or whether there is a better framework for understanding the relationship between supply, demand and inflation. 13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  13  But we are almost certainly going through a period of heightened change at present. The current level of uncertainty around the key assumptions on which we model and understand the economy is, in my view, different in kind to uncertainties about the data or signals we receive which are always mixed. Some of the relationships between economic variables that we depended on in the past appear to have gone on a longish leave of absence, but we are not sure why, or whether this is a temporary or more persistent departure. Against that background – and although it makes forward looking monetary policy more difficult – I tend to put more weight on the evidence we can or cannot see in the data and a little less on the un-observables and on how we think the economy works. In any event, monetary policy makers have a personal reason to be careful of complaining too much about the burden of uncertainty. It is not just that it is one of the things that makes the job challenging and worth doing. It is also why it cannot be done by a rule – or, at least as yet, by a robot.
Rise in labour costs Per cent 8  8 6  Norway  6  4  Trading partners  4  2  Euro area  2 0  0 1990  1992  1994  1996  1998  2000  In recent years, cost inflation in the euro area countries and among trading partners has been relatively low. Growth in labour costs in Norway has been roughly 11 percentage points higher than in the euro area and 10 percentage points higher than among trading partners in the past three years. Rise in labour costs  Rise in labour costs and unemployment 1995 and 2000. Per cent  8  Norway  6  Sweden Finland  4  Denmark Euro area  Netherlands  2  0 0  2  4  6  8  10  12  14  16  Unemployment as a percentage of the labour force  4  BIS Review14?/2001  A number of other small, open economies have recorded a decline in unemployment and lower growth in labour costs than Norway. In Sweden, unemployment has shown a substantial decrease over the past five years and wage growth is below 4 per cent. Three-year wage agreements are now being concluded, underpinning the basis for low cost inflation. In the Netherlands, unemployment has fallen to a very low level. Wage growth has picked up, but is lower than in Norway. In Denmark, unemployment has come down without an increase in wage growth.

Examining this sector is important for the ECB because there are differences between SMEs and large firms with regard to the transmission of monetary policy, owing in particular to the fact that SMEs are more dependent on bank financing than large firms. It thus follows that the financing conditions faced by SMEs are linked especially closely to the situation in the banking sector, and in particular to that of small banks, which are the main lenders to SMEs. On the other hand, banks generally face greater difficulties when assessing the creditworthiness of SMEs. This relative opaqueness may be countered to some extent by “relationship lending”, which enables the bank to build up expertise over time with regard to the business and the financial situation of its borrower. BIS Review 129/2009  1  The euro area banking system Before examining SMEs’ access to bank finance in greater detail, I would like to look at the situation in the banking system. I will focus on banks’ deleveraging during the past few quarters and the effects on banks’ earnings as well as their capital ratios. In addition, I will compare the lending behaviour of large banks with that of smaller banks. Since the start of the financial turmoil in the third quarter of 2007, banks have begun to scale down their investment in financial assets, as seen in Chart 1.
But they now appear to be even deeper and more persistent than we thought earlier in the year. Many households and business may still feel they have inadequate buffers of assets to cushion against unexpected shocks. This leads to cautious behavior that holds back spending. For example, I regularly hear from business contacts that they do not want to risk hiring new workers until they actually see an uptick in demand for their products. They do not appear to be paring back at the moment, but they would rather sit on cash than risk undertaking a potentially unprofitable expansion. In addition to these long-running problems, continued uncertainty about the European debt crisis and the difficulties dealing with the U.S. fiscal situation have held back growth. Against this backdrop, the outlook has weakened substantially. Last June, most private sector forecasters were expecting real GDP to increase 2-3/4% in 2011 and 3.1% in 2012. By early August, these forecasts had dropped to 1.6% and 2.7%, respectively. This 2012 growth rate is barely above most analysts’ views of potential growth – so it certainly won’t make much of a dent in the unemployment rate and other measures of resource slack. On the price front, with energy prices increasing markedly, headline inflation – as measured by the 12 month change in the total personal consumption expenditures price index – rose from about 1-1/4% last fall to 2-3/4% in July. Excluding food and energy, PCE inflation has moved up from about 1% to 1-1/2% over the same period.

4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  policymaker with an equal-sized loss as a 9% unemployment rate against a conservative estimate of 6% for the natural rate of unemployment. (I call this conservative, because while we think a number of factors such as increased job mismatch and extended unemployment insurance benefits have temporarily boosted the natural unemployment rate in the U.S., these factors are not expected to persist in the long-run). There also is an immediate corollary: If you aren’t as riled up over 9% unemployment as you would be over 5% inflation, then you either put even less weight on unemployment deviations in your loss function or you think that the natural unemployment rate is substantially higher than 6%. I’ll address the latter possibility later. However, I now want to turn to reasons why the challenges to policymaking in the current situation are orders of magnitude larger than those we face during more normal times. To preview, these are because: (a) we find ourselves in the aftermath of a Reinhart-Rogoff type financial crisis, which has resulted in severe headwinds weighing on the recovery process; (b) the economic costs of the vast amounts of unused resources in the economy are very large; and (c) the zero lower bound is a constraint on standard monetary policy actions, requiring a broader monetary policy framework if we are to provide more policy accommodation.
Therefore, additionally to the traditional issues of monetary policy and central banking, an exceptional attention during the workshop will be given to climate change related risks and green finance - which have turned into the "leitmotiv" in the communications of many central banks, and European and international institutions, - digitalization of financial services and technological improvements, and their implications for central bank objectives. I am confident that the research papers on these "hot" topics will provide some guidance on how to approach these issues, arising from the recent economic developments. Strong cooperation would be extremely useful on this regard, also because such areas are still under-researched. In these brief opening comments, allow me to point out that the coming months will be challenging for our societies, and the following years may see substantial structural transformations. Addressing the main challenges faced by the Albanian economy, such as, inflation, energy crisis, etc., triggers many obligations to be taken and many policy paths to be considered by the authorities. Our experience in the implementation of existing old and new policy tools and policies in such harsh and changing conditions is growing, but new risks are also emerging. Research and discussion fora like this workshop, in which fresh ideas and experiences are exchanged among academics and policymakers, will be ever more important. It is the application of research findings and conclusions in the practical policy making that gives research its true value and meaning, for the benefit of the central bank and the society.

Mugur Isărescu: Christine Lagarde’s visit to Romania Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, on the occasion of the IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s visit to Romania, Bucharest, 16 July 2013. *  *  *  Madame Christine Lagarde, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, Today I have the pleasure to welcome again here, at the National Bank of Romania Madame Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. It’s good to mention from the beginning that she is the first woman to ever lead the IMF. Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Treasury Secretary at the time, said upon her appointment, on July 5th, 2011: “Lagarde’s exceptional talent and broad experience will provide invaluable leadership for this institution at a critical time for the global economy.” Allow me to briefly introduce Madame Lagarde to you. She was born in Paris. Her father was an English professor. She spent her childhood in Le Havre and after graduating high school she went on a scholarship to Maryland, USA, attending Holton Arms School in Bethesda. Madame Lagarde got her law degree at University Paris X (dix), and holds a Master’s degree from the Political Science Institute in Aix-en-Provence. Already a member of the Paris Bar Association, Christine Lagarde joined the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie, becoming its Chairman of the Global Executive Committee in 1999. Subsequently, she acted as Chairman of the Global Strategic Committee in 2004.