samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
For analogy purposes, I would like to bring an example: It is now for two years that the Bank of Albania has been organizing the yearly competition “The Governor’s Award for the best diploma thesis”. Last year, the third prize went to a student of the University of Shkodra for a very original thesis which introduced the potentials and opportunities of the Puka Region, the development of mountain tourism and the positive macroeconomic impact it will bring to the region. This paper was assigned a prize for the originality of the topic chosen to be explored and the economic impact its presentation may have. The thesis did not only seek to present a profitable business opportunity, but also make an assessment of the positive impact this investment would have on the life of the community. The positive influence on the latter is crucial for important strategic investors. We awarded this paper not only for its original exploration by a passionate student from Puka, but also to increase public awareness and promote this new and modern mentality. When a single student manages to produce this much, a university, a local community and all of us together have great potentials to achieve even more. I brought with me today a copy of this thesis. Dear participants, I tried to briefly discuss some issues that I personally find vital and benefiting for you and the Bank of Albania.

There is growing anxiety the world over about the impact of globalisation and technology on jobs and livelihoods. The anxiety is not unfounded. If people cannot or do not adapt to meet new competition or integrate new technologies, they will be left behind. The answer is not to hold back globalisation or technology but to: make globalisation and technology work for everyone; use technologies to create new and better jobs; and most important, equip our workers and professionals with the capabilities to secure those jobs. Preparing the financial industry workforce for a future smart financial centre is the raison d’etre of IBF. The work we do together in IBF – involving all of us here in the industry – is critically important. And there is urgency to it. IBF’s mandate has been expanded to help synergise the efforts of unions, financial institutions, and the government around workforce transformation. IBF is now the single point of contact for all matters relating to skills, careers, and jobs in the financial industry. By looking at skills development, career pathways, and job placements in an integrated manner, IBF is in a better position to help finance professionals in a more comprehensive and holistic way. IBF, MAS, the industry, and trade unions have been working together on several fronts to help equip the financial industry workforce for the future. We are systematically assessing current and future skills requirements in various job roles in specific financial activities.
Mugur Isărescu: Opening speech – conference “Investment and Investment Finance in Romania” Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the conference “Investment and Investment Finance in Romania”, organized by the National Bank of Romania and the European Investment Bank, Bucharest, 13 February 2020. * * * Vice President McDowell, State Secretary Gyorgy Attila, Distinguished audience, Ladies and gentlemen, It is a pleasure for me and the Board of Directors to welcome you at the National Bank of Romania, to the conference dedicated to Investment and Investment Finance in Romania. This conference has been organized by the European Investment Bank in partnership with the National Bank of Romania. In fact, this partnership has had a long standing as a pillar for progress and investment in Romania. Please allow me to express a heart-felt welcome and to extend my warmest thanks to Mr. Andrew McDowell, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank and to Ms. Debora Revoltella, Chief Economist of the European Investment Bank, for their continuous support and deep commitment to develop investments in Romania, and, moreover, for being trusted partners and friends. I am glad that we have decided to co-organize this conference here in Romania, at the central bank, as this year we honour two landmarks with historic importance. One is the National Bank of Romania’s 140th anniversary and the other is the 20 years’ celebration of the day (February 15th 2000) when the EU formally started the accession negotiations with Romania.

I remember that moment vividly, as it happened during my mandate as Prime Minister of Romania. As a veteran, in office since 1990, I am fully aware to what extent Romania has benefited from the significant support provided by the European Investment Bank. The projects financed by EIB proved to be a catalyst for development, with a multiplier effect in all the economic sectors. Nevertheless, Romania continues to need (i) to develop solid growth strategies based on investments and (ii) to accomplish the development priorities in infrastructure, healthcare and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as (iii) to enhance cohesion with the other EU member states. The future will certainly bring challenges as well as opportunities. One opportunity, as per the latest European Investment Bank’s flagship report on investment, is the present context of low interest rates, which could provide support for speeding up lending and investments. There is adequate room for upscaling public investment in areas such as: smart infrastructure, digital technology and education. Fairly new topics like the digital economy and FinTech, as well as climate change risks and Green Finance are gaining ground and importance on everyone’s agenda, having the potential to shift capital allocation and contribute to new investments. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to stress the importance of the EU structural and cohesion funds for Romania and to point out the need for further foreign direct investments.
CDS quotes on sovereign debt instruments issued by CEE countries  percentage points  450  basis points  180  3.0  400  160  2.5  350  140  300  120  250  100  200  80  150  60  100  40  50  20  0  0  2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5  Source: Reuters  Poland  Romania  Hungary  Poland  Nov.17  Sep.17  Jul.17  Mar.17  Sep.17  Jul.17  May.17  Mar.17  Jan.17  Nov.16  Hungary Germany  May.17  Czech Republic Romania  Sep.16  Jul.16  May.16  Mar.16  Jan.16  -1.0  Jan.17  -0.5  Jan.13 May.13 Sep.13 Jan.14 May.14 Sep.14 Jan.15 May.15 Sep.15 Jan.16 May.16 Sep.16 Jan.17 May.17 Sep.17  0.0  Czech Republic  Source: Reuters, NBR calculations 15  Figure 22. Composition of the deficit on the balance on goods  Figure 21.

The risk of fast deterioration in investor sentiment in emerging economies is high, given that the uncertainties about the strengthening of global economic growth and international trade are still significant, amid the risks arising from economic and monetary policies, the build-up of structural imbalances in the emerging economies and heightening geopolitical tensions. An abrupt adjustment of the risk premium attached to emerging economies may trigger sizeable negative consequences on the domestic environment. This is, in fact, the credit risk, or the risk of an increase in interest rate, stemming from the monetary policies of the advanced economies, the external uncertainties and the way the market reacts to these. Against this background, credit risk refers to an increase in the cost of foreign funding for both the Romanian government (Figures 19 and 20) and the banking and corporate sectors. It is noted that, in recent months, this risk has already started materialising. The Federal Reserve initiated the monetary policy tightening cycle. The Bank of England decided to increase the bank rate, which, in spite of keeping the real rate strongly negative, may act as a signal – especially amid growing uncertainties about Brexit. In one of the peer economies in the region, the Czech National Bank raised the policy rate twice – under special circumstances, after exiting from the exchange rate commitment, and in the context of a rising inflation. The European Central Bank decided to taper the asset purchase programme, even though no date has been set as yet for ending this programme.
When demand subsequently waned as a result of a deterioration in household finances, at the same time as real interest rates rose and the supply of housing - both new and old - increased, prices fell again. Even substantial price movements can have natural explanations and do not have to be due to unrealistic expectations that are first raised and then dashed. Households have continued to borrow from banks and mortgage institutions throughout the economic decline, which is not the normal pattern of behaviour, but this is of course due to low interest rates. Their debt burden has grown and raised questions about whether we are heading back towards an  2  BIS Review 38/2003  imbalance that sooner or later will have to be corrected. However, I myself do not believe that household debt per se constitutes any immediate source of concern. Households' debt ratio, i.e. debt as a percentage of income, is just over 110 per cent. However, as a result of the historically low interest rates, it appears that households' debt-servicing costs will continue to be manageable. The interest ratio, i.e. households' debt-servicing costs in relation to disposable income, is today barely 5 per cent. The situation for Swedish households is therefore considerably more favourable than at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s.

I believe lawyers call this a purposive approach to interpreting legislation and regulations – in other words interpreting meaning in the context of regulations rather than a literal interpretation. This is necessary because history shows us that the financial services industry can be addicted to arbitraging regulations – exploiting the rules to suit short term purposes rather than longerterm stability. I want to finish by saying something about a further important feature of financial stability. For me, the most unacceptable aspect of the financial crisis is that large banks have required the support of so much public money. This is often called the Too-Big-To-Fail problem, or better the “Too-Important-To-Fail-therefore-public-money-has-to-be-used” problem. Why are large banks in this position? The root of this issue is common to the key features of banks, namely their dependence on the confidence of depositors, the role of banks providing each of us with the facility to manage our money – our savings, and in our everyday lives in terms of payments – and the externality caused by the failure of one bank spreading a loss of confidence to other banks. The failure of any company should be dealt with, wherever possible, using the standard insolvency or bankruptcy laws of the country. These provide a well-established and predictable framework for dealing with company insolvency. But, the insolvency laws do not operate quickly – resolving a company can take time.
The first shortcoming of this paradigm is its inability to explain and recognise the importance of financial frictions and the role of money. Money is at best ignored – and at worst derided – as a redundant and unnecessary complication. This has to do with the fragile theoretical foundations of the mechanisms which – in this paradigm – account for the connection between the real economy, financial imbalances, and the state of confidence and inflation. This disregarding of money goes hand-in-hand with the assumption of the absence of risk. The mainstream model excludes default. If assets are formulated at all, they all net out. No risk generated in the financial sector can affect the real economy. The financial crisis has clearly exposed the flaws in this assumption. It has led to a misapprehension of the root causes of the crisis and its propagation mechanism. Liquidity and money are key for the ECB’s monetary policy strategy. Far from showing that the ECB’s strategy lacks theoretical foundations, the crisis has borne out our broad-based approach and exposed the incompleteness of the transmission mechanism in the reference model. The second shortcoming of this paradigm is its undue focus on small economic fluctuations around benign states of the economy. This left economists unprepared in terms of being able to predict the crisis and its impact. Third, the paradigm rests on the built-in assumption that the announcement of an inflation target automatically yields credibility.

Monetary policy and asset prices It is worth mentioning the role of asset prices in the conduct of monetary policy. A long series of booms and busts over the past four decades have demonstrated that asset price developments can pose serious threats to macroeconomic and price stability, and that, therefore, central banks cannot simply neglect them. In this respect, it appears that a comprehensive monetary policy strategy, which also gives prominence to money and credit developments, might be better able to “lean against the wind” of financial exuberance. Central banks should be equipped with a broad-based analytical framework for monitoring and analysing in detail such developments. At the ECB, this approach is underpinned by the monetary analysis, the second pillar of our monetary policy strategy. Fiscal policy For many commentators, the financial crisis has underlined the need for a return of the State in managing macroeconomic developments. Of course, together with central bank liquidity support, discretionary government intervention has been key in forestalling a repeat of a 1930s-style depression. However, we are observing a drift in public liabilities that will prove hard to correct with the usual stabilisers. In some countries, this drift actually has nothing to do with the financial crisis. It is rooted in the policy hyper-activism that was already in place before the crisis. And this despite the obvious dangers of an overreactive fiscal stance, which cannot be decided and implemented without long lags. Here, fiscal rules, such as the Stability and Growth Pact in the European Union can help.
4. Impact on the Bank of England objectives  So what does this analysis means for the achievement by the Bank of its statutory objectives? Let me begin with monetary policy. 9  For further discussion of these points, see Carney, M (2015), “Fortune favours the bold”, Speech at Iveagh House, Dublin, 28 January. 10  See Draghi, M (2015), “Stability and prosperity in monetary union”, 2 January. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  4.1  Monetary policy  Put simply, economies with sustainable dynamism can grow more quickly before running into excessive price pressures. The UK’s greater openness as a result of EU membership provides potential for both greater growth and shocks. The MPC naturally takes these into account when setting monetary policy for the UK. While they have posed challenges at times, the influence of EU membership on these dynamics does not prevent the MPC from achieving its price stability objective. Under inflation targeting the MPC has ultimate control over the UK’s nominal destiny, allowing the flexibility of the exchange rate and free capital flows to facilitate adjustment to global shocks. The precise path of that adjustment is a policy choice we are free to make, within the framework provided by our monetary policy remit.

While accommodative monetary policies over an extended horizon may have unintended consequences for certain sectors in the form of excessive risk-taking and misaligned asset prices, we do not currently see any broad based evidence of excesses in the behaviour of banks and other financial institutions and valuations of euro area asset prices. Moreover, euro area countries are in a position to use macroprudential policies to address imbalances should they arise. The stability of the euro area banking sector has improved significantly over the past few years. Bank capital and provisions have been substantially reinforced and bank profitability has started to rise again. However, against the background of a moderate economic recovery, this profitability remains low. Structural factors may also be at play. In addition, in some jurisdictions, a high stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) continues to linger as a legacy of the earlier crisis. As this may constrain banks’ lending capacity and their ability to build up further capital buffers, determined action is needed. Cooperation among all major stakeholders, including governments, banks, regulators and investors, at national and European level, is necessary in order to make substantial progress in this field. Tailored approaches, based on a thorough understanding of country-specific aspects and in the context of a comprehensive strategy that is led as much as possible by the private sector, are needed. The banking supervision arm of the ECB is working from the supervisory perspective, on identifying best practices that can be adopted by individual banks.
These markets are characterized by what economists call a horizontal long-run housing supply curve. Chart 4 shows the ratio of house prices to estimated replacement costs over time for the four sand cities of Las Vegas, Vallejo, Phoenix and Miami. 4 In all four cities, prices relative to estimated replacement costs largely stayed in a tight range between 0.8 and 1.2 over the 1980s and 1990s. However, by 2002 to 2003, house prices broke out of this range and reached values well in excess of 200 percent of the replacement cost in Vallejo and Miami, and 180 percent of replacement costs in Las Vegas and Phoenix. When the bubble burst in these markets, house prices were likely to drop by a large magnitude. Two factors were important in creating uncertainty over which assets were going to suffer losses given a burst of the housing bubble. The first is that not all housing markets experienced a boom. Chart 5 shows the ratio of house prices to replacement costs for Dallas and Chicago. This ratio never broke above 1.2 for Dallas, and peaked at 1.4 for Chicago. An implication is that the default risk on a mortgage (as well as the loss given default) depended not just on the risk profile of the borrower, but also on the specific location of the property. The second factor contributing to the uncertainty over the value of mortgage securities was the lack of transparency in their design.

The costs of such failures were enormous, with prices rising by 750% in the twenty-five years to 1992, more than over the previous two hundred and fifty years. Unemployment was high and growth volatile. The inflation target rose from the ashes of the ERM debacle twenty five years ago this month, marking the point when price stability became the unambiguous objective of UK monetary policy. The new framework was a success, though only a partial one. That’s because, with interest rate decisions still made by the Chancellor, it wasn’t fully credible. Experience teaches that political control of monetary policy decisions suffers from time inconsistency, in which policymakers promise low inflation, then go for faster growth and ultimately achieve neither. Conversely, welfare can be improved if governments first choose the preferred rate of inflation and then delegate operational responsibility to the central bank to achieve it. 2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  2  The UK Framework for Monetary Independence So it was in 1997 when Gordon Brown boldly gave the Bank of England operational control for setting monetary policy. The Bank of England Act of 1998 clarified – for the first time in three centuries – the Bank’s responsibilities. 1  It gave a new independent body of the Bank, the MPC, a clear remit to achieve the inflation target over the medium term. The inflation target is symmetric (meaning we care as much about returning inflation to target from below as from above), and it applies at all times.
That makes monitoring the economy closely, and setting policy to support it, more important than ever. At present, the largest clouds on the economic horizon in the UK come from: the effects of rising numbers of Covid cases across the UK and the accompanying policy measures taken to contain them; risks to business activity and jobs in the light of these public health developments; and the effects of moving to new trading arrangements with the EU at year-end. This unholy trinity of risks give good grounds for caution. Some degree of caution is desirable - in how we socialise, shop and work - to prevent the spread of this awful disease. But we need at the same time to prevent healthy caution morphing into fear and fatalism. Pessimism can be as contagious as the disease - and as damaging to our economic fortunes. Avoiding economic anxiety is crucial to support the on-going recovery. This has important implications for how businesses and policymakers act and communicate. The Fall and Rise of the UK Economy Let me start by running through the fortunes of the economy so far this year. The early months saw a collapse in UK economic activity unprecedented in its speed and scale – a fall in GDP of around a quarter in a matter of weeks. This recession was unique in its source as well as its speed and scale. An extreme shock to public health required extreme public health measures, restricting the flow of goods, services and people.

The currency board arrangements are not just another monetary policy regime. They are a “frame of mind”, a way to view and tackle the economic, political and social processes. Some Western analysts and researchers fail to understand this. But I am sure the contributions by my colleagues from the BNB will clearly illustrate during this conference that the currency board is something more than just a monetary policy regime. Following a dramatic banking and financial crisis in 1996–1997, the economy was stabilised by the introduction of the currency board arrangements, in combination with the strong fiscal  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  discipline, the liberalisation and privatisation of the Bulgarian economy, and the use of a broad range of macroprudential instruments. The current global crisis is not the first one successfully weathered by the Bulgarian economy. In only two decades we have endured the Asian crisis, the Russian Crisis, the “dotcom bubble” burst, the U.S. subprime crisis and the failure of Lehman Brothers, before the euro area financial and sovereign debt crisis came in. But the recent crisis has served as perhaps the biggest “litmus test” for the optimality of our monetary policy regime. We believe that a small open economy, which is not rich in certain commodities or natural resources, cannot succeed in pursuing the so-called independent monetary policy. All these issues will be elaborated today by deputy governor Hristov who will share our experience with you during the afternoon session of this conference.