samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Our forward guidance is clear as to the sequencing: “we expect [the key ECB interest rates] to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases.” There is no doubt within the Governing Council about this sequencing. In all events, we should not consider raising interest rates until we have reached a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation. 4/ The fourth instrument is the provision of liquidity to financial institutions. In October 2008, we introduced the fixed-rate full allotment policy in all our regular refinancing operations. It was designed in order to guarantee banks’ access to liquidity – and this policy is still active today, for both 1-week or 3-month operations. The maturity of this liquidity provision was then extended with the launch of 3-year long-term refinancing operations (LTROs) and, later, targeted longerterm refinancing operations (TLTROs). The latest series of TLTROs provided banks with up to 4year funding at attractive rates – as low as –0.4% – in order to further ease financing conditions. In September 2017, a total of EUR 760 billion is still lent to euro area banks through TLTROs, which is substantial, over 7% of euro area GDP. Before I conclude, let me add a few words on the recent evolution of the euro. A number of factors play a role; monetary policy is only one of them.

The sharp appreciation of the euro has notably been stemming from the significant reappraisal of growth prospects for the euro area, as well as from the geopolitical context. The impact of the strong euro on growth is currently offset by the strength of domestic demand in the euro area; but the recent appreciation of the euro exchange rate has led us to revise down slightly the outlook for inflation. Let me recall that the exchange rate of the euro is not a policy target of the ECB. But the exchange rate remains an element that we closely monitor owing to its possible implications for the medium-term outlook for inflation. I would like to finish by insisting on one word: confidence, but confidence without complacency. 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  Confidence, because our monetary policy is effective and the economic recovery is robust. But confidence without complacency, because monetary policy is not the only game in town. It must be supplemented by national reforms, particularly in France where the current acceleration of reforms is positive. It must also be supplemented at the European level by strengthening the euro area: in order to lastingly boost growth, we must complete Monetary Union by invigorating Economic Union. All those who legitimately reject overloading monetary policy – on both sides of the Rhine – must now firmly support a stronger economic union. Thank you for your attention.
In some cases these might amount to tweaks to avoid unintended consequences; in other cases they will be in response to further evolution in the market itself. And although crystal ball gazing is always a perilous exercise, if you take the agenda for this conference as a guide, then one area likely to remain in focus in coming years is transparency. 5  http://www.globalfxc.org/consultative_process.htm 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  On the one hand the demand for market data will only continue to rise – for example, as end users demand transaction cost analysis tools and analytics to measure the quality of their execution and to predict the optimal time to execute trades. But on the other hand, growing market complexity and greater internalisation of flows tend naturally to reduce the ease with which such data can be accessed. So it’s not hard to imagine that post-trade transparency as one of the areas where further guidance may eventually be needed. Securing success  So far I have focussed on activities: encouraging firms to commit to the Code, investing to ensure it continues to provide up-to-date guidance. Ultimately though, the success of the Code will be judged on outcomes. The aim is to improve market practice and rebuild trust in the FX market – that is what the BIS Governors will be looking at when they come to review progress in three years’ time. Those outcomes are difficult to measure.

One positive indicator would be if firms identify and rectify individual misconduct cases quickly. Another would the absence of widespread conduct issues across firms. But we will want also to understand how the Code is affecting market functioning in a deeper sense. To this end, the GFXC plans to survey regularly market participants. This will enable us to track some of the less tangible indications of success, such how the Code is impacting and improving behaviours – transparency around pre-hedging for example – and how the Code is being embedded in the market through firms’ adherence expectations of their counterparties. An initial survey will be launched later this month, to give a benchmark against which subsequent survey results can be compared. I have no doubt of the commitment of many in the market to ensure success. What is needed now is to embed that attitude across the market as a whole and to ensure that our efforts so far translate into real improvements. Improved culture and attitudes regarding market conduct;  Improved confidence for end users that they are transacting at competitive prices;  And ultimately, a market that more effectively serves its economic purpose. So in closing I would ask again for your help in achieving that change. The success of the Code will depend above all else on the continued efforts of all involved in the market. Central bankers will remain deeply engaged, but to secure success we will be relying on the partnership with market participants that we have fostered.
This is not only exemplary, it is an important lesson we can learn from the crisis for use in the future, and it holds true not only for households but for companies and public entities as well. There are many ways to express this message, but allow me to refer to French classical literature and recall for you Jean de la Fontaine’s celebrated fable about the cricket and the ant: “La cigale et la fourmi”. In the fable, the cricket who had not accumulated surpluses during the plenteous summer days preceding the crisis, found herself “fort dépourvue quand la bise fut venue”, that is, she “found when the winter winds blew free, her cupboard bare as bare could be”. The fact that, in this situation, the ant of the fable was not eager to lend to the singing cricket lends further realism to the analogy. II. Current environment and short-term prospects  What now? We are not yet ashore and the relatively positive assessment of the previous paragraph does not reflect a definitive evaluation. First, private consumption could be less robust should conditions on the labour market improve less than currently anticipated or even deteriorate again. Here the main worry is the ability of the Swiss economy to quickly reabsorb the 60,000 individuals working on a short-time basis. Recently, developments have been encouraging. In turn, the situation of the labour market depends on the continued recovery of the 60% share of the economy that is geared to international markets.

This means, in particular, that for some parts of the economy even being too late will feel as though it is too soon. What is certain is that the current expansionary monetary policy cannot be maintained indefinitely without incurring inflation risks. Therefore, households and firms should prepare themselves for a return, sometime in the future, to a world of higher interest rates, with exchange rates being guided by market forces. This is the normal state of affairs, and all concerned should shake off bad habits learned in extraordinary times and remember that they are ultimately responsible for the long-run viability of their decisions and operations. 2. Safer financial system: regulation  It is here that we have most to learn from recent events, and here that we must adapt. There is a lot that could be said. However, I will be modest and confine myself to putting forward three simple ideas that are becoming part of the general consensus, as outlined in the G20 and FSB agendas. Firstly, it should not be a game of us (the central banks, the regulators, the government) versus them (the banks or their managers, the financial sector). What is at stake is the design of an economic system that is efficient, compatible with the rules of a market economy and favourable to value creation. One essential lesson of the financial crisis is that the system was not properly designed.
In response to certain kinds of developments – in the jargon, so-called “supply shocks” that move output and inflation in opposite directions – inflation can be returned to target relatively slowly in order to minimise harmful fluctuations in output. But this is subject to the “constraint” that inflation ultimately has to be returned to the target and has to be done so in such a way that maintains the target’s credibility. Inflation targeting is not a sham: the discipline of the inflation target is paramount. But it can be operated in a manner that also supports output and employment as long as – and only as long as – our credibility is maintained. Without credibility there can be no discretion. This concern with the consequences for growth and employment within an inflation targeting regime is sometimes referred to as “output smoothing”. Monetary policy does not have the ability to affect the level of output in the long-run, but it can help to smooth out cyclical variations. More recently, it has underpinned references to “flexible inflation targeting”: the MPC has the flexibility to vary the speed with which inflation is returned to target depending on the circumstances.

So had you told me then that 40 years later inflation would be around 1% having hovered around ½% for two years, that Bank Rate would be ¼%, having been stuck at ½% for eight years, I might well have replied that this was as likely as my being invited back here in 2016, to give a speech on economics. (I might also have looked to see what you had been drinking or perhaps smoking.) There are perhaps two lessons in this. The first is that life and the economy never quite turn out as you forecast – in the longer term at least. The second is that in life and in economics you should never stop learning. I want to talk today about some of the possible reasons why Bank Rate is at ¼% and has been stuck at what appears, by reference to history, to be exceptionally low levels in the UK and in other advanced economies. And why long-term interest rates are similarly low. In 1976, you would have had to pay 11% to borrow for a year whereas the long-term rate was 16%. Today, the equivalent figures are ¼% and 2½%. 1  Some of the difference, of course, is inflation and the inflation expectations I and everyone else had back in 1976. Bringing inflation under control in the UK in the 1990s and anchoring inflation expectations at around 2% clearly led to a material drop in nominal interest rates and a drop in the entire nominal yield curve.
In a brutally competitive environment, this short-termism promotes not only excessive risk-taking but a variety of sharp practices, exploitative sales, and even fraudulent transactions. Little wonder that public trust in corporations has diminished in many jurisdictions. 23. Boards and senior management have a critical role in promoting a culture rooted in strong ethical frameworks. They must make clear that serving the customer’s interest, dealing fairly with suppliers and counterparties, following the laws of the land, and not placing the larger society at risk are essential for maximising long-term shareholder value. 24. Directors and senior managers set the tone for what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. The questions they ask – as well as the questions they do not – send strong signals throughout the corporation. Let us ask ourselves: If a particular division in a company is making huge profits, what does the Board and senior management do? Congratulate them and raise the targets? Or ask probing questions about how much risk is being taken, whether there has been fair dealing, and whether all stakeholders have been served? 25. Restoring ethical conduct is particularly relevant for the financial industry. Following the crisis, the industry has fallen into disrepute, especially in the West. Recent revelations arising from the Libor scandal – and this is not unique to London – suggest that the lessons have not been learnt.

These are more acute where the event – for example, a credit default or a windstorm – being modelled happens infrequently and historical data is therefore scarce, where events cluster rather than occur independently or where the underlying process behind the event – for example the structure of the economy or the natural environment – may have changed, so that history is an unreliable guide to the future. In such circumstances, significant uncertainty about model outputs may call for a more prudent approach. And the temptation to add additional parameters, making models more and more complicated, can often have the perverse effect of weakening model performance. This is why, in addition to scrutinising the technical components of models, we also look at the way they are used within firms. Only a good model can play an important role in a firms’ system of governance. Our expectations of their quality are high as Solvency II specifies that they become an embedded part of the risk management system of a firm. It is therefore not only important for us to rigorously assess them but that senior management have ownership of these models and continuously do the same. The Bank of England takes model approval very seriously indeed and we will not hesitate to hold back approval for the use of models where there are risks that cannot credibly be modelled or data are insufficient.
This trip includes meetings with the people at the SUNY Nanotech Center, Global Foundries (an advanced microprocessor plant), the Capital Region Economic Development Council, and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At the New York Fed, we continually track conditions in our District, and we have created a number of tools for that purpose. For example, my staff produces monthly indexes of economic activity for New York City, New Jersey and New York State. These indexes are essentially local measures of output – similar to gross domestic product, or GDP at the national level. These measures provide a more complete gauge of activity than the employment report, which is the only other available metric at the state level. We have also started a consumer panel to track local household credit conditions, including the amount and type of debt owed by an average person and whether payments are being made in a timely way. In addition, we have a new poll about credit and financing for small businesses, the latter are an important source of new jobs. The survey asks firms about credit applications and reasons for not seeking credit. Almost 900 regional businesses responded to our May 2011 poll, of which nearly 15 percent were from the upstate region. The next poll will be in January. If you, as part of a small business, would like to participate in our January poll, please pass your card to my colleagues in the audience.

Zdeněk Tůma: Education as investment in human capital Speech by Mr Zdeněk Tůma, Governor of the Czech National Bank, for the graduation ceremony, The New Anglo-American College, Prague, 20 June 2008. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, It is my pleasure to be here today and to share with you some thoughts that concern the role of education as an investment in human capital in the long-term development of our economy and society in general. Today it’s commonplace for politicians to swear by concepts like investment in education, knowledge-based economy or the effect of education on long-term economic growth. They are also quick to add something about the necessity to pay for university education, at least those on the right wing of the political spectrum. Don’t worry, we haven’t met today to assess individual political ideas, and we all know that sometimes it’s a long road from what politicians say to what they do. However, the fact that you are sitting here today indicates that viewing education as an investment has its place in today’s society regardless of political preferences. I would like to use this opportunity to point out that although the concept of investment in education may be somewhat misused and can have unfortunate overtones for somebody, it has a rigorous theoretical foundation and is of high empirical relevance.
χ2 statistic  Expected rate changes IR months non-IR months  4.41** 0.13 7.54***  Whole period 1997-2000 2001-present  8 5 3  9.09*** 2.23 7.68***  D. Are interest rate surprises larger in Inflation Report months? C. Are interest rate surprises getting smaller?

Access to financial services among the adult population is at 37.3%, the cost of accessing financial services is still high, the quality of financial service  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  delivery can do with some improvement and financial literacy remains low and presents an important factor in explaining the low level of financial inclusion that we see in the country today. The FSDP, Honourable Ministers, therefore, remains work in progress. I would like, however, to mention some milestones which have been achieved under this programme in order to underscore its potential as a tool for transforming for the better, Zambia’s financial sector landscape. Under the FSDP, we have witnessed the establishment of the Credit Reference Bureau which is beginning to play an increasingly important role in helping financial institutions better manage credit risk, which in turn, should feed into less expensive credit. A draft rural finance policy and strategy aimed at improving finance to rural areas has also been completed and awaits implementation. Another important exercise accomplished has been the law review exercise which has reviewed all existing legislation in the financial sector with the view to modernise, harmonise them and ensure that the different legislations speak to each other rather conflict each other. Consequently, we will be submitting to Government amendments to various laws, including those in banking, insurance and the capital market. Another significant accomplishment under the FSDP has been work done so far in formulating a national strategy for financial education.
Regulation implementing Basel III in Europe entered into force two months ago. Tomorrow the European Parliament will discuss the regulation establishing a Single Supervisory Mechanism, an important step towards a European banking union. Under the Single Supervisory Mechanism, one supervisor will have a complete overview of an entire large and interconnected banking group in the context of the  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  single currency. Furthermore, work is being undertaken to address cross-border regulatory inconsistencies. So where do we stand five years after Lehman Brothers and four years after Pittsburgh? Did we achieve the overall goal of improving transparency, mitigating systemic risk and protecting against market abuse in OTC derivatives markets? Are we now better placed to monitor risks building up in the financial system? I will limit myself to three of the many issues covered by this conference: lack of transparency, the challenges remaining in central clearing and inconsistencies in crossborder application. Transparency First, I would like to reflect on one of the main root causes of the financial crisis: the lack of transparency relating to OTC derivatives in general. When I say “in general”, I mean that there was not only a lack of transparency on OTC derivatives at the level of the market, but also at the level of individual institutions and counterparties. There are two dimensions to the lack of transparency: lack of information due to a lack of reporting requirements, and data fragmentation making it difficult to connect the dots and see the full picture.

That makes it all the more important to resist every kind of nationalism or isolationism. Both are however on the rise. That worries me a lot. BILD: In the United Kingdom there will even soon be a vote on a complete withdrawal from the EU… Draghi: I cannot and do not wish to believe that the British would vote to leave, because we are stronger together. But if they do, it should be clear to them that they would lose all the benefits of the Single Market. BILD: If you had a spare wish for Chancellor Merkel, what would that be? Draghi: That she continues to fight for Europe. BILD: And one last question. The Bundestag has invited you again: will you go? Draghi: Of course. It will be my pleasure. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
That would open the way to the immediate setting up of the European Central Bank so that it could complete its preparations for the irrevocable fixing of exchange rates with effect from 1st January 1999. It is important to be clear what the irrevocable fixing of exchange rates means. It does not mean that the participating national currencies would instantly disappear. They would continue to exist initially as separate denominations, or sub-units, of the euro, which would have become a currency in its own right. The DM or French franc or whatever would in effect relate to the euro just as pence relate to the pound - except that the fixed conversion rate would be a great deal more complicated, extending to six significant figures! There would be no euro banknotes or coins at that stage, only book entries in euro-denominated bank accounts for those who wished to use them. No-one would be compelled to use the euro; but equally no-one would be prohibited from using it or offering euro-denominated facilities. The European Central Bank and the National Central Bank members of the European System of Central Banks would denominate their transactions in financial markets in euro, although euro-denominated amounts would be convertible into national currency denominated amounts and vice versa through the payments system for those that wished. To provide added impetus, national governments will denominate new debt issues in euros, and some at least may also convert their outstanding debt to the euro-denomination.

And interest rates have been lower and less volatile over this period than they have been for more than thirty years. Some people, it’s true, still say to me that all this has not had much effect on them - it’s not like it was in the boom times! And I recognise, of course, that economic conditions do vary across regions and sectors and between individual companies. More than ever before it’s a tough competitive world. But what most people say to me these days is that steady growth and low inflation is exactly what they want so that they can make rational, long-term, decisions in their own businesses, which is what enables them to face the global competition. The major preoccupations that I hear are about whether our recent, more stable, economic environment will continue, and about the implications - good or bad - for that environment of a move to a single European currency. Let me say a word first about our domestic economic prospects before turning to Europe. In fact, Mr. Chairman, we set out the Bank’s views on the domestic economy at some length in our quarterly Inflation Report only last month. But in summary we have seen a gradual pick-up in the pace of activity over the past year, driven by domestic demand - notably consumer spending - so that the money supply and both demand and output are now growing at above-trend rates. Other things equal we would expect that to continue.