samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The Federal Reserve has raised its key rate four times, by a total of 1 percentage point. The Bank of England has raised its key rate by 1 percentage point. In October, the People’s Bank of China raised its key rate for the first time in nine years. After rising sharply for several quarters, economic growth in the US slowed somewhat in the second and third quarters of 2004. Looking ahead, growth among our trading partners is projected to moderate, but resource utilisation is expected to increase gradually. Increased global activity has led to rising commodity prices. Oil prices are high. There are still expectations of an increase in international interest rates, but market participants have lowered their growth and interest rate expectations as a result of high oil prices. Growth in the Norwegian economy picked up during the second half of 2003. The low interest rate has contributed to strong growth in private consumption and housing investment. Activity has picked up in service industries and the construction sector. High petroleum investment, the global economic recovery and a weaker krone through 2003 have improved conditions for manufacturing. Profitability is improving for mainland enterprises. There are signs of renewed growth in investment in a number of industries. Imports have expanded markedly. Potential growth in the Norwegian economy is estimated to increase somewhat more than normal this year as a result of increased competition and rationalisation in many sectors.

As I initially explained, the institutional reforms that have been adopted or are being adopted to establish a banking union constitute important progress. But to meet the ultimate objective of strengthening financial stability, implementation is key. And implementation is well under way: the Supervisory Board has held its first three meetings; a Framework Regulation has been prepared and is now the subject of a public consultation; and work is progressing on the supervisory model of the SSM with the Supervisory Manual. One of the first major implementation tests is the comprehensive assessment, the health check of the euro area banking system, which is currently being conducted as a prelude to the SSM becoming operational. Here, the ECB is making good progress in establishing the new structures and ensuring that the exercise will be fair, transparent and stringent. But many more steps still lie ahead of us. A final challenge relates to the macro-prudential arm of the SSM. As you know, the SSM Regulation gives the ECB the power to apply stricter macro-prudential measures than the national authorities if it deems them necessary. We can also advise on the calibration of instruments. This goes some way towards insuring against an inaction bias at the national level, thus improving the prospects for a more stable euro area financial system. We will maintain a clear separation of objectives between the macro-prudential policy framework and monetary policy and a clear hierarchy, with price stability remaining the ECB’s overall primary objective.
By contrast, US hourly labour productivity growth rose from 1.5% to 2.8% over the same periods. Over a period of 20 years we have been the witnesses of a very significant structural change across the Atlantic. From the eighties to the first years of the twenty first century the growth of labour productivity per hour has been multiplied by more than two in the US when it has been divided by two in Europe. Overall in this respect the relative position of the US and of Europe has changed by a factor 4 to the detriment of Europe! It seems to be relatively easy to understand why the US has improved its own productivity. Technological progress in the I.T productive sector in particular has contributed significantly. But even more important has been the effect on productivity of the diffusion of I.T and of innovation in general in all the sectors of the US economy particularly the services sector, with a substantial impact on retail business and on the financial services sector. This is now well documented and research has  1  Groningen Growth & Development Centre database (GGDC) of Groningen University, Netherlands. 2  Second quarter 2005 Eurostat LFS data. 3  OECD (2006) Factbook. Figures for 2005 not yet available. 4  Bureau of Labor Statistics.

2  BIS Review 45/2003  Third, it is extremely difficult to anticipate the future path of interest rates. That is because the Monetary Policy Committee sets rates in response to news in the economy, and that news is inherently difficult to forecast. Each month the Committee makes a careful assessment of the outlook for inflation, and it is that which will guide our decisions on the appropriate level of interest rates. It is over 3 1/2 years since interest rates were last raised - the longest such period since Bank Rate was held constant at 2% through the 1940s. At some point reducing the present degree of monetary stimulus will be necessary in order to keep inflation on track to meet the target. The timing of any such decision will reflect our judgment of the outlook for inflation. Listening to our business contacts and learning from our visits around the UK is an important input into that judgment. To retain the unrivalled degree of stability that we achieved during the “nice” decade will be an even more difficult challenge for the future. The present monetary and fiscal frameworks provide a seaworthy policy vessel, but, as all sailors know, fog, especially statistical fog, can be dangerous. So we must hope that Lady Luck will continue to smile on us. BIS Review 45/2003  3
Credit spreads and measures of future volatility derived from financial market data have fallen, suggesting that investors and savers expect the greater realized stability in growth is likely to endure. Real interest rates at longer horizons have remained relatively low, reflecting at least in part that the global supply of savings has increased relative to demand for investment. A range of different asset prices has risen significantly, and the expected volatility of many asset prices has fallen. These developments in market prices have occurred in the context of important changes in financial intermediation, including the substantial expansion of access to consumer credit and capacity for homeowners to borrow against the equity in their homes, the greater use of financial instruments for transferring and mitigating risk, and the growth of financial flows between countries. And in this context, balance sheets have continued their impressive growth, with assets and liabilities of both households and of economies as a whole growing faster than income. These broad trends are obviously related. Less overall concern about inflation and real risk, the positive outlook for productivity growth, and the increasing depth and sophistication of financial markets, all might be expected to induce an increase in the scale of gross liabilities and assets relative to income, for leverage and net borrowing to increase relative to income. BIS Review 2/2006  1  While policymakers can witness the movements in key financial market variables, it is difficult to say for sure what their implications are for economic fundamentals, that is, for inflation and output.

6 Seven awkward questions, 17/01/19 - https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2019/sam-woods-secondary-competition-objectivefive-years-on 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  3  That is the purpose of the Consultation Paper (CP) we’re launching today: we want to ensure there are ‘no surprises’ from the regulator whether you’re a new bank, a mid-tier bank or on the path between the two. We want to give you the map that gets you up the mountain. To be clear, not all firms will aspire to reach the summit, and that’s just fine. Many will find a sustainable position part way up. But we hope – for those firms with lofty ambitions – that over time the mountain can accommodate many more firms at increasingly high altitudes. The Covid-fog Now, when we embarked on writing this CP – to draw together all the various expectations of growing firms into one coherent guide – we didn’t expect the next major test of the banking sector to come so soon and on such a scale. But I am pleased to say that the banking industry has risen to the challenge of the Covid stress - both in terms of maintaining critical services to customers, and in helping to support individuals and to fund businesses large and small through their period of stress. The crisis is by no means over, but the first phase has shown the capacity of the sector to contribute to the greater good.
These conditions are shaped by developments in the economic program as well as the public debt stock, risk premium, expectations, foreign developments and the behavior of market players in the short-term; while the determining factors in the long-term can be listed as structural reforms and their effects on productivity, net external debt position of the country,  2  18  Alesina, A. ve Perotti, R. (1996), “Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries: Composition and Macroeconomic Effects”, NBER Working Paper, No. 5730. BIS Review 36/2005  cyclical movements in the economy and economic fundamentals such as inflation and growth. To recap, the exchange rate level is not a cause, but an outcome in the floating exchange rate regime. In this framework, the Central Bank operates in the foreign exchange market in two ways. Firstly, it holds foreign exchange buying auctions in order to carry out reserve accumulation. The external debt payment schedule of the public sector and plans for the liquidation of Foreign Exchange Deposit Accounts with Credit Letters in the long-term also increase the importance of the level of the Bank’s foreign exchange reserves under the floating exchange rate regime. Therefore, the Bank holds foreign exchange buying auctions in order to increase the reserves at their disposal at times when the foreign exchange supply gradually increases above foreign exchange demand due to the rise in reverse currency substitution tendency and capital inflow.

It is very difficult to increase the income level and change the saving tendency in the short term. For this reason, the domestic savings deficit should preferably be met by direct foreign capital investments. Graph 10: The Shares of Public and Private Investments in GNP  30 Public  25  Private  (%)  20 15 10 5  2004  2003  2002  2001  2000  1999  1998  1997  1996  1995  1994  1993  1992  1991  1990  1989  1988  1987  0  Source: SIS. Due to the current economic program and the structural reforms in the scope of the program, a transition from a public sector-supported capital accumulation model to a private sector-supported accumulation model occurs, where market conditions are taken as indicators and criteria. The share of the private sector in the national income increases, whereas the share of the public sector declines. It is clear that the private sector-oriented growth plays a major role in achieving sustainable growth by boosting both exports and total industrial production. However, it should be noted that the private sector could not meet the expectations because it could not exploit sufficient resources. This was due to the dominance of the public sector borrowing requirement in the finance sector. Furthermore, the factors that slow down the capital accumulation process include the incomplete tax reform and the  12  BIS Review 36/2005  poor relationship between banking sector and real sector.
The bank therefore contributes to ensuring that the mediation of capital in the economy functions efficiently; it is sufficient that borrowers can convince the bank of their creditworthiness, they do not need to convince each individual saver. Similarly, savers do not have to assess the creditworthiness of every borrower; it is enough to be satisfied of the bank's solvency. The banks can also supply payment services for households and companies by using the existing financial infrastructure, such as accounts and various routines for transferring funds between financial institutions. As these functions are central to an efficient economy, it is evident that major problems can arise if financial stability is upset. This is aptly illustrated by, for instance, the crises in South East Asia at the  BIS Review 21/2006  3  end of the 1990s and by the bank crisis that Sweden and other countries suffered at the beginning of that same decade. While the target of maintaining price stability is relatively straightforward and intuitive, it is more difficult to specify the task of promoting financial stability. This task has also been formulated in slightly different ways in different central banks’ regulations. For instance, the Bank of England’s charter says that it is ”responsible for the overall stability of the financial system as a whole”, while the corresponding task in the regulations for Sweden’s Riksbank has been expressed in a more indirect manner: ”to promote the efficiency and safety of the payment system” 4 .

Yet the challenge remains to meet the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at reducing the number of the world’s poor by half by the year 2015. Unfortunately, improvements in some economic indicators may not be sufficient enough to enable the majority of African countries to meet the MDGs targets.2 Specifically, single digit economic growth rates are not sufficient for tackling the widespread poverty in the continent. According to the African Development Bank, only Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Mauritius will attain the specified targets. The majority of the population of Africa is located in rural areas where agriculture and dependence on natural resources remains the predominant means of livelihood [United Nations  1  As of 10/22/2004, Source: Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year 2004. 2  United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Fact Sheet, Global Environment Outlook – 3, Africa, GEO 3, Nairobi, Kenya, 2003. BIS Review 74/2004  1  Development Programme (UNDP), 2003]. Soil, grasslands, freshwater sources, and oceans play a critical role to sustain crop cultivation, grazing land for livestock, and fisheries. The energy sector equally plays an important role in the African economy due to the dependence of all national economies on oil for their production activities. On one hand, significant dependence on oil exports from countries such as Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Libya is becoming increasingly pronounced.
•  The asset quality in the month under review was satisfactory, with the level of interest earning assets accounting for 77% of total assets compared to 76% for the preceding month. •  The sector’s income before tax amounted to K48,206 million compared to K23,897 million recorded in January. The 100% increase in profit before tax was mainly on account of the following: interest income, which increased by K58,497 million or 93% compared to K11,813 million or 82% increase in interest expenses. Additionally, foreign exchange income in gains and commissions increased by 100% from K30,291 million to K60,857 million. Non-interest expenses increased to K 104,869 million compared to K52,916 million in January 2004. However, the ratio of non-interest expenses to total net income remained at 69%. •  The banking sector’s liquidity position was satisfactory with the liquidity ratio (liquid assets to total deposits and short-term liabilities) remaining constant at 75%. All banks met the prudential minimum ratio of 50%. The deposit concentration at 28% from 31% in January was also well spread. Total deposits to total assets dropped to 71% from 73% in January. Money laundering draft directives •  On 18 March 2004, the BoZ held a consultative workshop with financial institutions, to discuss the draft Money Laundering Directives. Valuable contributions to clarify or strengthen the draft Directives at this well attended workshop were received. The BoZ is now in the process of finalising the said directives.

Mark Carney: Polymer banknotes Remarks by Mr Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, at the Bank of England, London, 18 December 2013. *  *  *  Ensuring public trust and confidence in money is at the heart of what central banks do. Money can only play its invaluable role in our economy if that trust and confidence is maintained. That motivates the Bank of England’s core objectives of price stability, so that people can be confident of the value of their money over time, and financial stability so that they will be able to access and use money when they want to. It is also why we place such importance on maintaining confidence in our banknotes, the most tangible form of money. Our job is to ensure that the banknotes people use are high quality and genuine. We also recognise that banknotes are an important national symbol and a source of national pride. Our banknotes must therefore be secure from counterfeiting, resistant to damage, and designed in a way that inspires broad public support and fosters legitimacy. We are continually working to ensure that our notes meet those requirements. That is why I am pleased to announce today that the next Bank of England notes will be printed on polymer, rather than cotton paper. The first polymer note will be the £ note featuring Sir Winston Churchill, and will be issued in 2016.
The end price of a good is therefore influenced by factors such as the degree of competition, profit margins, wage developments and productivity growth in this sector. The ability to investigate this in greater detail is limited, however, by insufficient data. The part of the distribution sector that involves transportation saw a fall in unit labour costs in 2003 and 2004, while profit margins have recovered somewhat. In the statistics this sector includes a number of less relevant groups, such as restaurants, hotels and communication. In wholesale and retail trade, unit labour costs have increased at a lower and lower rate in recent years, and didn’t rise  4  BIS Review 25/2005  at all in 2004. Meanwhile, profit margins rose slightly after having fallen from 23 to 15 per cent in the past ten years (Charts 8 and 9). In addition, competition in the retail sector has increased considerably in recent times due to the establishment of more and more low-price chains. Among other things, that is being reflected in large-scale marketing campaigns in which one big chain store after another is advertising price cuts. Food prices in the CPI have also dropped. Nevertheless, profit margins appear to have increased slightly in 2004. That may be attributable to increased efficiency as a result of larger shop space, a higher proportion of own brands and possibly a more effective use of IT. Supply factors behind the low inflation This shows that supply factors are the main force driving the low inflation.

The second key challenge is on the external front as the global environment remains uncertain. The lingering euro debt crisis and fragile US recovery continue to weigh on global growth. Policymakers are still grappling with deep-rooted long-term problems, and policy response has been met with mixed success. The recent improvement in market sentiments is a welcomed relief and some tail-risk events may have been averted. Nonetheless, a full recovery is not yet in sight, which adds to uncertainty. Given this backdrop, it is important that the Bank of Thailand remains alert, and retains sufficient policy space to act if and when necessary. The third key challenge is that of a recent surge of capital inflows, whose causes are both domestic and global in their origin. On the one hand, the relatively robust growth momentum in Thailand has been a “pull” factor, attracting portfolio inflows from those seeking to benefit from better economic prospects. At the same time, the low interest rate environment and subdued growth in major economies have helped “push” investors to search for higher risk-adjusted returns elsewhere, particularly in emerging economies including Thailand. The exchange rates of these recipient economies have appreciated as a result, leading to concerns in some quarters about the prospect of growth momentum. In Thailand, some have called on the MPC to lower the policy interest rate to ease the pressure on the baht. A few have gone further to question the suitability of inflation targeting regime for Thailand.
The scale of central bank intervention has been significant, as indicated by the combined balance sheets of central banks in the US, the UK, the euro area, Japan, China and Switzerland, for example. The total now amounts to some USD14 trillion (slide 4), i.e. over 30% of GDP in these currency areas. These exceptional monetary policy measures do, indeed, appear to have exerted downward pressure on interest rates, thus sustaining the real economy in the spirit of the IS/LM model. What are the risks associated with these policies? Despite these positive (short-term) effects, I would first like to argue that the general message of the IS-LM diagram has not been invalidated by recent central bank actions. That is to say, when interest rates are close to zero, it is most appropriate to resort to fiscal policy and monetary policy becomes less effective. Moreover, the current policy-mix can entail risks, to which I would now like to draw your attention. My greatest concern is that the general public could come to overestimate the impact of central banks’ actions and the suitability of their intervention in each and every  1  For a discussion of the impact of fiscal measures in Switzerland between 2008 and 2010, see, “Die Konjunkturmassnahmen des Bundes 2008–2010: Evaluation der Konzeption und Umsetzung der Stabilisierungsmassnahmen,” Swiss Federal Audit Office, May 2012. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  economic situation that is deemed “unsatisfactory”. This could result in central banks being perceived as all-powerful, though such expectations are far from realistic.

Yet, since 2008, many governments have actively used fiscal policy to combat the effects of the crisis and to refinance the banks. As a result, the debt-to-GDP ratios of G7 countries, for example, have increased by an unweighted average of almost 30 percentage points (slide 3). As a consequence, today, the option of implementing new fiscal stimuli has been virtually ruled out. Monetary policy: in the frontline once again When it comes to economic policy matters, central banks have, therefore, returned to the limelight somewhat by default. In the current crisis, monetary policy has proved more effective than the IS/LM model might suggest. This is essentially because central banks have resorted to using various combinations of conventional and unconventional measures to help provide conditions conducive to economic growth in a context of deflationary risks . Here, the aim has often been to impact long rates directly, given that it was no longer possible to influence short-term rates. Several central banks have therefore purchased assets to put pressure on their longerterm yields (quantitative easing). To the same end, some have extended the maturity of the assets on their balance sheets, while others have purchased private sector assets to contribute to the easing of market conditions (credit easing). Meanwhile, others have conducted foreign exchange interventions to reduce pressure on the export sector and to ease monetary conditions. Many have also made implicit or explicit long-term commitments to foster expectations of future low rates.