samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In conclusion, I would like to bring another matter of concern to your attention. While preparing for this meeting, we faced difficulties in finding useful statistical information on the demographic and economic activity of Fier district. Taking into account the opportunities it has to offer, the reported statistics do not make this district distinguishable or comparable to the other regions inside or outside Albania. It would be of interest, for instance, to have detailed information on the free capacities in agriculture and industry; average profitability; non-utilized labour market resources, the level of education and human capital; unit labour costs, and capital and final product cost per unit;  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  prices of other factors of production, and so on. The lack of these indicators makes it hard, and even impossible, to evaluate and compare the business plans that may potentially be introduced to the financial institutions or other national or international partners. It should not be forgotten that in the global era, the real competition for Fier region does not stand in the other regions of Albania, but in those similar in the European economies and emerging countries. At present, we do not compete with these economies as we are not and won’t be able to be part of the global market as long as we are not “quoted” in real time, using the same methodology and figures that allow the comparison of costs and opportunities.

The most disruptive feature of bitcoin was its underlying technology, which has since then been offered in different versions of DLT underlying various types of assets and uses. Second-generation crypto-assets now embed smart contracts that have led to the development of new services and products, the last being NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Among second generation crypto-assets, so-called stablecoins or backed-assets try to reduce their volatility by anchoring themselves to fiat currencies and sovereign assets. Still, they create fragmentation, and are fraught with regulatory and operational uncertainties. Here too there are historical precedents: free banking in the 18th and 19th centuries, when each private bank issued its own banknotes. It had major drawbacks, such as credit risk embedded in settlement assets. The introduction of central bank money as a common and safe settlement asset was a major breakthrough and since then has become the rule – in the best interest of all  Page 2 sur 3 economic agents. It is now a public good, and taken for granted at least in advanced economies. We, central bankers, have mixed feelings towards crypto-assets: on the one hand, they bring innovation and meet some expectations, especially in emerging economies; on the other hand, they carry significant potential risks, related to money laundering, breach of data privacy and high volatility among others. Although our mandates fully enshrine stability, resisting innovation is not in our DNA, on the contrary. Financial stability without innovation would mean conservatism; innovation without financial stability would feed distrust, and hence be unsustainable.
The technological breakthrough, based on the microchip and the computer, that together with the new information techniques has come to be known as the “new economy” is something that is very much alive and will leave its mark on many countries, including Sweden, for a long time to come. The present economic downturn, which to some extent is a hangover after excessively optimistic expectations, will give way to another upswing. That will impart renewed vigour to the technological breakthrough that the global economy is experiencing. However, we do not know either just how deep the ongoing slowdown will be or just when it will bottom out. But it would be hard to argue that this will not happen. The underlying cyclical rhythm with upward and downward phases in economic activity has always been there. Economic history also contains periods of what I would call “growing pains”. Things do not always turn out as well as people often hope, or at least they do not happen as quickly, but neither are they ever quite as bad as we sometimes fear. My conclusion about the technological breakthrough’s impact on corporate profits is maybe not quite as optimistic, at least for share investors. Roughly speaking, historical experience indicates that the true winners are consumers, not shareholders. That conclusion is perhaps even more valid today since the breakthrough is very much a question of information. Better informed consumers tend to lead to stronger competition and depressed profit margins rather than the opposite.

Priority 5: Improving cooperation and partnerships The fifth area relates to that which has been highlighted in the theme for this Forum, the need for greater cooperation and innovative partnerships. The goal of achieving financial inclusion that delivers real and positive impact to the poor is a shared responsibility. The barriers to financial inclusion can only be resolved when different stakeholders, each with different spans of authority and oversight, work together in a coordinated and cohesive manner. It will need to involve the cumulative efforts of the government, regulators, market agents, the financial industry and the consumers. At the national level, improving inter-agency cooperation is vital to ensure that the respective strategies are aligned to achieving the common goals of financial inclusion. This may call for institutional arrangements to bring authorities together to secure a joint commitment towards clearly defined and measurable financial inclusion goals, with well-defined lines of accountability. Brazil, Mexico, Tanzania, Indonesia and Fiji have also established national  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  co-ordination frameworks, which offer AFI members diverse examples of such national collaboration. While we focus on financial inclusion initiatives at the national level, equally important is that adequate attention be accorded at the global level. In this regard, AFI assumes a unique role because it is the only global network that comprises of practising financial inclusion policy makers.
But we also need to be cautious when interpreting the labour share. First, looked at over a longer horizon, it is clear there has been a fall in labour’s share of income in the UK over the past 60 or so years. Since 1955, the labour share has fallen by around 10 percentage points, falling sharply during the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, the level of the UK labour share today, at 52%, is similar to advanced economies as a whole (around 51%), many of which have experienced falls more recently. 10  Second, looking at the sources of labour income is also important. These comprise not only wages and salaries, but also defined-benefit pension contributions from companies and social contributions. While technically-speaking these are all income, they are not always equivalent when it comes to thinking about the wage bargaining process and spending patterns. The distribution of these different sources of income may also be uneven across cohorts of workers. Take defined-benefit pension contributions. For those still in work, these are deferred income that cannot easily be spent today. With most defined-benefit schemes having closed, this income also only accumulates to a subset of (mostly older) workers. As these pension contributions have risen recently as a share of total income, the resulting boost to labour income will have been spread unevenly across generational cohorts and the increase in the average worker’s true purchasing power may have been exaggerated.

For countries where SME-credit evaluation skills are scarce, the centralisation of expertise using such an arrangement would be able to facilitate this as banks build their capacity. There have also been a wide range of innovative financial products and services to support this agenda. A highly successful programme in Malaysia has been the RM2 billion SME Assistance Guarantee Scheme which was established in February 2009 to ensure that viable SMEs adversely impacted by the economic slowdown would have continued access to financing. Under this scheme, SMEs are able to obtain financing with an 80% guarantee cover provided by the Credit Guarantee Corporation. The cost of the guarantee was borne by the Central Bank. This scheme has assisted about 10,000 SMEs from all sectors of the economy in sustaining their businesses and preserving employment. Venture capital and private equity funds are required to provide early stage financing for innovative SMEs. Due to the highly specialised focus of such funds, it is common for fund-offunds to be established as a pooling mechanism for the purpose of risk diversification. However, the success of these forms of financing depend very much on the enabling environment in terms of availability of talent as well as deep and relatively well developed equity market for early stage investors to “exit”. Finally, micro financing is important to provide access to funding for micro enterprises. There are now many highly innovative schemes to achieve outreach, including by mobile banking and agent banking. Critical to the success of such financing is pricing and accessibility.
Instilling values in the financial sector strengthens trust of the people which benefits the public at large. The VBI initiative is envisaged to shape proactive behaviour amongst industry players. For the Islamic finance industry, the move towards embracing VBI is another hallmark in our journey to manifest the larger aspiration of Islamic finance. Islamic banks, with its natural affinity towards social justice are well-positioned to lead this agenda and become the prominent and leading agent of positive change. However, the momentum of VBI is only sustainable through collective endeavours that prompt a shift in our paradigm and change in our actions. It is only with our strong commitment that we can translate the VBI vision into reality. 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches

There is hardly any good reason for different risk weightings on similar loans given by a domestic bank and a branch of a foreign bank. With these thoughts on central banks and macroprudential policies, I would remind you that we organize this conference hoping that we shall be able to take something useful away for our further work on financial stability. I would like to thank the program committee for putting together what looks like an engaging program. I wish all of you good luck and hope you shall have fruitful discussions in the next two days. 2  BIS Review 112/2010
The last step in this process will be made with the cash changeover at the end of this year; it will enable not only enterprises but all our citizens to enjoy all the advantages of using the same monetary instrument throughout the European continent, just like Americans do today throughout the territory of the United States. b/ Moreover, the introduction of the euro brings about a significant change in the economic and financial environment. 4  BIS Review 28/2001  The introduction of the euro has been a strong catalyst for mergers and acquisitions in the euro area. The European M & A market seems to be amongst the most dynamic in the world: with operations totalling over 900 billion euros in 2000, it is now catching up on the American market. The euro has brought about significant changes for participants in financial markets and has fostered structural developments in the financial industry. This is true both on euro-area money markets and on capital markets. –  From the beginning of Stage Three of EMU, cross-border transactions in the money market increased so as to represent more than 50% of the total activity in all segments of the money market. The unsecured deposit interbank market - which is mostly concentrated on shorter maturities - exhibits a very high degree of integration. The integration of interest-rate markets within the euro area is a key achievement which deserves to be underscored. EONIA and EURIBOR have provided the market with uniform benchmarks fully accepted by all market participants.

Once a month, immediately after the meeting of the Governing Council, the President of the ECB holds a press conference- which starts with a precise exposition of the diagnosis of the Governing Council which is immediately made available in real time on the ECB website. This will be the case when we will meet next Wednesday in Frankfurt. It is extremely important to stress that the Eurosystem was the first in the world to introduce, on the 1st January 1999, the concept of regular, frequent, real-time transparency in the domain of monetary policy. This illustrates the extent to which some criticisms are profoundly unjust! It is especially noteworthy, in this regard, that soon after we had embarked upon this new concept of real-time transparency, other important central banks decided to go along the same path. Being accountable for an independent institution in a modern democracy or, as it is the case for the Eurosystem, in a subtle set of democracies like the European Union, means being accountable to public opinion at large. In this respect, the public speeches and testimonies of the President of the ECB for the benefit of both European institutions and public opinion, the public speeches and testimonies of the Governors of the National Central Banks to national institutions and public opinion, are crucial. Explaining tirelessly the reasons and the reasoning that underpin the decisions of the Governing Council is a key part of our  2  BIS Review 28/2001  collective duty.
Whatever the criticisms, European integration has come a long way, not least in the financial field. The acronym “FSAP” in its specific European meaning has been successful in bringing increased efficiency and access, and lower costs to many, but more needs to be done, for instance for retail transactions. The flip side of integration is increased dependence and greater risk for contagion from developments in other countries. In the financial field we face this mainly in the cross-border operating banks and other major financial institutions and also in the infrastructure for the conduct of payments and settlements. But financial stability may also be indirectly affected by real sector developments, such as real estate prices. I can see two alternative ways of structuring a regional European FSAP. It could either be founded on a “whole region-approach” identifying the general situation and then analysing how various developments affect overall stability; or it could start from the individual countries and analyse how each country might be affected by influences from abroad – be it through their financial groups at home, abroad or through other channels, including the payment infrastructure such as regional exchanges. The analyses of a number of countries could then be added together to form a relevant  BIS Review 52/2006  3  region, which could be the EU, the euro area, the EEA, some subset thereof or even one of these regions plus one or more financially important systems in the neighbourhood, such as Switzerland. My leaning would be toward the second one.

In a multi-country FSAP you must give increased emphasis to the cross-border weaknesses and channels in addition to the domestic ones. A regional FSAP might include an analysis of efficiency aspects. The financial system may be robust but is it efficient? It is possible to regulate a financial system to ensure a very low level of risk, but the cost in terms of reduced efficiency may not be worth the gain. But on the other hand, the cost of a crisis can be so large that building adequate prevention makes good sense. A reasonable balance must thus be found between on the one hand efficiency and on the other hand the degree of regulation and the ways to implement it. Conclusion The whole FSAP process, which uses large resources in manpower and financial costs, was created to meet a specific purpose: to reduce the incidence of financial sector problems. It is as yet too early to prove whether this goal has been met. It is a fact that there have been fewer cases of major financial crises since 1999, when the FSAPs started, but this might also be attributed to the fact that global economic development has been generally positive during this period. It is also a fact that compliance with preconditions and with regulatory standards has improved since the FSAPs started – as an important example, the minimum capital ratios for banks have increased globally. However, we can all see that much remains to be done worldwide, including in our own countries.
In the short term, however, an economy can grow at a different rate than its potential. If growth surpasses the potential rate, demand will gradually exceed supply. This creates upward pressure on prices, mainly because wages rise quicker. In order to compensate themselves for these wage increases, firms are forced to raise prices. Consequently inflation rises, which also erodes the value of recent wage increases. In the worst-case scenario, this results in a wage-price spiral, which greatly undermines the conditions for favourable growth in the real economy. It is then that the Riksbank is forced to intervene and raise interest rates. But another implication is that the higher the underlying potential growth rate, the less probable it is that bottlenecks and price pressures will arise in the economy, and the more probable it is that the Riksbank can refrain from intervening. This is why long-term potential growth is so important for all monetary policy assessments. The Lisbon agenda entails greater reform pressure So what does the Lisbon agenda entail? And what kind of reforms need to be implemented to raise long-term potential growth? BIS Review 45/2003  1  According to the agreement of the heads of state and government during the Lisbon summit, the reforms should, for instance, aim to increase employment in the European Union to at least 70 per cent of the economically active population, and should lead to a potential growth rate approaching 3 per cent.

The financing of the state pension systems are of vital importance for the taxpayers’ confidence in the economy. If we have learned anything from recent economic developments, it is that households and firms have become better and better at putting things in context, and to change their behaviour accordingly. When forward-looking taxpayers have realised the obvious - that the pension systems  BIS Review 45/2003  3  sooner or later must be overhauled - it has also affected their behaviour. Because in the end, the taxpayers have to foot the bill when the systems are underfinanced - either by way of higher pension charges or lower benefits. Irrespective of which, uncertainty results in households preferring to save a little extra rather than consume. This could also be one explanation to why saving in many central European countries has remained at a comparatively high level. It is therefore pleasing that steps have now been taken in the three largest euro area economies to reform their pension systems. Even if these reforms are insufficient to secure the government finances in the long term, they are important stepping stones towards healthier economic growth. Tax and benefit systems a key question for the labour supply Income tax and benefit systems are also important for long-term potential growth in a country, particularly in countries with a high tax burden. It is indeed not possible to establish with certainty that a high tax burden in itself would constitute a limitation to growth in the long term.
The charge that central banks are out of monetary ammunition is wrong, but the widespread absence of global price pressures demands that our firepower be well aimed. Indices of policy uncertainty are about 1¼ times their pre-crisis averages in the US and Japan, and as high as three times in China. In the UK, progress since the financial crisis has been more than totally unwound this year with the measure having risen to five times its precrisis average by the start of the official referendum campaign (Chart 3). 5  A closely watched measure of economic uncertainty – the VIX – spiked when the global financial crisis hit. Measures that combine this with other sources of economic uncertainty, such as dispersion among forecasters’ growth projections, households’ unemployment expectations, and currency volatility, show clear variation over time, and rise at times of economic stress. See Haddow, A, Hare, C, Hooley, J and Shakir, T (2013) “Macroeconomic uncertainty: what is it, how can we measure it and why does it matter?”, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Q2. 6  One way some of this has been measured is again to count occurrences in media articles of references to economics, uncertainty, and policy terms like “deficit”, “regulation” or terms relating to monetary policy. See: Baker, S, Bloom, N and Davis, S (2015), “Measuring economic policy uncertainty”, NBER Working Paper No. 21633, October. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  While clearly these three uncertainty measures are related, distinct movements are visible.

To emerge from an uncertain world with confidence, people and businesses need a fixed point by which to navigate. Once identified, everyone can then play a role supporting the strategy to get us to our destination. That strategy must be grounded in the bedrock of the UK’s existing macro policy institutions and frameworks. That means fiscal policy anchored in a clear commitment to long-run sustainability and buttressed by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. And it means respecting the frameworks for the other major arms of macroeconomic policy as they are set out in statute and conducted by the Bank of England. The Bank has clear remits and can deploy a wide range of instruments. With its goals defined by Parliament, the Bank has operational independence. Its policy strategies and communications are decided by independent, expert committees whose members are individually accountable to Parliament for their analysis and policy actions. The Bank conducts policy consistently, transparently and accountably. Its policy committees are straight with the British public about the risks and trade-offs in the pursuit of our objectives. This institutional framework is critical to reduce uncertainty and essential to promote prosperity. With this backdrop, let me now describe the concrete steps the Bank has taken to address uncertainty and how we can be expected to act in the weeks and months ahead. 3.1  Financial policy  Let me begin with financial policy.