samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Low but gradually rising inflation Inflation in Sweden has been low for a long period of time and we devoted extra space to this fact in the July report.1 It is not so strange that inflation has been low, given the Swedish economy’s dependence on global economic activity. One of the main reasons is that prices of Swedish import goods have been low. This is largely due to global economic activity being weak and having affected global export prices, but the stronger Swedish krona has also  1  A more detailed analysis of the development of inflation is included in the article “The development of costs and inflation” in the Riksbank’s Monetary Policy Report published in July 2013. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  contributed. Another reason is that companies have not raised their prices to the same extent as their costs have increased. The low price mark-ups are partly due to demand being lower than normal and to the considerable uncertainty over international developments. In July we assessed that inflationary pressures would gradually increase over the coming years, as Sweden and other countries recover. This means that CPIF inflation is expected to reach 2 per cent in 2015. CPI inflation is expected to be higher than the target of 2 per cent at the end of the forecast period, which is due to mortgage rates rising when the repo rate starts to increase as the economy improves. Let me describe in more detail the factors expected to contribute to the upturn in inflation.

Pillar 2 recognises that national supervisors may have different ways of entering into such discussions and provides flexibility to accommodate those differences. At the same time, Pillar 2 will ensure that supervisors share insight  2  BIS Review 42/2003  into their approaches with others and will foster a better understanding among supervisors and bankers about the differences in national regulatory practices. Over time, discussions among supervisors will undoubtedly improve our understanding of each other’s processes and promote information sharing and cooperation among regulatory agencies. Consequently, Pillar 2 should help us to reduce the supervisory burden on globally active banking organisations and foster more consistent supervisory approaches and practices across national borders. This corresponds directly to the mandate of the Committee’s Accord Implementation Group, or “AIG”. The AIG was set up at the end of 2001 under the Chairmanship of Nick Le Pan of the Canadian Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, and Vice-Chair of the Committee. The group comprises high-level supervisors from member countries, who share planned approaches to implementation. The intention is that this exchange of information should enhance the consistent application of the New Accord and thereby promote a level playing field - which we all agree is an important objective. In this sense, the AIG has a practical focus, while policy issues remain the responsibility of the Committee itself. Home / host implementation issues on a world-wide basis. This brings me to the second topic on my list, which is home/host implementation issues.
Mary will say a lot more about this in her keynote address, so let me highlight briefly some of what MAS has been doing on this front. MAS has conducted a stocktake of culture and conduct practices across selected financial institutions. Our supervisors had extensive one-on-one conversations with not just the management of these financial institutions but staff across the ranks. These conversations allowed our supervisors to gain insights on the staff’s perceptions of culture and their level of risk awareness. They helped us develop a keener sense of: whether the tone-from-the-top echoed from the bottom; and whether the organisational values plastered on the walls of the board room were practised on the ground. What have we found? Culture and conduct practices are uneven in the industry. Many financial institutions still struggle to articulate the conduct risks they face. Many are only starting to develop tools and indicators to obtain a holistic, cross-functional view of the culture within their organisation. What’s next? MAS with the banks have set up a steering group to identify emerging trends in conduct and behaviour as well as share best practices in “getting the culture right”. MAS has also set up a small behavioural sciences unit to build up our capabilities in this 4/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  area and support our supervisors with methodologies to get a better understanding of culture and conduct issues in the institutions they supervise. Let me conclude. Financial institutions have restored their capital, but not public trust.

Anita Angelovska Bezhoska: The Republic of Macedonia has accessed the highest statistical data dissemination standard of the IMF - SDDS Plus Address by Ms Anita Angelovska Bezhoska, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the event marking the adherence of the Republic of Macedonia to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus, Skopje, 1 February 2019. * * * Dear ladies and gentlemen,  It is my great pleasure that the idea which at the national level was initiated by the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia several years ago, and accepted and actively supported by the State Statistical Office and the Ministry of Finance, today is already a reality. On 28 January this year, the Republic of Macedonia officially became a member of the highest statistical standard of the International Monetary Fund – SDDS Plus. We have jointly succeeded our country to become part of an international data dissemination initiative, which so far included only seventeen countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Japan... The Republic of Macedonia is the eighteenth country in the world, the second from Southeast Europe, and the first among the countries of the region that are still not members of the European Union. This successful project is a clear confirmation of the commitment of the three institutions for the continuous upgrading of national statistics and their harmonization with the latest, highest international statistical standards. What actually does this standard represent?
Sargent and Wallace (1981), Leeper (1991), Bianchi and Melosi (2018)) examine the implications for monetary policy of an exogenous and unsustainable path for fiscal policy; another (e.g. Dixit and Lambertini (2003)) considers the strategic interaction between the two when the monetary authority has more conservative objectives for output and inflation than the fiscal authority. There may, of course, be gains to co-ordination even if both authorities recognise the same social welfare function but are assigned different parts of it, particularly when commitment is not possible for either, but the most severe problems nonetheless result from explicit disagreements. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  the period before the crisis than afterwards8. And the same is true of the actual level of Bank Rate. Unsurprisingly, given the importance of movements in credit supply in driving the economy, first up and then down, the two instruments would’ve moved in the same direction. Chart 2: Period of low interest rates has  Chart 3: UK inflation was relatively low in the  coincided with weak growth in lending, asset  pre-crisis period  prices  Sources: Bank of England, Nationwide, Halifax/IHS Markit, Thomson Reuters Datastream, Office for National Statistics, and Bank calculations. Equity prices are for an index of UK-focused equities. Nominal variables are transformed to real using the consumption deflator. Data are for the decade to/from 2007 Q3. Source: Office for National Statistics. That’s not to say there was no tension at all between the two objectives prior to the crisis.

According to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median tenure of workers ages 25 to 34 is only three years – less than a third of the tenure among people aged 55 to 64 years old. 1 And, according a Future Workplace “Multiple Generations@Work” survey, 91 percent of “millennials” (that is, a person born between 1977 and 1997) expect to stay in a job for less than three years. Job-hopping can speed career advancement. Getting a promotion in the process of changing jobs allows employees to avoid the “dues paying” that can keep workers in a painfully slow rise up the corporate ladder. Job hopping can also lead to greater job fulfillment. A 2012 survey by Net Impact 2 found that 88 percent of all workers considered “positive culture” important or essential to their dream job, and 86 percent said the same for work they found “interesting.” The same survey found that millennials are the least satisfied in their careers. I also recognize that firms are no longer just competing with others in the financial sector for talent. With skills that can be adapted across multiple industries, the talent pool that was once specialized for financial firms is now spread thin. This puts pressure on the firms and gives talented workers the advantage of being selective in their roles. They demand more from hiring managers and sense other opportunities out there if they’re not satisfied.
This reflects trends that point to smaller household sizes; the young moving out from family homes earlier, including to take jobs in urban cities; and an ageing population preferring to remain in their homes than move in with their adult children. Such demand pressures have been further compounded by income levels that have not increased in tandem with the increase in house prices. All told, the shortage in affordable housing based on 2014 data is estimated at 960,000 units. This could rise to one million units by 2020 if further measures are not taken to increase supply of affordable houses and improve affordability. Financing measures implemented by the Bank along with fiscal measures by the Government between 2010 and 2013 did in fact achieve this to a certain degree. House price growth has 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  since moderated to 5.5%, closer to income growth, following measures taken to dampen speculative activities in the housing market and manage high household debt levels. Lending standards that are more aligned with the level of income have also encouraged private developers to shift their focus to the more affordable segments which should help improve supply conditions. Approval rates for housing loans by the banking sector remain high at 74%, with more than 60% of the new housing loans extended for house purchases below RM500,000. Loan rejection rates for houses in the affordable segment have actually been on a declining trend, falling by 18% since 2012.

This underscores an important truth. Housing is not just about putting a roof over our heads, nor is it only a personal or financial issue. Assuring housing stability helps ensure that households can meet other basic needs and establish roots that build stronger communities. The challenges facing affordable housing are also complex and call for multiple stakeholders to work together to find solutions that will deliver desirable outcomes over the long term. It therefore has much broader socio-economic dimensions that concerns all of us. It is firstly crucial to frame the issue of affordable housing correctly. Fundamentally, the issue is one of a large and growing mismatch between demand and supply, owing to significant changes in our housing markets and demographic shifts. Prior to 2012, investor purchases of multiple homes increased very sharply, crowding out first-time homebuyers and pushing up prices of homes across the board in preferred locations. At its peak, the growth in housing loans taken out to buy second and third homes exceeded 15%. This excludes cash purchases. This in turn drove a higher concentration of new supply in higher priced segments, further widening the demand-supply gap for affordable homes. By 2012, annual house price growth had risen above 11%, almost four times the 10-year average house price growth between 2000 and 2009. Demand for affordable homes has also increased rapidly from the higher rate of net new household formation.
The first is the pressure that strong growth in Asia and other rapidly growing emerging market economies is placing on the markets for energy and other natural resources. We have already seen this pressure reflected in a strong upward move in global energy and commodity prices since the early 2000s, as Chart 5 shows. After a brief respite during the financial crisis, this upward pressure on energy and commodity prices has resumed as the world economy has bounced back from recession. The oil price is back above $ and while there has been a modest correction in commodity prices over the past month, this seems likely to be a short-term pause in the upward trend rather than a fundamental readjustment. Chart 5 – Real oil and commodity prices since 1980 Deflated by US consumer price index; 2000=100 S&P GSCI Agriculture and Livestock index  350  S&P GSCI Industrial Metals index  300  Brent crude spot price 250 200 150 100 50 0 1980  1985  1990  1995  2000  2005  2010  . Source: IMF and Thompson Datastream It is no coincidence that this upward pressure began to emerge in the early 2000s and has continued for the best part of a decade now. The rapid growth we have seen in Asia and other emerging market and developing economies has been very resource-hungry. The effects of this can be seen in the pattern of global energy consumption, shown in Chart 6.

Caleb M Fundanga: Bringing banking facilities closer to the people in Zambia Speech by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the official opening of the Stanbic Bank Matero Branch, Matero, Lusaka, 2 February 2005. *  *  *  •  Your Excellency, the South African High Commissioner to Zambia, Mr. Mzwandile Masala  •  Honourable Chance Kabaghe, MP - Matero Constituency  •  Your Worship the Deputy Mayor of Lusaka  •  The Town Clerk, Lusaka City Council  •  Stanbic Africa Regional Director, Mr. Robert Mbugua  •  Representative of Stanbic Africa Retail, Mr. Lincoln Mali  •  Managing Director of Stanbic Bank Zambia, Mr. Larry Kalala  •  Distinguished Invited Guests  •  Ladies and Gentlemen. I feel extremely honoured to have been invited to officiate at this important occasion to mark the official opening of the Stanbic Bank Matero Branch. Sometime last year, Stanbic Bank management informed me that they would be opening two new branches, namely the Arcades Branch and the Matero branch, and asked me to choose which one I would prefer to officiate at. Without much hesitation, I choose to officiate at the opening of the Matero Branch. The reason was very simple. For those of you that are familiar with the development of the city of Lusaka, you will recall that Matero compound is one of the oldest communities in Lusaka.
6  BIS Review 16/2005  Chart 1: Absolute changes in quarterly inflation  Percentage points 6.0  RPI  5.0  Consumption deflator  4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0  1960  1965  1970  1975  1980  1985  1990  1995  2000  S ource: Bank of England and O NS  Table 1: Average absolute changes in quarterly inflation and GDP growth  RPI 1960-1979  Consumption Deflator  1.10  0.76  1960-1972  0.83  0.57  1973-1979  1.58  1.11  1.19 0.79  0.59 0.34  1980-1992 1993-2004  GDP growth 1.45 1.18 1.93 0.69 0.34  Table 2: RPI inflation persistence  1947-1972 1972-1992 1992-2004  BIS Review 16/2005  0.56 0.91 -0.05  7  Chart 2: Bank of England repo rate and two-week forward curves  Per cent 6.5 6.0  Outturns  5.5  Nov 03 IR  5.0  Feb 05 IR  4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  Source: Bank of England  Chart 3: Earnings growth and unemployment  Average earnings in Q4 (percentage change on a year earlier) 30.0  1971 - 79  25.0  1980 - 89  1980  20.0  1990 - 99 1990  1971  15.0  2000 - 2004  10.0  2000  5.0 0.0  -6.0  -4.0  -2.0  0.0  2.0  4.0  6.0  LFS unemployment rate in Q1 (per cent of workforce)  8  BIS Review 16/2005  Diagram 1: Inflation process Labour costs Output prices  Demand pressures  Imports (directly consumed)  Other costs Distribution sector  CPI inflation  Chart 4: Inflation expectations  Per cent 8.0  6.0  Inde x-linke d gilts  4.0  2.0  Cons e nsus  0.0 1989  1992  1995  1998  2001  2004  Source: Consensus and Bank calculations.

Against this backdrop, the facing of the economic activity contraction at a global level remains an open issue. The Euro area economy is already experiencing an economic slowdown. Euro area GDP contracted in the third quarter while the unemployment rate reached 7.8 percent in November 2008. The U.S. economy showed quite similar features. The further contraction of economic activity – owing to the deterioration of financial indicators in the U.S. corporate and household balance sheets, mirrored in lower consumption spending and reduced aggregate investment – drove the unemployment rate to reach 7.2 percent. Monetary and financial stimuli managed by central banks and the ministries of finance have helped to bolster confidence and relieve pressure on the financial institutions. Against this backdrop, the “resilience” shown by emerging countries is displaying the first signs of weakening. In contrast to the first half of 2008, the latest data attest to the moderation of economic growth rates in the majority of these countries. The channels through which the slowdown in advanced economies has affected the emerging countries differ depending on their development characteristics. China and India have been severely hit by the slowdown in exports; Russia had hard times owing to the slump in raw material prices in the global market, while East European countries have been impacted by the tightening of funding conditions on a global level.
Meanwhile, we are in the process of negotiating with National Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, National Bank of Serbia, etc. I estimate that regional co-operation is an important forerunner of the integration process of the region with the rest of Europe; therefore I will not stop working to encourage a regional co-operation of high standards among the financial systems of Balkan countries. I hope that you share the same opinion with me, because only in this way, our region will be more credible and efficient to have its European dream. On the other hand, a developed and financially integrated region will be more attractive for foreign strategic investors, opening up the path toward regional development projects, particularly infrastructure ones where region’s banks might be the financing and co-financing ones. Further on I would like to give you an overview on some different issues of importance for the future of the Albanian banking system. In diverse meetings organised by the Bank of Albania with the banking community and other actors on relevant opportunities, a range of problems were highlighted and evidenced of which I think there is still room for a joint commitment, of both the Bank of Albania and, of course, the banking system. In my capacity of Governor of the Bank of Albania I would like to ensure the banking community that the institution I govern is open for an institutionalised co-operation with the banking system by channeling it through the Albanian Association of Banks.

These developments will push up inflation and imply that the policy rate must be set higher than we envisaged earlier for inflation to return to target. Price stability is essential for a well-functioning economy. High inflation is weakening household purchasing power, and lower-income households with the smallest margins are being hit hardest. Borrowers are facing higher interest rates on top of high inflation, and many will be coping with tighter budgets. But by raising the policy rate, we are helping to bring down inflation, which is in everyone's interest. Chart 3 Turbulence in international banking markets In recent weeks, problems at certain US and Swiss banks have led to large movements in global financial markets. Equity markets have fallen, and risk premiums in money and bond markets have increased a little. Expectations for both Norwegian and international policy rates have declined markedly. 1/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  We are not seeing any signs of liquidity problems for Norwegian banks. Norwegian banks are profitable, well capitalised and well positioned to cope with losses and market stress. Households and firms appear to have ample access to credit. We are closely monitoring developments and we are always prepared to take the measures required to safeguard financial stability if needed. Let me say a little more about the economic outlook and our assessments. Chart 4 Persistently high Inflation among trading partners Inflation is also high among our trading partners, although it has recently moderated a bit. Labour markets are tight.
Prominent among the measures that have been announced or that are pending approval or final design include occupational pension schemes, a review of maximum social security contribution bases and maximum pensions, a new contribution system for self-employed workers, and a review of the reference period for calculating the regulatory base. In recent years, the Banco de España has, in various documents and reports, set out certain principles that should govern the pension reform. First, once the level of benefits the system should provide has been established at the political level, it is crucial that the strategy be rounded off by setting revenue levels and other system parameters (e.g. the retirement age) to ensure the system’s funding. As part of this strategy, it would also be desirable to strengthen the link between contributions made and benefits received – ensuring a sufficient level for the most vulnerable households –, and to analyse the consequences of the reforms envisaged in terms of redistribution and intergenerational equity, to ensure that any adjustments to the system do not fall disproportionately on specific population groups, such as the retired population or future cohorts of workers. The system should also be made more transparent and easier to plan for, to offer greater certainty to the population and facilitate decision-making as regards saving, work and retirement. In this respect, automatic adjustment mechanisms could possibly be introduced, to adapt certain system parameters to changes in demographic and economic dynamics.

We will then have detailed data on GDP for the third quarter, preliminary data on the balance of payments for the entire 2019, as well as current economic statistics for December and first data on inflation in January. We will adjust our mid-term forecast based on this information. Winding up, I would like to get back to the signal of our future actions. We have said today that we will consider the necessity of a further key rate reduction in the first half of 2020. Noting that, after similar signals in the past, it was twice that we cut the key rate already at the next meeting, namely in October and today, and anticipating your clarifying questions, I would like to point out the following. This wording means that we still see room for a slight decrease in the key rate. But both in February and at the next meetings we will comprehensively assess the reasonableness and relevance of such a decision taking into account the entire range of new data that will be available by that time. Our signal does not imply that we will necessarily lower the key rate in February or in the first half of 2020. A further key rate cut will become possible only if our analysis confirms that this is needed to bring inflation back to the Bank of Russia’s 4% target. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches