samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
One currency’s depreciation is attributed to a heavy dependence on commodities at the same time as another’s is said to stem from the opposite, for instance a large IT  4  BIS Review 75/2001  sector. While the Swedish krona has been falling with the stock exchange, both the Swiss franc and sterling have appreciated, and so on. The explanations are therefore of little value for forecasting. Under these circumstances it has seemed to us that there are good reasons for attaching major importance to the available assessments of the krona’s more fundamental value. Many other observers appear to do the same when they predict an appreciating krona in the somewhat longer run. It is quite simply improbable that Sweden can continue to have large trade surpluses and, as a consequence of an unduly under-valued currency, more profitable firms than the rest of the world without this leading to a reversal of the occasional flows that have recently gone against the krona. In forecasting work and monetary policy decision-making we then, as I mentioned earlier, have to combine this assessment with risk scenarios, so that different risks, including the possibility of the krona being weaker than in the main scenario, are weighed against each other. Smaller pass-through to consumer prices As I have indicated, the exchange rate concerns us because it influences inflation. Since 1993 exchange rate fluctuations have been comparatively marked but the effects on price developments have been smaller than expected. Consumer prices for imported goods are dependent on a variety of factors.

This involves government bond purchases and marks the launch of quantitative easing. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Adding government securities and paper issued by supranational European institutions to the asset purchase programme was a very important step in the monetary easing and economic stimulus policy: the programme will run to September 2016 at least, with a monthly target of € billion for the three programmes as a whole, although government bonds will be the main component of the purchases and of the increase in the Eurosystem balance sheet. The programme is expected to give a significant monetary boost to the economy, keeping inflation in the medium term below, but close to, 2%. The monetary stimulus transmission mechanisms include both the easing of financing conditions for households and firms and, indirectly, the depreciation of the euro. Purchases of public securities will be allocated as follows: 88% to euro area sovereign and national government agency securities, and 12% to supranational institutions and international agencies resident in the euro area. Of the 88% of national government securities, 8 pp will be acquired by the ECB and the remaining 80% by national central banks, according to their capital key in the ECB, with some special rules for national central banks whose government debt markets are so small that these targets cannot be met.
These factors include the role played by ECB monetary policy and the significant drop in the oil price between mid2014 and early 2016, and, until the end of last year, the improvement in external markets, in a context of a global economic recovery. However, the effect of these factors can be expected to taper in the future. The foreseeable loss of momentum by the expansionary effects of demand-side policies is also relevant. In  10/14  this context, it is particularly desirable for prominence to be given to a renewed reform drive, geared towards correcting the Spanish economy's persisting vulnerabilities. Fiscal policy I will first mention the fiscal policy situation. Over the past decade the Spanish authorities have had to make the fiscal adjustment needed to guarantee the sustainability of the public finances. This process has brought the budget-deficit-to-GDP ratio down from a maximum of 11% in 2009 to 3.1% last year. Despite this deficit cut, Spain’s public accounts continue to show significant weaknesses. First, the European Commission estimates the (cyclically adjusted) structural budget deficit to still be around 3% of GDP in 2018, the highest in the euro area. Second, although government debt is on a slightly downward path from its historical peak of 100.4% of GDP in 2014, at around 98%, it is still very high.

The criticism lived on for quite a long time, but it was probably quite essential to demonstrate at that time that the inflation target was taken seriously. This was until now the only time I can remember that the Riksbank was urged not to do its best to maintain confidence in the inflation target. The criticism then was largely due to the inflation-targeting policy being so new – as I said, the inflation target had not yet even come into force. It is less easy today, after twenty years of positive economic developments, in which the inflation target has been a cornerstone, to see why the Riksbank is being urged to lower its ambitions. Perhaps it is because developments have been so positive for so long that one feels the existence of a credible nominal anchor is no longer as important. If so, I am convinced that this is a mistake. Difficult to see reasonable alternatives to the policy conducted But what about developments in household debt and housing prices? Don't they give a reason for changing monetary policy? The Riksbank has previously used the repo rate to try to subdue the upturn in debt and housing prices. But this was on a fairly modest scale and – above all – during a period when confidence in the inflation target appeared firmly rooted. 9 In recent years, on the other hand, there have been signs that this confidence has begun to be undermined, which has changed conditions rather drastically.
This comparison involves something of a straw man, however. As already noted, inflation targeting as practised, here and elsewhere, allows for an accommodating response to cost shocks, so long as it is consistent with inflation being stabilised in the medium term. Such flexible inflation targeting can thus look quite similar to targeting nominal income growth. This is illustrated by the red line in Chart 1, which shows the four-quarter rate of growth of nominal income over the lifetime of the MPC. The stability of nominal income growth is notable – it stays pretty close to 5% with the exception of two periods. First, the Great Recession of 2008–9, which saw four-quarter nominal GDP growth fall to minus, rather than plus, 5%. And, second, the past couple of years, when – at least according to the present vintage of data – nominal GDP growth was nearer 2%–3%. In neither case, however, was the shortfall by design. The MPC does not presently directly generate an agreed forecast for nominal income growth, but we can construct a proxy for such a forecast by combining the MPC’s central (mean) projection for GDP growth with its central (mean) projection for CPI inflation.5 The corresponding one and two year ahead  2  See Meade (1978). James Tobin, another Nobel prize-winner, also advocated adopting a target for nominal income around the same time (Tobin, 1980). I discuss the relationship between Meade’s ideas and inflation targeting in Bean (2009).

Joseph Yam: East Asian financial markets - the next frontier Welcoming remarks by Mr Joseph Yam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the conference on "East Asian Financial Markets - The Next Frontier", Hong Kong, 22 June 2006. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this conference on "East Asian Financial Markets - The Next Frontier". It is also an honour for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to be co-hosting this event with the World Bank to discuss the findings of its latest Regional Financial Sector Flagship Study and the future development of the financial markets in Asia. The World Bank has been very supportive of economic development in the region and I particularly welcome the focus in its recent work on financial markets. Here in Asia, considerable efforts have been made at the individual economy and regional levels to further develop our financial markets. Much remains to be done, however, so it is with great anticipation that I look forward to the discussions, conclusions, and recommendations that will emerge during the coming two days. The title of the conference, "East Asian Financial Markets - The Next Frontier" is, I believe, very fitting. Each part of it carries an important message. The focus on financial markets reminds us that a wellfunctioning financial system is increasingly important for economic development.
François Villeroy de Galhau: Brexit, digital payments, seize the day Closing speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Paris Europlace International Financial Forum, Paris, 7 October 2020. * * * Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my pleasure to conclude this Europlace International Financial Forum, and to congratulate Chairman Augustin de Romanet and his team for having overcome all obstacles. Today, Paris is, thanks to you, a financial capital of Europe…. and it is more than a short-lived satisfaction, it is a lasting and collective success. The title of today’s session – “From crisis to recovery…” – reminds us of a quote from Hannah Arendt: “a crisis becomes a disaster only when we respond to it with preformed judgments, that is, with prejudices.1” Today crises are multifaceted and our duty as policymakers is to prevent them from turning into disasters. To this end, we have to put aside prejudices and come up with concrete solutions. In my speech today, I will focus on two short-term challenges: Brexit obviously, and perhaps more surprisingly the future of Europe payments. I. Preparing for Brexit: a top priority Brexit is a burning and unavoidable issue. I will not comment on the UK’s domestic politics nor on the ongoing negotiations with the EU. But amidst all this deep fog, one thing remains clear: achieving a fair and well-balanced Brexit deal would be in the economic interest of first and foresmost Britain but also the EU.

We will now in parallel (i) engage actively in a public consultation from next Monday, (ii) study within the HLTF all the regulatory, technical, financial stability issues, (iii) start experimentations within NCBs, of which the Banque de France intends to be an active contributor including in Retail CBDC. Following this “three-tracks approach”, towards mid-2021 the Eurosystem will decide whether to launch a digital euro project, which would start with an investigation phase. Whatever the decision, it would complement cash, not replace it. The Eurosystem, the Banque de France, will never abandon cash, as it is part citizen’s freedom in choosing their means of payments, and hence their trust in the currency. 3/ A European mobilisation on private payments infrastructure, thanks to the engagement of major European banks – including French ones – in the so-called “European payments initiative” (EPI). We definitely need to go beyond existing national schemes, and offer crossborder solutions and a pan European brand. EPI needs to be detailed, opened up to other banks and jurisdictions, and accelerated. But it definitely warrants the full support of the Eurosystem. We should additionally ensure that efficient public infrastructure such as TIPS is compatible. Let me stress that there is no contradiction between considering a euro-CBDC and supporting EPI. We may probably need both, and we should in any case build them to be complementary. My preference would be to seek a renewed public/private partnership for the dissemination of central bank money in a retail form.
With respect to individual countries, we should continue working to strengthen the bilateral surveillance process. While focused on the country at hand, it would be important that bilateral surveillance be fully-informed by regional and global perspectives as well. Systemically important countries will clearly continue to deserve special attention. Operationally, our respective country teams will remain the focal points for our activities in individual members. At the same time, country teams will continue to draw upon specialized expertise where necessary, from both inside and outside of the Fund. To maintain overall coherence, it would be important for efforts to continue in the integration and sharing of information among country teams and specialized experts. Second, our work in financial sectors and capital markets. The IMF is the one international organization capable of carrying out financial sector surveillance universally and comprehensively. Further efforts will be needed to realize this potential, not least by deepening the IMF’s role in anticipating sources of instability in national and global financial markets, and in generating timely action to address them. The IMF will continue to help countries strengthen their financial sectors, including in following up on the findings of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) exercises. One important aspect of this will be to help members adapt their prudential and administrative frameworks to benefit more from private capital flows.

To maintain the IMF’s effectiveness, it is essential for our membership to resolve the difficult issues that have been raised about our own governance – notably, the voice and participation of emerging market economies and developing countries in our institution. All members countries should have adequate voice and participation in the IMF’s decision-making, and the distribution of our quotas should reflect developments in the global economy. In this connection, the ongoing 13th general review of IMF quotas provides an opportunity to make progress on this front. 4  BIS Review 43/2005  Further, given the demands placed on the IMF by its members, it is clear that the institution’s resources must be commensurate with the tasks it is asked to perform. This ongoing strategic review will help us to identify needs, define priorities, and consider possibilities to redeploy resources from lower-priority areas. Regardless of the outcome, IMF management, and our Executive Board, are committed to making the most effective use of resources entrusted to them by our membership. Efforts must therefore continue in the search for greater efficiency gains. One important aspect of this concerns the cooperation and division of labor between the IMF, the World Bank, and other international organizations. This is an issue which may bear revisiting, and I am very much looking forward to working with President Wolfowitz, and to learning his views and vision for the Bank.
After that we considered it would be probably possible to pause before making a further increase. In our Monetary Policy Report we highlight two other possible interest rate paths to show the considerations that need to be made. One of these involves the interest rate being raised at a slower pace and the other a more rapid pace than in the main scenario. With our current knowledge of the state of the economy and inflationary pressures, our assessment is that faster interest rate increases would lead to excessively low inflation. Correspondingly, slower interest rate increases would lead to excessively high inflation. Let me point out in conclusion that the inflation assessment we make now is not particularly different from the one we made in October, when we published our previous report. From the comments in the mass media, one might get the impression that the Riksbank had made a drastic change in its views of inflationary pressures in the economy. But this is not the case. On the other hand, we now believe that growth will be a little higher and employment growth will be stronger than we forecast in October. At the same time, it appears that the labour supply will increase a little more than we assumed then. Our inflation forecast therefore remains largely the same. Our assessment of the interest rate has therefore also changed very little. In October we based our inflation forecast on the market’s expectations of the development of the repo rate.

Their breadth indicates that it is not particularly meaningful to focus on tenths of percentage points in inflation. But the uncertainty bands also show that there is a large probability that inflation will remain within the tolerance interval of 1-3 per cent over the coming years. It is also worth reminding that inflation seen over a longer period of time has not on average deviated significantly from the target. In our current assessment the rate of wage increase is particularly uncertain. On the one hand, the fact that many agreements in the labour market will be renegotiated in a favourable labour market situation entails a risk that wages will increase more than we had assumed in our main scenario. On the other hand, it is also possible that we are underestimating how much the labour supply may increase. This means there is also a downside risk for wages. As before, we cannot ignore that there are risks linked to the rapid increase in house prices and loans. Imbalances could build up. When imbalances sooner or later have to be corrected, this can lead to undesirable fluctuations in inflation and the real economy. At our most recent monetary policy meeting we weighed these risks and considerations against one another. This resulted in the assessment that the repo rate needed to be raised by a further 0.25 percentage points and that it would then need to be raised once more over the coming six months.
Their prospects are being enhanced by the trend in consumer choice towards healthier, Eco-friendly and "social goods". "Social buyers" who are keen to buy goods and services from social enterprises are emerging as a new force. In conclusion, a concerted effort is needed to establish policies and systems to support the growth of the emerging social enterprise sector in Sri Lanka. I hope today’s deliberations will deliver outcomes which will 3  assist social entrepreneurs to lead social change by stimulating economic growth, innovation and the development of social capital. Social enterprises have an important role to play in Sri Lanka meeting the SDGs. Thank you. 4

Auditors are appointed by the shareholders, but their prime responsibility should be to ensure that the company can function as a going concern and pay back the depositors’ funds as and when needed. The auditors’ opinion lends credibility to the financial statements and promotes confidence in the system. Auditors generally cover their opinion with a statement in which they certify accounts of the company as true and fair on the basis of information made available to them. While recognizing this clarification, in the interest of wider financial system stability, it is important that external auditors find out the true position of the company and alert regulators, even though it is beyond audit ethics. The audit profession should be independent and they must win confidence of the investing community and the general public by providing accurate and timely audits. In that sense, external auditor also performs the “watchdog’s” and the “whistleblowers” role in the financial system. The new Companies Act, which came into being just a month ago, is somewhat explicit in the role of the auditor in the following areas: 1. Fair judgment: An auditor shall ensure that his judgment is not impaired by reason of any relationship with, or interest in the company or any of its subsidiaries. While regularizing the company under audit, as its client, the auditors must distance themselves in judging the true financial status of the company. 2.
If a firm is easily resolvable as described, then the authorities may care less about the potential for recovery. That could be a matter left for the shareholders. The more difficult a resolution would be, the more interest the authorities have in removing any barriers to resolvability in advance. Failure is usually more problematic for banks than for other commercial firms. When a bank is known to be in trouble, its customers may withdraw funds quickly, creating a liquidity run that might spillover to similar institutions. That places an emphasis on speed of action. In 2009 the UK government introduced permanent legislation that enables banks to be resolved by the authorities, and designated the Bank of England as the UK resolution authority. For the EU as a whole, the Banking Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) took effect at the start of 2015, and brings European legislation on recovery and resolution into line with the FSB’s international standards. It requires there to be a resolution authority in every EU country and, amongst other things, specifies how decisions are made to put banks into resolution, how resolutions may be conducted, and what tools should be available to resolution authorities. But there is not yet a special resolution process for insurers. That remains on the wish-list for now. Effective resolution can be greatly enhanced if the authorities have prepared for the event, with the assistance of the firms concerned. The larger and more complex a firm, the more complex and challenging such planning is likely to be.

Goh Chok Tong: Riding the Asian tide Speech Mr Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Nomura Singapore Seminar, Tokyo, 8 November 2005. *  *  *  Dr Junichi Ujiie, President of Nomura Securities Ladies and Gentlemen 1. Nowadays, it is popular to focus on the awesome transformation of China and its implications when discussing Asia. But doing so risks missing the dramatic changes in another key player - India. My theme is simple: the renaissance of China and India is changing Asia. Other countries in Asia, and in fact the world, will have to remake themselves to seize the opportunities generated by their rise. 2. I expect China and India to power Asia's growth over the next few decades. China's GDP today is one-seventh that of the US. But Goldman Sachs has predicted that China could overtake the US to become the world's largest economy by 2041. Goldman Sachs has also predicted that India's economy, currently about one-seventh of Japan's, could be larger than Japan's by 2032. Never before in history have we witnessed the simultaneous rise of two gigantic countries, which together make up more than one third of mankind. 3. China and India are altering global patterns of trade, investment, production and travel. Because of their sheer size, the earth shakes as the Chinese dragon and the Indian elephant move. 4. What do we do in the face of these developments?