samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Percent 16  16  Consumer price index Five−year moving average Inflation target  14 12  14 12  10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  –2 1973  1978  1983  1988  1993  1998  2003  2008  2013  –2 2018  1) Projection for 2018 Q1. Sources: Statistics Norway and Norges Bank  The formal monetary policy regimes remain intact, but lessons have been learned along the way. Initially, central banks had high ambitions to steer inflation to target within a clearly defined time horizon. But the experience with these regimes provided useful insight, and the ambitions were later adjusted. When confronted with shocks, small open economies in particular experienced that a rapid return to the inflation target could have undesired consequences for the real economy.11 Norges Bank addressed this concern by giving greater weight to output and employment. The inflation target horizon has been extended and monetary policy has gradually become more flexible. 11 See for example Wheeler G. (2014): “Reflections on 25 years of Inflation Targeting”, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, speech delivered on 28 November 2014 and Norges Bank (2017): “Experience with the monetary policy framework in Norway since 2001”, Norges Bank Papers 1/2017. 12  Monetary policy shall contribute to monetary stability. It does so by ensuring that inflation stays within a range somewhat above zero, while being kept under control.

Source: Bloomberg and Norges Bank  Monetary policy had to play a substantial role in the wake of the financial crisis. Fiscal space was already limited in many countries and narrowed further through the crisis. Fiscal policy is still constrained. The public sector has done little to deleverage. At the same time, the interest rate level is low and there is very little margin for further cuts. There is less latitude to counter another downturn in the near future. Monetary policy – lessons from the financial crisis Ten years of historically low interest rates and large-scale asset purchases give cause for reflection. An important question is what responsibilities should rest with a central bank. A related theme is what is meant by the objective of low and stable inflation. Let me take a closer look at these questions. The primary objective of monetary policy is to maintain monetary stability, which ensues from the central bank’s responsibility for the monetary system. Behind traditional currencies stands a central bank assigned with the mission of maintaining confidence in the value of money. This is in stark contrast to the so-called cryptocurrencies. They fail the crucial test that a means of payment must pass. 10 Rachel, L. and T. D. Smith (2015) “Secular drivers of the global real interest rate”, Bank of England Staff Working Paper No. 571. 11  Both too high and too low inflation have undesired consequences, such as arbitrary wealth redistribution, underinvestment and resource misallocation that may leave resources idle.
My colleagues and I introduced the concept of cultural capital for financial firms in a white paper in late 2017 as a type of intangible asset that impacts how a firm operates and ultimately performs.1 Cultural capital is an input into a firm’s production process that determines its ability to deliver the products and services that it offers. It is analogous to physical capital like the equipment, buildings and property a firm uses; to human capital, which is the accumulated knowledge and skills of its workers; and to reputational capital, which includes the franchise value or brand recognition of a firm. More broadly, culture can be defined as the shared set of norms within a group that influences decision-making and is evidenced through behavior. 2 Cultural capital is a conceptual way to link a firm’s culture, including its values, assumptions and behavioral norms, to its business outcomes. For financial firms, it is not loss-absorbing in a financial sense like equity capital, but it can be loss-preventing by influencing decisions, behaviors, and outcomes over time. As an intangible asset, we generally see the impact rather than the thing itself. But, its impact can be measured, assessed, and ultimately influenced. In an organization with a low level of cultural capital, for example, behavioral risk is high.

With the elimination of impromptu, spontaneous interactions over coffee, in elevators, and unplanned encounters, organizations need to understand the impact on communication, collaboration, innovation, and comradery. Will networks and relationships depreciate? Is there a heightened risk of silos? Are there missed opportunities for creativity in problem solving? Are there insights and knowledge being overlooked? And how do all these influence dialogue, debate and ultimately outcomes in the organization? Uncertainty. The third dynamic is uncertainty. As many industries and organizations face unprecedented businesses challenges, we know that employees are also facing unique personal challenges related to their health, well-being and job security, both for themselves and their families. While we understand that this level of uncertainty can be paralyzing for individuals,10 we should also be asking how this level of persistent and profound uncertainty may impact a firm’s culture. One potential risk is the potential for “action bias.” When feeling out of control due to the uncertainty of the environment, people are more likely to act quickly. They do this to feel as though they “did something about” an issue when in fact, more thought and analysis would result in a better business outcome.11 Even for organizations that are not as directly impacted by the pandemic, thought should be given to how uncertainty about personal and professional circumstances impacts decision making, relationships, and behaviors in the workplace. Decreased monitoring/oversight. The final dynamic is monitoring and oversight.
19 20 21  For example, Nagel, S and Malmendier, U (2011) Stiglitz (1997) has described a similar process for the price Phillips curve based on asymmetric price adjustment. See Borio and Filardo (2007). 9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  9  Mark Carney has pointed out how global influences will shift the Phillips curve both lower (due to the positive supply shock from increased product and labour market integration) and flatter (due to integration of global value chains, increased competition and contestability of product and labour markets). The downward shifts, which will persist as long as integration continues, are disinflationary, pointing to running the domestic economy at tighter spare capacity to meet the inflation target. 22  For the policymaker a flattening of the Phillips curve poses a more difficult challenge than under-measurement of labour utilisation or a lowering of the natural rate or of inflation or real pay expectations (Chart 9). The latter pose the challenge of judging the timing of policy action right; excess (deficient) demand for labour will drive pay up (down) as before as unemployment falls (rises). But the point – i.e. the level of unemployment and the rate of growth of pay – at which that will happen is lower. Getting the timing of monetary policy right is a formidable challenge for the monetary policy maker. But it is a familiar one.

Hence, on behalf of the Bank of Albania, I would like to thank all the experts that have helped and have been actively engaged for their successful realisation. In addition to the precious work of the Bank of Albania's staff, I would like to highlight the rather 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  precious contribution of many renowned academics, historians, Albanologists, numismatists and experts from the most experienced companies in the field of banknote production. Meanwhile, the Bank of Albania is working on the completion of the new series with two other banknotes, 500 lek and 2000 lek, which are in production process. Concluding, I like to call on the users to handle each banknote with due care, in order to preserve their durability, quality and integrity in circulation. Banknotes are more than a valuable paper. They boost and sustain the economic activity of Albania and similarly tie with visible threads our national identity. I wish the public will welcome both new banknotes we are presenting today, like the previous ones. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
In particular, the LCR and NSFR may complement each other to the extent there are differences in asset liquidity and funding stability at different maturities and that these differences evolve over the cycle. 21  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  21  An Empirical Assessment of Regulatory Metrics  There are conceptual reasons why a portfolio approach to regulatory design, with a small, complementary set of constraints, may have merit in a robust control sense: addressing the different risks facing financial institutions and providing insurance against various uncertainties. Ultimately, however, the extent of over-identification, and any costs it might impose, will depend on the empirical distribution of shocks to banks and the state of their balance sheets at the time. To that we now turn, based on crisis experience. Any counter-factual empirical exercise is subject to huge caveats. Nonetheless, it is revealing to consider experience during the crisis to see what this revealed about the risks banks faced and how different regulatory constraints might have handled them. For example, recent research has found the leverage ratio and structural funding metrics performed well in predicting bank failure during the crisis (Huang and Ratnovski (2009), Demirguc-Kunt et al (2010), Bologna (2011), Arjani and Paulin (2013), Vazquez and Federico (2015)). And Lallour and Mio (2016) find that the NSFR had significant discriminatory power in identifying failing banks during the crisis, after controlling for banks’ solvency ratios. This line of research typically deploys regression approaches which weight together the information across different indicators.

The growth of investments and the concomitant improvement of employment, increase both the current incomes of households, and their expected future incomes, which is associated with increased consumption and decrease in the savings in the economy. As a consequence of these processes, the gap of the balance of payments current account widened to levels over 5% of GDP in 2003 and 2004, and further expanded to 11.9% as of end-2005. From the perspective of current account immediate dynamics, each economy faces the question if the current level of deficit or surplus is determined by structural factors, i.e. it is close to a balanced level, which can be maintained within a medium-term, or it is the consequence of unsustainable trends and one-off factors. Both groups of factors played an important role in the development of the current account deficit in 2005. First of all, the above-mentioned growth of investments was accompanied by considerable imports of investment goods. In 2005, the imports of this group of goods grew by 31.2%, while their share in the total structure of imports reached up to 28%. This trend was associated with a slow-down in the growth of imports of non-energy raw materials and consumer goods. In the current year, we expect the rate of import of investment goods to remain high, given the rapid pace of technological innovation of the economy, which is mainly accounted for by the forthcoming EU membership of our country.
Stefan Ingves: Introduction on monetary policy and financial stability Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, before the Riksdag Committee on Finance, Stockholm, 5 November 2009. *  *  *  A little more than a year has passed since the financial crisis swept over the Swedish economy with full force. A dramatic year, which, despite vigorous measures by central banks and other authorities around the world, has led to the worst economic recession for many decades. But now the economy is beginning to recover, although it will take time before we are on firm ground again. So where in the crisis cycle do we stand today? How should the Riksbank act to attain the inflation target and to provide support to the economic recovery in the best possible manner? It appears as though the Swedish economy will land on its feet on this occasion, but it is also necessary to keep our balance in the future. This is in many ways a global challenge and a process of change, in which Sweden should play an active role. When we met here at the Committee on Finance hearing about a year ago, the global financial crisis had quite recently had its major impact on Sweden. The problems mainly originated abroad – through the now cross-border financial markets and through the downswing in the world economy hitting an export-dependent economy like ours particularly hard.

International financial markets have moved from a situation of widespread risk undervaluation to one in which extraordinary caution is exercised in their evaluation. Past experience has clearly shown the tendency of markets to overreact. It is even possible that certain recent developments reflect, at least partly, an excessive reaction. But it is unreasonable to expect that, once the situation has returned to normal, international financing conditions will simply be as they were prior to the summer of 2007, which nobody today hesitates to qualify as excessively lax. Likewise, few question the fact that the expansion of the balance sheets of a large number of major financial institutions exceeded limits which should not have been overstepped. The current deleveraging process may initially reflect the correction of some of the excesses committed. But taking a broader view, it also reveals a more fundamental movement towards a general reduction in the debt levels of financial intermediaries and the containment of credit flows, the effects of which must likewise be felt by the ultimate borrowers, namely households and firms. Finally, I should point out that the magnitude of the imbalances generated and the scale of intervention designed have prompted a necessary pause for reflection on the role the economic authorities should play in developing and supervising financial markets.
Mugur Isărescu: The 39th Meeting of the Central Banks Governors’ Club of the Central Asia, Black Sea region and Balkan countries Speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the Conference "The 39th Meeting of the Central Banks Governors' Club of the Central Asia, Black Sea region and Balkan countries", Bodrum, Turkey, 14 May 2018. * * * Dear colleagues, Let me start by saying that I am honoured to have been invited to speak here, in beautiful Bodrum, at the 39th Meeting of the Central Banks Governors’ Club of the Central Asia, Black Sea Region and Balkan Countries. Our club includes central banks from EU countries, some already in the Eurozone, while others belong to countries outside the EU. Some of the members in our group come from countries that have enormous economic potential and belong to G20, which has become an essential part of the architecture that has fostered international debate on financial and economic issues after the crisis. This is why our club reflects quite interestingly the constellation of political and economic interests that defines our world. This meeting comes at a time when the international landscape is dominated by an overall positive mood, on the economic front at least, even though, recently, a number of downside risks have become more apparent. In the European Union, economic growth reached in 2017 its postcrisis peak, with most Member States witnessing higher GDP dynamics.

What I believe most people understand by this concept is a return to the standard operating mode of monetary policy, i.e. the withdrawal of the unconventional policy tools deployed during the crisis, which would entail a gradual increase in short-term interest rates and a gradual unwinding of bloated central bank balance sheets. The latter is by far the most challenging process, as the impact on global asset prices is a delicate issue, which not only requires good planning and favorable macroeconomic conditions, but is also bound to be lengthy. As regards the other element of policy normalisation – the increase in short-term interest rates –, while less controversial, it is by no means problem-free, considering its implications for financial stability. To quote the BIS Annual Report 2017, “policy normalisation presents unprecedented challenges, given the current high debt levels and unusual uncertainty”. The increase in short-term interest rates is an element of normalisation that also applies to the central banks that did not step out of the conventional framework – and this is the case in most Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European countries. Personally, I see normalisation as amounting ultimately to a return to real positive interest rates. I doubt, however, that this will be a swift process. In the case of Romania, the steps taken so far along the road to policy normalisation, were facilitated by two favourable developments in the banking sector.
6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  6  3. Progress on transition as assessed against industry-specific transition pathways to help identify the leaders and laggards in the transition; and 4. Degree warming potential of the portfolio, which assesses the quality of transition plans relative to the Paris goals. Firms such as Aviva, Axa and Allianz have already voluntarily disclosed this information. They are now feeding into a TCFD group that is considering whether the warming potential, or any other metric, is the best way to measure the potential opportunities in the transition. For COP 26, we intend to leverage the success of existing groups and coalitions, like the Net Zero Asset Owner alliance, Climate Action 100+ and the UN PRI to build a large coalition of asset owners and asset managers who expect their portfolio companies to become Net Zero aligned. MDBs and Innovative Finance The work on reporting, risk and returns will put in place the foundations for private finance to help drive the transition to net zero, but much more must be done across the full spectrum of the financial sector. Multilateral Development Banks and Development Finance Institutions have essential roles in mobilising blended finance for adaptation, resilience and mitigation, especially in the communities most exposed to the devastating effects of climate change. As the Secretary of State noted, we will be asking these institutions to develop robust implementation plans for Paris Alignment in the run up to COP26.

Lawrence Williams: Leveraging central banks’ IT investments for strategic advantage Opening remarks by Mr Lawrence Williams, Governor of the Bank of Guyana, at the conference of regional central banks’ information systems specialists, Bank of Guyana, Georgetown, 4 June 2012. *  *  *  Chairman Deputy Governor Banking Manager Deputy Programme Manager, Information and Communication Technology, CARICOM Secretariat Conference Delegates Directors and other Staff members of the Bank of Guyana Invitees I wish to join with the Chairman in welcoming you to this opening session of the Conference of Regional Central Banks’ Information Systems Specialists. A warm welcome is extended to those of you visiting Guyana and more so to those of you visiting for the first time. A special welcome is also extended to Ms. Jennifer Britton who has taken time off her demanding schedule to present the Conference Keynote Address. The Bank of Guyana deems it a privilege to be hosting the Conference of Regional Central Banks’ Information Systems Specialists for the second time in the history of the Group. We are grateful for the fact that nine central banks accepted our invitation to participate in this conference. I thank you for graciously accepting our invitation. It is my fervent hope that the activities over the next five days will provide a good opportunity to engage in the sharing of ideas and experiences, as well as to gain new insights that would be beneficial to the wellbeing of your respective information technology functions in particular and, by extension, the institutions you represent.
A mix of standard and non-standard instruments, intensified communication with the public, a broad overview of financial stability risks and the effects of macroprudential regulation, regular monitoring of the external factors’ potential spillovers to the domestic economy, are probably the best options for securing effective implementation of the monetary policy. Although being far away from the acute stage of the crisis, the current global environment is marked with relatively weak and uneven growth outlook, especially in the advanced economies, which led to different paths of their monetary policy stance. While ECB has just started its large-scale quantitative easing program, FED is just about to exit the accommodative monetary policy stance. These contrasting growth prospects of the leading economies underpin the risk of global financial markets volatility in view of eventual rebalancing positions between the main world currencies. On the other hand, there is a group of emerging economies with better growth performances and prospects for the future, including the Macedonian economy, which in the recent years has shown sound recovery, taking into account the significant ongoing structural changes in the economy as well as the fiscal space from the previous years. A common feature for the current surroundings are disinflationary or deflationary pressures around the globe in light of the fall of oil prices, with potential impact on the monetary policy cycle, additionally increasing uncertainty about external environment.

The region’s 45 countries in the MSCI AC World Index account for less than 10 per cent of the Index although their share of world GDP is 19 per cent. 21. We need to make emerging Asia’s capital markets deep enough to effectively intermediate its considerable savings pool and broad enough to provide a range of suitable instruments for risk mitigation. 22. The crying investment need in Asia is for infrastructure. A report released by the Asian Development Bank Institute estimates that the total investment needs for national infrastructure development in Asia will average close to $ billion per year from 2010 to 2020. But private participation in infrastructure investments in Asia amounted to just $ billion in 2009, less than half the $ billion that went into real estate investment. It will be a shame if Asia’s considerable savings pool, not to mention the inflows of capital from abroad, goes into speculative real estate instead of productive infrastructure investments that enhance long-term economic growth. Having well-developed capital markets is a good way of ensuring that capital is allocated to productive uses. 23. A promising experiment in developing better mechanisms for allocating capital is the World Bank-Singapore Urban Hub. Established in 2009, it brings together Singapore’s public agencies, research institutes, and private sector players to share their experiences with developing countries, in areas ranging from water and waste management, land use planning, and urban development.