samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
So this also applies to the GDP gap, the hours gap, and so on. But the unemployment gap has an advantage over other gap measures, as the actual statistics are not revised, as is the case with GDP and to some extent the number of hours worked, for example. Allow me to now discuss this uncertainty when it comes to calculating the labour market gap in a little more detail. Calculations of equilibrium unemployment According to a common interpretation, equilibrium unemployment is the unemployment that arises when an economy is not impacted by new shocks or disruptions for a longer period of time and is thus in a state of long-term equilibrium.9 Equilibrium unemployment is thus independent of economic activity. However, this is a theoretical concept. In practice, the economy is never in a shock-free state in which long-term equilibrium has been achieved. Assessing the level of equilibrium unemployment depends partly on the theoretical model used as a basis and partly on the calculation methods used. There is no consensus on which method of calculation is best, and this creates uncertainty on the level of equilibrium unemployment. Let me illustrate this with a diagram. The figure shows how equilibrium unemployment in Sweden has been calculated for the period 1980–2010 using three different methods. The red curve in the figure is actual unemployment. The yellow curve in the figure shows a calculation of equilibrium unemployment using what is known as an unobserved components model.

In fact, when the Asset Purchase Facility (APF) was first introduced, the Bank was effectively operating as an agent for the Government: the purchases were financed by the issue of treasury bills, not by the Bank, and the Government indemnified the Bank against any losses. Had the Government wanted to, the purchases could have been designed and operated as a fiscal operation and not implemented by the Bank. But the correspondence from the Chancellor makes it clear that the purchase of private sector assets (i) was intended to improve the functioning of markets and so was consistent with a MMLR function and (ii) it simultaneously provided a framework for asset purchases as a monetary policy operation by the MPC and so the Facility had to be designed to be compatible with that. 5  Once the programme of quantitative easing was established, the corporate purchases were funded by creating central bank reserves. But that was consistent with implementing the MPC’s monetary policy. BIS Review 23/2010  3  Motivating the APF schemes The Bank’s initial APF interventions focussed on sterling corporate bonds and commercial paper. These markets are relatively small. At the end of 2006, before the onset of the crisis, the outstanding stock of sterling non-financial commercial paper was around £ and sterling non-financial corporate bonds totalled around £ That is low compared with the stock of commercial bank lending (lending by UK resident banks to UK non-financial corporates was £ at end 2006). But despite their relatively small size, these markets are vitally important.
We have instilled equity and equality in all our processes, as well as in the recruitment, promotion and social rights. Women now represent 40% of the Bank’s total workforce, as well as of its management and Board. Our 2019-2023 strategic plan enshrines gender equality as a guiding principle for the Bank’s actions. In 2020, Bank Al-Maghrib has adopted a charter for professional gender equality that specifically recognizes the inclusive nature of the work environment and the mix of professions and promotes work/life balance. In order to explore the best practices in gender awareness and facilitate the exchange of experiences, we have with a number of central banks instituted a regular meeting dedicated to gender and reserved exclusively for women. This initiative has been very successful, and we have been approached by several central banks who wish to join us. We aspire to convert this regular meeting into an intercontinental forum of central banks dedicated to the gender issue, initially in Africa-Latin America. Ladies and Gentlemen, The fight against gender inequality requires a firm and sustained political will, reinforced monitoring and consultation of all stakeholders. Over and above public policies, this is a cultural change that must be carried out, especially in our region, through ongoing education, promotion and awareness raising.

2  Many of these studies emphasise as the most salient features of recent developments: (i) the growing role of digital technologies in back, middle and front-office activities,2 (ii) the cross-jurisdictional nature of a wealth of financial services offerings today, (iii) the emergence and consolidation of non-traditional competitors, often with a previous universal footprint in the ITC field, and (iv) the prioritisation of customer-centric commercial strategies in response to what clearly are much less stable and long-term bank-client relationships. Banks have been reacting to the challenges of this new environment, and they have done so in manifold ways. For instance, financial intermediaries have been particularly agile in leveraging the opportunities offered by novel services such as cloud computing. They have also pioneered the analysis of how artificial intelligence and machine learning tools can help in both reducing the level of credit defaults and anticipating customer needs. In addition, some of them are actively pursuing strategic alliances with promising Fin Tech companies in search of business synergies. For this purpose, banks frequently combine cooperation agreements with ex-ante collaboration across potential partners via self-run accelerators or incubators. In addition, banks have also explored the extent to which liaising with Big Tech can yield mutual benefits and, conversely, in what circumstances their threat can be confronted by promoting cooperative ventures across the industry (both nationally and internationally). As a result, we have been witnessing how these more dynamic innovative environments are able to better address actual user needs and, in parallel, to generate new business opportunities.
The volume of ATM transactions also increased by 5.1% to 6,654,992 (third quarter 2010: 6,333,073). Similarly, the value increased by 17.1% to K3,397.3 billion (third quarter 2010: K2,897.6 billion). 50. The total volume of cheques returned unpaid on account of insufficiently funded accounts increased by 5.4% to 4,428 (third quarter 2010: 4,202) cheques while the value decreased by 8% to K36.2 billion (third quarter 2010: K35.3 billion). The Bank would like to urge members of the public to always ensure that they fund their accounts sufficiently whenever they issue cheques. This will ensure that they do not face criminal charges under the National Payment Systems Act for bouncing cheques dishonestly or with intent to defraud. Economic programme 51. A follow-up International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission visited the country from 28th October to 3rd November 2010 to conclude discussions for the 5th Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. The mission had fruitful discussions with the Zambian authorities and reached agreement on a set of macroeconomic policies and structural measures for the remainder of 2010 and 2011. 52. The IMF Executive Board meeting was held on 10th December 2010 and completed the fifth review of Zambia’s economic programme. This resulted in the immediate disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 18.395 million (about US $ million), bringing total disbursements under the ECF arrangement to SDR 201.7 million (about US $ million). 53. The IMF mission commended the authorities for Zambia’s economic prospects that have continued to improve as well as for having sound macroeconomic policies.

This small share helps to explain why the pass-through of commodity prices into core measures of inflation has been very low in the United States for several decades. Third, the Federal Reserve’s success in anchoring inflation expectations has also been important in limiting pass-through. Since 1984, for example, when the Federal Reserve began to achieve success in driving down and then subsequently anchoring long-term inflation expectations, there has been very little evidence of commodity price pass-through into core inflation. In contrast, prior to 1984, when inflation expectations were much less wellanchored, pass-through did occur and, at times, played an important role in pushing underlying inflation higher. This leads to our final issue – the importance of inflation expectations in shaping the inflation outlook. Rising inflation expectations tends to push up inflation in a number of ways – by reducing the expected cost of borrowing at a given level of interest rates, by pulling forward buying decisions to beat future expected price increases, and by encouraging more aggressive price and wage setting behavior. In a world of unanchored inflation expectations, commodity price pressures would more easily be passed through into core inflation. Fortunately, inflation expectations remain well-anchored. This can be seen in all three major measures of inflation expectations. First, market-based measures of inflation expectations are generally well-behaved.
In many countries, including some European and in particular Asian states, we can observe an effective pursuit of a vision leading to success in the global economy and determination of the public administration to develop a country’s ability to drive innovation, that is to develop a factor determining the country’s success in the global economy of the 21st century. Examples may be found in a recent edition of The Economist, where the article entitled The Search for Talent names a number of activities pursued by public administration in many countries in order to attract well-educated foreigners. Ladies and Gentlemen, the 21st century has witnessed not only ‘the death of distance’ but also ‘the death of time’. Innovation is driven, efficiency is improving and value is created by companies for clients and by public administration for citizens at a significantly faster pace. In order to win in an increasingly competitive economy, it is not only necessary to move ahead, but to move ahead increasingly faster. And in the two areas I discussed, that is lack of vision and leadership and backwardness in e-government, we have to run, as the race has already begun, and we are still pondering whether we should start moving the left or right leg first. Poles are hardworking, talented and have entrepreneurial spirit. We are sufficiently predisposed to achieve success in the global economy.

Failure to make progress in these areas may sizably reduce the economic growth in the years to come. These areas include, but are by no means limited to road infrastructure, volume and quality of spending on research and development or business environment in Poland, as can be exemplified by an average of three years that it takes to claim one’s rights before courts in disputes between business entities. These weaknesses of the Polish economy are well known and it is also common knowledge what should be done to eliminate them. It is however not the weaknesses that I intend to discuss today, as I believe that there are other and much more serious areas of concern that significantly reduce Poland’s economic potential. Lack of reform in these areas may deprive Poland of the benefits brought by globalization. Today, I would like to outline two such problems: •  First, for many years there has been no common vision of Poland and no leadership that could inspire Poles to pursue this vision. •  Second, we may boast our world’s best IT specialists, but we are still well backward in terms of e-government – according to the Capgemini survey from June 2006 Poland ranks third from the bottom in the European Union 10 . Why do I believe the lack of vision, lack of leadership and Poland’s backwardness in e-government to be major weaknesses that diminish Poland’s possibility to capture the opportunities offered by the global economy?
But the events of the past five years have raised questions about how central banks manage the trade-offs between price stability, output stability and financial stability in order to meet our overall macroeconomic objectives. Throughout the era of inflation targeting, the importance of the trade-off between output and inflation stabilisation in the short term has been well understood. Monetary policy was seen as aiming at a target for inflation in the long run, which was to be achieved by bringing inflation back to target over a suitable time horizon so as to avoid excessive volatility of real variables such as output and employment. Optimal monetary policy was seen as a choice of how best to navigate the short-run trade-off while ensuring that the long-run objective was met. Failure to deliver price stability is costly, as UK experience amply demonstrates. Chart 1 shows the variance of inflation and of the output gap in the UK, using quarterly data for two periods.1 Contrast the performance in the 35 years up to 1992 with the first 15 years of inflation targeting. Better policy can take some credit for this improvement, as the anchoring of inflation expectations led to a huge reduction in inflation volatility. It was tempting to think that we had moved onto the “Taylor frontier” – which maps feasible combinations of the smallest variances of the output gap and inflation.

The deployment of responsibilities outside monetary policy cannot be divorced from the government in the same way as is possible for monetary policy. For example, in the area of financial stability and banking supervision, there will be times when public funds may be put at risk when rescuing or resolving a failing institution – and that decision is properly one for the finance ministry. It is far from straightforward for a central bank governor to be completely independent in terms of monetary policy, somewhat independent in terms of financial stability, and not at all independent in terms of operations that risk taxpayers’ money. The financial crisis has challenged our understanding of the objectives of monetary policy and exposed its limits. And, through the proliferation of instruments and resulting increase in responsibilities, it has complicated the question of central bank independence. So how should we respond to this more complex environment? We must keep sight of three important principles. First, although they should be realistic about what can be achieved, it is right that elected politicians and parliaments decide on the objectives of policy. Second, as we learned in the 1970s, if the central bank is to achieve price stability – its fundamental role – it must be sufficiently independent. And third, in order to protect that independence, its limits should be very clearly circumscribed, and we should be exceptionally careful with decisions that put public funds at risk. The challenge remains, as it was twenty years ago, to make “constrained discretion” work in practice.
A fair comparison of the accuracy of different forecasts should take into account the fact that the forecasts are made at different points in time and that different forecasters therefore do not have the same information available to them. In the comparison of forecasts made in the material for the assessment of monetary policy, a method is used that takes such differences into account. 9 Figure 10 shows an adjusted absolute average error for the inflation forecasts for the period 1999–2009, that is the absolute forecasting error for CPI inflation adjusting for differences in the forecast horizon. 10 The shorter the bar, the smaller the forecasting error and the higher the accuracy of the forecast. 9  See M. Andersson and T. Aranki, “A comparison of different forecasters’ ability given the publication date effect”, Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review, No.1, 2009. 10  The average error is calculated as the mean value of the forecaster's forecasting errors during the forecast period. The absolute average error means that the sign of the individual forecast deviations is not taken into account. 14  BIS Review 32/2010  The major forecasters – the Swedish Ministry of Finance, the National Institute of Economic Research and the Riksbank – are reported individually, while the others are reported as an average. It may be worth noting that the Riksbank’s forecasts up to the third Inflation Report of 2005 were based on the assumption of an unchanged repo rate during the forecasting period. This may have hampered the accuracy.

Governments worldwide are already taking steps to address this concern – but more collective effort is needed to make any significant progress – in closing the gap between the rich and the poor. The third challenge is the retreat in globalisation. Increasingly inward-looking political sentiment poses serious threat to trade liberalisation – which has formed the global economy’s growth engine since the 1980s. Two decades ago, trade liberalisation enabled developing countries such as China and India to achieve exceptional growth, and in the process, unshackling millions from deep poverty. The calls for trade protectionism that are rife in the advanced economies today is therefore a major concern. If left unaddressed, the upsurge in protectionism and insular policies may lead to a reverse in globalisation, which would be detrimental to living standards. I have painted a rather bleak picture that depicts the fragile state of today’s world. Various forces at play have led us to where we are now – finance being one of them. While finance has lifted the lives of many, some argue that it has derailed from its intended objectives, leading to many economic, environmental and social problems that we face today. They argue that the global economy is very much driven by global financial capital, with most of it managed by financial entities that are attuned to financial risk and return considerations. Beyond these considerations, the non-financial impacts of an investment or ‘externalities’, such as rain forest destruction; water and air pollution are rarely considered and often simply ignored.
Another, it is sometimes suggested, would be that the economic framework for firms would be perceived as more secure and stable if Sweden adopted the single currency. Once again, the strength of these arguments is difficult to assess, partly because they have evident political purposes. But opinions of this type may clearly have effects if they are current among central decision-makers in the business sector. Political arguments favour participation This brings me, finally, to the political arguments for and against adopting the single currency. The Calmfors report discussed the implications of participation for Swedish policy and its legitimacy, as well as the consequences for Sweden’s voice in Europe and the world. On the first point I shall simply say that I agree about the importance of any decision to participate having a high degree of legitimacy. This in turn calls for an animated discussion of the EMU issue. Having said that, I shall now concentrate on the other aspect. The report considered that if Sweden participated in the monetary union, we would be in a better position to influence EU decisions. The more countries that participated, the greater would be the strength of this argument. The Riksbank agreed but found the argument unduly cautious as regards the political advantages. We saw major political benefits from participation and considered that an outsider position would clearly weaken Sweden’s voice in the European debate and decision-making process. As I see it, since the report was presented and the Riksbank submitted its opinion, the political argument has gained appreciable weight.

Second, yields rose globally in the summer on the back of expectations that the US Federal Reserve was about to taper its asset purchase program; more recently they fell back when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) unexpectedly decided not to begin phasing out its asset purchases at its September meeting. Given the relatively high degree of substitutability between UK gilts and US treasuries, and assuming that long-term inflation expectations are anchored in both countries, it is reasonable to expect a high degree of correlation of UK long rates with US long rates. But one might expect the correlation to be less pronounced at the short end of the curve, where differences in cyclical positions – and therefore differences in monetary stances – should come to the fore. Strong co-movement should only be seen if either the shock is common in nature, or the international transmission of a shock from one country to the other is strong. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Now, as it happens, measures of co-movement have generally been high since the start of the financial crisis. In the earlier phase of the crisis, when contagion through financial markets was particularly strong, it was reasonable to believe that what happened in the United States was critical to the outlook here. That seems less plausible now, given the substantial progress in repairing the banking systems in the two countries.
However, today, the standard to risk management has become more rigorous and technical, with risk being categorized into credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, interest rate risk, operational risk, and reputational risk, each with their specific risk management process set out in detail, which can all seem quite complicated and somewhat of a headache at time! The standard for managing some risks could demand the use of complex quantitative technique, which can at time be quite incomprehensible, and make directors feel uncomfortable in discharging their role, and uncertain as to how deep they must dwell into the technical aspect. Let me offer my take on how to respond to this issue, to try and help clarify the task facing the directors. First and foremost, banks need to set up a Risk Management Committee to assist the Board’s in its oversight. The members of the Committee may be drawn from the Board only, or a combination of Board and management. The important thing is that members of the Committee must be well versed in modern risk management, someone the Board trust and have confidence, and report regularly to the Board in line with the agreed work process. The practice in some banks is to form the Risk Management Committee from members drawn from the Board and also senior management responsible for various risk areas, and the post of the Chair of the Committee is given to a Board director who will act as eyes and ears for the Board on these issues.

We hope that you would have a better appreciation of why the Bank of Thailand needs to call for even more on your directorship role. But before I dwell into the topic of the duties of directors, let me take this occasion to extend to you my deepest appreciation and thanks for the tremendous efforts and cooperation you have given the Bank of Thailand in the course of the year. Your institutions have continued to lend strong and valuable support to the recovery programme for the businesses affected by the Tsunami disaster, and those affected by the violence and unrest in the three southern provinces, by extending the concessional lending programme for another year. To support the reform in the banknote management system, you have made substantial changes to your operation nationwide to take on the additional role of handling and moving banknotes. This cooperative spirit truly demonstrates a shared understanding of the benefits of reform, despite the adjustments required on your part. Last year we also had a cause for celebration with the progress made in the Data Management System which helped improve efficiency of the reporting system for financial institutions, customers, and foreign exchange transactions data. Going forward, we continue to receive full cooperation from banks in building the country’s economic database. The project is expected to be completed this year. Turning to the payments system, the ITMX project designed as infrastructure for a modern payment system, has also made tremendous stride with the full cooperation of all Thai banks.