samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The Riksbank does not consider the present level of house prices and household debt to be an immediate threat to financial stability, but their current growth rates are unsustainable, so future problems cannot be ruled out. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Figure 4: Real residential property prices in Sweden and other countries  Index 1995 q1 = 100. Source: Reuters Ecowin and Statistics Sweden. (The Riksbank’s Financial stability report 2010:2)  If the current growth rates of house prices and household debt are considered to be a potential threat to future financial stability, it may be necessary to act soon, because it will take time for any measures to take effect. So the Riksbank is investigating instruments (existing or potential) to prevent or mitigate this threat by smoothing the house price cycle, controlling household indebtedness or improving the resilience of banks. There are a range of prohibitive instruments that could be used to restrict the choices of households and financial institutions. These could include, for example, the introduction of a binding maximum loan-to-value ratio on household borrowing 5 or a maximum debt-to-income ratio, or requiring mortgage interest payments to be fixed for a certain time period. There is also a range of taxation instruments that could act on the price of the activities of households and financial institutions. This includes changes to financial institutions’ capital requirements or changes to the reserve requirements (SEK or foreign currency that financial institutions are required to hold at the central bank).

They were highly skilled boat builders and sailors as well; indeed, their light, swift galleys known as liburnae were of such superior design that the Romans incorporated them into their own fleet as a type of warship called the Liburnian. The famous Roman orator Cicero, astonished by the beauty of Apollonia named it in his Philippics, magna urbs et gravis – a great and important city. In the first century B.C., Octavian Augustus studied philosophy there until he heard news of Caesar’s murder in the Senate and went on to become the next Roman emperor. More than thousand years after, Skanderbeg’s stronghold in the mountain town of Kruja, became highly significant to the Albanian people, as it strengthened their solidarity, made them more conscious of their national identity, and served later as a great source of inspiration in their struggle for national unity, freedom, and independence. Skanderbeg’s military successes evoked a good deal of interest and admiration of the Papal state, Venice and Naples, themselves threatened by the growing Ottoman power across the Adriatic. Whoever discovered Albania (decided to visit Albania was marveled by its beauty and the spirit of its inhabitants. World figures were usually so moved that the name of Albania became eternal in their masterpieces of art. Albania has a reputation as a land of great natural beauty and romantic remoteness. These two characteristics have made it all the more attractive, mysterious, forbidding, challenging, or exasperating to outsiders, be they travelers, scholars, diplomats, or merchants.
This represents a 6 percent loss – roughly on par with the loss nationwide. Less than one in four of those jobs have been recovered to date, slightly weaker than the nationwide recovery and, of course, much weaker than I would like to see. Over the past year, the private sector has seen moderate job gains led by some of the key sectors I mentioned earlier, particularly professional and business services, education and health, and leisure and hospitality. But the state continues to shed jobs in manufacturing and there has been little recovery in construction. State and local government cut back employment substantially during 2010, though there has been a modest pick up over the past year. Unemployment among New Jersey residents remains high. July’s reading of 9.8 percent puts the state’s rate well above the U.S. average. More broadly, how are the state’s families faring financially? While the median household income among New Jersey families is the second highest in the nation – at about $ – roughly a tenth of residents live in families with incomes below the poverty line. Although this rate is below the national rate of 14 percent, it varies considerably by county across the state, and is particularly high in Essex, Hudson and Passaic counties. Reducing poverty is a major challenge for policymakers. The New York Fed’s measures of regional credit conditions suggest continued financial challenges for families here.

Nationally, home prices have stabilized and begun to rise modestly after falling roughly 30 percent from their 2006 peak. Housing market conditions still vary significantly across the country with the worst performing counties experiencing annual house price declines of 8 percent or more. This sector is just getting back on its feet, so that even strong gains in the residential investment sector from its current tiny base will provide only a modest contribution to overall GDP growth. In addition, homeowner net worth remains much below its pre-crisis level. The near-term outlook for the business sector is particularly worrisome right now. New orders for nondefense capital goods and information on business plans for spending on new structures both suggest weakness in business fixed investment. Also, many indicators point to sluggish manufacturing activity, including the ISM manufacturing composite index, several regional manufacturing surveys, and August industrial production. Our own Empire State Manufacturing Survey fell deeper into negative territory in September. This manufacturing slowdown stems from several factors, including the slowdown in the pace of growth abroad and uncertainties about how the fiscal cliff in Washington will be resolved. So why has the economy grown so slowly since the official end of the “Great Recession?” There are many reasons, but I would cite five factors as particularly important: •  Access to credit. Although credit availability is slowly improving, it remains impaired, especially for households with less-than-sterling credit histories and for some small businesses. •  Balance sheet repair.
A World of Contrasts: Synchronous Recovery Amid Uneven Risk Profiles Since the Global Financial Crisis almost nine years ago, the pursuit of a sustained global economic expansion has eluded policymakers. Global growth has been slow, fraught with risks and shrouded by uncertainties. There have been several false starts, with uneven and sometimes divergent growth momentum among regions. In fact, 2016 marked the slowest global GDP growth recorded since the crisis. Positive developments have, however, recently emerged. A pick-up in industrial activity and trade, along with the increase in commodity prices, points to a quickening in growth momentum. Significantly, this growth upturn is characterised by a synchronised expansion in both the advanced and emerging countries. This has given policy makers some cautious optimism for a sustained recovery of global growth and international trade. In particular, the improvement in advanced economies is encouraging as it is led by recovery in investment activity. Emerging economies are benefiting from external demand, aided by the improvements in commodity prices. Our assessment is that the global economy will continue to gradually improve. Nevertheless, many developments around globe warrant a very close surveillance. It is still too early to declare a definitive revival in the global economy. In fact, at this point, despite the emergence of a few positive developments, the overall risks remain tilted to the downside.

This is because a given basket of goods today costs considerably more if bought in Europe or the USA using exchanged euro or dollars than if bought in Sweden. Sometimes they talk about "hamburger parity" as a simple illustration of this concept, i.e. compare what a certain well-known hamburger costs in different countries. And this brings us to the fact that the krona should be valued approximately ten per cent higher in order to buy the same hamburger here as in the USA. More complicated calculations of the balanced real exchange rate provide similar results, perhaps even slightly more than ten per cent. The Riksbank's forecast of the path of the krona shows a similar development. Now we in Sweden are not alone in having seen our currency weaken; other industrial nations with a floating exchange rate are seeing the same thing, e.g. Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This is probably due to the unease on the financial markets during the spring, as times of trouble often entail capital moving away from the less liquid currencies and fleeing to those perceived as more stable and liquid, primarily the US dollar. On top of this comes the development on the Swedish stock exchange, which appears to have played a major role recently. The foreign exchange market and the stock exchanges have been strongly correlated for a period of time, particularly since the stock exchange fell. Since mid-2000, 85 per cent of the variations in the -SEK/EUR exchange rate can be explained by variations in share prices.
In recent years, with the financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, the real return has been lower, averaging about 2½ percent since 1998. 1  Source: Lie, E. and C. Venneslan: Over evne. Finansdepartementet 1965–1992 [Beyond our power. Ministry of Finance 1965–1992]. Pax forlag, 2010. 2  See Report no. 25 to the Storting (1973-74): “Petroleumsvirksomhetens plass i det norske samfunn” [The role of petroleum activity in Norwegian society]. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  We should be careful about taking a rear-view mirror approach to forming expectations about the future. Equity prices fluctuate considerably and there is a possibility that the results of the past few years will be counterbalanced by good years ahead. But changes in the global economy affect the growth outlook and the balance of risks, and hence financial market returns as well. (Chart 9: Real return on 10-year government bonds) The yield on the presumably safest long-term government bonds can provide a basis for estimating the return on the Fund. Returns exceeding this will reflect the risk we are willing to take. In 2001, real interest rates on long-term government bonds averaged around 3 percent internationally. Real interest rates have since fallen and long-term real interest rates are now at a historical low of between 0 and 1 percent. At the moment, it would seem that economic growth ahead will be more modest than in the favourable pre-crisis years.

Michael Held: Keynote remarks at Union of Arab Banks’ anticorruption conference Keynote remarks (delivered via video conference) by Mr Michael Held, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Union of Arab Banks' Conference on Anti-Bribery Corruption, the Sixth European Union Anti-Money Laundering Directive, and the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, 3 February 2022. * * * As prepared for delivery It is a pleasure to be with you virtually for this important Conference. I am thrilled to be able to share a digital stage with my distinguished colleagues – Liz Rosenberg, the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the U.S. Treasury Department, and Dr. Fahad Ibrahim Alshathri, the Deputy Governor for Supervision at the Saudi Central Bank. I also want to thank my friend Wissam Fattouh and the Union of Arab Banks for the invitation to be part of this timely event. Before I start my remarks, I want you to know that the comments are my own and may not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Like my colleagues and our respective institutions, I have serious concerns about corruption, kleptocracy and international bribery schemes. The Federal Reserve System supports the U.S. government’s actions to limit those activities through prosecutions and sanctions.
As a result, borrowing or investment of free funds of second-tier banks at the Bank of Albania will ease the misbalance effects between the demand and supply for domestic monetary assets on the liquidity performance during the year. 2  Forecasts on the NDA and NIR objective growth during 2004 are based on the growth of gross foreign currency reserve by USD 45 million and the growth of the reserve money by nearly Lek 17.9 billion until the end 2004. 6  BIS Review 8/2004  Table 7. Liquidity performance during 2004 (in Lek billion).

This is why we have taken an ambitious experimental approach to a CBDC: we are currently in the process of finalising our programme of experiments on an “interbank” or “wholesale” CBDC, to test whether and how it could improve the performance, speed, transparency and security of transactions between major financial players, especially for crossborder payments. In parallel, the Banque de France is closely involved in the investigation phase launched by the Eurosystem in July for the retail digital euro, which would be used by the general public in everyday payments. However, a CBDC is not the only, or indeed the most urgent instrument we need to use. 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  We also regard regulation as a priority, because the smooth functioning of our payment system depends, first and foremost, on a regulatory framework that is clear, fair (“same activity, same risk, same rule”) and balanced – in other words capable of encouraging innovation and at the same time maintaining the stability of our payment system. This is why we have welcomed and are supporting the proposed Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), presented in September 2020 – even though there is still room for progress on these texts in order to reconcile pragmatism and flexibility with the necessary requirements in terms of risk control and the prevention of regulatory arbitrage. Moreover, other regulatory changes will have to be introduced which are also very important.
35  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  35  Chart 14: Adoption rates of basic ICT technologies Percentage of companies 45 2002  40  2007  35  2015  30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0-1  2  3  4  5  Number of technologies adopted Sources: ONS Research Databases and Bank calculations. Notes: Basic ICT technologies refer to computers, internet, websites, e-purchases and e-sales. Chart 15: Adoption rates of advanced ICT technologies  Percentage of companies  40 35  2011  30  2015  25 20 15 10 5 0  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  Number of technologies adopted Sources: ONS Research Databases and Bank calculations. Notes: Advanced ICT technologies refer to: mobile access to emails, documents and software, websites with online ordering, fast broadband access and electronic data interchange sales. 36  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  36  Chart 16: Employee usage of computers Density  0.03  2002 0.025  2008 2015  0.02 0.015 0.01 0.005 0  0  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90  100  Percentage of employees using computers Sources: ONS Research Databases and Bank calculations.

Khwaja, AI, Mian, A and Qamar, A (2011), ‘Bank Credit and Business Networks, HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series, RWO11-017, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Macpherson, N (2018), ‘Pay rises will not solve Britain’s productivity problem’, Financial Times, 23 March 2018. Manyika, J, Lund, S, Bughin, J, Woetzel, J, Stamenov, K and Dhingra, D (2016), ‘Digital Globalization: The New Era of Global Flows’, McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey & Company. Monetary Policy Committee (2014), ‘Inflation Report’, Bank of England, May 2014. Moykr, J (2014), ‘Secular stagnation? Not in your life’, VoxEU, 11 August 2014. North, D (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press. Ramsden, D (2018), ‘The UK’s productivity growth challenge’, speech available at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2018/dave-ramsden-panel-remarks-cbi-event  26  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  26  Remes, J, Manyika, J, Bughin, J, Woetzel, J, Mischke, J and Krishnan, J (2018), ‘Solving the Productivity Puzzle: The Role of Demand and the Promise of Digitization, McKinsey Global Institute, February 2018. Rhodes, C (2017), ‘Business statistics’, House of Commons Library, Briefing Paper, No. 06152. Schneider, P (2018), ‘The UK’s productivity puzzle is in the top tail of the distribution’, Bank Underground, 29 March 2018. Schumpeter, J (1942), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper & Brothers. Swinney, P (2018), ‘The wrong tail’, Centre for Cities, 24 May 2018. Tenreyro, S (2018), ‘The fall in productivity growth: causes and implications’, speech available at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2018/silvana-tenreyro-2018-peston-lecture Watts, D (2003), Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, William Heinemann.
Unlike the earlier decades, when Gulf countries were obliged to recycle their additional revenues into the global economy due to limited absorptive capacity in the region; currently, existing and projected needs of this region indicate that a significant percentage of the additional flows can be invested and put to many productive uses in the local economies. Also, the Gulf countries wish to continue to be attractive to international financial flows in form of foreign direct investments to encourage partnerships and for transfer of knowledge and technology. This is essential for deepening and broadening the economies and opening of new industrial and infrastructure sectors. I will be touching upon these challenges in some detail in my speech. Dear Audience, As we well know, a well-developed and efficiently functioning financial system is an essential prerequisite for sustained economic growth. By intermediating between savers and borrowers, it promotes saving and investments and also induces an efficient allocation of investable funds. The global integration of financial markets over the past two decades has opened up new vistas for resource mobilization and more efficient deployment of investable funds worldwide. At the same time, however, market integration exposes domestic financial systems to new risks and vulnerabilities. Shocks that occur in one market are now easily and quickly transmitted to other markets turning into a contagion that can affect an entire region. It is, therefore, imperative that a domestic financial system is strong enough to cope with the increased risk associated with globalization in general and integration of the financial markets in particular.

This is a remarkable achievement in the face of global and regional uncertainties, political and economic crises, wars and conflicts and the volatilities of the oil and currency markets. SAMA's focus on achieving and maintaining financial stability is premised on the belief that it is a fundamental precondition for sustained and dynamic economic growth in which all market participants are able to make optimum contribution to the economy. Financial stability not only promotes efficient domestic investment activity but also creates a positive environment to attract foreign capital and foreign investors. Dear Audience, Over the past decade, the Saudi Arabia's financial system has been changing at an escalating pace. The banking sector, being one of the pillars of the financial system, has 20 licensed banks including 16 that are operational and 4 that are planning to become operational over the next year. The newly licensed banks include 6 regional and 3 major international banks. As for the Insurance Industry, SAMA has recently been involved in licensing of 14 Insurance companies that are now in the process of becoming operational within this year. SAMA also continues to regulate a number of money-changer organizations as well as a few lease finance and consumer finance companies. The financial sector also includes several autonomous government financing agencies as well as the state-owned pension fund and the General Organization for Social Insurance.
As the IMF has noted, this should encourage more accurate and predictable pricing of distressed claims, assisting the development of a deeper secondary market in which financial institutions can trade distressed claims and thereby transfer loans to specialist turnaround investors. Of course, some of these complementarities may be difficult to exploit in countries, especially emerging market economies, in which banks are facing major problems arising from their corporate loan books. Banks with inadequate loan loss provisions and low capital ratios may be reluctant to participate in corporate workouts, because they may then be forced to recognise actual losses. The role of the public authorities is often crucial in such cases. In practice, bank restructuring programmes have often transferred distressed corporate sector debt to separate government agencies. Indeed, this has happened in recent years in some G10 countries, notably the US, Japan and Sweden. This can lead to tensions between maximising short-term debt recoveries to limit the public costs of bank recapitalisation and preserving longer-term corporate value. Effectively, the public authorities may liquidate companies prematurely, in an effort to secure immediate cash recoveries, when a longer-term restructuring of these companies might be a more effective way to preserve value in both the corporate sector and the wider economy, including the banking sector. To avoid this conflict, corporate and banking sector restructurings need to be more effectively co-ordinated.

The Bank of Albania will continue to supply the banking system with adequate liquidity for the smooth functioning of financial markets. *** At the end of discussions, the Supervisory Council decided to keep the key interest rate unchanged, at 3.5%. The Supervisory Council deems that the current monetary conditions are adequate to meet our medium-term inflation target, and provide the monetary stimulus necessary to recover the domestic private demand. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3