samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Low policy rates, it is argued, generate leverage in the economy and can lead to asset price bubbles. These concerns have particular relevance for me given my responsibility as the current Deputy Governor for Financial stability. On the face of it, this ought to bias me more to err on the side of a faster and sharper approach to policy. The evidence certainly seems to suggest that previous occupants of my post may have had such concerns about the impact of monetary policy on financial markets. Since the post was established in 1998, previous Deputy Governors for Financial Stability have never voted against a rate increase, and have frequently been in the minority in calling for one. 22  The difference, however, is that it was only in 2013, six months prior to my arrival, with the formal establishment of the Financial Policy Committee that the Bank was given specific macro-prudential tools to manage risks to financial stability. And since the establishment of the FPC, we have used those tools not just to increase the resilience of the financial system but also to restrain the build up of leverage in the economy more generally. 23  I am very clear that monetary policy can and should serve as the last line of defence against risks to financial stability, even though that can come at a significant cost to the broad economy.

I congratulate the Board, Senior Management team and the staff of INCOME, both past and present, for bringing INCOME to where it is today. 20. I wish you continued success in the years to come. BIS Review 163/2010  3
Changes in relative term premia are far more difficult to interpret than changes in the expected path of future short-term interest rates. The latter can be clearly associated with changes in monetary policy expectations. 8 / 11  BIS central bankers' speeches  Changes in term premia, by contrast, often reflect a combination of shocks, including monetary policy shocks as well as shocks to demand, risk aversion and other variables, which will drive term premia in the same or in opposite directions. The most recent disconnect between the euro and US dollar exchange rate and the expected future short-term interest rate differential is a case in point. On the left-hand side of slide 7 you can see that a significant gap between the two series re-emerged in the spring of this year, and continues to persist. It is tempting to link recent developments once more to portfolio rebalancing considerations. After all, the Federal Reserve is now actively reducing its balance sheet, while the ECB last week decided to extend its asset purchase programme by nine months, or more, if needed, while reducing the monthly pace to € billion. This might have caused some investors to expect a gradual rebalancing of portfolios away from US dollar-denominated assets and towards eurodenominated assets, which would support the euro. But many other factors may drive interest and exchange rates, with likely different implications for the real economy.19 Indeed, geopolitical and policy uncertainties may also contribute to swings in bond term premia. So it is difficult to establish unequivocal links.

And, fourth, the dollar started to appreciate only once expectations about asset purchases in the euro area gained a strong tailwind during the second half of 2014. Here the temporal coincidence is striking. The moment the ECB announced its credit easing programme in June 2014, which many observers considered to be a harbinger of sovereign bond purchases, and moved rates into negative territory, the dollar started to appreciate significantly against the euro. In less than two and a half months, the euro lost nearly 10% in value. Net euro short positions jumped to close to record highs in the space of a few weeks. In other words, only the prospect of sovereign bond purchases by the ECB seems to have led to a reappraisal by market participants of future domestic and foreign demand for US Treasuries.10 Empirical analysis on the direction of international spillovers in bond markets corroborates this view. On slide 4 you can see that ECB researchers, using the Diebold-Yilmaz methodology, find that spillovers from the euro area to the United States spiked sharply in mid-2014.11 According to 5 / 11  BIS central bankers' speeches  this methodology, euro area spillovers accounted for more than half of the variance in US Treasuries in the second half of 2014. Put differently, in the presence of asset purchase programmes, the portfolio rebalancing channel, rather than the signalling channel, might ultimately rise to become the dominant driver of exchange rates, at least temporarily.
Many of these instruments, such as providing liquidity, are inherent or traditional while others, such as regulating and watching over payment systems, have developed in recent decades. The experience of the last few years has suggested a need to review or update the available instruments and to generate the operational conditions in which they can be used without delay when needed. During this latest crisis, for example, many central banks were not operationally prepared to receive collateral that was not in habitual use. It has also been suggested that there is a need to incorporate new instruments, principally with a macroprudential approach. However, in the case of some of these instruments – specifically, the use of regulation for countercyclical purposes – evidence is scarce and debate as yet inconclusive. However, beyond the contribution that a central bank can make, financial stability requires a comprehensive framework of financial institutions, policies and practices. The solidity of this framework and its consistency are crucial. Regulation and supervision, whether or not in the hands of the central bank, are critical, but so too are monetary and fiscal policy. The recent sovereign debt crisis in Europe, for example, has demonstrated the importance of fiscal conditions for financial stability. Market discipline and institutions’ management, although discredited by the crisis, are factors that can, with an appropriate regulatory framework and incentives, contribute to stability. The efficiency of regulation and supervision should, in the end, be reflected in good behavior by institutions and the proper functioning of markets.

A termination or reversal of this trend would tend to raise the NIRU, at least temporarily.” It is ironic that two of the most prominent economists of countries synonymous with art and beauty – Italy and Greece – (one a future Nobel prize winner and the other a future central bank governor) should have given birth to an unattractive acronym that has spawned so many even more unappealing cousins. The first, and most feted, offspring – the NAIRU – was introduced by James Tobin five years later. NIRU, NIIRU, NAIRU – tongue twisters for the Financial Times Christmas quiz, or measures of the Inflationary Trigger Point? Take your choice. For the sake of simplicity I shall adopt the conventional term, NAIRU, to represent the entire family. So what is the relationship between the natural rate of unemployment and the NAIRU? The natural rate of unemployment and the NAIRU are quite different concepts. The former describes a real equilibrium determined by the structural characteristics of the labour and product markets – the grinding out of Friedman’s Walrasian general equilibrium system (modified, if necessary, by non-Walrasian features of labour markets such as imperfect competition, search behaviour and efficiency wages). It exists independently of the inflation rate. In contrast, the latter, as well as being affected by these structural characteristics, is also affected by the gradual adjustment of the economy to past economic shocks that determine the path of inflation.
With economies and markets always moving between equilibria, it is the journey that matters. By working together we can make that journey as pleasant and as prosperous as possible. The need to work together extends beyond policymakers to all in the City. So I am delighted to take up co-presidency of Heart of the City with you, Lord Mayor. This umbrella group for City charities, co-founded by Eddie George fourteen years ago, is a great example of how cooperation and social responsibility can be at the heart of business, building the social capital necessary for vibrant and inclusive capitalism. Fiona, you are to be commended for the energy and enthusiasm you have brought to your role – as well as the excellent hospitality you have provided tonight. So let me invite everyone here to rise and join me in a toast of good health and prosperity to “The Lord Mayor and the Lord Mayor’s Consort”, Fiona and Nicholas Woolf. References Del’Ariccia, G, Igan, D, Laeven, L, and Tong, H (2012), “Policies for macrofinancial stability: how to deal with credit booms”, IMF Staff Discussion Note 12/06, June. IMF (2014), World Economic Outlook, April. Lim, C, Columba, F, Costa, A, Kongsamut, P, Otani, A, Saiyid, M, Wezel, T and Wu, X (2011), “Macroprudential policy: what instruments and how to use them?” IMF Working Paper No. 11/238, October. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Speech at the Press Conference: Collaboration on Adopting Standardized QR Code for e-Payment Dr. Veerathai Santiprabhob, Governor Wednesday 30 August 2017 Bank of Thailand ……………………………………………………… Executives from American Express, JCB International, Mastercard, VISA and UnionPay International President of Thai Bankers' Association President of Government Financial Institutions Council President of Association of International Banks President of Thailand Electronic Payment Trade Association President of the Telecommunications Association of Thailand under the Royal Patronage Press members and distinguished guests, I am very pleased that all payment service providers in Thailand are here to announce their collaboration on adopting QR Code standard for payments. This is considered an important milestone for which the standardized QR Code has been implemented in Thailand. It is also the first time that five international payment card network providers and Thai financial service providers have mutually agreed to adopt the same QR Code standard in providing payment services in Thailand. It is recognized that electronic payment (e-Payment) is a crucial component in driving a digital economy, where technologies have been utilized to deliver better services for consumers and businesses, to increase financial inclusion, to raise efficiency and to reduce costs; thus, enhancing the country’s competitiveness and supporting ‘ease of doing business’ principle.
As best I can tell, no-one got the crisis completely right, despite a number of people subsequently exhibiting supernatural powers of hindsight. Rather, the crisis illustrated the limits of our collective knowledge, our collective lack of imagination. It demonstrated that, in a world of uncertainty as distinct from risk, it is better to be super-safe ex-ante than super-sorry ex-post, better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.20  18  A more developed version was published in Nature, written with the late Bob May (Haldane and May (2009)). Haldane (2009). 20 Kay and King (2021). 19  12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  12  The latter comes to mind when reflecting on the initial rescue response to the crisis. For me, one of the decisive moments came early in 2008 when, led by Mervyn King, the Bank judged that the problems facing the UK and global banking systems were ones of solvency, not illiquidity. Righting the system meant restoring the solvency of banks through capital injections. This was a big call. But how much more capital was needed, given the degree of uncertainty (not risk) about the true value of UK banks’ assets? This was the problem Mervyn set for my Division. One approach to answering it was to assess capital shortfalls bottom-up, asset by asset. As UK banks had an asset base of £ trillion, much of which they themselves could not value, this was practically impossible. In even trying, we would probably have been precisely wrong.

As other countries have found, the scale and scope created by a Development Bank is necessary to reach SME start-ups and scale-ups across all sectors and all regions. The best time to have put in place a UK Development Bank would have been 1929. The second best time is now. Until recently one of the great financial puzzles was that, despite waves of innovation, there was little evidence of its effects in measures of the efficiency of financial intermediation. At the macro level, the work of Thomas Phillippon suggests measures of banking efficiency in the UK and US have flat-lined.27 At the micro level, this lack of progress was well captured by the late, great Paul Volcker in 2009 when we suggested the only useful piece of financial innovation over the preceding 20 years had been the ATM. 26 27  Stamp (1931). Phillippon (2015). 16  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  16  Today, the winds of technological change are blowing a gale through finance, led by payments. New technological barbarians are appearing at the gates, transferring monies cheaper, faster and easier than ever. Many private sector initiatives are underway currently to develop so-called “stablecoins” – digital currencies backed by pools of safe assets.
Economic importance of the EU, the euro and the ECB Ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, the EU is Switzerland’s most important foreign trade partner. And within the EU, the euro area countries play a particularly important role for us. In 2015, exports to the euro area accounted for around 44% of total exports; the share of imports from the euro area was larger still. Although the share of exports to the euro area has fallen by around 10 percentage points since 2000 – we are increasingly diversifying our foreign trade towards the emerging markets in particular – overall, the euro area countries remain by far the biggest consumers of Swiss products (cf. chart 2). The particular significance of the euro area for Swiss foreign trade means that the exchange rate to the euro is an important variable, both for our economy and for the SNB’s monetary policy. The exchange rate influences the price of foreign goods in Switzerland – and thus also inflation, as measured by the national consumer price index; but it also impacts the price of Swiss goods in the euro area, which in turn impacts domestic inflation via production and employment effects. Consequently, the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) is particularly relevant for Switzerland. This has become clear again in recent years. On the one hand, the ECB’s expansionary monetary policy has encouraged the economic recovery and helped to promote cohesion in the euro area – which in turn has bolstered demand for Swiss products.

15 Clerc, L., A. Giovannini, S. Langfield, T. Peltonen, R. Portes, and M. Scheicher (2016), “Indirect contagion: the  policy problem”, ESRB Occasional Paper no. 9. 16 European Systemic Risk Board (2014), “Flagship report on macroprudential policy in the banking sector”, March;  and European Systemic Risk Board (2014), “Handbook on operationalising macroprudential policy in the banking sector”, March. 4/4  BIS Central Banker's Speeches
After taking a close look at the foreign exchange space with economists, traders, and market analysts, the NYIC team zeroed in on settlement of foreign exchange spot transactions as a first area of investigation. FX spot transactions are critical in the context of cross-border payments, and serve as a building block for longer, more complex transactions. Traditionally, settlement generally takes two days after a transaction, which leaves some room for improvement. By demonstrating improvements in settlement of FX spot transactions, the NYIC could address settlement time and risk, which would have implications to speed and access for the broader cross-border market. We are not the first to address this topic, of course, but the NYIC wanted to investigate it from the perspective of the Federal Reserve, through the lens of a wholesale CBDC. The NYIC developed a hypothesis that there is a distributed ledger technology solution for wholesale FX settlement that results in instant and atomic settlement in which a wholesale CBDC is the settlement asset. NYIC then built a working prototype and tested it. Results from the experiment indicated that settlement could occur in fewer than 10 seconds on average and that horizontal scaling was possible. This indicates that a modular ecosystem of ledgers has the potential for continued scalability, and that distributed ledger technology could enable settlement times well below the current industry standard of two days, with the added guarantee of atomic settlement.

House prices increased further this summer, and the twelve-month rise moved up to 17.7 per cent in August. Residential construction is still high. In 2005, the number of housing starts was the highest since the beginning of the 1980s. As the interest rate level gradually normalises, household interest expenses will increase. Combined with projected lower employment growth and higher inflation, this might reduce growth in household purchasing power in the years ahead. Higher wage growth would have the opposite effect. Overall, moderate growth in household purchasing power is expected to result in lower consumption growth ahead. A gradual increase in the interest rate will probably curb activity in the housing market. Housing investment is expected to grow through this year, albeit less rapidly than last year. Housing investment growth will thereafter moderate further, and may fall somewhat towards the end of the projection period. House price inflation is expected to slow. Household indebtedness has increased in tandem with high activity in the housing market. Growth in household debt (C2) has abated somewhat in recent months, but remains at a high level. Higher interest rates and lower house price inflation will gradually reduce household debt growth in the next few years. Growth in credit to mainland enterprises has also shown a sharp increase over the past year, partly reflecting increased fixed investment. With prospects of continued high capacity utilisation in the Norwegian economy, solid profitability, ample liquidity and a high level of optimism among enterprises, strong growth in investment is expected again this year.
B.1  The growing role of financial markets and volatility  Let me turn to my first theme - the growing role of markets. This development means that financial stability threats could increasingly stem from financial market problems. As I alluded to earlier, sudden and extreme shifts in expectations concerning the value of an asset and increased volatility could represent one major type of financial instability. In Europe, most historical periods of financial instability have been linked to traditional loan losses by banks. However, if one looks at the longer-term perspective over the past 15 years or so, European financial markets have grown very rapidly. No doubt, the recourse to market-based finance in Europe is still significantly below that of the United States, but the gap seems to be rapidly narrowing. As the markets have grown and have become more liquid - thanks also to the euro - investors have been moving from bank deposits to direct and collective securities investments. Whereas sharp and large price adjustments may not necessarily have systemic implications, financial institutions with leveraged market positions may be directly affected. The Russian crisis of August 1998 illustrates the point well, as mature markets experienced spillover effects through investors’ leveraged positions in Russia and other emerging markets. One such leveraged exposure was held by the LTCM hedge fund. Prior to the rescue undertaken by private banks and aided by the US Federal Reserve, liquidity plunged and prices in many markets dropped to very low levels.

This growth has been broad-based - extending beyond the recovery of the mining sector and has withstood adverse shocks such as droughts and increases in oil prices. During this period, investment was strong, particularly in the mining, agriculture and tourism sectors, which sets a basis for further favourable economic growth in the medium to long-term. More recently, in 2005, the economy grew by 5.0% in real terms, marking the seventh consecutive positive real growth in output. This impressive performance was attributed to a number of factors, including: i. Strong expansion in construction, driven by a robust demand for housing and large scale investment in the copper sector. ii. A marked pick up in mining production with the coming on line of the Kansanshi copper mine. iii. Favourable external sector performance largely driven by favourable copper prices on the world market. iv. Expansion in financial institutions and insurance sectors. Mr Chairman, inflation declined to 15.9% at the end of December 2005 from 17.5% at the end of December 2004 despite several setbacks, including the partial drought that significantly reduced food supply and high prices of oil and petroleum products. Attainment of a single digit inflation has been Government’s goal for a long time. It is, therefore, pleasing to note that, in April 2006, annual inflation declined to 9.4%, the lowest rate in the last 30 years. This inflation outturn has been largely due to the conduct of appropriately tight monetary policy aided by prudent fiscal policy and the continued relative stability of the Kwacha.