samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
As a result, the Bank of Albania supports the scientific research and the activity of Albanian students, studying at university and other academic institutions, in Albania and abroad. In this framework, I would like to continue a cherished tradition of the Bank of Albania, the ceremony of Governor's Award for the Best Diploma Thesis. For 16 years, the Bank of Albania selects and awards research studies conducted by Albanian students, graduating in Albania or abroad. Over the years, the focus of the presented research materials is on recent economic issues. The research follows how the needs and the economic, financial and social events affect the authorities, businesses and the society. Simultaneously, the process of setting the hypothesis, selecting and implementing the applied methodologies, is conducted in congruence with the best up-to-date research practices. This renders analysis and research investigation valid and professional. During this year's competition, there were a series of applications received, mainly focusing on topics that deal with recent phenomena taking place in the fields of economics and finance. The studies are directly or indirectly connected with the activities of the central bank. Some of the most interesting topics of these studies were the following: the impact of policies on the central bank's balance sheet in the corporate bond markets;  2/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  the impact of credit and the expansion of banking products; the effect of prices on the real estate market; the multiplier of government expenses and consumption, and their effect on the economy.

Welfare increases in that there is greater variety in the supply offered to consumers and companies can benefit  6  Persson, M. and M. Radetzki, "China, Sweden and globalisation”, Ekonomisk Debatt 1, 2006. 7  Bigsten, A. and B. Holmlund, ”Exaggerated fears of the threat from China”, Ekonomisk Debatt 2, 2006  BIS Review 35/2006  3  from economies of scale in their production. There are many indications that the trade with China and the other rapidly-growing economies are developing in this direction. How will Sweden meet the challenges? So far, it appears as though Sweden has managed the structural transformation well, although some groups and regions may experience negative effects during a transitional period. The Swedish Institute for Growth Policy Studies (ITPS) demonstrates in a study that Swedish-owned industrial companies which increased the number of their employees in low-wage countries during the 1990s at the same time showed an increased demand for labour force with higher education back home in Sweden. This is in line with the development that has taken place in the United States and the United Kingdom. According to the Swedish Labour Market Administration’s figures on redundancy notification and ITPS’s media monitoring, few jobs moved abroad as a result of companies transferring their operations abroad during 2005. In total, the number of jobs was 2,000-4,000, of which 1,500 involved a move to another EU country.
The core survey also asks for expectations about unemployment, interest rates, the stock market, credit availability, taxes, and government debt. In addition, respondents are asked to report their expectations about several labor market outcomes, including changes in earnings, the perceived probability of losing their current job or leaving it voluntarily, and the perceived probability of finding a new job. Moreover, respondents are asked about the expected change in their household’s overall income and spending. As I will describe in more detail below, these expectations questions are fielded at various time horizons and with various formats, including both point forecasts as well as density forecasts based on probabilistic questions. The second component of the SCE contains a supplementary “ad hoc” module each month on special topics.13 Finally, SCE respondents also fill out longer surveys each  9  See Delavande, Giné, and McKenzie (2011a) for a comprehensive review. 10  See Mahajan et al. (2008), Giné and Klonner (2007), McKenzie, Gibson, and Stillman (2013), Attanasio, Meghir, and Vera-Hernández (2005), Attanasio and Kaufmann (2009), and Delavande, Lee, and Yoong (2012). 11  More precisely, respondents are asked to assign probabilities to a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive ranges of continuous outcomes. 12  The SCE survey instrument is fielded by the Demand Institute, a nonprofit organization jointly operated by the Conference Board and Nielsen. 13  Three such modules are repeated every four months, leaving three “floating” supplements per year on topics that are determined as the need arises.

For example, there are five FOMC meetings remaining this year, so the “most likely” meeting could be one with 21 percent probability. In the SPD and SMP, we are careful to elicit the probabilities of the full range of possible outcomes. For example, the current mean probability that the next change in the fed funds target will be an increase is around two-thirds. BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  Probability versus point forecasts For many policy relevant variables, both the SPD and the SMP elicit respondents’ views on the entire distribution of future outcomes, and not only on their modal projections.42 Slide 10 provides a striking example of why this is important. The figure shows the projections for the federal funds rate at the end of 2017 (top panels) and 2018 (bottom panels) at three different times: December 2015, January 2016, and March 2016. For each panel, we show the point forecast (red vertical line) averaged across respondents in both the SPD and SMP. This point forecast likely corresponds to the modal path for the federal funds rate at the end of each year.43 The green lines depict the density forecasts, averaged across respondents, and the blue vertical lines show the mean projections implied by these density forecasts, which I will refer to as the “pdf-implied mean” in the remainder of this talk.44 Note that the average modal path is usually close to, but does not match, the average mode of the marginal distributions for the policy rate.
These arrangements, including senior level groups for coordination in and out of crisis – Cross Market Business Continuity Group (CMBCG) and Cross Market Operational Resilience Group (CMORG) respectively, are tested periodically to work through how the system would function in the face of particular types of shock or the loss of key systems. By definition, crisis events are unpredictable but regular exercising helps to establish common reflexes that will manage the consequences of a major operational disruption, including aspects that may not have been foreseen. Having set out the context and described our interest in operational resilience, let me turn now to cyber. It is one shock among many that could result in operational disruption. But cyber has specific characteristics that differentiate it from other threats to operational resilience. First it is not a game against nature. There are groups out there that are motivated to attack the sector. For most, the motivation is economic; that accounts for the rise in fraud. But there are actors out there, sometimes state-sponsored, who may be motivated to bring systems down and cause harm to the sector. Second it is adaptive and changing. Attackers do not stand still. Attack types are constantly evolving and readily scalable. In the cyber arms race, costs are stacked in favour of the attacker, not the defender. Organisations cannot rely on building a hard perimeter. They too need to develop defensive capability that is adaptive and invest in threat intelligence to understand potential attackers and attack types. Third detection is not easy.

2/2  BIS - Central bankers' speeches
5 The situation had long required bold institutional reforms to the design of monetary union and we should praise the European Commission for having quickly prepared proposals for a Banking Union in 2012. The banking union must be instrumental in resolving the crisis In my view, the banking union must be instrumental in resolving the crisis and unravelling its legacy. It is the crucial node to secure both financial integration and stability. The reason is clear. In the euro area, about 75% of the real economy’s financing needs still originate from the banking sector. What is more, banks are crucial counterparties in the broader system of financial intermediation. Therefore, the importance of establishing the Single Supervisory Mechanism and creating a level playing field for all banks across Europe cannot be overemphasized. 6 A relevant part of this endeavour is the Comprehensive Assessment of bank´s balancesheets that will precede the beginning of the supervisory tasks by the ECB/SSM. Aiming at completing the balance-sheet repair of the banks subject to the SSM it will improve their capital and solvency position. In spite of the recent credit negative behaviour being mostly the result of lack of demand, the enhanced robustness of banks will overcome remaining credit supply restrictions that could hamper the recovery. This process of repairing the banking system is only one part of the challenge policymakers face in Europe. The other, more fundamental part is to build a safer and more resilient financial sector that serves the real economy.

Today, growth is low in many countries that are also overwhelmed by high unemployment, especially among the youth. The general situation of lack of internal demand when some external markets start also to decelerate, explains that investment is still almost 20 per cent below what it was in 2007 which affects our potential growth. A declining demography and insufficient progress in total factor productivity, further limit Europe´s growth capabilities and make it more difficult the absorption of the existing high unemployment. Such dynamics thwart the deleveraging process of sovereigns and households, and complicate the return of bank balance sheets to financial health. 4 In my view, the legacy of the crisis constitutes still a vulnerability for the transition process to a more effective and robust EMU. It stokes scepticism, which itself impedes the solutions to  1  Constâncio (2013), “Fragmentation and rebalancing in the euro area”, Joint EC-ECB Conference on Financial Integration, Brussels, 25 April 2013. 2  See Schoenmaker and Wagner (2011), “The impact of cross-border banking on financial stability”, Duisenberg School of Finance – Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper, TI 11–054/DSF 18. 3  See Shambaugh, Reis and Rey, “The euro’s three crises”, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2012, pp. 157–231. 4  See Constâncio, “Growing out of the crisis: Is fixing finance enough?”, speech delivered at the Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the US and World Economies, Washington D.C., 10 April 2014. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  the crisis.
Moreover, the ongoing rise in indebtedness levels and the prevalence of debt incurred at variable interest rates entails a greater sensitivity of the Spanish economy to monetary policy decisions, against a background in which the present generosity of monetary conditions may be expected to move to a more normal footing. The influence of interest  6  BIS Review 60/2006  rates on expenditure is undoubtedly sharper in the case of relatively more indebted households, which are in the lower strata of the income distribution. Along these same lines, the strong concentration of household wealth in property and the relative weight of productive activities related to the residential sector are resulting in a greater exposure of the economy as a whole to the changes in property-market activity and prices. Regarding the latter, 2005 appears to have marked the start of a slowdown in house prices, raising (all the more so the more firmly the deceleration becomes entrenched) the likelihood of the current overvaluation of housing being progressively reabsorbed, as in previous booms. Let me remind you, however, that some element of risk is always present in all scenarios involving the absorption of a phase of overvaluation. This is a consideration that all agents should bear in mind when deciding where to place their investments.

In this respect, the volatility seen on international financial markets in recent weeks serves as a reminder of the need for prudent risk assessment and for the right resources to adapt to a broader and more demanding financial environment. But it is not only the conduct of national authorities that must rise to the challenges entailed by the ever-increasing complexity of our financial systems. At the international level, growing economic and financial integration requires reconsideration of the guiding principles of the multilateral financial institutions, which have hitherto remained perhaps too anchored in the bilateral supervision of national policies, without paying sufficient heed to the increasingly complex links globally. The strengthening of multilateral surveillance, especially in the financial realm, would thereby provide for a more effective contribution by these agencies to embedding international monetary and financial stability. The European environment in 2005 the euro area economy posted a modest average increase in GDP, and one lower than in 2004 and than in the other developed economic areas. Nonetheless, year-on-year growth was on a rising profile throughout 2005, attaining a rate of increase in line with potential in 2006 Q1. The economic performance differed, in fact, from the first to the second half of 2005. In the first six months output was markedly sluggish, the result among other factors of the temporary easing in the momentum of world trade, the strong increase in oil prices and the effects stemming from the appreciation, in the previous years, of the effective exchange rate of the euro.
This point is overstated in my view. It is true that certain aspects of the transmission mechanism are clogged because of the credit constraints facing some households and businesses, and it is true that monetary policy cannot directly target those parties that are the most constrained. Nevertheless, balance sheet policy can still lower longer-term borrowing costs for many households and businesses, and it adds to household wealth by keeping asset prices higher than they otherwise would be. It seems highly unlikely that the economy is completely insensitive to borrowing costs and wealth, or to other changes in broad financial conditions. In terms of the costs of balance sheet expansion, the assessment is perhaps even more complicated. I will not attempt a comprehensive discussion of all of the potential costs of balance sheet expansion, as that assessment falls to the FOMC. However, as manager of the SOMA, I will speak about two of the potential operational challenges involved – one associated with implementing additional asset purchases, and one associated with exiting from them. On the implementation of a program, an important operational consideration is whether Federal Reserve purchases would strain the functioning of financial markets and cause an erosion of market liquidity. This consideration would be particularly relevant if the FOMC decided that a fairly sizable program was needed to have a meaningful effect on financial conditions and the economy.

Public expenditure increased by 0.9%, y-o-y, mostly reflecting the negative growth rates of capital spending. As a result, the budget deficit of this period marked 8% annual decline. The fourth quarter highlighted a better pass-through of monetary stimulus in financial markets. It was also characterised by a better anchoring of interbank market rates and their decreasing volatility. The Bank of Albania has pursued an easing monetary policy during the last three years. The monetary stimulus has increased progressively during this period, bringing the key interest rate to record low levels and mitigating the liquidity pressures on the interbank market. However, the pass-through of easing monetary policy effects on the economy has been contained due to higher perceived risk premia and changed stance by financial market agents and the real economy. Over the first half of the year, the domestic primary market faced structural changes arising from implementation of new tight measures by the European Supervisory Authorities. This development impacted on maintaining relatively high yield rates, despite the easing monetary policy and lowering short-term interest rates in the money market. Normalisation of the primary market in the second half of the year was reflected in progressively falling yields over this period. This tendency might have been passed on to ALL-denominated private sector credit costs, though with lower intensity as a consequence of risk premia reflected in private agents’ credit price.
Mr. George assesses how sustainable the current rate of growth of the UK economy is Speech given by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. E.A.J. George, at the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland Biennial Dinner in Edinburgh on 20/1/97. Mr. Chairman, the last time we came together for this great occasion, two years ago, I was pleased to be able to report to you that the British economy was making encouraging progress. We had, already then, seen very nearly three years of continuous and reasonably steady economic growth, which had produced a gradual fall in unemployment. And this steady expansion had brought few of the usual tell-tale signs of emerging imbalance between overall demand in the economy and our supply-side capacity to meet that demand. Our external current account was close to balance. And underlying retail price inflation was then lower than it had been for a generation. Even so, we had - as you will recall - begun to apply a touch on the monetary policy tiller to avoid being blown off course by rising world commodity prices at a time when domestic activity had already gathered pace. I am delighted to be with you again this evening and to be able to report that this encouraging progress continues. Output has now been growing, continuously and reasonably steadily - at an annual rate of 2.2% - for very nearly five years.

A sharp pick-up in the rate of growth of the money supply in 1995 provided an early indication that demand growth was likely to accelerate. And money supply growth has remained strong throughout the whole of the past year. Faster growth of consumer spending became evident in the first half of 1996 and has been sustained. And from the middle of last year this began to feed through into output - which was initially held back, and is possibly still being affected by a run-down of stocks. Now the fact is that no-one can tell you with any great confidence just when the increase in demand is likely to begin to create economic imbalance and spill over into rising inflation. But we can be reasonably certain that money supply growth at around 9-10% a year, as we have seen it now since the beginning of last year, and growth in consumer spending at nearly 4% a year, as we have seen over the last year, cannot be sustained for long consistently with the Government’s inflation target in the medium term. And there are signs in the recently more rapid tightening of the labour market and in the gathering recovery in the housing market, for example, that demand may be strengthening. BIS Review 5/1997  -2-  That, essentially, is why the Bank has been arguing that we will need at some early stage a modest pre-emptive tightening of monetary policy.
Strengthened liquidity standards have given the market greater confidence that banks possess adequate resources to weather temporary storms that arise. At the global level, Basel III has helped to level the competitive playing field in a number of ways—including, most recently, by imposing constraints on banks’ use of internal models to meet their capital requirements, and by introducing a leverage buffer for 1/8  BIS central bankers' speeches  systemically important firms, similar to what we already have in place in the United States. New regulatory standards have been complemented by a supervisory framework for the largest banks that explicitly acknowledges the impact that distress at such firms could have on financial markets and the economy. 4 These efforts have led to considerable improvement in risk management at banks, which should help better sustain the flow of credit to the real economy throughout the business cycle. Second, considerable progress has been made in terms of resolution. Systemically important banks now have living wills that provide a roadmap for how these firms would be resolved in the event of imminent failure. Moreover, there is now a well-defined mechanism under Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act for recapitalization of a failed systemically important firm. The FDIC now has the authority to initiate a “single point of entry” resolution, which places the parent holding company into FDIC receivership and transfers its subsidiaries to a new parent company.

Total lossabsorbing capacity, or TLAC, of the old parent company would be available to absorb losses and could be used to recapitalize the new parent company. But, the task of operationalizing resolution for large, global banks—including achieving full clarity on the roles of the home and host supervisors—is still not complete. It is key that work continues on this front to ensure that a systemically important firm can fail without threatening to topple the rest of the financial system— an important step toward ending “too big to fail.” Third, some of the obvious systemic vulnerabilities exposed by the financial crisis have been remedied. Important changes include mandatory clearing of standardized over-the-counter derivatives through central counterparties, or CCPs; more intensive supervision of systemically important CCPs; and reforms of the tri-party repo system and the money market mutual fund industry. But, even as we reduce or eliminate old vulnerabilities, we must not rest on our laurels, for new vulnerabilities will inevitably take their place. These accomplishments notwithstanding, I have no doubt that the current regulatory framework could be improved. Indeed, the official sector should assess the efficiency and effectiveness of regulations on an ongoing basis. I agree with Vice Chairman Quarles’ observation that there is more we can do to make the regulatory regime more efficient, transparent, and simple— including relief for small banks, greater tailoring based on a firm’s level of systemic importance, and simplifying the Volcker Rule. 5 Some of these changes have already been adopted or are in process.