samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The inflation target and the MPC’s response to data are well understood. Economists in the City know that economic data are the most useful source of information when forming judgements about future interest rates. And the most useful form of communication for economists when thinking about interest rates more than one year ahead is the Inflation Report. There is little indication that respondents are looking for publication of an interest rate path – either in the form of a central projection or a fan chart. But there is room for improvement in the way we communicate. There seems to be an appetite for more information about the way policy actions are linked to economic data and for more forwardlooking analysis of risks to the outlook. In other words, we should talk more about what lies behind the fan chart and how we might change our thinking in response to developments in the data. We could,  BIS Review 43/2007  11  for example, provide more guidance on the sort of data that might influence the Committee’s thinking on whether second-round effects from higher oil prices and national insurance contributions were materialising. In thinking about its future communications strategy, the Committee is conscious that there are more or less sophisticated audiences to whom it is speaking. Inevitably, that will colour its judgements on how to communicate its thinking. But the results of the survey provide food for thought. And I am very grateful to all those who took the time and trouble to respond. 4.

What was unexpected was how soon and how fast the króna fell. It depreciated by 19% against the exchange rate index over 2006 as a whole and all the weakening was confined to the first half of the year. So far in 2007 the króna has been roughly 15% weaker on average than at the beginning of 2006. By comparison, the US dollar depreciated against the euro by almost 11%. For most of the  2  BIS Review 16/2007  period since the middle of 2006, the króna has fluctuated within a fairly modest range. Since the end of the sharp depreciation in the first half of last year the króna can be described as relatively stable and marginally above its long-term average value. At present, the real effective exchange rate is slightly stronger than on average over the last quarter of a century. A wide current account deficit could potentially erode confidence in the króna. The Central Bank has underlined the importance of restoring macroeconomic balance by realigning domestic demand with output capacity, and of establishing a sustainable external balance by such means rather than through a sharp currency depreciation that would fuel inflation and other instabilities. Inflation developments depend heavily on the króna not slipping much from its level over the past few months, at least for as long as pronounced macroeconomic imbalances remain. Confidence in the exchange rate will be a crucial factor over the coming months.
Caleb M Fundanga: How the Bank of Zambia’s policies are impacting Eastern Province developments Remarks by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry Open Meeting, Chipata, 17 January 2008. *  *  *  • The Chairman – Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EPCCI) • Members of the Executive Committee – EPCCI • EPCCI Members • Invited Guests • Ladies and Gentlemen First and foremost, I must state that I am pleased to have finally made the trip to Eastern Province under the invitation of the EPCCI. The visit was planned for last year but due to other commitments I could not make it. In this regard, I made it a point to make sure that I visit the province before the end of the first quarter. I am happy that we have actualized our plans during the first month. It is our hope that we will also be able to visit other provincial towns off the line of rail during the course of the year. Mr. Chairman, one may question what is the purpose of the Bank of Zambia to visit these outlying areas? The answer is simple and is drawn from our mission statement – which is “to formulate and implement monetary and supervisory policies that will ensure price and financial system stability”. Our visit is therefore, to enable us assess the extent to which our policies are impacting development in the Eastern Province.

Bank Negara Malaysia's approach to the financial regulation and supervision has similarly evolved to achieve a more robust regime that emphasises three key dimensions: first, creating a strong risk management culture that overlays the operations of banking institutions; second, facilitating market-led adjustments that will allow the industry to evolve in response to market and technological; and third, ensuring mutually consistent prudential policies across the financial sector. Underpinning this approach has been a more pronounced shift towards principle-based regulations. Increasingly, regulations have focused less on prescriptive rules, and more on establishing broad parameters for sound financial and business practices that leave substantial flexibility for banks to apply the principles in the manner most appropriate to their specific circumstances. Of importance, has been the creation of appropriate incentives within the system to counteract potential market distortions that could undermine financial stability. The differentiated regulatory framework under which stronger banking institutions would have substantially greater operating flexibility and a lower level of supervisory intervention, for example, provides a powerful competitive incentive for the adoption of sound risk management practices. 2  BIS Review 130/2007  While enhanced bank regulatory and supervisory functions have had a direct and significant impact on improved risk management by banking institutions, the primary responsibility for sound institutional risk management will continue to rest with the boards and senior management of banks. It is the boards, and not supervisors, that are principally responsible for the performance of banks and for their financial strength.
Although responsibility for supervision of the bank has passed to the FSA, the Bank retains an interest in the design of the regulatory structure and the impact that this has on the stability of the system as a whole. The Bank is represented on the Basel Supervisors Committee and has been closely involved in discussions on the new Basel Accord and the capital requirements to be applied to banks. Clearly ensuring that individual banks are adequately capitalised has a direct bearing on the ability of the system as a whole to withstand shocks. However it is only really in a crisis or an economic downturn that it is possible to tell what the full story is. As one of my colleagues colourfully puts it, it is only when the tide rolls out that you find out who is not wearing swimming trunks! The final area I would like to mention is the Bank’s role in reviewing financing for business in the UK. This is more focused on efficiency and competitiveness than financial stability but, over several years, the Bank has built up a leading role in looking at financing conditions for small firms and high-technology companies. More recently the Bank has also become involved in the government’s initiatives under the Social Exclusion unit to look at financial exclusion and the provision of banking services to deprived areas. On occasion, the Bank also takes a role in corporate restructuring, holding the ring between large debtors and their bank lenders.

In any event, my view is that, as we seek to disseminate the benefits of low and stable inflation to as wide an audience as possible, consistency of the existing index and level is an advantage. Critics of the process often argue that the MPC should have a second target; most commonly industrialists argue that this should be an exchange rate target, seeking stability for sterling against our major trading partners. I well understand the difficulties that, in particular, exporters face given the volatile movements in exchange rates; and the frustration is compounded by the difficulty in explaining such movements purely in terms of economic fundamentals. Nevertheless it should be recognised that the recent historical experience of the UK in operating monetary policy geared to exchange rate stability has been that a conflict sooner or later emerges between the exchange rate objective and other policy considerations, so that the exchange rate objective has to be abandoned. The most recent experience was our membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism between 1990 and 1992. Fundamentally, there is a problem in operating monetary policy so as to achieve two targets which one has primacy? How would the trade-offs be made? My view remains that a single inflation target objective is a better, as well as much clearer, framework for monetary policy. My next point relates to the transparency of our process. In almost all committees I have served on in the past, the process has been one of trying to achieve consensus on the way forward.
12 / 13  BIS central bankers' speeches  Following each meeting, the FOMC announced a monthly pace at which it would buy Treasury securities and agency MBS, and provided guidance that it would continue its purchases until the “outlook for the labor market had improved substantially in a context of price stability.” The Committee also advised that it was prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases to maintain appropriate policy accommodation as the outlook for the labor market or inflation changed. 38 The FOMC adopted such guidance throughout its third asset purchase program. Similarly, on October 12, 2017,  ECB President Draghi pledged to maintain interest rates at their current, low level “well past” the end of the ECB’s bond-buying program. 39 Governor Brainard recently suggested that in a low neutral rate environment, delaying balance sheet  normalization is a means to provide “makeup support” for the economy while enabling the policy rate to escape the lower bound earlier than otherwise. See Lael Brainard, “Rethinking Monetary Policy in a New Normal,” remarks for the panel on monetary policy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics conference, Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2017. 40 This sequencing also allowed the FOMC to meaningfully assess the efficacy of its tools to control short-term  interest rates with a large balance sheet, and thereby judge how patient it could afford to be in reducing the balance sheet to its longer-run level.

Just as an illustration and example, I would like to remind you that in early 2019, we adhered to the highest statistical data dissemination standard of the IMF, as the eighteenth country in the world and last year, the European Commission adopted a Decision assessing that the banking regulations and supervision implemented by the National Bank are in line with the standards of the European Union. This puts us on the list of only 26 countries in the world that adhered to these standards. Still, regardless of the commitment and the standards, without the trust and contribution of the citizens, no central bank can fully achieve its goals. That is why we are committed to transparency, both to them and to all economic agents, which is why transparency is one of our strategic goals. The National Bank is the second central bank in the world for which the IMF made an assessment according to the latest Transparency Code and we are glad that it found that our bank is implementing advanced transparency practices. Dear guests, Each historically significant anniversary puts us at a crossroads, and depending on what has already been achieved, requires from us to figure out which direction to take. Therefore, I must emphasize that regardless of how the country's European integration process will proceed, the European standards will continue to be our guide to the European family of central banks.
Before delving into the details, I’d like to give you a preview of my main points:   First, I would like to discuss capital and the financial crisis, and will suggest that many U.S. financial institutions did not have the quality or quantity of capital needed to withstand the shocks we recently experienced. The focus in Basel III on improving the quantity and quality of capital at financial institutions – particularly systemically important financial institutions – is critically important.   Second, I will suggest that we should be particularly focused on narrow definitions of capital, which are what investors focused on during the financial crisis.   Third, I will suggest that stress tests are an important supervisory tool that should be used for prudential and macroprudential3 supervision as well as for management’s own capital planning efforts. The rapid recapitalization of many financial institutions in the United States greatly benefitted from the attention during supervisory exercises (including stress tests) on the quantity and quality of capital. I will also discuss the evaluation of discretionary capital distributions (such as increasing dividends, and stock buybacks). Capital and the financial crisis I think it is instructive to look at the capital ratios of two of the very large banking organizations that encountered problems and were acquired during the financial crisis. Wachovia was one of the four largest banking organizations in the United States, with total assets in 2008 exceeding $ billion.

Capital meeting the broader definitions was largely ignored by investors during the intense phases of the crisis, leading to significant financial runs and liquidity problems at institutions whose capital, using the broader definitions, actually satisfied existing regulatory standards. As conditions deteriorated, market focus  1  These remarks were prepared for delivery at a gathering focused on “The New Framework to Strengthen Financial Stability and Regulatory Priorities”, jointly organized by the Financial Stability Institute and the banking supervisors from Central and Eastern Europe, and hosted by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. 2  Beyond concern over immediate losses, investors may also focus on the possibility of future losses and the capital readily available to offset them. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  shifted from the relative strength implied by regulatory capital ratios to the vulnerabilities associated with deteriorating measures of “pure” capital. This led to greater uncertainty and ultimately to liquidity stresses. The experience in the United States during the crisis is instructive as we think about where we should focus our attention in terms of bank capital, as well as in terms of supervision. On the latter, I would note that stress testing has proved to be an important supervisory tool in the United States for judging the quality and quantity of capital.
Second, although many of these positions net out when the financial system is seen as a whole, gross balance sheets are not restricted by the scale of the real economy and so banks were able to expand at a remarkable pace. So when the crisis began in 2007, uncertainty about where losses would ultimately fall led confidence in banks to seep away. This was obvious through the crisis. Almost no institution was immune from suspicion, the result of the knock-on consequences so eloquently described by Bagehot when he wrote: “At first, incipient panic amounts to a kind of vague conversation: Is A. B. as good as he used to be? Has not C. D. lost money? and a thousand such questions. A hundred people are talked about, and a thousand think, “Am I talked about, or am I not?” “Is my credit as good as it used to be, or is it less?” And every day, as a panic grows, this floating suspicion becomes both more intense and more diffused; it attacks more persons; and attacks them all more virulently than at first. All men of experience, therefore, try to “strengthen themselves,” as it is called, in the early stage of a panic; they borrow money while they can; they come to their banker and offer bills for discount, which commonly they would not have offered for days or  2  BIS Review 140/2010  weeks to come.

But a key challenge is to ensure that maturity transformation does not simply migrate outside of the regulated perimeter, and end up benefiting from an implicit public subsidy (Tucker, 2010b). That is difficult because it is the nature of the services – not the institutions – that is the concern. Ultimately, we need a system whereby the suppliers of funds to risky activities, whether intermediated via banks or any other entity, must understand that they will not be protected from loss by taxpayer bailouts. Creditors should know that they will bear losses in the event of failure. We certainly cannot rely on being able to expand the scope of regulation without limit to prevent the migration of maturity mismatch. Regulators will never be able to keep up with the pace and scale of financial innovation. Nor should we want to restrict innovation. But it should be undertaken by investors using their own money not by intermediaries who also provide crucial services to the economy, allowing them to reap an implicit public subsidy. It will not be possible to regulate all parts of the financial system as if they were banks. As Jeffrey Lacker, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, has argued, “merely expanding the scope of regulation to chase those firms that extract implicit guarantees by engaging in maturity transformation would be an interminable journey with yet more financial instability in its wake” (Lacker, 2010).
Chart: Important role for Norwegian gas But Norwegian oil and gas production will, most likely, remain profitable for quite some time. The supply of clean energy is still limited. Today, coal accounts for a large share of global energy demand. Demand for natural gas may increase as countries move towards a greener economy. In Germany and Poland, phasing out coal faster than planned is being discussed. Norwegian gas can play an important role in a transition phase. There is still global demand for oil and gas. If we reduce production on the Norwegian shelf earlier than planned, other suppliers are ready to take over. The climate impact of an earlier reduction would therefore be marginal, while the costs to Norway would be substantial. The oil industry has been an economic engine for Norway for close to 50 years. The revenues from this industry have improved the welfare of today’s citizens and the citizens of tomorrow. The spillover effects from the oil sector to the wider Norwegian economy are substantial. Throughout our country there are oil-related jobs to be found. More than 10 percent of all employed persons in Norway are either directly or indirectly working for the oil industry. 3 Innovation and skills development in the industry have also benefitted other sectors. The oil industry has been through a demanding period of personnel cuts, cost savings and rationalisation. The restructuring in the industry that was already underway became even more pressing when oil prices collapsed in 2014.

Kevin Stiroh: The complexity of culture reform in finance Remarks by Mr Kevin Stiroh, Executive Vice President of the Financial Institution Supervision Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the 4th Annual Culture and Conduct Forum for the Financial Services Industry, London, 4 October 2018. * * * Good morning. Thank you for the kind introduction, and for the invitation to speak at today’s forum.1 We are all here today to talk about conduct and culture in the financial services sector, so I’m confident that you will agree that we have moved beyond the questions about “if” this an important issue and statements about “why” it is important. Rather, the focus is “how” the financial industry—both financial firms and the official sector—can continue to make progress in improving culture and reducing misconduct risk. The New York Fed, under the leadership of former President Bill Dudley and current President John Williams, has been a strong advocate for reform of culture in the financial industry. Today, I’d like to offer some thoughts about the progress made to date and some of the challenges that remain. These challenges reflect, in large part, the complexity of the problem. Please note that my comments today are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.
William C Dudley: Improving the culture of financial service Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Culture Imperative - An Interbank Symposium, New York City, 11 January 2017. * * * As prepared for delivery I very much appreciate having the opportunity to participate in today’s program. Improving the culture of financial services is an important issue for me and my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as well as for many senior policymakers both domestically and abroad. As always, what I have to say reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System.1 Why should we seek better culture in the financial services industry? We do this to achieve better outcomes in terms of conduct and behavior—and, with that, greater trustworthiness in our nation’s financial system. Greater trustworthiness will make it easier for the financial industry to perform its role in supporting economic activity and rising living standards. Greater trustworthiness will also make it easier to attract top talent into the industry. Without that, the industry will suffer. The focus of today’s event is the role you can play as future leaders of the industry. Your firms selected you to attend because of your career success thus far and your potential for senior leadership.

Without that, the financial industry cannot be effective in performing its key roles. Cultivating these three traits emphasized by Onora O’Neill—competence, reliability and honesty —will help enable you to have a personally fulfilling career. The best doctors or lawyers do their work not only because it pays well, but because it is interesting and contributes an important service to society. I hope you feel the same about what you do. And if you don’t, I urge you to consider how your industry can become more professionally fulfilling. What is needed for you to feel better about your work, to sleep more soundly, to worry less about the risk posed to your business by potential misconduct? Your professional fulfillment will grow if you also contribute to promoting these qualities in others —that is, by helping to improve the culture of financial services. It is easier to be smart, dependable and trustworthy when you are surrounded by other people who also fit that description. My second message is to reject the idea that a separate regime of ethics or morality applies in banking. I’m sure you have heard this, or perhaps even thought this, at some point in your career. 3/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  Let it end there. We often teach our children by asking them if they would engage in that type of behavior at home. This is good professional advice as well. Bankers have been criticized for their ethical and moral shortcomings. That criticism has legitimate grievances at its roots.