samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
On one hand, in the baseline scenario our trading partners will grow 3.5% in 2012 and 3.8% in 2013, one tenth of a point less than forecast in June. This, as aforesaid, because of the downward revisions to emerging economies’ growth. On the other hand, the terms of trade will be less favorable than projected then. The price of oil and fuels will be higher than assumed in June, because of supply-side problems and increasing geopolitical risks in the Middle East. On top of this is – also because of supply-side problems – the increase in food prices in the world markets, especially for grains. The copper price projection does not change from June. Finally, despite the observed calm, the baseline scenario considers new episodes of stress in global financial markets, similar of those of the past year. This, because of the events foreseen for the coming months and the difficulties of advancing towards a more long-lasting solution to the problems in the Eurozone (table 1). In Chile, the greatest news is stronger-than-expected growth in output and demand in the second quarter of the year. Output owes its dynamism to sectors linked to domestic demand, such as construction, trade and services. The better result of the manufacturing industry is also worth noting, which, although growing less than aggregate GDP, still exceeded expectations, also driven by the lines associated with demand, especially investment and specific export-oriented activities. On the expenditures side, inventory accumulation intensified with respect to previous months. (figure iii).

13 See: https://www.ngfs.net/en/communique‐de‐presse/ngfs‐and‐inspire‐launch‐joint‐research‐project‐ biodiversity‐and‐financial‐stability  4  that are less exposed to environmental risks and mobilising the financial sector. “No action” is not an option. They also have to take into account the impact that these structural changes will have on price stability. Energy and food prices, for example, can be heavily impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss, both inland and in coastal regions. Should we choose a holistic or a sequential approach? Some challenge the order of priorities, by arguing that climate change is already complex enough. They do not want to include biodiversity or health issues, as they fear that this will be seen as mission creep or that it would overload their staff. These serious concerns are understandable. Nevertheless, as we just stressed, connections exist between climate change/loss of biodiversity and health, which can encourage synergies. Furthermore, the pandemic has created a sense of urgency on health‐related risks.
No amount of computer capability will enable you to access the computers of the money centers of other countries, and of the off-shore center of the world. These are vast sum that we are talking about, directed at an opportune moment on markets which are not yet sophisticated, deep or varied and for political or financial reasons are at the time vulnerable somehow. In Thailand, for instance in 1997, the amount of non-resident baht moved in that year was 900 billion dollars when our total GNP was only 140 billion dollars. When that kind of money moves against a nation, there is really no way a reasonable defence could be made. Of course, the important powers of the world say that the country should behave itself better, but one has to ask a question why important powers of the world try to make sure that each country behaves itself, yet allows the international monetary system to behave totally as it wishes without due regard to responsibility or the misery and famine that such events could cost. The obvious answer is that all the major important money centers and funds are in the advanced countries and the major countries systems being much more diverse is less liable to collapse when there are large movements of funds in any particular sector. Banking in Thailand for instance provides 77% of all credit available in the country at this moment while in the US it is only 26%.

We have taken the option though that central banks should be trying to put up a good system for people to operate in rather than having another prime function of catching thieves and criminals, and in this legislation therefore a new independent government office has been put up dedicated solely to the pursuit of the articles of the legislation. We sit on the committee under the legislation as I have just said, and cooperate wherever we can to make sure its execution is effected and effective. This is another occasion where central banks contribute directly to peace in that criminal activities which by nature are not peaceful is kept to a minimum. Speaking of criminal activities, vote buying in an election is also a criminal activity and although legislation makes it difficult for us to tackle this problem, we cooperate with the Neutral National Election Commission in tracking down movement of funds and we have assigned an assistant governor to directly coordinate with this Commission. The banking laws in Thailand at present though is that banking activity is secret and this inhibits us from doing as much as we could to help in curbing this criminal activity.
Chart 1: GDP just about back to pre-pandemic levels  Level of GDP, 2019 Q4 = 100 104  104  100  100  96  96  92  92  88  88  84  84  80  80  76 Dec 19  Jun 20  Dec 20  Jun 21  Dec 21  76 Jun 22  Source: ONS and Bank calculations. However, while the accounting equality of output and income is valid in nominal (i.e. cash) terms, and more generally in closed economies, it’s not always the case in real terms and for open economies. When we’re able to trade with other countries we no longer have to  Bank of England  Page 3  consume and produce the same things. This means output and consumer prices can diverge. And movements in that relative price will affect the real consumption value of what we collectively produce even if its quantity (GDP) doesn’t change. If you produce apples but consume oranges you’ll be better off when the price of oranges falls (relative to that of apples), worse off if the opposite happens. It’s not that domestic output and productivity don’t matter for income: obviously they do. But movements in relative prices matter too, and there are times when they matter a lot. In the real-world UK economy, one of the big differences in this respect involves energy and other physical goods. Collectively we consume a lot more of these things than we produce.

Christian Noyer: The role of central bankers in today’s global capital markets Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the 50th General Assembly and Annual Meeting of the World Federation of Exchanges, Paris, 12 October 2010. *  *  *  In May 2009, the ECB initiated a covered bond purchase programme and, in May 2010, it embarked on rounds of interventions in the public and private debt securities markets, actually the sovereign debt market, with a view to, and I quote, “ensure depth and liquidity in those market segments which are dysfunctional”. In fact, since 2008, the active presence of almost all central banks on a wide range of market segments could suggest that direct market intervention has become the general modus operandi of central banks. This is far from being the case and I would like to focus my talk today on the following two ideas:   Central banks require efficient markets to fulfil their mandates.   This can lead to massive direct interventions in markets but these interventions must remain exceptional. In order to examine the role of central banks in markets, we should start off by considering their mandate, which not only covers the tasks themselves but the way in which they are performed, i.e. in keeping with the principle of independence that governs them.
We’re here to learn more at first hand from you what things are really like on the ground, and to give you our impressions of the state of the UK economy as a whole. I don’t suppose it will come as a great surprise if I tell you that we bring a somewhat mixed message on the overall economy. And it won’t surprise us, either, if you give us the same mixed message about the regional economy. And the reason - at both national and regional level - is clear. Our overall economic performance has not been at all bad over the past decade. But for the past few years, beneath that relatively calm surface there has been a sustained imbalance, between businesses and sectors that are heavily exposed to some very cold winds blowing in from abroad, on the one hand, and the more domestically-oriented businesses and sectors, which have on the whole been doing much better, on the other. To remind you of some facts. Inflation - on our RPIX target measure - has averaged 2.6% over the past 10 years, and has for the past 2 years been mostly modestly below our 2½% target. But that hasn’t been achieved at the expense of consistently high interest rates, and weak growth and employment, as many people feared that it would be.

Since the beginning of 2013, Spain has experienced a decrease in its unemployment rate of some 6 percentage points and Spanish growth is nowadays one of the main drivers of the European recovery. Contrary to preconceptions, France has also demonstrated in the past its capacity to meet the challenge of economic and social reform. In the 1990s, to prepare for the introduction of the euro, France pursued a competitive disinflation policy that proved highly effective. Remember that in the late 1990s, France experienced the highest GDP growth and the weakest inflation rate among European countries, along with a significant fall in its unemployment rate. Today, French reforms are heading in the right direction, [Slide 5] in particular the tax credit for competitiveness and investment (CICE) and the Responsibility and Solidarity Pact (RSP) that enhance the competitive strength of the French economy. A policy of administrative simplification, the so-called ‘simplification shock’, and a new law to sustain economic growth and entrepreneurship (‘loi Macron’), are also being conducted in order to rebuild business confidence. However, we are not there yet and a number of reforms need to be complemented. In particular, in the labour market: hopefully renewed progress will be made with the draft law under discussion in Parliament. Finally, in the euro area, fiscal policy is now more balanced since significant adjustment has already been achieved. Structural efforts and a growth recovery have led to a reduction in deficits and to a stabilisation in the ratio of debt to GDP.
What has become clear is that US households can no longer function as the engine for the entire world economy. Unfortunately, there is no clear alternative growth driver in sight yet. On the financial front, American and European banks that have been at the core of intermediating global capital flows are severely weakened. Global capital flows, not least flows into emerging markets, are likely to significantly retract in 2009 – as IIF projections show. Foreign direct investment is set to ease substantially. Cross-border banking flows as well. On the surface, this is not unlike previous financial crises originating in emerging economies. But there is a critical difference. In those cases, external credit typically dries up due to some domestic factor triggering a loss of confidence in the host country. Foreign financial institutions become risk averse, and withdraw. This time, large banks in the developed countries have certainly also become risk averse. But there is also the important factor that their own balance sheets have been severely impaired, and so, risk aversion aside, they have little capacity to lend. In other words, a key factor for capital withdrawal this time is banks in the developed source countries pulling back to hunker down for their survival. Emerging economies, many with sound fundamentals, are suffering the collateral damage. This comes after years of rapid growth fuelled by yield-hungry foreign capital. For these reasons, the transmission of the shocks in the US and Europe to the rest of the world has been swift and sharp.

BIS Review 49/2010  5  I asked plenty of questions that I don’t have ready answers but I hope enough to force you to ponder into thinking this issue from a multiple dimensions. The good news is we are at a stage of growth in terms of product and service in Islamic finance. That means innovation is still the driving force behind the industry progress. The questions posed today is not meant to deter nor to direct in which direction we ought to be moving – but to provoke new thoughts in moving forward. The fact of the matter is that debt based financing is generally accepted and approved by Shariah scholars and currently forms an integral part of Islamic finance and its structured was tested in our legal system. These instruments have been adopted by the IDB and many Sovereigns to finance infrastructure investments, to promote trade and to meet liquidity needs in Muslim countries. In other words, debt-based financing has been successfully deployed to bring economic benefit to fellow Muslims. There is no doubt that Equity based financing needs to be considered and its usage encouraged. At the same time we must do so with the full knowledge of its full consequence on the entire financial system stability as it currently stands.
The weakening of the US currency resulted in a further decrease in the dollar’s share of foreign currency reserves. Recently, in an effort to prevent the dollar’s share from dropping too low and with a view to rebalancing, we bought dollars again on a number of occasions. Furthermore, as part of the 2004 strategy, the proportion of government bonds was also reduced in favour of other borrowers’ bonds. The required minimum rating for bond investments was lowered from A2 to BBB, thus covering the entire “investment grade” range. Corporate bonds have now also been added to the National Bank’s investment universe, albeit only those of foreign companies. Currently, roughly 4% of both foreign currency reserves and free assets are invested in corporate bonds. The credit quality of all our investments is still very high. Borrowers with the top rating AAA account for over 70% of the investments. Close to 20% bear the AA rating. The remaining investments have an A or a BBB. The average residual maturity (duration) of all bonds held by the National Bank was kept at 4-5 years. The first investments in equities issued exclusively by foreign companies will be made at the beginning of 2005. The addition of equities and corporate bonds is likely to improve the degree of diversification of the investments and will contribute to the achievement of slightly higher returns in the medium term. The main difference between the investment structures of foreign currency reserves and free assets is their currency profile.

In the case of free assets, foreign currency investments are more diversified and are also partially hedged against exchange rate risks. Around half of the free assets are currently exposed to currency risks. The risks relating to the National Bank’s assets are primarily assessed and monitored using the value-at-risk method. Moreover, a number of different stress analyses are increasingly being carried out. In risk measurement, it is taken into account that the investment horizon, in particular for the monetary reserves, is a long-term one. Where monetary assets are concerned, gold price and exchange rate risks - notably those on the dollar - play a decisive role. Interest rate risks, while significant in their own right, are quite small by comparison. The overall risk with free assets is considerably lower. On the whole, the credit risks are relatively small. The National Bank’s investments are valued daily at market prices, thus making it possible to form an up-to-date impression of the earnings situation. Owing to the high degree of risk exposure to the gold price, the exchange rate and the interest rate level, the earnings situation can change dramatically from quarter to quarter and year to year. In this year alone, the quarterly returns on total assets fluctuated between +2.7% and -3.2%. So far this year, the National Bank’s assets have yielded 1.3% overall. Given its long-term investment horizon, short-term fluctuations generally do not present a problem to the National Bank. The long-run yield is of greater importance.
Foreign investors’ reduced confidence in the Swedish housing market would lead to a weakening of the krona, which could then drive up inflation. Bond yields would rise, and the Riksbank would likely be forced to raise the policy rate to get inflation down, which would have even more consequences on household demand, and so on. We can therefore see that merely the fact that no measures have been adopted could affect the Riksbank’s chances of achieving price stability and financial stability. And this is without me even mentioning what could happen if households find it difficult to pay their mortgages and housing prices go into a steep decline. 6 A fall in housing prices could snowball, with a number of interacting effects... A fall in prices on the housing market could threaten both real economic and financial stability via both direct and indirect effects. The direct effects on the macroeconomy are linked to reduced consumer demand High indebtedness makes households sensitive to shocks (such as falls in housing prices and interest rate increases). Several empirical studies indicate that households with higher levels of indebtedness reduced their consumption significantly more than less indebted households during the financial crisis, when housing prices fell substantially in several countries (see Figure 7). 7 Let me explain why this could be the case. 6  This is an issue that the Riksbank has analysed on several occasions in the past.

Your own Chairman, Prof. A D V de Indraratne, chairs such Committee and we have benefited immensely from the insights and advice rendered by such Committee. In a similar manner, I am certain that the research findings that will be presented by you at the conclusion of this very timely conference, together with the professional views expressed at the technical sessions would help policymakers immensely to reshape their policy focus appropriately. In conclusion, let me emphasize our deep commitment to your theme by referring to our own Mission at the Central Bank. The Vision of the Central Bank is that of being a credible and dynamic Central Bank contributing to the prosperity of Sri Lanka. As set out in our Strategic Plan, the term prosperity has a wider connotation: i.e., the enhancement of the quality of life of people through sustainable wealth creation and inclusion of all segments of the society in enjoying the benefits of development. The Central Bank expects to facilitate this process by ensuring price stability and financial system stability while providing prudential and pro-active policy recommendations, as the Advisor to the Government on Economic Affairs. We have, so far, taken a pro-active stance in the delivery of prosperity and we are encouraging the key stakeholders in our country also, to implement the necessary strategies towards such end. We see the Sri Lanka Economic Association as being a key partner in the delivery of prosperity in our country and we commend you for your commitment and dedication.
In the international arena, INCEIF has also established strategic alliances with the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank, Lembaga Pengembangan Perbankan Indonesia (LPPI) of Bank Indonesia, National Institute of Banking and Finance (NIBAF) of State Bank of Pakistan and Ceylinco Sussex Business School, Sri Lanka, among others. INCEIF is also in the midst of finalising its collaborative efforts with organisations in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Initiatives have also been taken to enhance the pool of talent is in the field of Shariah. This has been done by awarding research grants and scholarships to deserving outstanding candidates. This initiative will be funded by the Shariah Endowment Fund which was announced in August this year. The applications for the Shariah Scholarship Award and the Shariah Research Grant for 2006 are still open to qualified candidates until the end of the year. Apart from this, many other initiatives have been taken by the relevant bodies in Malaysia to strengthen talent development at all levels in Islamic finance. At the strategic leadership level, Malaysia has established the International Centre for Leadership in Finance or ICLIF as part of an effort to spearhead the development of a new generation of world class leaders in the financial services sector including Islamic finance towards high performance and excellence.

However, the fact that monetary policy is not just directed towards stabilising inflation, but also towards stabilising resource utilisation has, in the absence of quantitative measures of stability in these variables, made it difficult to measure and evaluate target fulfilment in this stability dimension. This makes it difficult to decide which policy-rate path best stabilizes both inflation and resource utilization. My suggestion is to use mean squared gaps for the inflation forecast and for the resourceutilization forecast as measures of the stability of inflation and resource utilization. 3 Figure 1 provides an example, using graphs from Norges Bank’s Inflation Report of June 2005. Figure 1 Monetary policy with mean squared gaps (Norges Bank, June 2005)  In figure 1, the top left panel shows three alternative policy-rate paths, the main path chosen by Norges Bank at the time and two alternative paths, a lower and a higher path. The top right panel shows the corresponding forecast of inflation according to the index CPI-ATE, the consumer price index adjusted for tax changes and excluding energy products. The bottom right panel shows the corresponding forecasts of the output gap, the gap between output and potential output. These three panels are shown in the June 2005 Inflation Report. We see that there is a tradeoff between stabilizing inflation and resource utilization, measured as the output gap. The lower (higher) policy-rate path stabilizes inflation better (worse) around the  3  See Svensson (2010a, c) for details.