samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Much of these data were granular enough to differentiate economic effects across the income, sector and geographic distributions. 10 The fourth and final set of issues involves the interaction of pre-pandemic structural trends with cyclical developments. The recent global shocks have deep implications for previously identified structural trends such as secular stagnation and the shifting relationship between technology and jobs. Workers’ increased reliance on remote solutions during the pandemic probably accelerated the digitization of tasks, which in turn has broader implications for income distribution and productivity growth, as well as the property market. In contrast, other structural trends may have been somewhat arrested by recent events; for example, pandemic and geopolitical disruptions injected fresh fragmentation impulses to the world economy and possible unmoored economies from their previous low inflation equilibria. 11 These four issues—the complex nature of shocks, along with the appropriate policy response, labour market effects and interactions with pre-pandemic structural trends— are key pivots that confront the global economy. And they will each have some hearing at this year’s Forum. Prof Viral Archarya started us off last evening with an astute and realistic assessment of the global landscape before us and the vulnerabilities that lurk in financial market adjustments, drawing in insights from his research. 12 For the Policy Note session on “Labour Market Policies after COVID-19”, our speakers are Professor Eric French and Professor John Haltiwanger, two eminent labour economists whose work central bankers have always paid close attention to.

Speeches  Published Date: 27 May 2022  Welcome Remarks by Mr Edward S. Robinson, Deputy Managing Director (Economic Policy) & Chief Economist, Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the 9th Asian Monetary Policy Forum on 27 May 2022  1 Good morning, MD MAS Mr Ravi Menon, President NUS and Chairman of the ABFER Council, Professor Tan Eng Chye, fellow central bankers, distinguished speakers, ladies and gentlemen. Together with my co-organisers, Professor Bernard Yeung and Professor Steve Davis, I am pleased to welcome you to the 2022 Asian Monetary Policy Forum. 2 In its ninth year now, the AMPF comes at an especially opportune time for macroeconomists to advance the discussion on emergent issues in the global economy. After the Great Moderation, the world has experienced a series of severe shocks, each presenting a stern test for policymakers. 3 The two most recent disruptions—the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict—have raised fresh issues for monetary economics and international finance. Soon after the Lehman crisis, Queen Elizabeth, during a visit to the LSE, posed an inconvenient question: “why didn’t anyone see this coming?” Conceivably if Her Majesty made another visit today, she may very well ask the same question about global inflation. A comprehensive research agenda to address this query would require pulling together at least four strands of concerns. 4 The first is about the need for a careful identification of each economic shock.
In my view, this internationally harmonized standard needs to have the following basic features to be effective: •  The standard should reflect a very adverse scenario, including a massive loss of confidence from depositors, a disruption of secured funding and a loss of liquidity on major segments of the securities markets. The new standard will only be able to promote stability if the underlying scenario is severe enough. A moderate scenario is not sufficient to bolster confidence in situations of turmoil. •  The standard should require banks to hold a buffer consisting of assets whose liquidity and value is robust to massive disruptions in the financial markets. The presumption should be that government securities form the bulk of the buffer. Overall, the new liquidity standard should substantially strengthen banks’ liquidity base. Banks must be in a much better situation to weather liquidity shocks without having to resort to public support. As a consequence of these higher capital and liquidity buffers, the relevant banks may seem more boring. Their rate of return on equity will be lower. At the same time, their earnings are bound to be less volatile and they will likely be more beneficial for the economy as a whole. With such changes must come a change in banks’ compensation policies and practices. Compensation cannot be a one-way street and must become risk aligned and long-term oriented. Facilitating the orderly resolution of banking problems Prevention is key but it will not be foolproof.

His answer was simple but true: “It is not important for me where I like to live – he said – it is important where the opportunities are”. As the gap in living standards closes and Albanians see opportunities flourishing in Albania, they will come back. They will bring important human capital and managerial skills, which they have gained in the countries where they work. Many Albanian emigrants are at this stage of the migration cycle and we see potential benefits from such a process. It is the role of banks to match this human capital with necessary financial capital and provide financial services to develop their entrepreneur skills. This role comes very naturally to Greek commercial banks that operate in Albania, which I take the opportunity to thank for their early confidence in Albania. They are natural partners for these new entrepreneurs who are familiar with the culture, and probably have a long history operating with respective Greek offices. The fact that such ventures could also involve Greek capital in the case of pure joint investments makes one more argument in support of my observation. According to the Bank of Albania surveys, Greek companies are ranked first by the size of capital invested in the Albanian economy, while holding the second place for the number of Foreign Direct Investments. The involvement of these banks in financing such activities will play a positive role in shifting the balance of the loans portfolio from retail and consumer crediting toward production activities in industry and agriculture.
This afternoon, I would like to start by explaining the ambivalent relationship between finance and growth, and the attendant need for financial regulation. Then, I will discuss at greater length what has been done, with an initial assessment of our achievements. Lastly, I will consider our challenges for the future. I. The ambivalent relationship between finance and growth. I would like to say right away that finance is a remarkable instrument for economic progress, decisive in the birth of European and then global capitalism since the 16th century. In order to support trade initially, then investment, and innovation today, – as well as growth –, it is naturally vital to create the right conditions for financing the economy and for sound financial institutions. 2 1/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  Many academic studies2 confirm that finance makes a positive contribution to economic growth because it reduces transaction and information costs and leads to a better allocation of capital. It is estimated for example that between 1960 and 1995, some developing countries would have accelerated real per capita GDP growth by an additional 0.4 to 1 percentage point per year if their financial systems had been more developed.3 Some authors even go as far as positing that it would be preferable to let market forces prevail without worrying about the emergence of bubbles or financial imbalances which would be absorbed by themselves. This would mean that financial crises would just be the price to pay in the short term for stronger medium to long-term growth.

We have to turn to Alexis de Tocqueville in order to attempt to bring back the patience of enduring effort to our history: “[The French Revolution] took the world by surprise; yet it was the mere natural result of very long labours, the sudden and violent termination of a task which had successively engaged ten generations of men”.1 The example of our neighbours, from Germany to Spain, is today nevertheless illuminating in this respect: reforms work in Europe. They are the way, the only way, to make compatible our European social model, which is legitimate, and economic growth, which is essential in order to reduce unemployment and to finance our future. Today, I will focus my talk on other no less important reforms, implemented in a particularly disrupted context: the financial regulations introduced in the wake of the 2007–2009 crisis. Is there any need to recall the disastrous consequences that this crisis inflicted on the real economy, the social dramas, and the democratic fragmentation with the rise of populism? Financial stability is therefore a common good that needs to be guaranteed. It is one of the three core tasks of the Banque de France, alongside monetary strategy and services to the economy. We have been striving to achieve it in the international bodies that coordinated the financial reforms after the crisis. The urgency of the situation required rapid and effective action, and as early as April 2009, the G20 launched a global concerted action plan.
1  According to the results of the Funcas survey of 7 April 2022 on the use of banking services, access to digital banking services and financial and digital education. 2  https://g20.org/documents/  1  However, the commonalities end there. With over 16,000 existing tokens3 (around ten new crypto-assets are estimated to be launched every day on average) the digital asset space exhibits sheer amplitude and a gigantic functional and operational disparity. When analysing crypto-assets, one practical approach is to classify them in accordance with what apparently is their declared main purpose. As a result, broadly speaking, three different groups may be distinguished. The first one comprises those assets whose primary objective is to serve as a medium of payment or exchange. These are loosely labelled as “virtual currencies”, and they frequently fall outside the prevailing regulatory framework, except where specifically referenced in new or existing provisions, such as the case of Germany or France.4 The second group covers instruments designed to help raise capital from investors. Specific procedures are organised to this end, known as Initial Coin Offerings.5 Investors receive tokens substantiating their legal claim to participate in any potential increase in the future value of, or returns on, businesses or specific projects. Alternatively, these may be structured to confer rights equivalent to those of other financial instruments. As they largely overlap with marketable securities, usually sectoral regulations which are already in place apply.

A second source of risk stems from the potential impact of crypto-assets on the smooth functioning of financial markets. Broadly speaking, wild swings in their prices may sway investor sentiment, triggering an overreaction that ends up influencing their behaviour in other markets. Equally, the need to respond to such volatility with frequent adjustments to the necessary collateral could precipitate sales of other asset classes. Indeed, the IMF has recently warned of a notable increase in the positive correlation between crypto-asset and capital markets, which has in certain cases increased by a factor of 35.22 These effects may be further aggravated in the event that alternatives such as stablecoin scale up. Specifically, an accumulation of redemption requests resulting from, for instance, widespread panic around such assets, could put money markets under strain and, by extension, spread to those institutions acting as custodians of the hedging assets. These problems can be exacerbated by certain emerging segments, for example decentralised finance or DeFi, which are highly leveraged and encourage feedback dynamics between unbacked cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Further, these tensions could spill over into payment systems, as they would be forced to handle a very significant rise in transaction volumes that, in certain circumstances, could lead to delays in execution or even bring services to a standstill. A third source of vulnerability has to do with the impact on the banking sector.
The decline in the number of credit institutions is mainly the result of mergers among savings and cooperative banks, which epitomise what are known as “consolidating” or “defensive” mergers, aimed at cutting costs and possibly also at diversifying risks. So far, this consolidation process has taken place mainly within national boundaries, with the possible exception of some mergers in the Benelux and Nordic countries. The preference for domestic mergers, as opposed to cross-border mergers, may be explained by the fact that the relevant market for retail services is still national rather than pan-European in character. Furthermore, the scope for cost cutting appears to be larger if the activities of the institutions merging overlap, although there is no particularly strong empirical evidence of this as yet. The fact that cultural “proximity”, notably in the corporate style of governance and management, is traditionally seen as a key factor in the success of mergers may also help to explain the limited cross-border merger activity. It has to be said that although most mergers have been domestic, they have often been instigated and influenced by area-wide market developments and the integration of financial markets following the introduction of the euro. As of today, there is no doubt that the introduction of the euro has fostered the internationalisation of banking activities. In particular, the rapid integration of the wholesale banking and capital markets, as well as large-value payment systems, has already produced more and new kinds of links among banks.

Nevertheless, the exchange rate remains an important driver of future inflation in the euro area. Certainly, the appreciation that took place since mid-2012 had an impact on price stability. In the present context, an appreciated exchange rate is a risk to the sustainability of the recovery. Recent monetary policy measures Let me now move to explaining our monetary policy stance. We decided on a number of monetary policy measures in early June. These measures are aimed at providing additional monetary policy accommodation by supporting lending to the real economy. In line with our price stability mandate, these decisions are an essential contribution to bringing inflation rates closer to 2%. They will also contribute to a further strengthening of the recovery. •  Specifically, we lowered all key interest rates further. Our main refinancing rate now stands at 0.15%. Accordingly, our deposit facility rate has been cut to a negative level and now stands at –0.10%. •  We will conduct targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) as of September 2014. In these operations, banks will be entitled to borrow from the Eurosystem, conditional on their lending to the private non-financial sector, with loans to households for house purchase being excluded. •  In addition, we are intensifying our work in preparation of possible outright purchases in the market for asset-backed securities (ABSs).
Ásgeir Jónsson: Speech – 62nd Annual Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland Speech by Mr Ásgeir Jónsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland, Reykjavík, 30 March 2023. *** "When a traveller gets lost in the fog or a storm and loses his sense of direction, it is said that he starts going around in circles and eventually feels as though water flows upstream. In our economic and labour market affairs, we Icelanders are utterly lost, and the circles we navigate are growing smaller and smaller. Similarly, our sense of real value has become distorted, so that it seems to us that the line graph illustrating the nation's prosperity is aiming upwards when it is actually pointing downwards." These words are taken from Morgunblaðið's Reykjavík Letter editorial on Sunday 19 August 1979. I am quite certain that the author was poet and editor Matthías Johannessen, and I have never found a more accurate description of Iceland's economic situation that summer. The old adage that poets see more clearly than others still holds. Yes, in summer 1979, annual inflation had soared to a new high of more than 60%. And yes, it had happened in spite of innumerable economic policy actions, emergency acts of law, and other responses that were supposed to drop a net over inflation - which nevertheless kept on climbing. Price instability begat political instability. Governments came and went. Wage agreements and currency devaluations played leapfrog, fanning the flames of inflation.

One approach to this challenge would be for the Bank to return to basics and improve the three channels of financial intermediation, namely, banking, equity and debt, through a number of measures. First, the Bank could increase investment in the financial infrastructure in Asia. Just as physical infrastructure, such as airports and highways, facilitates the movement of people and goods, financial infrastructure, such as the payment and settlement systems for the banking and securities sectors, facilitates the safe and efficient movement of money. The importance of a robust payment and settlement system in this region is underscored by the events of 11 September. Secondly, the Bank could expand the technical assistance programme to assist economies in restructuring the banking sector. Small and medium-sized enterprises employ the most workers in Asia and they are mostly dependent on bank financing. The banking sector in Asia, devastated by the Asian financial crisis, has not fully recovered. Banks understandably are adopting a very conservative lending strategy towards companies with a lower credit rating, such as Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The Bank’s assistance in speeding up the banking sector reform would help SMEs to get back on their own feet, thereby reducing unemployment and poverty. Thirdly, the Bank could expand assistance in building up the institutional capacity of individual economies to improve corporate governance in the private sector. Emphasis should also be made to improve the auditing, disclosure and transparency standards of publicly-listed companies.
Since the early days of the ECB and the first ECB Central Banking Conference, sufficient time has passed for us to assess whether we at the ECB have made an effective contribution to the relationship we have with the academic world. The academics here today should be the first to be asked this question. From our side, I am inclined to say that we have been effective. I am in particular referring to the success of our Graduate Research and Visitors Programme. In this context, I should like to announce the establishment of five fellowships for young researchers working in top-priority fields within the Financial Research Network. The Executive Board has decided to call these fellowships the 'Lamfalussy Fellowships', in honour of the first President of the European Monetary Institute (EMI), who has made an impressive contribution to the process of European monetary and financial integration. Another example of successful co-operation and exchanges of information between the academic world and the ECB is the launching of a series of conferences and research networks. Of these, the ECB-CFS research network on "Capital markets and financial integration in Europe" has the closest ties to the theme of this year's conference – the transformation of the European financial system. Some of you may have attended the initial workshop here in Frankfurt last April. It's a European initiative; future workshops are to be held at the Bank of Finland in Helsinki, in March next year, and at the Bank of Greece next November.

I am sure that its long experience, accumulated knowledge and proficient staff make the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey an institution that can fulfil these expectations. I am proud of this institution. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my colleagues, who have greatly contributed to our accomplishments and to our policy implementation. BIS Review 47/1997
Housing market activity has begun to recover, and a widely followed national home price index is up 12 percent over the 12 months ending in September.1 Anecdotal reports suggest that this higher-than-expected increase in home prices is due to a relatively low number of homes for sale. Due to this shortness of supply, there is reason to expect increases in starts going forward. Yet another bright spot on the horizon is the fact that growth prospects among our major trading partners have improved following a few years of lackluster performance which induced a sharp slowing of growth of U.S. exports. In particular, the euro area appears to have emerged from a protracted recession and is experiencing modest but positive growth. To summarize, while growth in 2013 has been disappointing, I believe a good case can be made that the pace of growth will pick up some in 2014 and then somewhat more in 2015. The private sector of the economy should continue to heal, while the amount of fiscal drag  1  2  Based on the CoreLogic home price index including distressed sales. BIS central bankers’ speeches  should subside. Despite near-term concerns, growth prospects among our major trading partners will improve further next year. This combination of events is likely to create an environment in which business investment spending will strengthen. As growth picks up, I expect to see more substantial improvement in labor market conditions and a gradual updrift in inflation back towards the FOMC’s target rate.

However, the notion that the economy will grow more swiftly remains a forecast rather than a reality at this point. As is always the case, there is substantial uncertainty surrounding this forecast. Moreover, there is always the possibility of some unforeseen shock. Thus, we will continue to monitor U.S. and global economic conditions very carefully and will adjust our views on the likely path for growth, inflation and the unemployment rate accordingly. Regional economic conditions Let me turn now to the regional economy. A year has passed since Superstorm Sandy devastated the tri-state region. And even today, many of the hardest-hit places are still struggling to recover and rebuild from the storm. In fact, reminders of the storm’s damage remain visible in neighborhoods across Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, as well as along the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey. On a more encouraging note, however, the broader regional economy has proven to be remarkably resilient. After a brief dip following the storm, the regional economy quickly rebounded and has continued to add jobs at a reasonably good pace. Moreover, the region’s housing markets have continued to show steady improvement throughout the year. To help monitor the performance of the regional economy more generally, the New York Fed produces economic activity indexes for New York State, New York City and New Jersey. Based on these measures, New York City’s economy has continued to grow strongly throughout the year, and both New York State and New Jersey have seen some pickup in growth in recent months.