samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Since December 2004, key interest rates have risen from 2.25% to 5.25% in the United States, from 4.75% to 5.75% in the United Kingdom and from 2.00% to 4.00% in the euro area. As regards the latter, the seven increases in interest rates implemented since December 2005 have, as mentioned above, been accompanied by strong GDP growth, and during this period monetary policy has ensured price stability at the same time as more than two million jobs were created. The ECB’s monetary policy stance has aimed, in accordance with the Treaty, to maintain price stability over the long term. In sync with the consolidation of growth in the euro area, it has gradually been adjusted upwards, with the Governing Council striving consistently to calibrate interest rates as precisely as possible to allow growth to firm, while ensuring it is not jeopardised by mounting inflationary pressures. Price stability is foremost among the objectives assigned to central banks in all countries. This is not a random choice. It is the fruit of experience. Many countries have attempted, over recent decades – and particularly after the oil shocks at the end of the last century – to stimulate growth via expansive monetary policies. All of these attempts failed. Inflation rose, sometimes to very high levels, without there being any improvement in employment. Two lessons have been learned from this period, which still inform the conduct of monetary policy today.

Christian Noyer: Monetary policy, the French economy and its outlook Introductory letter by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, to the Bank of France’s Annual Report 2006, submitted to the President of the French Republic, the President of the Senate, and the President of the National Assembly, 1 August 2007. *  *  *  I have the honour of submitting to you, as required by law, the report on the operations of the Banque de France, monetary policy and its outlook. The year 2006 was marked by robust and more balanced growth in global economic activity across virtually all regions. Thanks to this favourable international environment, the French economy saw a return to dynamic growth conducive to employment and the reduction of government deficits. This cyclical upturn should not, however, mask the structural difficulties facing the French economy, which is performing less well in all these areas than its main trading partners and which, moreover, is witnessing a further widening of its external deficit. Against this backdrop, I should like to outline a number of analyses of the growth environment, monetary policy, the state of the French economy and the main challenges that it needs to rise to in order to take advantage of globalisation and make structural improvements to growth and employment. In 2006, the European economy entered a period of sustained and balanced growth Growth in the euro area is sustained: after 2.9% in 2006, it could stand at 2.6% in 2007.
Indeed the way finance sector output is measured meant that the rate of bank balance sheet expansion translated directly into the measured contribution of the finance sector to productivity growth. Strong pre-crisis growth in manufacturing productivity, meanwhile, was largely caused by structural changes in the sector catalysed by globalisation. Increased competition from abroad, especially from China, created a more challenging climate for UK manufacturers, incentivising them to raise productivity (often supported by significant foreign direct investment) or scale back production. The UK manufacturing sector is now much more productive as a result – but is also smaller. Looking ahead, the risks to productivity from this channel also appear to be to the downside. The tensions between the US and China have led to increased tariffs which have contributed to a slowdown in world growth and a sharp slowing in goods trade. And in the UK, Brexit, on our forecast assumptions, is likely to lead to a reduction in the UK’s integration with the EU in goods and services trade, which appears unlikely, at least in the near term, to be offset by an equivalent increase in integration with the rest of the world. Putting all this together leaves me a little more pessimistic on productivity growth than the MPC’s central forecast. Since productivity growth is a key determinant of how fast the economy can sustainably grow – what I just described as the economy’s “speed limit” – that also means that, all else equal, I am a little more pessimistic about future GDP growth.

Net trade on the other hand has performed less strongly; while it did support growth immediately following the referendum and in response to the  7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  7  accompanying depreciation, that boost has now come to an end, and slowing trade is now dragging on growth. Chart 7: G7 business investment  Chart 8: Business investment compared with previous recoveries Indices: peak in GDP = 100  Percentage changes on a year earlier  20  180  EU Referendum Act  15 160  10 5  140  0 120  -5  2008  100  -10 -15  80  -20 -25 2007  60 2009  2011  2013  G7 (ex. UK)  2015  2017 UK  0  5  10  15  20  25  30  35  40  Quarters since pre-recession peak in GDP  At the same time, business investment has been strikingly weak. Investment growth was already slowing ahead of the Brexit referendum (Chart 7). Following the referendum it has come to a complete stop. In fact the level of business investment has actually fallen slightly over the past three years – that is despite a supportive global environment and accommodative financial conditions that have supported growth in other countries, and in contrast to the 7%-plus annual growth we were forecasting ahead of the referendum.
Higher educational attainment and maternity leave have also made a contribution. Just as there are new companies that start up each year, there are also many people who change jobs every year. On average for the years 2000-2005, 260 000 work contracts were terminated. Every eighth person changed jobs. At the same time, new jobs were created, bringing net annual job creation to 4 000 in this period. Job change and the diffusion of new technology tend to go hand in hand. The key here is that companies have had the opportunity and capacity to rationalise and adapt when new technology has made this profitable. The modernisation of economic systems must be given the main credit for the solid performance of Nordic countries over the past 10-15 years. Norway is benefiting from oil, but developments in the mainland economy have also been considerably more stable. Global economic developments have brought us substantial gains, but this does not explain the strong productivity gains in our service industries. Moreover, it may appear that cooperation in companies is better in Nordic countries than in many other European countries. In Norway, there are few examples of objections to investing in new technology on the grounds that it will eliminate jobs. On the contrary, employees will often be the first to support new investments to strengthen a company’s position in highly open and competitive markets. Labour market adaptability is fairly similar in the Nordic region, even though legislation and rules are quite different.

However, after several years of strong growth, resources are now in short supply. With the substantial number of businesses now facing capacity constraints, we can expect inflation to pick up. It is uncertain whether inflation will then rise quickly or only gradually near target. Strong export growth, high oil investment and after a period higher growth in general government demand have contributed to the upswing in production and employment. But the low level of interest rates has also been a prominent driving force. This reflects the dynamics inherent in interest-rate setting. Low interest rates have stimulated demand and production and should lead to higher inflation, to which we are now reacting by raising interest rates. Under inflation targeting, it is important to be mindful of the effects of higher interest rates on the krone exchange rate when inflation is low. Interest rate developments in other countries are thus of importance to interest rates in Norway. BIS Review 15/2007  5  Unemployment has declined sharply in recent quarters. The pace of decline and the level of unemployment are reminiscent of two earlier cyclical peaks, one in the mid-1980s and the one that began at the end of the 1990s and continued into the present decade. Both booms culminated in sharply accelerating cost and wage inflation. Some of the driving forces that have boosted the growth potential of the Norwegian economy and restrained inflation may diminish. Prices for imported goods are no longer decelerating at the same pace. Labour market conditions are tightening in Sweden and Poland.
But most important, due to it being an area which sets us furthest apart from other developed countries, is the reform of the labour market institutions which are the cause of the our economy’s main problem. Our labour market framework makes us unique in comparison with other countries: it hampers job creation and encourages the use of job destruction as a mechanism for adjustment. Here it will not be enough, when the reform has been passed, to say “it’s a move in the right direction”. In this connection, not only the direction but also the scale of the reform is important. Yet we would surely not have to go very far. It would suffice for employers in Spain to be able, as in other developed countries, to offer jobs with productivity-based wages to the millions who are unemployed and for the latter to have the possibility of considering job offers that Spanish employers can’t even make to them due to the inflexibility of our singular regulations. Reducing unemployment and increasing employment is not only an indispensable social goal but it is a vital economic target at this juncture. If we manage to bring the labour market framework more into line with that of our European partners, there will be a swifter and stronger recovery in employment. And that would have effects that go beyond the obvious increase in the welfare of the workers, such as making it easier to restore health to public finances and reducing defaults, which would encourage lending.

In sum, after recognizing credibility as the main asset of a central bank, especially an independent one, we can conclude that drawing on parallel work on trust in institutions may provide a useful Page 6 of 8  Central Bank of Chile July 2019  framework to assess the current situation and to guide action to address existing gaps and vulnerabilities. Trust in the Central Bank of Chile The experience of the Central Bank of Chile can illustrate some of the ideas above. The IMF study on the importance of credibility for monetary policy underscored anchoring of inflation expectations in Chile as key to the effectiveness of its monetary policy and macro resilience in the face of external shocks. Deviations of long-term forecasts of headline inflation from target have been less than 0.1%–being the lowest for a sample of emerging countries, and even lower a benchmark group of advanced economies. This is remarkable considering that inflation volatility in Chile has not been particularly low relative to other emerging economies. Yet we do not see credibility as an immutable attribute, given the dynamism of trust in institutions in the public opinion and market perceptions. We believe that a positive past record helps, but trust can deteriorate in a number of ways, some of them pretty fast, in the face of new standards and developments. Therefore, trust needs to be protected and enhanced in a systematic way with different stakeholders in the different dimensions of activity of the Bank.
Despite the calming in the money markets, the situation in the stock and credit markets continued to worsen as a result of the rapid deterioration in economic conditions. I would like to illustrate the unique nature of the current situation with a comparison of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from five stock market crises (cf. chart 2). 2 Price declines this time round are significantly steeper than those in 2000 and 1973 and not at all comparable with 1987, when the stock markets recovered very quickly. Measured by the extent of the Dow Jones losses, the current crisis can only be compared to that of 1929. Although the financial losses suffered this time have probably already far exceeded those of 1929. The reason for this is the considerably higher market capitalisation of the stock markets, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP). What is more, the losses suffered today are not merely limited to the stock markets, they also affect practically every other type of asset, of which there are significantly more nowadays than back then. Prices have plummeted across the board, from corporate bonds to structured products, from raw materials and emerging market currencies to real estate investments. While US property prices dropped by 2% in 1929 and 4% in 1930, they are currently falling at a rate of 17%. 3 Never before have so many assets been wiped out worldwide in the space of a few months as they were this year.

Similarly, although it is not possible to completely eliminate inflationary pressures stemming from rising world oil prices, efforts are nonetheless needed to moderate their impact on the economy. To this end, such efforts as conserving the use of petroleum products can go a long way in reducing the attendant inflationary pressures. Allow me now to turn to the issue of interest rates. As you may be aware, interest rates refer to the price of money. Over the last few years the general trend in commercial banks’ weighted average lending rates has been largely downwards. As at end-June 2005, the weighted average base lending rate had reduced to 28.6% from 36.2% in January 2004. The fall in lending rates has in large part been induced by a fall in yield rates on Government securities as banks in Zambia have tended to use yield rates as anchors. BIS Review 53/2005  1  However, at the current levels, lending interest rates are too high to contribute to sustainable productive investment. This calls for concerted efforts among other key stakeholders, namely, the Government, commercial banks and the borrowing private sector to continue playing their respective roles effectively to bring about a further reduction in the lending interest rates. It has also to be appreciated that inflation is another major contributing factor to high interest rates as banks set their lending interest rates above the rate of inflation thus the need to reduce the high inflation that has characterised the economy.
Everything was put in question: the current economic theories; monetary and fiscal policies; micro and macroprudential policies; the whole financial regulation. Suddenly, no one was satisfied with the global financial framework. A gallop was started for its reexamining. The fear from recurrence of the crisis and its possible deepening, for almost three years has been keeping the eyes of the creators of the economic and financial policies wide open. Why did this happen to us? A lot has been written in search for the causes of the crisis, and a lot more will be examined and written. One part of the relevant experts say: (1) The so-called “great moderation” period in the GDP and inflation fluctuations was the reason, for which a wrong sense of comfort and illusion was settled, that the crisis period is behind us. Some relevant economic minds convinced us in that. Paul Krugman, in “The Return of Depression Economics” (2008) reminds us of the statement of the Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas that “the central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes” and the statement of Ben Bernanke in his famous speech named as “The Great Moderation”, where he claims more than Lucas that the modern macroeconomic policy has solved the business cycle problem or more precisely it has reduced the problem to a point that it is a mere shade rather than the most important economic question.

Lim Hng Kiang: Singapore – pursuing broader and deeper economic integration with major economies Opening keynote speech by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry and Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at Deutsche Bank Access Asia Conference 2013, Singapore, 20 May 2013. *  *  *  Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, A very good morning to all of you. It is my pleasure to join you at Deutsche Bank’s Access Asia Conference 2013. Let me first thank Deutsche Bank for the invitation to speak at your conference. This is the largest event hosted by Deutsche Bank each year globally, and a huge turnout is a clear indicator of the strong corporate and investor interest in Asia. In the last 10 years, the centre of gravity of the world economy has been moving away from the US and Europe to Asia. Asia is expected to continue to prosper in the decades ahead as the middle class expands in line with strong economic growth. China is set to be the largest economy in the world by 2030 and is already creating megacities of over 10 million at an average rate of one per year. Besides China, India’s middle class is expected to grow to almost 600 million people by 2025. In Indonesia, almost 60 per cent of Indonesian households, in a country of 240 million people, are expected to reach middle-class status by 2020. Being a very small state, Singapore has and will continue to maintain an open economy.
The International Energy Agency expects to see the second-biggest increase in carbon emissions in history this year, eradicating 80% of the 2020 reductions. 2 The good news is that 2021 may also provide just the kind of momentum we need to tackle climate change effectively. As the European Union and national governments start making large investments to pave the way for recovery, it is crucial that those funds are channelled towards activities that support our transition to a greener economy. I will now discuss ECB Banking Supervision’s latest initiatives to ensure that banks adequately manage climate-related risks. This is our mandate. As I said earlier, this will also have the positive knock-on effect of inducing banks, and thus companies and households, to factor in climate effects when allocating funds. And this will help accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions – all the way to zero by 2050 at the latest. How ECB Banking Supervision is tackling climate risk Climate risk can affect banks through different channels. As I am sure many of you already know, the main risk drivers for banks are physical risks and transition risks. Physical risks include all those resulting from a changing climate, from more frequent extreme weather events and gradual changes in climate, to environmental degradation, such as air, water and land pollution, water stress, biodiversity loss and deforestation.

Emissions need to fall at a much faster pace than seen so far if we want to avert irreversible damage. I am hopeful that the lessons we draw from the COVID-19 crisis may end up helping to tackle climate risks, not least by showing us that when faced with global challenges, we need to – and indeed can – respond with joint solutions. To reduce carbon emissions all the way to zero by 2050, joint action at the global level is just as vital. Today I have listed some of the ways in which, through our supervisory action and as part of international networks, the ECB is compelling banks to account for climate change – when managing risks, selecting their board members and devising stress scenarios. Climate-related risks show up in the already existing risk categories – as such, we will treat them with the same rigour, toughness and importance as we treat other material risks. And we expect banks to do the same. Urgent action is not an option; it is an imperative. 1 OECD (2017), Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth, May. 2 International Energy Agency (2021), Global Energy Review, April. 3 See the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society entitled “Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate  Perspective”; and the Climate Signals database. 4 ECB (2020), Financial Stability Review, May. 5 De Guindos, L. (2021), “Shining a light on climate risks: the ECB’s economy-wide climate stress test”, The ECB  Blog, 18 March. 6 Available on the ECB Banking Supervision website.
This Regulation imposes an obligation on issuers of asset-referenced tokens to constitute and maintain a reserve of assets backing those tokens at all times, including rules for the composition of the reserve assets, the management and allocation and investment of assets, - E-money tokens10. They may be issued only by authorised credit institutions or electronic money institutions, again after publishing a ‘white paper’ and in keeping with some business-specific requirements. - ‘standard tokens’ do not fall under any of the above categories. The only requirement for these to be offered to the public is that the issuer must be established as a legal entity in the European Union and must have published a crypto-asset white paper. This Regulation defines a new group of financial institutions, different from issuers of tokens, which are called ‘crypto-asset service providers’. This new group of financial entities will be subject to authorisation, and, depending on the scope of their authorisation, these providers will be able to provide the following ancillary services: - the custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of third parties; - the operation of a trading platform for crypto-assets; - the exchange of crypto-assets for fiat currency that is legal tender; - the exchange of crypto-assets for other crypto-assets; - the execution of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of third parties and placing of crypto-assets; - the reception and transmission of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of third parties; - providing advice on crypto-assets.

Suhaimi Ali: Empowering DFIs to bridge funding gaps and drive economic and climate resilience Opening remarks by Mr Suhaimi Ali, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Green Finance Forum for Development Financial Institutions, Kuala Lumpur, 23 June 2023. *** Earlier this year, heavy rainfall flooded five states in Malaysia, forcing over 30,000 victims to leave their homes. In December last year, a tragic landslide in Batang Kali claimed the lives of 31 out of 92 victims. These events resulted in significant financial losses, infrastructure damage, and most tragically, loss of precious lives. Floods, droughts, heatwaves, loss of biodiversity, rising sea levels and coastal erosions are several climate risks we face going into the future due to climate change. Mitigation and adaptation efforts by all parties, including businesses and households, will be crucial to reduce these risks. DFIs have a role to play in this effort. As we navigate the path ahead, it is important that we avoid the pitfalls of hasty actions or inaction, while at the same time strive to preserve and advance decades-long progress in financial inclusion. My remarks this morning will touch on three imperatives, namely: (a) industry partnerships, (b) blended finance, and (c) policy influence; that in my view will sharpen the role of DFIs in contributing to Malaysia's aspiration to achieving net zero GHG emission by as early as 2050. Firstly, DFIs can catalyse change through purposeful partnerships with industry players, government agencies, and financial institutions.