samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Therefore, there is cause for some optimism concerning the possibility of shielding the mainland economy from the effects of swings in oil prices. In the long run, however, petroleum revenues and their use will affect the level of costs in Norway. An increase in oil prices may generate expectations of higher use of petroleum revenues in the future, particularly if high oil prices are expected to persist. Such expectations may exert appreciation pressures on the krone. It may also generate expectations of higher returns in the Norwegian stock market than in foreign markets, which also can and has contributed to an appreciation of the krone. Our assessment is that developments in oil prices and an increased cash flow have been responsible for the appreciation of the krone since the spring of 2004. We are approaching a peak in petroleum production in Norway and must expect a substantial reduction in the next decades. In addition, there is considerable uncertainty associated with future petroleum production. In recent years, there has been a tendency to overestimate projections for production a couple of years ahead. It is especially demanding to estimate production for the many large fields that have reached maximum capacity. The fiscal rule provides a long-term anchor for fiscal policy. It provides a stable framework that contributes to curbing some of the fluctuations in the Norwegian economy. Nonetheless, the use of petroleum revenues in the Norwegian economy has been increasing over the past few years. Petroleum investment has increased significantly.

The scope is relatively moderate, but appears nonetheless to have reduced bottleneck tendencies in some industries where demand has increased sharply. Traditionally, many workers from our neighbouring countries have contributed when the labour market in this country has been tight. In 2001, close to 30, 000 persons resident in Sweden were employed in Norway for all or part of the year. Swedes who have registered as residents in Norway come in addition. An increased supply of labour from new EU member states to Norwegian enterprises may lead to a higher-than-normal increase in potential output for a period. Many of the foreign workers work for a shorter period in Norway without being employed in a Norwegian enterprise. Examples include foreign contractors and self-employed in the construction industry who carry out various building projects in Norway, as well as others who carry out other types of projects. Aker Kværner, for example, has contracted 300 consultants in India who are working from India on the Ormen Lange project in the western part of Norway. An increase in the use of these short-term contracts will appear as an increase in Norway’s service imports, which contributes to increasing the supply of goods and services without drawing on domestic resources. Protectionist measures may dampen the impact on the Norwegian economy of an increased supply of labour from the new EU member states. The transitional rules from 1 May last year stipulate that foreign workers shall have Norwegian wages and working conditions.
Andrew Bailey: Financial markets – identifying risks and appropriate responses Speech by Mr Andrew Bailey, Deputy Governor of Prudential Regulation and Chief Executive Officer of the Prudential Regulation Authority at the Bank of England, at Cambridge University, Cambridge, 15 May 2015. *  *  *  Accompanying chart can be found at the end of the speech. The views expressed in this lecture are my own and not those of the Bank of England, the Financial Policy Committee or the Prudential Regulation Authority. I would like to thank Chris Salmon, Geoff Coppins, Rhys Phillips, Jeremy Harrison, Sarah Bailey, David Learmonth, Alina Barnett, Andrew Hauser, Lewis Webber, Sam Knott, David Biegel, Simon Stockwell, Joseph Noss and Nicholas Vause for their comments. As the summer of 2015 approaches, it is sobering to think that we will be nearing the eighth anniversary of the start of the Global Financial Crisis. Incidentally, the end of this month will mark my 30th anniversary of working at the Bank of England. So it is even more sobering to realise that I have now spent a quarter of my career dealing with the Global Financial Crisis. Reflecting on this fact as I started writing this speech, I must admit I thought about suggesting we all go for a drink now, but I decided I should press on. There is a commonly-held narrative about the financial crisis that the banks caused it, and the solution is more regulation of both an economy-wide (macro-prudential in the jargon) and firm specific (micro-prudential) type.

This means positions that are less liquid under stress conditions will receive larger shocks. And, we have developed a new approach to stressing counterparty credit risk, which focusses on capturing losses from exposures that would become large under the stress scenario and for counterparties that would be most vulnerable in the stress scenario. Second, the Bank of England, working with the FCA and HM Treasury has set up the Fair and Effective Markets Review to restore trust and confidence in the fixed income, currency and commodity (FICC) markets in the wake of the serious wave of misconduct seen since the height of the financial crisis. The Review is taking a fundamental look at the root causes of these abuses, the steps that have already been taken by firms and regulators to put things right, and what more is needed to deliver less vulnerable market structures and raise standards of behaviour in future. The Review will publish its recommendations in June 2015. Out of this assessment, and based on consultations to date, will I believe come priorities on market structure “standards” and transparency, effective competition, professional culture within firms and effective, pre-emptive supervision which reduces the drama of ex-post enforcement. The third area of action concerns initiatives to improve the functioning of markets to support activity in real economies. Resilient market-based financing will help to support sustainable economic growth.
In view of the requirement for growth of Islamic financial transactions to be linked to real economic sectors, salient issues on stronger corporate governance and more efficient human resource management are discussed in a pre-concluding chapter of the book. Renowned industry practitioners and academicians have contributed to the book, providing deep insights, perspectives and views that are supported by practical experiences which will be invaluable to those who wish to understand the critical regulatory issues in Islamic finance. Contributions by the two respected co-editors who have extensive knowledge on the subject and are internationally recognised for their academic publications on Islamic finance, completes the book as an indispensable reference for all. It is hoped that in addressing the implications of the recent global financial crisis on the regulation of Islamic financial services, this book will provide further clarity and understanding on the multi-dimensional goals of policymakers and regulators in ensuring that the resilience of the Islamic financial system and its core tennets are aligned with the evolving global regulatory developments. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the two co-editors for their invaluable contribution in enriching the body of authoritative information on the regulation of Islamic finance. Thank you. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Market-based measures include a time-varying risk premium that may explain the modest movements in that measure.6 In contrast to longer-run expectations, short-run and, to a lesser extent, medium-run inflation expectations responded to the sharp rise in inflation. The lower portion of Table 1 reports summary statistics for one-year-ahead inflation expectations from the Michigan survey and one- and three-year-ahead expectations from the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE). Consistent with past experience, one-year-ahead inflation expectations have been highly sensitive to incoming inflation during the recent period. The sensitivity of three-year-ahead inflation expectations is far less than that for one-year-ahead expectations. And they have been significantly less sensitive to incoming information during this period of high inflation than during the period before the pandemic. This suggests households view the run-up in inflation in 2021 as likely being less persistent than in prior episodes.7 Although the SPF includes a longer-run forecast of PCE price inflation, most other measures of inflation expectations do not exactly correspond to the PCE price index that the FOMC has stipulated for its long-run goal. This complicates a direct comparison of these measures to the FOMC’s stated goal. For example, the SCE refers to the “rate of inflation,” and the Michigan survey refers to “prices in general,” rather than referring to a specific price index.
Given the fact that we started from a position in which inflation was below target (and expected to remain so for some period ahead); and given only modest upward pressure – at least so far – on wages and earnings growth, despite the continuing tightness in the labour market; we have judged, on the information so far available to us, that we needed to reduce interest rates by ¾% in order to cushion the impact of the global slowdown and meet the inflation target further ahead. Of course I am well aware that a stable overall macro-economy does not – and cannot – mean equally stable economic conditions for every individual sector or individual business. A particular complication over the past few years has been the surprisingly persistent strength of sterling's exchange rate against the euro, itself a reflection of the puzzling more general weakness of the European currency. This has contributed to an uncomfortable imbalance within the UK economy primarily between the  BIS Review 47/2001  3  euro-exposed sectors, which have been under consistent pressure, and the domestically-oriented sectors, which have by and large been doing relatively well. Understandably the suffering sectors and businesses – and I know that they include some Japanese companies operating in this country – tend to complain that monetary policy takes too little account of their position, often pointing out that inflation has for the past two years fallen somewhat below the target.

The outcome is obviously the major uncertainty surrounding the global economic prospect, and policymakers elsewhere can only monitor, continuously and very closely, the emerging evidence and react to that in the light of its likely impact on their own situation. The US slowdown comes at a particularly bad time for Japan which is already suffering from a combination of weak domestic demand – particularly consumer demand – and supply-side constraints reflecting pressures on the banking system, heavily burdened with non-performing loans, and an acknowledged need for restructuring parts of the non-financial sector. Japan has pretty well exhausted the scope for macro-economic stimulus. Successive fiscal packages focussed on public works, and a sustained period of attempted monetary expansion, at near-zero interest rates in the face of deflation, have failed to overcome a high rate of precautionary saving by an ageing population facing an uncertain economic future. The policy emphasis of the new Japanese administration appears to be shifting towards firmer action to bring about supply-side reform in the belief that this will help to engender greater confidence. The danger is that, to the extent that more aggressive restructuring  2  BIS Review 47/2001  results in bank ruptcies and higher unemployment in the short term, that in itself might tend to weaken consumer demand for a time before the benefits of the restructuring come through. I make no judgement about the prospects in Japan. You certainly are better placed to do that than I am!
It is difficult to know exactly how much spare capacity there is in the economy and what its precise impact is on inflation. But that there remains some slack in the economy and this is likely to be pushing down on costs and prices seems clear. That impact should become more apparent as the temporary effects associated with the shocks to input prices and VAT wane. It is perhaps noteworthy that in the US and euro area, which have not experienced falls in their exchange rates or large movements in indirect taxes, core inflation has weakened substantially. The downside risks to the growth outlook, stemming in particular from the substantial fiscal consolidation now in train and the continuing constraints on the supply of bank lending, add materially to the downside risks to inflation. And even if the economic recovery does continue, it is possible that some of the factors that may have contributed to the surprising strength in inflation in the past may start to fade. As demand increases, companies may begin to bring mothballed capacity back on stream. And as firms build up their cash balances and credit becomes more available, margins may start to fall as companies seek to enter new markets and gain new customers. The risks to the inflation target are real and substantial. The job of monetary policy is to try to balance these upside and downside risks to inflation. In essence this is no different to normal, monetary policy is always faced with a balancing act.

In the meantime, the Bank of Thailand has been keeping a close eye on the economy as well as any sign of excessive turbulence in the financial markets, and stands ready to take appropriate actions as warranted. In response to the weakening economic conditions, the MPC has cut the policy rate by 25 basis points at its November meeting to shore up sentiments and mitigate downside risks. The rate was further maintained in the last MPC meeting to retain the accommodative stance without compromising financial stability. 8. With that said, preparation on the side of the private sector is equally important. In this regard, I would like to encourage commercial banks to help raise the private sector’s awareness and encourage the use of the available financial instruments to manage their FX risks. I wish to point out that in these uncertain times where outcomes are driven as much by expectations as by the underlying fundamentals, protection against the FX risks should be viewed as the dominant strategy. That is, protection should be recommended irrespective of whether there is any observable trend of the currency and irrespective of whether one is on the importing or exporting side of the trade. Also, if your clients are engaged in intra-regional trade, recommending using a regional currency to reduce overreliance on the major currencies may be worth considerations. 9. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to touch upon two more important developments in the Thai financial markets before concluding.
Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: Presentation of the 2011 Annual Report Address by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, to the Governing Council of the Bank of Spain on the presentation of the 2011 Annual Report, Madrid, 8 June 2012. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, The presentation of the Annual Report for 2011 is taking place in an extremely difficult setting for Europe in general, and for Spain in particular, marked by the acute euro area sovereign debt crisis and the double-dip recession in the Spanish economy. The year 2011 was characterised by the worsening of the euro area sovereign debt crisis. Initially affecting a small number of countries in a situation of relative vulnerability, it spread to others with sounder economic fundamentals, duly turning systemic. The fresh downturn in the euro zone not only detracted from the area’s recovery but was also one of the main determinants of the halt in the ongoing pick-up in world growth begun a year earlier. Two main factors lay behind the crisis. First, the insufficient adaptation of domestic economic policies to the demands of monetary union membership, which translated into a build-up of major imbalances that placed some economies in a position of vulnerability. And second, the lack of political consensus at the European level to tackle the weaknesses of the euro’s institutional design, which largely explains the spread of the tensions to countries whose misalignments were on a lesser scale.

Ivan Iskrov: Reflections on the past year Speech by Mr Ivan Iskrov, Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, to the Association of Banks in Bulgaria on the occasion of the Banker’s Day, Sofia, 6 December 2010. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s a great pleasure to be here this evening with you all, on 6th December, Saint Nicholas Day, and celebrate our professional holiday. Over the last eight years I and my colleagues from the BNB Governing Council, regardless of our numerous engagements, have not missed a single occasion to be with you and celebrate this great day. By this gesture we show our respect for and acknowledgement of the job well done by you in favour of the national economy. Commercial banks are not merely some of the many capitalist businesses focused on profit making for their shareholders. The banking system is a major part of the infrastructure of any market economy; it is its circulatory system. Without our daily committed work, our state would not be able to function properly. By tradition today we have the chance to pause and reflect on the past year and to share our hopes that in the year to come we would again successfully meet the new challenges. I have no doubts about that because we all have proved that we are capable of turning trials into useful experience, and experience into a means of completing the mission that society has assigned to us.
The reason I have brought up this problem is that it, in my opinion, has at least some bearing on the monetary policy considerations we face today. I will come back to that in a moment. The current monetary policy situation Let me now proceed to the current economic and monetary policy situation. The outlook presented in the latest Inflation Report can briefly be summarised as follows. On the whole, the situation looks bright for the Swedish economy. The recent months’ data releases have reduced the uncertainty over economic developments, both in Sweden and internationally. Growth is expected to be firm in the next few years, partly on account of expansionary economic policy and firm export market growth. Much also suggests that demand for labour is now finally beginning to pick up more markedly. As regards price developments, we can note that inflation is still low, largely because various supply factors are contributing to low cost pressures. However, inflation is expected to rise in the period ahead when resource utilisation increases in Sweden and abroad, albeit at a relatively slow rate. The forecast in the Inflation Report’s main scenario means that inflation a couple of years ahead is estimated to be roughly in line with the target of two per cent. The risks of a higher inflation rate, though, which mainly stem from uncertainty over the oil price and developments in the krona, are currently deemed to be larger than the risks of a lower inflation rate.

As you know, we in the Executive Board decided to leave the repo rate unchanged at our latest monetary policy meeting. At the same time, however, we were in agreement that the Swedish business cycle is fairly close to the point at which it is reasonable to give monetary policy a less expansionary stance. Although we all endorsed the outlook for inflation and the economy in the Inflation Report a number of us were of the opinion that it provided scope for somewhat different interpretations of exactly when the interest rate needs to be raised. I myself and two other members  2  4  For a more detailed overview of the debate; see Bean, C. (2003), "Asset Prices, Financial Imbalances and Monetary Policy: Are Inflation Targets Enough? ", speech at a BIS conference on "Monetary Stability, Financial Stability and the Business Cycle", 28-29 March 2003, Basel, Switzerland. (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches/2003/speech200.pdf)  BIS Review 88/2005  interpreted the analysis in such a way that we deemed an increase of 0.25 percentage points to be warranted already at the time of the monetary policy meeting. Allow me to say something about the reasons that, in my opinion, suggest that it would have been appropriate to take a first step towards less expansionary monetary policy at the beginning of December. One is that there hardly can be any doubt now that we are in the midst of a strong, stable cyclical upswing.
SPEECH DATE:  04/12/2018  SPEAKER:  Deputy Governor Per Jansson  VENUE:  Insurance Sweden, Stockholm  SVERIGES RIKSBANK SE-103 37 Stockholm (Brunkebergstorg 11) Tel +46 8 787 00 00 Fax +46 8 21 05 31 registratorn@riksbank.se www.riksbank.se  Monetary policy in less favourable times – what are the options?∗ To say the past decade has been transformative for monetary policy is scarcely an exaggeration. Many central banks have cut their policy rates to exceptionally low levels and found other ways of conducting monetary policy than adjusting interest rates. In some countries, including Sweden, the policy rate has also passed the zero bound that was considered to be the absolute minimum level not very long ago, and has entered negative territory. Despite this policy, the recovery has on the whole been slow and, above all, inflation has been low for a long time. This has led to the policy rate in many countries remaining at record low levels for several years. The need to keep policy rates so low is not only due to the financial crisis 2007– 2008 and the ensuing euro crisis requiring very expansionary monetary policy. An equally important explanation is that real interest rate levels around the world have trended down for several decades, largely independent of the financial crisis. Real interest rates are currently at record low levels (see Figure 1). The downturn in the real interest rate is a sign of the global, so-called “neutral”, rate of interest having fallen.

This also has the potential of reducing delivery cost for the banks; hence the potential to increase profit maximization for both banks and their clients. Finally, let me thank the Board of Directors and Management of ProCredit Bank for inviting me to this occasion. I wish you every success in your operations as you compete to make your presence felt in the industry. I would also like to covey appreciation from the Governor, who is unavoidable absent on this occasion. I thank you all for your attention. 2  BIS Review 33/2008