slowed a bit. the regional economists at the federal reserve bank of new york have developed a composite economic index for new york city. it incorporates measures such as employment, unemployment and income, and can serve as a barometer of the state of the local economy. based on this measure, the city ’ s economic activity, which had declined fairly sharply throughout much of 2008 and all of 2009, rebounded at an encouraging pace in the first half of 2010. growth slowed in the second half of the year, but recently released employment data point to some pickup in the city ’ s economy in early 2011 and suggest that the local economic recovery remains on track. over the past year, employment in the city has expanded fairly strongly in a number of key industries, including finance, professional and business services, education and health, and tourism, including air transportation. job losses in construction and government, however, continue to weigh down growth. meanwhile, new york city ’ s unemployment rate has edged down steadily over the past year, though it remains unacceptably high at 8. 9 percent. unfortunately, as in the rest of the nation, much of the recent drop in the unemployment rate has come from people withdrawing from the labor force so that they are no longer counted as unemployed. some of the unemployed have been able to find jobs, but not in large numbers thus far. where do queens ’ residents find employment? while many of them commute to work in other boroughs ( primarily manhattan ), queens has a formidable industrial base of its own. as the home to the city ’ s two major airports, the volume of air traffic coming through queens ranks third highest among u. s. counties. not surprisingly, then, transportation is queens ’ bis central bankers ’ speeches largest industrial specialty ; it accounts for 12 percent of total employment – four times the national average. air transportation alone accounts for 6 percent of queens ’ jobs, or 15 times the nationwide share. but, of course, queens has a diverse economy, with jobs in industries ranging from medical care to construction, not to mention printing and a number of other manufacturing industries that benefit from being in a large population center. during the recent recession, queens ’ dynamic economy was hard hit, yet it proved more resilient than manhattan ’ s and much of the nation ’ s. from peak to trough, employment declined by roughly 3 percent in queens, far less than the roughly 7 percent plunge nationally and the 4. 5 percent loss in new york city as a

lastly, in relation to the systematic assessment of the balance of risks to financial stability that we regularly make at the banco de espana, we are including other elements, whose materialisation could occur over a longer horizon. i refer here to the potential changes technological innovation may entail for the market structure of the financial sector, and those arising from climate change. the importance banks give to these changes will have to increase accordingly. macroprudential policy as you all know, a macroprudential authority ( amcesfi ) has been in place in spain since the start of the year. its main task involves contributing to the coordination and exchange of information on financial stability - related aspects between the banco de espana, the ministry of the economy and enterprise, the national securities market commission and the directorate general of insurance and pension funds. in parallel, the supervision of the financial system as a whole has been bolstered by the extension of the macroprudential tools available to the sectoral supervisory authorities. some of these new tools, in particular those of the banco de espana based on borrowers ’ ability to pay, aim to prevent an excessive easing in lending standards on the part of banks and to contribute to the sustainability of household and corporate debt. these new instruments complement those already being used by the banco de espana : the countercyclical capital buffer, the systemic risk buffer and the buffer for systemically important institutions, among others. overall, this new institutional framework and the attendant powers mark progress and the strengthening of financial stability in spain. in fact, in my opinion1, the introduction of macroprudential policy instruments to complement monetary and fiscal policy is probably one of the most significant advances in the wake of the international financial crisis. for countries which, like spain, belong to a monetary union, these tools are particularly important. they are some of the few instruments available in the national realm to ensure the stability of the domestic financial system. in relation to this macroprudential policy, the banco de espana is responsible for setting quarterly the so - called countercyclical capital buffer ( ccyb ). the ccyb is a macroprudential instrument that leads to credit institutions building up a capital buffer during expansionary periods so that this buffer may be released during a subsequent contractionary phase. in this way, the ccyb strengthens the banking system ’ s solvency see the opening address at the second financial stability conference ( banco de espana / cemfi ) delivered by