recent developments in the economy and markets − speech by huw pill given at institute of directors ni annual dinner, holywood, county down published on 29 september 2022 speech good evening everyone. it is a great pleasure to speak at tonight ’ s annual dinner of the institute of directors in northern ireland. i owe thanks to gordon milligan and his iod colleagues for their kind invitation. i would also like to thank my colleagues frances hill and gillian anderson from the bank of england ’ s belfast agency for putting together such a great agenda for my northern ireland visit. many of you will know them as contacts of the agency, feeding information about business developments and your own firms ’ situation into the bank ’ s decision making processes. let me take this opportunity to thank you for all the time and effort you take to provide those insights. my colleagues on the mpc – as well as in other parts of the bank – find this information invaluable in getting a timely read on the economy. at a time when we are faced with uncertainty on many dimensions, that timely read can strongly influence our thinking, our analysis and, ultimately, our policy decisions. the bank ’ s belfast agency was set up in the late 1990s to ensure that developments in northern ireland were fully embodied in the bank ’ s economic assessment. as a welshman now working in threadneedle street, i appreciate that the bank of england can appear a remote institution, apparently focused on the city of london and far away from the day - to - day concerns of people living elsewhere in the uk. the work of the agencies provides a bridge between the bank and the households, businesses and communities it serves. through my discussions over the past couple of days, i have learnt about how brexit has affected trading relationships on the island of ireland and across the irish sea. and our citizens panel on the cost - of - living emphasised the distinctiveness of the retail energy market in northern ireland, which has been in focus of late given the sharp rises in utility bills. i am not going to discuss those issues this evening – although i realise that they are important, as well as politically and economically sensitive. i have been in listening mode, and can now take some of the lessons learnt back to our deliberations at the bank. i originally hoped to spend the bulk of my time exploring the macroeconomic motivations underlying mpc decisions in the past few months. i hope to return to those issues in a moment. but given recent events

mark carney : current issues in household finances remarks by mr mark carney, governor of the bank of canada, at the national forum ( canadian club of toronto and empire club of canada ), toronto, 16 december 2009. * * * introduction as the holiday season approaches, our attention turns naturally to the home front. accordingly, my comments this afternoon will focus on households. i would like to concentrate in particular on the implications of canadian household finances for financial stability in our country. i spoke here in toronto a year ago, almost to the day. then, the global financial sector crisis was buffeting the real economy. businesses were postponing large investments, and households were hesitating over major purchases. it was clear then that 2009 would be a difficult year, and so it has proved. with more than 400, 000 jobs lost and a $ 30 billion fall in output, the canadian economy has suffered a deep, albeit brief, recession. today, the outlook has improved. while significant fragilities remain, the global economic recovery is now supported by several factors. first, feedback between financial markets and the real economy has reversed direction. in most major economies, the inventory cycle has turned and housing sectors are stabilizing. in addition, considerable fiscal expansion and monetary stimulus are supporting domestic demand. nonetheless, the bank expects underlying private demand in many economies to recover only slowly, as significant balance sheet and structural adjustments have yet to run their course. in particular, the rebound in u. s. consumption is projected to be more moderate than in previous cycles. this will have direct implications for canada. while the canadian economy will likely grow faster than the other g - 7 countries next year, the bank expects our recovery to be more protracted and more reliant on domestic demand than usual ( chart 1 ). in the near term, canada will grow despite – not because of – the pace of external activity. the behaviour of canadian households will thus be particularly important. before turning to that in more detail, i would like to briefly review the challenges facing u. s. households, both for their direct impact on canada and for the insights they offer for financial stability. u. s. household sector for a generation, u. s. households increasingly “ saved ” through capital appreciation rather than from current income. over the last three decades, u. s. consumer spending grew substantially faster than national income, driving the ratio of consumption to gdp from 62 per cent to a record 70 per cent (