if you start as net importer of a particular good, the benefits of lower prices will necessarily outweigh the costs. more generally it ’ s very difficult to construct a scenario in which free trade is not a net benefit, certainly for a relatively small economy like the uk. but the position is less clear than in if you produce y of some consumption good and consume c of it, the net income effect of a price change δp is δp ( y - c ). the difference between domestic production and consumption, y - c, is the trade balance. so if you happen to be a net importer of the good ( y < c ) a drop in international prices makes you better off : all else equal, it boosts your “ terms of trade ”. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches chart 7 if a country already open to trade is faced with a fall in prices in a sector where it has a comparative advantage. second, you might well object to such a crude, utilitarian comparison anyway. the gains are distributed across lots of people, the losses – such as they are – visited on only a few. even if aggregate employment seems unperturbed by those sectoral job losses, and even when there are big net income gains in aggregate, that doesn ’ t mean no individual will have lost out. charts 8a and 8b are interesting in this respect. using numbers from the decennial uk census, they plot developments in regional labour markets since 1981 – in particular changes in aggregate employment and labour market participation – against the share of employment in clothing and textiles at the start of the period. chart 8a : regions with larger clothing sectors chart 8b : this was reflected in higher inactivity in 1981 tended to experience slightly lower rather than unemployment growth in overall employment over following decade source : uk census, nomis source : uk census, nomis there ’ s clearly lots of unexplained variation. most of these regional differences are entirely unrelated to the particular starting conditions. nor is there any correlation at all, it turns out, between the initial share of clothing and textile employment and what happens subsequently to the local rate of unemployment. samuelson ( 2004 ) points out that, if country a starts to experience rapid productivity growth in a good in which another country b has had a comparative advantage, and is large enough to affect global prices in that good, this can worsen b ’ s

investor confidence and avoided significant impacts that would otherwise have been caused to a key sector for the uk economy. in october the fsb published its report into the preliminary lessons learntopens in a new window from the 2023 bank failures. in the case of credit suisse the fsb conclude that the swiss authorities were ready to deliver a single point of entry ( spe ) resolution of a global systemically important bank ( g - sib ) but also identify areas for further work. the resolution regime can never be'done '. the bank has always been a leading voice in the fsb, and i support the conclusions and lessons identified in the report. 1 / 9 bis - central bankers'speeches today i want to give my perspective on those two march weekends, in the context of my experience of the last three years as the deputy governor with responsibility for resolution, as well as my membership of both the financial policy committee and prudential regulation committee. it's 60 years since that classic tv show,'ready steady go!'first aired on uk tv, with its catchphrase,'the weekend starts here '. and that sense of being at the starting line, on a friday, is an apt description of how those two weekends back in march felt. my remarks today apply to the resolution and resolvability of banks2 and i will frame my remarks around learnings under three key headings and with two common themes of feasibility and credibility. the first heading is the importance of operational readiness, in particular that the credibility of our framework is reinforced by retaining optionality. each resolution will be different in terms of the nature of the failing firm and the context in which it is failing, including the time available. and retaining optionality on the outcome will maximise the chances that resolving it will be feasible. the second heading relates to enhancing readiness. because of the nature of resolution we should be humble in recognising that there will always be lessons to learn from putting the regime into practice and so we should be ready to improve our approach. from the experience of 2023 two particular enhancements come to mind ; enhancing our toolkit and feasibility to resolve smaller firms, where there is a greater need to provide continuity of access to deposits. and also enhancing our readiness for bail - in, including working with cross border authorities. my third heading relates to the process of ensuring resolvability. as the uk's resolution authority we have a role to play but the