is home working good for you? speech given by andy haldane chief economist and member of the monetary policy committee ( mpc ) engaging business summit and autumn lecture 14 october 2020 the views expressed here are not necessarily those of the bank of england or the monetary policy committee. i would like to thank jack meaning and andrea sisko for their help in preparing the text. i would like to thank lena anayi, andrew bailey, john lewis, sophie piton, jo place and chris young for their comments and contributions, and the organisers of the engaging business summit autumn lecture for giving me the opportunity to discuss these issues. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and @ boe _ pressoffice i am delighted to be speaking at this “ engaging business ” summit, at such a critical time for business, for workers and for the wider economy. the focus of today, and the excellent background report, is happiness in the workplace. this is an issue in which everyone has a stake. it is particularly pertinent with many people having had to adapt their ways of working as a result of the covid crisis. indeed, this year may well have seen the largest shift in working practices ever seen, certainly the largest in modern times. that begs a host of questions about the impact of these changes in working practices on workers, businesses, communities and the wider economy. for economists like me, it raises questions about the impact on productivity and output in the workplace. as arid as these concepts can sometimes sound, they are crucial for shaping how this crisis will affect incomes and living standards over the medium - term. equally important are issues of well - being, not least given understandable concerns about how the virus and lockdown are affecting our mental health. the background report for this event is timely in providing some early answers to these questions. 1 taken at face value, its conclusions are encouraging. workplace happiness is, in general, higher and many are feeling a greater sense of workplace empowerment. at the same time, it is too early to be reaching definitive conclusions on what the long - term effects of these seismic shifts in how we work will be. it is also crucial to recognise that these changes have affected individuals in very different ways. for many frontline workers - from health and social care, to public transport and police – home - working has simply not been an option. those jobs, and many others like them, have become both harder

speech of the governor on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the cbk honourable... it is my great honour and pleasure to welcome you today for marking the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the central bank of the republic of kosovo. it is my great pleasure to have representatives of local and international institutions among us today, without whom it would not be possible to achieve the successes we have achieved to date. therefore, on behalf of all cbk staff and on my behalf, i would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for all that you have done for us over the years and for the honour you have done to us by joining us in marking this very important anniversary for us. to better understand the situation we are in, and the way we are heading, it is a good idea to go back a little retrospectively to remember how we got here, and to use the past as a driving force to move towards a more successful future. the central bank of the republic of kosovo was established in 1999, at a time when kosovo was beginning to build all institutions from scratch. along with the establishment of institutions, the foundation of the market economy in our country was also beginning. faqe 1 nga 7 cbk as a new institution, in spite of the great efforts to organize the institution itself, where everything was starting from scratch, began to commit itself towards building the financial infrastructure necessary to create the conditions for the financial system to start functioning in kosovo. this way, the cbk soon began the activity of building the payment system, formulating the regulatory framework for the financial sector, and developing other functions necessary to serve the country's economy. the beginning of the cbk's operation coincided with the time when most of the countries in the region were about to complete the transition process, where the omissions made at the beginning of this process, made the transition lengthy and difficult. cbk showed high diligence and learned from the difficulties that other central banks of transition countries went through, and chose the model that proved successful in developing an efficient and sustainable financial sector. in this way, cbk laid the foundations of a financial system based on private ownership and from the beginning opened the doors for the entry of foreign financial institutions. in fact, it was foreign financial institutions, especially banks, which first started operating in kosovo, bringing contemporary financial industry experiences and restoring the trust of the local people in the financial system. also, the cbk has consistently followed a sound licensing policy