In corporate and labour market circles it is becoming commonplace to consider what the value or social impact of a specific activity is, and to attempt to evaluate the economic and labour consequences of regulatory changes. One good example of regulatory impact is the Ecological Transition Bill that is currently pending parliamentary approval. The aim, as you know, is to switch our economy towards an environmentally more sustainable model. This aim is very broadly shared in our society, but its achievement will have large-scale implications for our productive model that may also entail undesirable social consequences. The Banco de España is working with the Ministry of Ecological Transition to assess the economic and employment implications of the law. I can assure you that measuring these consequences is not proving easy, but also that their measurement is crucial. Why is this? Measuring the consequences is essential in order for there to be genuine transparency. There has to be information; without measurements there is only noise. 2  In the absence of information, we cannot make comparisons between alternative investments, or between consumption, economic activity or funding options. Without data, we are in the hands of image campaigns and good intentions. Responsible investment has an ambitious goal: no less than to transform the economic, environmental and social reality, or at least to contribute to this transformation. So how can this ambitious goal be achieved? The answer is simple: through the behaviour of economic agents, be they households, firms or investors.
Libor: Entering the Endgame  Speech given by Andrew Bailey Governor of the Bank of England  Bloomberg Webinar, London and New York 13 July 2020  I am grateful to Alastair Hughes for his assistance in drafting these remarks and Paul Brione, Andrew Hauser, Thomas Horn, Will Parry and Edwin Schooling Latter for their input. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  Introduction “‘The passing of summer,’ I thought. ‘There can be no summer in this land without cricket.’” So wrote the journalist and author Neville Cardus.1 Covid has deprived us of many aspects of our communal lives this year. It has meant no cricket for us until last week, and in the US still no baseball. And to prove that we share an obsession with summer pastimes, a former colleague from many years ago when I was seconded to the New York Fed gave me a book to read called ‘How Life Imitates the World Series’. Sadly, my speech cannot match that for importance. But a more recent summer tradition has been speaking on Libor, a now annual event for the past few years – but one I do not expect to be a permanent fixture. The time is fast approaching to draw stumps on the Libor benchmark, or for those to whom cricket is a mystery – after all not everyone appreciates a sport that can last five days and still end in a draw – we will soon be at the bottom of the ninth for Libor.