These principles also summarise the six speeches I have given at the Academy of Science and Letters: a good institution keeps promises, makes good decisions, practices transparency as a governance principle, and learns from its own history and manages its cultural heritage. And the threads are gathered here. Today’s speech seeks to encompass all the themes in one frame. The lessons learned from Norges Bank’s first 200 years and the criteria I just cited are useful both in Norges Bank’s daily work and in making longer-term assessments. I would argue that these general principles apply to other institutions too, whether legal, cultural or educational. Decisions that are made in these institutions determine whether a country’s citizens can live a life of freedom and prosperity. The first measure is transparency. The Bank must expose itself to criticism by publishing the analyses behind its decisions. It must also be open about budgets and expenditure. The second measure is an international anchor. The Bank must be part of the international network of central banks and academic communities to compare itself with others, not only with itself. Erik Brofoss was perhaps a governor who was most concerned with issues other than central banking tasks. But it was he who laid the foundation for the “long recovery”- perhaps without realising the extent to which his pioneering efforts would bear forth. Brofoss believed that the young economists at the Bank had to go out into the world and learn.
The global economic recovery might also be delayed reaching the region, increasing the likelihood that the crisis may cause more persistent economic effects. Despite this difficult situation, remittances have proven pandemic-proof1 and have behaved countercyclically in most of the region’s countries, assuming a more important role as a source of external financing. This subject is crucial to Spain, since it is the second-ranked issuer country of remittances to Latin America. Some of the topics we will address today (such as the growing importance of digital money remittances, the role of fiscal stimulus measures in the resilience of remittances and the function of the informal economy) are key to understanding the behaviour of the flow of remittances in this crisis. Undoubtedly, today’s event will allow us to better understand these developments and – I hope – 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  to draw some useful conclusions on how to tackle them from the central bank standpoint. Thank you for your attention. Remittances barely fell by 1.6% in 2020, compared with their 4.8% decline during the 2008 financial crisis. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches