samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Beijing is concerned that in the run-up to the Taiwan Presidential Election in March next year, President Chen Shui Bian may make one last throw of the dice which may compel China to act. How the US handles this issue will be crucial in maintaining stability across the strait. Third, Myanmar cannot return to the status quo ante after the government’s crackdown on monk-led protests. Instability in Myanmar can affect its immediate neighbours and hurt the reputation of ASEAN. National reconciliation and an agreement on phased changes and  BIS Review 124/2007  1  power sharing is the only way to prevent another widespread protest, which may end up in a bloody uprising to bring about change. Therefore, ASEAN and Singapore, and so too China and India, fully support the mission by the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor, Mr Ibrahim Gambari, to help the various parties in Myanmar work towards genuine dialogue and compromise. However, this compromise is not so easy to achieve. Myanmar’s military rulers, the many ethnic groups and the political players deeply distrust one another. The rulers are also highly suspicious of the outside world. This psyche of distrust was borne out of the violent and divisive history of Myanmar after World War II, its complex national make-up of many diverse ethnic groups and, until the recent agreements on ceasefire, the fighting with insurgents. There is no quick and easy solution. Negotiations will be long and complicated.

4  BIS Review 124/2007
Here in Malaysia, buildings consume almost half (48%) of the electricity generated in the country. In response to this, green buildings were conceived, prioritising environmental and health concerns as well as resource efficiency throughout their life cycle. In the process, they also respond to the changing preferences of an increasingly environmentally conscious population. As a country, Malaysia has committed to the target of reaching Net Zero emissions as early as 2050. In line with this and the priorities laid out in the 12th Malaysia Plan, state and city councils have increasingly stepped up efforts to spur the greening of their respective jurisdictions. DBKL for instance has issued the Kuala Lumpur Climate Action Plan 2050, which details out the actions necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement. While we will be mainly focusing on green housing at this event, it is important not to forget that this is a cross-cutting agenda that requires many different parts of the ecosystem to work effectively. With climate change, however, we are not simply pursuing an aspirational goal. We are dealing with an existential treat for which bold and decisive actions are needed to correct what has been described as the “greatest market failure the world has ever seen”. Central to these actions is the remarkable capacity of the private sector to innovate solutions that will move us closer to our climate goals, and our collective responsibility to harness that capacity. Physical risks associated with climate change are already with us and are rising.

Speech Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey  Prof. Şahap Kavcıoğlu, Central Bank Governor German-Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry 8 September 2021, Ankara  2  Dear Guests, First, I would like to thank the German-Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry for their kind invitation. In my speech, I will share our views on the recent economic developments in Turkey. The European Union is Turkey's top trading and investment partner. EU countries account for 55% of our exports and 50% of our imports. Most of our exports are destined for Germany. Despite the pandemic-driven drop in numbers, the majority of foreign visitors Turkey receives are from the EU. European countries account for about 60% of foreign direct investments. Therefore, I would like to express that I find your participation and the mutual exchange of ideas that will come out of this meeting very important. The sped-up vaccine rollout worldwide bolsters global economic recovery. Looking at the world economy, the services sector appears to have been more hampered by COVID-19 restrictions than the manufacturing industry. Recent PMI data indicate that the services sector is matching the ongoing recovery in the manufacturing sector. This supports a more balanced global economic outlook in terms of demand composition. Strong increases in services PMI hint at a worldwide economic rebound, particularly for the pandemic-damaged euro zone. Growth prospects for our main trading partners suggest that the growth outlook might be more upbeat in August than in April.
While those who say it is not an important source of uncertainty fell from 23% to 13% over the same period. Brexit has an important bearing on the Bank’s pursuit of monetary and financial stability, and it is taking steps to help ensure the necessary adjustment is as smooth as it can be. The Prudential Regulation Authority is engaging proactively and intensively with banks and insurers to ensure their plans are robust to the full range of potential outcomes. The FPC is focussed on its statutory responsibility of identifying and monitoring and taking action to reduce risks. The MPC’s focus has been on balancing the trade-off, as required by its remit, between the speed at which inflation returns to target, and the support that monetary policy provides to jobs and activity during the adjustment process. In the Markets and Banking areas of the Bank, for which I have direct responsibility, we are undertaking a series of initiatives which, although not directly related to Brexit,  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  2  will help ensure stability, improve effectiveness and enable innovation in key parts of the UK’s financial system through this period of challenges and opportunities. It is the work of the MPC and of the Markets and Banking areas that I would like to focus on today. In particular the role they play in ‘end to end’ monetary policy, which for the purposes of this lecture I will split into three phases: Define, Decide, and Deliver.

Of course we didn’t have Brexit in mind when updating the Remit in 2013, nevertheless the Bank headed into the EU referendum last year with arguably the most clearly defined objective for monetary policy in its 323 year history. And it has been the foundation of the framework the MPC has used to set monetary policy since the referendum result. Although I only joined the Committee in September, the analytical approach in the framework is one that I fully sign up to. So I would like to spend a minute setting it out. Fundamental to the way in which the MPC has reacted to Brexit is that monetary policy cannot prevent either the necessary adjustment – such as that implied by the movement of the exchange rate - as the UK moves towards its new international trading arrangements, or the weaker income growth that is likely to accompany it. These are real phenomena likely to play out over many years – exactly the kind of thing that monetary policy cannot affect, no matter how often it is asked by some commentators to do so. What the MPC can do is support the economy during the adjustment process. But even in doing that the Committee has faced a trade-off between stabilising inflation on the one hand and output and employment on the other.
Should such barriers actually be introduced, there would be a negative impact on world trade that could affect an economy, like Spain's, whose recovery has been largely export-led. In the same vein, uncertainty about the implications of the United Kingdom leaving the EU remains high, in a setting in which the Spanish economy has significant exposure to this country in terms of services exports and financial ties. This uncertainty is also affected by the context of low returns in Europe's financial system and of the fragility of certain institutions. On the domestic front, several factors of vulnerability persist. One of them arises from the level of public indebtedness (which I will refer to later) and that of certain segments of the household and corporate sectors, which entails high reliance on foreign saving and represents a source of weakness in the face of possible increases in the cost of borrowing. Also, despite efficiency improvements, our economy remains highly sensitive to potential increases in commodities prices, particularly, oil prices. From a medium-term perspective, the high structural component of the unemployment rate, an ageing population and low productivity are the main factors limiting the sustained growth of our economy. I shall now review the main features of the budget. Budgetary policy in 2017 The macroeconomic forecasts accompanying the draft State and Social Security Budgets for 2017 involve the prolongation of the current expansionary phase. Specifically, they estimate real GDP growth of 2.5%, accompanied by a recovery in prices, so that nominal GDP growth is slightly above 4%.

As for global economic activity, the figures for the last quarter of 2016 show higher-thanexpected GDP growth in advanced economies, except in the United States; in emerging economies there were clear differences with robust growth in Asia, that prompted a moderate rise in international trade, and a further slowdown in Latin America. Similarly, indicators published in the first quarter have been somewhat more favourable than expected. In the euro area, despite the presence of the above-mentioned factors of uncertainty, the most recent economic developments show a firming of the recovery, although its strength across countries is uneven. The ECB's most recent projections in March indicate that the current phase of recovery will persist and that GDP growth in the euro area will continue to be underpinned essentially by domestic demand, with forecast growth rates of 1.8% and 1.7% for 2017 and 2018, respectively, similar to that observed in 2016. Euro area inflation climbed to 2% in February, mainly reflecting temporary factors linked in particular to energy prices, which will unwind over the year. In fact, headline inflation in the euro area slowed to 1.5% in March and core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) stood at 0.7%. From a medium-term perspective, the ECB projection exercise points to inflation moving on a very gradual upward path, with the result that, towards the end of 2019, it would still stand below 2%.
The strong exchange rate gave us somewhat more time than we would otherwise have had to bring about this domestic slowdown – it meant that monetary policy did not need to be tightened as aggressively as would have been necessary otherwise. But we could not avoid tightening policy altogether, even though we realised that this would be likely to increase the pressures on the internationally-exposed sectors, because in anything other than the short term that would have put the whole economy – including the internationally-exposed sectors we were trying to shelter – at risk of accelerating inflation. I would remind you that right up until the summer of last year we were seeing signs of increasing pressures in the labour market, even in the manufacturing sector – reflected in increasing skills shortages and recruitment difficulties, in the employment/unemployment data, and in gradually increasing pay settlements. The uncomfortable reality, as I’ve said very often before, is that monetary policy can only target the economy as a whole – it can’t seek to protect individual firms, or sectors, or regions, however much we might wish it otherwise. That – as I’ve discovered – is not exactly a popular idea, but there’s no question that that is the reality of it. Over the past year the world – and I mean the world – has changed very substantially.

Now a lot of people think that, because our objective is defined in terms of an inflation target, controlling inflation is all that we at the Bank of England actually care about. We’re often described as a lot of “inflation nutters”, or even as “pointy-headed industrial hooligans” who don’t care at all about real economic activity or jobs – and I don’t think these epithets are necessarily intended as terms of endearment! That view I have to tell you is profoundly and fundamentally wrong. 1  BIS Review 19/1999  The implication, of those who take that view, is that they think there is a trade-off between inflation and the rate of economic growth; they think that if only we would let up a bit on controlling inflation then we could all enjoy higher activity and lower unemployment and rising living standards, which are, of course, the really good things of economic life. At the very least, they say, if you were a bit less manic in your pursuit of low inflation, we could avoid some of the worst damage that is currently being inflicted upon agriculture, upon large parts of manufacturing, and even some service sectors. And that might even be true for a time. The trouble is that, in anything other than the short term, it would be likely to mean more rather than less economic damage, and lower rather than higher growth and employment.
This kind of change is doomed to fail unless there is full commitment and support from banks’ senior officers and management. Indeed, without adequate governance and a clear ‘tone from the top’ there is no chance of success. 4/6  As I like to point out in many of my interventions, governance is always a precondition for any significant change to occur within an organisation, but of course it is just a precondition. Evidently, other elements must be implemented in order to tackle appropriately the management and control of non-financial risk. One initial element relates to the involvement of the Board, which should consider nonfinancial risk management as part of their regular monitoring, instead of simply reacting to emerging issues if controls fail. Just like in the case of traditional risks, the Board must include non-financial risk inside their risk appetite framework; obviously this implies that they should be able to understand the nature of these risks, in order to discriminate and rank their importance. Of course, the role of the Board cannot function without the right input from both first and second lines of defence. In this regard, it is important that, apart from owning and managing risk, the first line assesses key infrastructure areas, such as IT and operations, where most operational failures occur. The culture of the bank should also emphasise that first-line areas should also take responsibility for non-financial risk management, rather than focusing entirely on revenue or cost management.

15/11/2019  Opening remarks 11th edition of the European SSM Roundtable/International Bankers Forum Margarita Delgado Deputy Governor  Good Morning and welcome to Banco de España for this 11th edition of the European SSM Roundtable, organised by the International Bankers Forum (IBF). The topic for today’s roundtable is the management of non-financial risk. This is an issue which is always in the spotlight and, at the same time, is quite hard to tackle. The concept of risk is continuously used in banking regulation. A quick search in the CRR1 or CRR2 text will reveal that it is mentioned nearly 1,500 times in each. Banks are certainly familiar with the regulatory requests to understand, measure, hedge, control, assess, address or mitigate risk. I believe it is fair to say that any firm that has survived the crisis and its long aftermath, without public support, has been largely successful in fulfilling these risk-related tasks. Of course, supervisors are also permanently concerned about risk; to some extent, it is what we are paid for. Still, I believe both banks and supervisors tend to feel rather comfortable when we assess financial risk. Don’t misinterpret me. We are perfectly aware of the consequences that a mismanagement of financial risk can entail, but we tend to look at financial risk in a more natural and intuitive way. Things get a lot stickier when we look at non-financial risk. What is the nature of non-financial risk? And what makes it different from more traditional financial risk?
We remain committed about both the need for the market to continue to drive transition forward moving new 7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  7  issuance onto alternative rates and converting legacy exposure where possible; and also to ensuring there is a solution for those contracts that legitimately cannot be converted from Libor. That is why the UK government announced last month its intention to legislate to provide the FCA with increased powers to deliver an orderly wind-down of critical benchmarks, such as Libor. 7 It remains in the interests of financial markets and their customers that the pool of contracts referencing LIBOR is shrunk to an irreducible minimum ahead of LIBOR’s expected cessation, leaving behind only those contracts that genuinely have no or inappropriate alternatives and no realistic ability to be renegotiated or amended. Those that decide to rely on regulatory action, enabled by the legislation the UK Government plans to bring forward, will not have control over the economic terms of that action.

And central bank facilities such as the Bank of England’s Term Funding Scheme have offered a cost effective source of funding to support additional lending to the real economy, providing insurance against adverse conditions in bank funding markets. These changes have led many banks to choose simply not to borrow in unsecured markets as the costs increase. Overall, this leaves Libor rates capturing (at best) only a tiny fraction of overall funding costs even in benign market conditions. As transactions become scarce during periods of stress, this reduces yet further. For example, during March and April Libor rates were impacted by liquidity mismatches in money market activity. Money Market Funds, that are important investors in unsecured bank funding markets, experienced large outflows, the so called ‘dash for cash’. This meant Libor linked borrowers were immediately exposed to a sharp increase in rates driven by these more esoteric liquidity factors in addition to any perceived changes in bank credit risk. When the banks that provide the data on which the Libor rates are based can’t reference actual transactions that they have undertaken, they are asked to provide Libor’s administrator with a submission based on transactions in other markets, where they are able. More commonly though, those data aren’t available either, so they have to rely on ‘expert judgement’ which is an estimate of the rates that the firm would expect to pay in those wholesale unsecured funding markets.
The choice of a horizon over which to bring inflation back to target is equivalent to choosing a point on this volatility trade off. The striking change, however, is the remarkable improvement in the trade-off that followed the introduction of inflation targeting, as can be seen in chart 6. The volatility of both inflation and output growth were much lower than in earlier periods. Part of the improvement may lie in the pattern of shocks over the past decade, although the world economy has hardly contributed to that stability. So the challenge ahead is that if a shock, larger than we have experienced recently but not large relative to historical experience, were to move inflation significantly away from target, then inflation expectations might become dislodged from the target. The behaviour of expectations and so the economy as a whole would change. So far there is little sign that the shocks we have experienced have detached inflation expectations from the target, and that is a source of comfort. But the MPC will continue to pay particular attention to the evidence on inflation expectations. Many of the problems of the past resulted from the failure to take action before expectations had started to drift upwards, and the cost of that inaction proved to be high.

Our forward guidance comprises two elements: it aims to further clarify our views regarding the economic situation and the manner in which we intend to react to it. It is important to note that the United States and the euro area are at completely different stages of the economic cycle. Here in the euro area economy, an imminent change in the direction of monetary policy would certainly come far too early. But how realistic is decoupling from the United States? The markets, at any rate, don’t seem to have all that much faith in that prospect, if you look at the rising money market rates. I think it’s a little early to be judging that. Overall, we believe that we’ve been successful in reducing the volatility of rates. We’ve been moderately successful as regards the actual level of interest rates. Rates have risen on account of positive economic data. It remains to be seen how the situation will develop in the likely presence of further cautiously positive data. And if things do not go according to plan, will the ECB reduce its key interest rates again or conduct new LTROs? We will continue to monitor the situation. We haven’t said any more than that. Sometimes you have to keep calm, rather than coming up with something new every month. Why is the ECB not publishing inflation projections beyond 2014?
Today, low-inflation policies seem to enjoy high credibility in most countries, which is indicated in part by the fact that the rise in the oil price at least so far has had small effects on inflation expectations. The risk of an oil price rise spreading to wages and other prices in the economy is therefore also likely to be low. Furthermore, in the case of Sweden it should be added that inflation is rising from a low level and that agreements in the labour market have been settled for 2005 and 2006, further reducing the risk of contagion effects via the jobs market. To sum up: the fact that the increase in the oil price is partly a demand-driven phenomenon, that the dependency on oil has decreased and that inflation-targeting regimes enjoy high credibility suggests that the higher oil price should mainly be reflected in a temporary, limited rise in inflation and that the effects on the real economy should be fairly small. If this is correct, the general economic and inflationary developments are more significant for monetary policy than developments in the oil price. This brings me to a discussion of the broad outlook for the Swedish economy in the years ahead. Economic activity in Sweden Despite the Riksbank’s relatively optimistic outlook for the Swedish economy compared with other forecasters, we have gradually revised up our forecasts in the past year.

If the inflation target were lower, a relative increase for some might necessitate lower nominal wages for others. So, two per cent inflation serves as an anchor for the economy. The inflation target should be the basis for wage negotiations, rent agreements, tax increases, etc. Thus, it is necessary that the target is credible, that people trust that it will be met. Before, the idea instead was that the fixed exchange rate would imply an inflation target in line with the inflation rates of our competitor countries. But this approach never worked in the same way as the inflation target. Does monetary policy affect economic growth? It is fairly obvious that when inflation is around 10 per cent the economy becomes unhealthy. Economic agents seek to profit from the inflation. Much depends on how the tax system is designed. In Sweden, it encouraged borrowing and speculation in real property and shares. Investment  1  Strictly speaking it should be the price developments for output, i.e. the GDP deflator, but since the GDP deflator can be estimated to increase by around 2 per cent a year if consumer prices rise in line with the inflation target (2 per cent), this approximation works. 2  BIS Review 84/2005  decisions take on a different focus than when macroeconomic conditions are stable. In Sweden, we saw a property boom in the 1980s and an overheated economy that had to be dampened.