samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Trichet: In the event of a decision by the governments leading to a selective default or a default, which, again, we are warning against loud and clear, the governments would have to take care that the Eurosystem is presented collateral that it could accept. FTD: When it comes to deciding whether a default has occurred, will the ECB rely, as it has until now, on the rating agencies, or might the decision not be dependent on what they say? Trichet: Again, it is not the working assumption of the Governing Council. FTD: Let’s talk about the crisis management of the euro area governments. The Heads of State and Government and the finance ministers give the appearance of being a chaotic bunch. They often create such a cacophony that it inflames the crisis rather than dampening it. What needs to change? Trichet: There is an absolute need to improve “verbal discipline”. The governments need to speak with one voice on such complex and sensitive issues as the crisis. It is, of course, complex to take into account the need for sound, shared management of the Economic pillar of the Economic and Monetary Union, whilst fully respecting the functioning of the 17 democracies of the euro area. But speaking with one voice in a period of crisis is of essence. And, after all, it is what was possible after Lehman Brothers at the end of 2008.

He suggested the design of a body that “would exert direct responsibilities” in a number of domains, including “the rigorous surveillance of both fiscal policies and competitiveness policies with the capacity, in exceptional cases, to take decisions immediately applicable in a particular economy that puts the euro area financial stability in danger”.3 Where does Malta’s fiscal situation and more generally the broader Maltese economy, fit into all this? Malta’s fiscal deficit ratio followed a generally downward path during the last decade, though the decline was interrupted during two particular years – 2003 and 2008 – each explained by particular events. More recently, the budget deficit ratio has fallen each year since the high of 4.6% that was recorded in 2008. A large outlay was incurred during that year for the restructuring of a government-owned enterprise. This outlay however brought to an end the provision to the same enterprise of further government subsidies, which would otherwise have added to future deficits. The ratio eased to 3.7% and 3.6% in 2009 and 2010, while the latest government projections, as indicated in the Pre-Budget Document, refer to a deficit of 2.8% in 2011 and 2.2% in 2012. Since 2009 the deficit ratio for Malta has been below the euro area’s average, but it has to be pointed out that this average is heavily affected by the high deficit levels of the Member States facing difficulties (Chart 2).
There were eventually enormous information problems in assessing the risks of extremely complex asset-backed securities, and there was a huge underestimation of the potential for correlated systemic risks. None of these causes had anything to do with monetary policy, except that monetary policy may have contributed to the Great Moderation. Regarding the role of Federal Reserve monetary policy in the crisis, there are two relevant questions. First, was the low interest rate reasonable given the information available at the time? Second, could a different monetary policy with higher interest rates have prevented the crisis? The first question, whether the low interest rate was reasonable given the available information, is the relevant one when evaluating monetary policy. It is more relevant to evaluate policy taking into account the information available ex ante to the policymaker rather than information ex post that was unknown to the policymaker at the time (see Svensson, 2009a, on evaluating monetary policy ex ante and ex post). 7 During the period in question, given the information available, there was a genuine and well-motivated fear of the U.S. falling into a Japanese-style deflationary liquidity trap, and the optimal policy in such a situation is a very expansionary monetary policy. 8 It may be that, in retrospect, the risk of deflation was exaggerated, but there was no way to know this ex ante. Hence, I consider the expansionary policy very appropriate. Adding some ex post evaluation, one can note that it did not lead ex post to very high inflation or an overheated economy.

The Federal Reserve has made substantial investments in data and analytical staff for financial market monitoring. Each day, the Trading Desk at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York analyzes and internally distributes reports on market developments, focusing on those markets where prices and volumes are changing rapidly, where news or policy is having a major effect, or where there are special policy concerns. Those analyses begin with quantitative data, supplemented with information obtained through conversations with market participants and reviews of other analyses available in the market. Over the past few years, the Desk has worked closely with our research staff in developing new quantitative tools and new data sources. BIS Review 16/2010  13  This ongoing monitoring requires continual evaluation of new data sources and analytical tools to develop new data as new markets and practices develop. For example, information on market volumes and prices can be collected from new trading platforms and brokers, data on instruments such as credit default swaps, or CDS, are provided by vendors or market participants, and fresh insights are gained from new methods of extracting information from options data. In some cases, publication of data by the private sector may be mandated by legislation (such as, potentially, trade data from over-the-counter derivatives trade repositories); in other cases, the Federal Reserve or other government agencies or regulators require or encourage the gathering and publication of data.
Here I am thinking about variables like the economy’s potential growth rate, the output gap and the NAIRU etc. Why should identifying asset market misalignments, excessive credit growth and a rapid decline in private financial balances be more difficult than forming an opinion about variables such as these? My view about monetary policy in this respect is of course closely bound up with my experience of the Swedish banking crisis, but it is also in line with a central bank’s mandate to achieve long-run price stability. If anything, a financial crisis substantially increases the risk of outright deflation after some time. The central bank could manage this risk in two ways: by at least trying to prevent the bubble from building up by tightening monetary policy at an early stage, and then by loosening monetary policy aggressively if a bubble builds up and bursts anyway. To my mind, both such actions would be in line with focusing on long-run price stability, whether the central bank follows an explicit or an implicit inflation targeting approach. Although I will be leaving my job as governor of the Bank of Sweden towards the end of this year, I have no qualms about forecasting that financial stability will remain on the agenda and be a key challenge for financial authorities for many years to come. 2  BIS Review 68/2002

Of course we need to take into account the fact that smaller companies have potentially weaker finances, but this is clearly something that needs to be watched closely;  –  outstanding loans to VSEs were up 2.8% year-on-year at the end of the third quarter 2015, whereas cash loans only rose by 1.1% over the same period. Equipment loans to VSEs also grew by just 1.3%, as facilities in this category are mainly used to buy property, which is clearly less likely to enhance productivity or competitiveness. Evidently, things are proving more difficult for VSEs, and the sentiment on the ground seems to confirm this. It is in everyone’s interest – both the banks’ and the business community’s – that we resolve this contradiction regarding credit: between the banks’ ostensible commercial ambitions on the one hand, and the continuing failure to fully meet VSEs’ demand for loans. It is therefore important that we improve VSEs’ access to financing. I would like to propose three main focuses for action: the first concerns the banks, the second the Banque de France, and the third VSEs’ business customers. 1) First of all, it is absolutely vital that –at the very least- the five fitting commitments made by banks to improve dialogue with VSEs and SMEs, which were set out at the end of the excellent report drafted by the Observatory for Business Financing in the summer of 2014, be fully implemented.
The biggest risk to an orderly rebalancing of our economy comes from abroad. Efforts to restore world demand are impeded by the scale of the imbalances in trade, which are beginning to grow again. If the UK and other low-savings countries are to rebalance their economies, demand for their products must increase overseas. Lower domestic demand in the deficit countries must be accompanied by strong growth in domestic demand in the surplus countries if the world economy is not to slow. That will require a change in the strategy of those countries that have built their own policies around export-led growth. In searching for a solution, some ask who is to blame. But that misses the point. Before the crisis, all the main players were rationally pursuing their own perceived self-interest. Policymakers in countries like China wanted to develop via an export-led strategy, and policymakers in the low-saving countries took actions to maintain an adequate level of overall demand, consistent with steady, low inflation. But what seemed to make sense for each player individually did not make sense in aggregate, and we can see the consequences. A key lesson from the crisis is that we must find better ways of ensuring the right collective outcome. That challenge is clearly visible today. All countries accept that global rebalancing is necessary.

As Islamic financial activities are increasingly crossing national boundaries, it is critical for more such dialogues to take place at an international level, in order to gain wider perspectives that can contribute to the development of a legal framework for Islamic finance that is internationally facilitative. Islamic finance today has become a major industry worldwide with over 300 institutions and an estimated asset size of more than USD1 trillion. Its continuing advances in the international financial landscape have recently been accompanied by several major efforts aimed at strengthening its international financial infrastructure. A key structural enhancement achieved recently was the establishment of the Islamic Financial Services Forum (IFSF) that serves as a platform for cross-border engagement among regulators to achieve financial stability in the Islamic financial system. Another important development achieved more recently was the establishment of the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation (IILM) as a mechanism for more efficient management of liquidity across borders for Islamic financial institutions. These continuing efforts to strengthen the foundations of Islamic finance have served to ensure its preparedness in meeting the challenges on the path of internationalisation. As we open a new chapter of global growth and development with the unfolding of a new decade, Islamic finance is in a position of strength to play a greater role in the global financial landscape. Today, many jurisdictions are interested in Islamic finance and have taken initiatives to develop the industry.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The game of guessing what everyone else is guessing (everyone else is guessing…) was familiar to Keynes who observed that too often investors “devote [their] intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be”. 6 This disconnect between decisions and fundamentals feeds market volatility and capital misallocation. Such “beauty contest” dynamics afflict not only sophisticated investors, but also many mortgage lenders and homebuyers, particularly during a “new era”. If house prices can only go up, it’s possible to borrow large multiples and pay off future obligations with the capital gains that will almost surely follow. Such “rational” behaviour fuelled the credit binge that ultimately led to the global crisis. Second, if markets always clear, they should possess a natural stability. Evidence to the contrary must be the product of market distortions or a result of incomplete markets. Much of financial innovation springs from the logic that the solution to market failures is to build new markets on old markets. 7 Progress through infinite regress. During the Great Moderation, such thinking became an organising principle for financiers and policymakers. The latter pursued a light touch regulatory agenda in quest for the perfect world of complete markets first described by the economists Arrow and Debreu. 8 Their world imagines self-interested, atomistic agents, coolly calculating odds over all future possible states of the world, writing and trading contracts with each other, all frictionlessly enforced, all achieving mutually beneficial – indeed socially optimal – outcomes.

François Villeroy de Galhau: Card payments in Europe – latest trends and challenges Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Bank of France conference “Card payments in Europe – latest trends and challenges”, Paris, 18 January 2016. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, Dear Yves Mersch, Dear Mario Nava, First and foremost, on behalf of Banque de France, I would like to warmly welcome you all in Paris. I am delighted to open this conference dedicated to card payments in Europe. A large number of European actors involved in the card payments market are represented today, including regulatory authorities and market players, and I have no doubt that the debates that are going to take place will give us a valuable insight on the latest trends and the challenges they bring with them. Before leaving the floor to our speakers and panelists, I would simply like to share with you a few thoughts on two of those challenges, one addressed to the supply side of the card payments market and one to the regulatory community. I. First challenge: the sustainability of the dominance gained by cards as payment instruments. Will the most used payment instrument in Europe continue to rise or will it fall? Over the last decade, payment cards have steadily consolidated their dominance as the most used non-cash payment instruments in France and Europe.
The other project consists in assessing the compliance with the criteria set out in the framework of the “Payment aspects of financial inclusion”. By complying with the criteria from the involved stakeholders, it aims to increase the number of households and enterprises (mainly the small ones) that have a bank account or a payments account to conduct various transactions. In addition to the above, for a broader review of the remittances across all its dimensions, the Bank of Albania commits today in the framework of this meeting to produce a dedicated publication, which will be presented every June, a period which coincides with the International Day of Family Remittances, 16 June. Last but not least, considering the coordination among state authorities as very important, as well as the constant communication with the private sector, we are signing today the Memorandum of Understanding. It is aimed at raising the awareness, facilitating dialogue and fostering effective cooperation between the parties on issues related to remittances from the Albanian diaspora, contributing to economic development. The joint engagement we are initiating today is the first necessary step of a development platform for the empowerment and effective use of remittances. In conclusion, I would like to underline once again that it is time that we show more care, appreciation and gratitude to tens of thousands of Albanians abroad, who, through sacrifice, continue to contribute to the welfare of our nation, sending a part of their savings to their families back home.

The paradox of the Eurozone The Eurozone paradox is that the best possible members of the club are the countries that are so stable themselves in monetary and economic terms that they don’t need “to buy in stability and credibility”. Such countries have fewer and fewer reasons to adopt the euro. Conversely, the more a country begs to have the euro, the bigger the problem it will represent. This explains why almost no one is conducting a euro debate in Sweden, even though it does not have a derogation and many would like to see it in the Eurozone. Canonically, the same goes for us: either we can continue to stabilise ourselves, in which case we don’t need the euro, or we will destabilise ourselves, but in that case we will potentially harm others in the euro club and Eurozone membership will be a hindrance in bad times. There’s no story in our case The Baltic states took the euro as a geopolitical and security safeguard and paid an economic price for permanently fixing their currencies to it. Slovenia wanted to cut itself off from the Western Balkans. Slovakia wanted to seal the reforms of former Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda. Germany gained unification in exchange for the euro. The southern countries (Italy, France, and Spain) gained the stability of the German mark because they were unable to create such a currency at home.
Credit derivatives have contributed to dramatic changes in the process of credit intermediation, and the benefits of these changes seem compelling. They have made possible substantial improvements in the way credit risk is managed and facilitated a broad distribution of risk outside the banking system. By spreading risk more widely, by making it easier to purchase and sell protection against credit risk and to actively trade credit risk, and by facilitating the participation of a large and very diverse pool of non-bank financial institutions in the business of credit, these changes probably improve the overall efficiency and resiliency of financial markets. With the advent of credit derivatives, concentrations of credit risk are made easier to mitigate, and diversification made easier to achieve. Credit losses, whether from specific, individual defaults or the more widespread distress that accompanies economic recessions, will be diffused more broadly across institutions with different risk appetite and tolerance, and across geographic borders. Our experience since the introduction of these new instruments - a period that includes a major asset price shock and a global recession - seems to justify the essentially positive judgment we have about the likely benefits of ongoing growth in these markets. Despite the benefits to financial resilience, the changes in the credit markets that are the subject of your conference have also provoked some concerns and unease, even among those on the frontier of innovation and the most active participants in these markets.

Timothy F Geithner: Implications of growth in credit derivatives for financial stability Remarks by Mr Timothy F Geithner, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the New York University Stern School of Business Third Credit Risk Conference, New York City, 16 May 2006. *  *  *  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. We're in the midst of a period of rapid growth and innovation in the market for credit derivatives, and the developments in this market have important implications for broader financial market functioning and stability. A vital and efficient financial system such as ours is defined by its ability to identify new ways to allocate capital and share risk, but often the pace of innovation in the instruments themselves outstrips the pace of improvement in the risk management and control infrastructure. The credit derivatives market is no exception to this general observation. In my remarks today, I'll focus on some of the implications of these changes in the credit derivatives market for the stability of the overall financial system. As with any attempt to explore the broader implications of rapid growth in a new market, I'll say more about what we do not know than about what we do know. I'll also highlight the need for continued progress in addressing the challenges posed by the rapid growth in this market.
Hence, the current account deficit has been 13.9 billion USD in 2009, while the ratio of current account deficit to GDP fell from 5.6 percent in 2008 to 2.2 percent in 2009. 8  BIS Review 68/2010  Current Account Balance/GDP* 3 (Percent)  2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 01-I  02-II  03-III  04-IV  06-I  07-II  08-III  09-IV  *Annualized data. Source: CBRT. Distinguished Guests, 24. Uncertainties led by the global crisis adversely affected the credit market in Turkey as well. On the supply side, 2009 is evaluated as a year in which the banks were cautious in lending basically due to risk perceptions. On the demand side, the demand for investment loans has been on a decline because of the slowdown in economic activity. On the other hand, the willingness of firms to restructure their debts emerged as a significant factor that increased credit demand.

This is attributable to hikes in unprocessed food prices driven by supply-side shocks. 12  BIS Review 68/2010  CPI by Subcategories  Contribution to CPI Inflation in 2009  (Annual Percentage Change)  (Percentage Point)  25  Go ods exc l. Food and Energy 29%  2006 2007  20  2008  Foo d 40%  2009 15  Energy 11%  10  Serv ices 20%  5  0 Food  Energy  Goo ds e xcl. Fo od a nd En ergy  Services  Source: TURKSTAT, CBRT. 35. Source: TURKSTAT, CBRT. Despite having followed a volatile course during periods when temporary tax adjustments were effective, core inflation, which is useful for predicting underlying inflation, had a remarkable downtrend consistent with medium-term targets throughout 2009. Core Inflation Indicators and CPI Inflation (Annual Percentage Change)  12 10 8 6 4 2 0  CPI  SCA-H  SCA -I  Source: TURKSTAT, CBRT. 36. Recent data releases indicate that the pace of recovery in economic activity continues. Domestic demand rises gradually as the lagged effects of monetary policy implementations become evident, whereas, uncertainties regarding external demand persist. Accordingly, we expect that after following a volatile course significantly above the target for some period, inflation will be back on a downtrend by the phasing out of temporary effects as of the last quarter of the year and return to target-consistent levels as of early 2011.