samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Goh Chok Tong: Building a brighter future for Asia together Keynote address by Mr Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister of the Republic of Singapore and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Nomura Asia Equity Forum 2007, Singapore, 4 July 2007. *  *  *  Welcome to Singapore. I thank Nomura for holding its fourth Asia Equity Forum here, and for bringing together this diverse group of companies, financial institutions and investors. I hope that this forum will serve as a platform for forging new business relationships and conceiving new growth opportunities. Last week, the World Economic Forum on East Asia hosted more than 300 leaders from business, politics, government, civil society and media in Singapore. The mood was upbeat. The overall feeling was that 10 years after the Financial Crisis, Asia has emerged stronger and its growth built on firmer foundations. The belief was that despite some challenges ahead, Asia would continue to rise. As leaders of governments and companies, we have to anticipate the future. I am not suggesting that we do this with a crystal ball but we should have a mental road-map of the terrain ahead. This will help us position ourselves to seize the opportunities, manage the risks and devise strategies for growth. This morning, I would like to share with you how I see Asia’s regional architecture evolving, and how we are building a brighter future. I will take a medium term timeframe as I believe this is more relevant to business planning.

In November, the Leaders will, at their Summit in Singapore, issue a legally-binding blueprint to implement the ASEAN Economic Community. ASEAN will eventually evolve into a single market with free flow of goods, services, investment and talent. For investors, an integrated market of half a billion people will be an attractive investment proposition. For financial institutions, it will mean more projects to finance and more wealth to manage. ASEAN’s combined GDP of $ is larger than most economies. It is, in fact, bigger than India’s $ and more that a third of China’s $ In addition, the ASEAN Economic Community will boost the region’s GDP by 10%. To benefit from the growth of China and India, ASEAN is negotiating FTAs with these two giants. They are targeted for completion by 2010 and 2011 respectively. Besides China and India, ASEAN is also enhancing links with other economic centres. ASEAN signed a regional Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement (TIFA) with the US last August. It is negotiating FTAs with Japan, South Korea and Australia and New Zealand. And in May, ASEAN and the European Union decided to launch FTA talks. Political coalescence At the political level, Asia is also coalescing. However, political coalescence is progressing more slowly than economic integration. And it will be far less defined and institutionalised than what we see in the EU. Compared to Europe, Asia is more diverse politically and culturally. There are complexities and practical difficulties. However, the basic direction has been set.
Diana Sorensen’s dictum One of the most intriguing living thinkers, Diana Sorensen, the dean of arts and humanities at Harvard University, defines a knowledgeable graduate taking wing as follows: “He or she is competent in making discerning judgments with tools derived from science, engineering, social science, the arts and humanities. He or she should be a persuasive speaker who can articulate the reasons for his positions; who can write with clarity, elegance and conceptual power; an innovator who will take risks but first makes sure the limb they go out on is a sturdy one; a creative individual who has faced challenges posed by artistic production and experimentation; a global citizen who can speak, read, write in at least a second language; and who will learn what it takes to negotiate different world views emanating from different cultural traditions, a tolerant yet rigorous thinker whose moral compass is guided by ethical reasoning.”3 Class of 2014, I don’t want to put any pressure on you! But that pretty much summarizes the skill set we all hope you have started to acquire at Bryant and will now go on to hone in life. 2  If memory serves from my days at Oxford University, this observation was noted by Graham Chapman, one of the stalwarts of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. 3  Dean Sorensen’s comments are summarized in “Coming Back, Looking Forward”, Harvard Gazette, Sept. 26, 2012.

I also want to salute the outgoing chairman of the Bryant University board of trustees, Michael Edward Fisher, ’67. I want to thank him not only for his six years as chairman and for his total devotion to Bryant, but also for doing his family proud – especially his little brother … me. Blessed to be Americans Mike Fisher and I grew up in what can most charitably be described as “unusual circumstances”. Our father started out his life in conditions right out of Charles Dickens: At the age of 5 years and 2 months, he was arrested for begging for food and sentenced to seven years in Australia’s harshest prison, a God-awful place called Westbrook Reformatory.1 He was spared the destiny of most inmates there – he was released quickly and lived to see better days – but to say he grew up rough is an understatement. Our mother, born in a small South African outpost where Norwegians, Swedes and Danes carved a life out of the “bush”, lost her father at the age of 4 and was raised by a single mom who cooked for a boarding house. Neither of our parents had a formal education. But both were smart and ambitious for a better life. What did they do? They came to America. It was here that their family flourished. If you are ever tempted to doubt what hardworking immigrants bring to our shores and the power and moral imperative of a free economy or American-style democracy, think twice.
Mr Bäckström discusses the Swedish economy in the 21st century  Speech given by Mr Urban Bäckström, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank and Chairman of the Board of Directors and President of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Swedish Shareholders Association, held in Gothenburg on 22 November 1999. *  *  *  First a word of thanks for the invitation to Gothenburg to discuss the Swedish economy in the 21st century. A week or so ago the Riksbank raised the repo rate from 2.90% to 3.25%. The decision was based on the assessment of inflation prospects we had presented in the October Inflation Report and our analysis of economic statistics that had subsequently become available. By raising the instrumental rate now, we aim to contribute to the continuation of a favourable economic trend, with stable prices and sustainable growth. We made the increase somewhat larger than was expected so as to be in a position to leave the repo rate unchanged for the rest of this year, given that the Swedish economy follows the path predicted by the Riksbank. Under these circumstances there is no point in dwelling on current monetary policy and its conditions. Instead I shall be considering a couple of matters to do with growth conditions for the Swedish economy in the longer run. This has a topical flavour on the threshold of a new millennium, perhaps particularly so at a time when so much discussion refers to the so-called new economy.

Following the impetus of the G20 and the Financial Stability Board, there is a current trend in accounting reform for reducing the scope for mark-to-market and for moving from an incurred loss model to a forward looking model of provisioning. In particular, both the IFRS and the US GAAP will include an amortized cost category for financial assets such as loans. In my view, these types of changes in the accounting rules constitute the first, and to my mind the most powerful line of defense to limit the procyclicality brought forward by the crisis. I also want to point that even we if are witnessing some significant progress between the two sets of accounting standards, I am convinced that further convergence is needed. II. Indeed, when it comes to the sources of differences and discrepancies between US and European regulation frameworks, I’d like to bring to your attention the following issues: –  Regarding OTC derivatives, further consistency at technical and implementation level is key in order to avoid regulatory arbitrage;  –  The convergence between IFRS and US GAAP is particularly needed to allow for a level-playing field implementation of some regulatory requirements, such as a leverage ratio, over different jurisdictions. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  2.1 Regarding the OTC derivatives reform, there is a great degree of parallelism in the EU and US approaches, but issues arise as the details are worked out.
Forth’s work suggests transport networks are a large part of the explanation. By analysing commuting times into Birmingham at different times of the day, he provide a measure of the “effective” working population. At peak times, the effective working population of Birmingham is perhaps 50% smaller than its measured population due to poor transport infrastructure. This helps explain why Birmingham punches below its  demographic weight. This is a terrific example of how high-resolution data can be used to understand local patterns of economic growth. The same data could be used to analyse the “effective” working population in other UK cities, perhaps helping explain their under-performance. It could also be used to answer industrial strategy  questions, such as what impact new transport routes have on the effective working population of the UK’s major cities and hence on their incomes through agglomeration effects. Imagine a transport strategy whose aim was to raise the effective working population of those UK cities currently operating below the line. Using Chart 22, doing so would raise UK GDP per head by around 10% or around $ £ in today’s money. Those annual benefits could be compared with the one-off costs of investment to determine the desirability of such a policy, as part of the UK’s industrial strategy. My second example draws inspiration from recent work at the University of Cambridge by Penny Mealy, including by my colleague on the Industrial Strategy Council Diane Coyle.

For us at the ECB, this means continuing to make progress on our climate roadmap.2 This week we will publish the first climate-related financial disclosures of the Eurosystem's corporate sector assets held for monetary policy purposes, and of the ECB's own funds and the staff pension fund. We will be joined in the coming weeks by all Eurosystem central banks, which will disclose climate information on their own eurodenominated non-monetary policy portfolios. Besides helping us be more transparent about our climate impact, these disclosures help us track our progress towards supporting, within our mandate, a decarbonisation path in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement and EU climate neutrality objectives. They will show, for example, that our corporate sector portfolio is becoming less carbon intensive, partly thanks to our efforts to tilt purchases towards issuers with a better climate performance. Over time – as more and better-quality data become available – we will improve the level of detail and expand reporting to include other portfolios and asset classes. Better and harmonised climate disclosures for all asset classes would help not only the ECB, but also the entire financial sector, to better account for climate-related risks.3 Thank you for your attention, I now look forward to your questions. 1 Gil-Robles, J.M. (1999), "Speech to the European Council", 3 June. 2 ECB (2021), "ECB presents action plan to include climate change considerations in its  monetary policy strategy", 8 July. 3 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/ecb.ESA_ECB_joint_statement~c1f96d353b. en.pdf. 3/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches
I will then discuss the implications of these changes for the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and for the eventual “normalization” of monetary policy when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) believes it is appropriate to remove the extraordinary levels of monetary policy accommodation that it has provided. Finally, I will discuss some of the considerations that must be taken into account in normalizing monetary policy. As always, these are my views and do not necessarily reflect those of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System. The desk’s role in implementing monetary policy The Federal Reserve (the Fed) has a somewhat more complex organizational and governance structure than most other central banks around the world, so before discussing recent developments in the implementation of monetary policy, I’d like to take a moment to describe roles and responsibilities within the Federal Reserve System and where the Desk fits in. The statutory basis for U.S. monetary policy is found in the Federal Reserve Act, which was enacted just over 100 years ago.

Modern language around monetary policy objectives was added in 1977, when the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee were charged by Congress with maintaining “long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates…so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” The goals of maximum employment and price stability have come to be known as the Fed’s “dual mandate.” Formulating policy in pursuit of that dual mandate is the province of two separate-but-related policymaking entities within the Federal Reserve System (the System) – the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Board of Governors) and the FOMC (which I also refer to as “the Committee”) – each of which has responsibility for certain policy tools. The FOMC is the principal body for monetary policymaking and consists of the seven members of the Board of Governors plus the presidents of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks (only five of whom are voting members in any given year). The FOMC is responsible for the use of open market operations (OMOs), which are purchases and sales of securities in the open market for the System Open Market Account (SOMA), the Fed’s securities  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  portfolio. OMOs are traditionally the primary tool through which monetary policy is implemented. The Board of Governors is responsible for several complementary policy tools.
Politicians and authorities should therefore concentrate on creating an appropriate combination of business conditions. These should be designed in a way that provides the best possible support to the banking industry, so that it can fulfil the prerequisites for a successful future which I mentioned before. Key factors: regulation, stability, privacy, market access What does an appropriate combination of business conditions for the banking industry look like? I would like to highlight four factors. First, relevant and effective bank regulations must be implemented and enforced. Allow me to elaborate on this point. Regulations are relevant if they are targeted at a specific market failure which constitutes the reason for the intervention. At the same time, the regulations must be compatible with international standards. If necessary, a “Swiss finish” must be added. The “Swiss finish” is not because we want to be a model pupil. It is needed in cases where the global minimum requirements do not guarantee the desired level of stability for Switzerland, because of our particular circumstances. Effective regulations mean that the goal which the measures aim to achieve can actually be achieved, and that compliance with the rules can be efficiently enforced and monitored. Finally, it is obvious that regulations are always associated with costs for the entities being regulated. These private costs are justified from an overall economic point of view as long as the regulations are in line with the principles I have already mentioned and thereby help to make the banking industry much more stable.

Today, when rising domestic resource utilisation is beginning to slacken in response to developments in the United States and falling stock markets, the element of uncertainty in our work is highlighted again. All this cautions against attaching undue importance to assessments of the longer run. Another matter that has been discussed a great deal in recent years is how monetary policy ought to handle price movements in assets such as real estate and shares. This is not much of a problem in the normal course of events. Rising house prices, for example, are usually connected with a general economic upswing that may generate increased inflationary pressure and thereby prompt an upward revision of forecast inflation and perhaps a repo rate increase. But what if that does not happen inside our normal time horizon? I personally believe there may still be grounds for adjusting the repo rate if one either foresees a future ‘bubble’ that may show up in inflation in the longer run or is concerned about the consequences for the economy and the financial system when the ‘bubble’ finally bursts. In the light of our experiences when the ‘financial bubble’ burst in the early 1990s, I believe that support for such a line of action could be justified, which of course would require clear motives and arguments. Not an exact science Our preparations for monetary policy decisions consist to a large extent in constructing forecasts.
The crisis nevertheless revealed that the exposure to underlying systematic risk was greater than we perhaps realised at the outset. In the hearing before the Storting (Norwegian parliament) in 2009, directly after the reporting of substantial losses in 2008, I indicated that unless the economic outlook went from bad to considerably worse, active management would deliver substantial excess returns in the coming years. Even though there was probably an underlying fear of a collapse in the financial system, it was fairly clear that the main factor behind the decline was limited market liquidity. Since the second quarter of last year, book values have increased even faster than we dared to hope. Returns have also been good as a result of a restructuring of the portfolio. The Fund continued to pursue active management through the crisis. It has proven important that active management could be pursued. Active management has on the whole delivered good results, contributing an average 0.3 percentage point to the overall annual return. All in all, active management has increased the value of the Fund by several tens of billions of Norwegian kroner. Chart: Key components of the design of the Fund’s investment strategy The Ministry of Finance sets out the investment strategy for the Fund, while Norges Bank as manager provides advice on a regular basis. This past summer, we proposed several important changes to the Fund’s investment strategy 14 . The proposal illustrates the relationship between the various components of the strategy.

Productivity growth and labour force participation have been satisfactory over the past decade while relative labour costs and prices have reached yet higher levels. It remains to be seen whether the real krone exchange rate will gradually fall back when increases in petroleum revenue spending can no longer be sustained and the relative size of the oil supply industry decreases. Thank you for your attention! BIS Review 145/2010  9  10  BIS Review 145/2010  BIS Review 145/2010  11  12  BIS Review 145/2010  BIS Review 145/2010  13  14  BIS Review 145/2010
For the record, I would like to point out here that the forecast assumption that the repo rate will follow implied forward rates does not of course entail any commitment from the Riksbank that this will be the case. We have no unique information about the future. We cannot in advance commit monetary policy to a particular sequence of future interest rate changes, as future economic developments are uncertain. The stand we take regarding the development of the repo rate at our monetary policy meetings is based on the information available at the time the decision is made. Our considerations can and should change if the economy develops in a manner different to that we had expected. 2  This is further described in the box entitled, ”Changes in the Riksbank’s forecasting methods”, Inflation Report 2005:1, in Irma Rosenberg’s speech ”The Riksbank and monetary policy” at Danske Bank, 29 September 2005 and in Lars Heikensten’s speech, ”Thoughts on how to develop the Riksbank’s monetary policy work”, at the Swedish Economics Association on 22 February 2005. BIS Review 84/2006  3  Managing risks in monetary policy decisions As monetary policy must be based on uncertain forecasts of the future, there is a need to manage the risk that the economy will develop in a way different to what was expected by the central bank. The former Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan called this the risk management approach to policy.

One reason was that the assumption of a constant repo rate often resulted in our forecasts for inflation differing from those of other forecasters; being higher when inflation was rising and lower when inflation was declining. This caused confusion in the discussions on monetary policy. Since October last year, our forecasts are instead based on the technical assumption that the repo rate will develop in line with market expectations regarding the future repo rate, as expressed in the implied forward rates. This has made it easier to compare ourselves with other inflation forecasters and also to assess our monetary policy. 2 The new interest rate assumption we now apply means that we can no longer use our old policy rule. If the forecast with a constant repo rate was close to two per cent, the repo rate would be held unchanged according to the old policy rule. If the forecast according to the new outlook shows inflation close to two per cent, the repo rate will normally develop in the way reflected by market expectations. This could mean that the repo rate, given the underlying inflation forecast, should be raised or lowered in a number of stages over the coming two-year period. The new outlook thus means that the monetary policy discussion is based on an interest rate path throughout the entire forecast period, while the old policy rule only took into account what should be done at the time the decision was made.