samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The SNB’s mandate is still to ensure price stability. The minimum exchange rate has decreased the deflationary and recessionary risks associated with a massively overvalued currency. It is entirely in line with our mandate. Furthermore, there is no risk of inflation in Switzerland for the foreseeable future. However, the SNB does recognise that the long period of low interest rates we are experiencing constitutes a danger to the stability of the financial system. The domestic credit and real estate markets are vibrant and there are concerns about the possible build-up of imbalances, which could eventually lead to price corrections and substantial losses in the Swiss banking sector. There is no doubt, however, that, in the current context of global economic indications of downside risks to the Swiss economy, current interest rate levels and the minimum exchange rate are vital. Any concerns about the housing market must, therefore, be addressed by alternative means. The SNB thus advocates the introduction of a “countercyclical capital buffer”, a macroprudential tool targeted at the specific situation we are experiencing. If the SNB’s recommendations are implemented, the banks will be legally obliged to meet specific equity capital requirements as soon as certain indicators on the real estate and mortgage markets show signs of unsustainable growth. The concept of central bank independence is widely recognised in our country. The fact that an independent monetary policy best serves the interests of the country is rarely disputed.

In the current exceptional circumstances, the imposition of a minimum exchange rate is a measure that has received strong support from economic and political actors in Switzerland and abroad. Both the IMF and the OECD recently confirmed that this was an appropriate response 3 to the risk of economic contraction and deflation in our country. 4 Given the perfect  3  OECD (2012). 4  IMF (2012). 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  alignment of this exceptional monetary policy measure with the pursuit of the SNB’s price stability mandate, one would imagine that, in the future, the National Bank’s independent status will remain as strongly anchored as in the past. Finally, it is important to consider the risks associated with the SNB’s inflated balance sheet. Our balance sheet has become more volatile, principally because it has grown in size − it is four to five times larger than it was in 2007 – but also because of the volatility of the overall environment. In the course of the last two years, risks have manifested themselves both positively and negatively. In 2010, for example, the SNB experienced its biggest ever loss, but in 2011, it also experienced one of its largest gains. The much increased size of our balance sheet, the unavoidable exchange rate risks associated with our foreign exchange reserves and a dependence on developments in the gold and capital markets, mean that the high volatility of the SNB’s annual results will be a standard feature of the near future.
In this regard, some of the domestic banks have launched special deposit schemes to attract such funds. Those who already hold lira deposits, bonds and similar assets do not need to do anything. Such assets will be automatically converted into euro when the changeover takes place, and free of any charges. For those who own Maltese lira and euro assets that represent income previously not declared for income tax purposes, the recently launched Special Registration Scheme represents a timely opportunity for such persons to regularize their holdings in terms of the law. In summary, therefore, I would say that there is no advantage to be gained by converting Maltese lira assets into euro before the changeover date. From that date onwards, there will be an ample supply of euro notes and coin to satisfy the needs of the public. More importantly, euro currency will be provided at the official conversion rate without any changes or commissions. Still on the euro, do you think that people are as worried about inflation as they were? According to the Eurobarometer poll taken in September 2006, some 70% of Maltese respondents said they feared the euro would give rise to inflation and over 80% were afraid of abuses and cheating on prices. This fear is largely based on sometimes inaccurate reports in the local media of what happened in some of the countries that introduced the euro in 2002.

If anything, the importance of the Bank’s independence, which is already enshrined in Maltese law and has been duly respected by successive governments, will be even greater once the Bank becomes a member of the Eurosystem. First of all, the autonomy of national central banks is mandated by the Maastricht Treaty. Reflecting this requirement, the Central Bank of Malta Act now fully guarantees the institutional, functional, financial and personal independence of the Bank and of the members of its decision-making bodies. As for the ECB, it has adopted low inflation as its overriding objective, and its independence helps to guarantee its ability to deliver on this commitment. As I said earlier, the governors who sit on the Governing Council of the ECB do so in a personal capacity and must be guided only by euro-area wide considerations. As members of this Council, therefore, governors of national central banks must not only be persons of recognized professional competence and personal integrity, but they must also be prepared to defend their own bank’s as well as the ECB’s ability to act independently of political and other pressures. 4  BIS Review 59/2007
Part II will present the techniques, methodology and the way-forward strategy of the Isuru Project implemented by the Central Bank as a poverty alleviation project. Part III will discuss the methodology and the future of the Forward Sale Contract Scheme as a price discovery and price-stabilising mechanism for main agricultural produce. Part IV will be devoted to the presentation of a summary and conclusions. Part I A critical review of poverty alleviation strategies A continuous high economic growth over a few decades has been recognised as the main solution for the problem of poverty. While high economic growth reduces the incidence of poverty, it also raises the absolute income of those who still remain in poverty thereby ameliorating their living standards to some extent 5 . Hence, many developing countries in 1950s and 1960s pursued high growth policies as a way out for the poverty stricken masses of their respective countries. When an economy grows and the overall income level increases, it provides opportunities for the poor to secure gainful employment and raise living standards. As an economy proceeds along this path, if investments are made to raise the educational and health standards of the poor, the economy would get into an auto-pilot system moving to still higher levels of output, income and employment. Hence, there is no better alternative than a continuous high economic growth to eradicate poverty on a sustainable basis.

Many micro enterprises fail within the first few years of operation, if the producers do not pay heed to this vital requirement. The distancing of the project management from the selection of business line is a well thought out process, because it forces the beneficiaries to make business decisions and take responsibility for same. To build their capacity to make these decisions, training was provided as to how they should conduct simple and quick market surveys and how they could satisfy the quality requirements expected by their customers. After the beneficiaries have selected their business projects, they are referred to the relevant regional development bank for funding support. In view of the speciality and complexity of the loan objectives, micro loans are granted to beneficiaries on the strength of a mutual guarantee or an interse guarantee. If any member of a group defaults the loan, other members of the group are called upon to repay the loan. This ensures credit discipline and compels the members of the group to be constantly alert and vigilant on how a member of a group is using the funds lent to him, because if he defaults, the other members have to bear the burden of repaying the loan of the defaulting member. The peer pressure exercised by members on each other is a better loan management and monitoring system than what the mainstream bankers usually do through their branch network and local staff.
It has been projected that every year, 44 million Asians are expected be added to the urban population. The opportunities generated by these trends are being further enhanced by greater regional economic and financial integration. The intensification in regional integration will not only contribute towards accelerating Asia’s growth momentum, but also further strengthen the resilience and stability of the region. The increased intra-regional trade and investment linkages within Asia over this recent decade have strengthened Asia’s economic resilience to external shocks. Indeed, the changing patterns of trade have allowed Asia to better withstand and emerge with an earlier recovery from this recent global financial crisis. It has also enabled Asia to be less susceptible to the ongoing deleveraging in the advanced economies. The more recent efforts have focused on strengthening regional financial integration - not only to sustain regional financial stability, but also to promote more efficient intermediation of funds in Asia to support the region’s growth prospects. It will allow for the effective rechannelling of Asia’s sizeable surplus funds towards productive investments in the region. Going forward, the intensification of regional integration will mutually reinforce the strengthening of domestic demand in Asia, thereby enhancing the region’s economic growth prospects. While regional economic and financial integration will intensify going forward, driven by the opportunities it presents and the conscious policies for a more cohesive region, Asia will continue to be integrated with the global economy and the international financial system. The external environment for Asia has, however, changed significantly.

Might this perhaps be a niche which a cooperative bank, setting up shop here, might be able to exploit? Furthermore, I think that perhaps I should modify an observation I made earlier: namely, that the need to set up a cooperative bank in Malta has never so far been felt. On second thoughts, perhaps, this is not entirely true. For one of our smaller banks, one that, not surprisingly, was founded by a Jesuit priest in 1910, actually did begin life as a cooperative society. It was originally called the Lega dell’ Apostolato della Preghiera, and its main aims were the setting up of a number of initiatives, all with an underlying social purpose. These included: a savings bank, intended to instil habits of thrift among the working classes; a mutual benefit society; a printing press; the publication of a Maltese language periodical; an evening school for the teaching of languages, music and crafts; an emigration bureau to help Maltese citizens wishing to settle in other countries; schemes for the free provision of food, medicines and medical care to the needy; a public lotto office; and a recreational club for members. It – or at least the savings bank part of its operations – only became a private limited company as recently as 1970, just before Malta’s first Banking Act was enacted. And this, perhaps, should give us a clue as to why we do not have a Maltese cooperative bank today.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, This conference does not seek to analyse wars and the various factors triggering them; instead, it aims to show how the radical changes introduced by wars or conflicts on political systems and alliances, or the divisions between states have affected monetary developments. The history shows that conflict or war periods are particularly related to radical changes in monetary systems and policies. Over the centuries, we find various examples of such developments, materialised in changes in the monetary system or introduction of temporary fiscal policies, additional quantity of money 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  issued before the start and during a war, massive circulation of a monetary type in areas far away from their place of origin, higher number of hoards found in a conflict zone or massive usage of the currency of allied countries. Numerous phenomena testify to the constant presence of a relationship throughout epochs, between military conflicts on the one hand and the role of money in wartime on the other. To better reflect the relationship between conflicts or war and money, we have decided for the conference proceedings to follow a chronological order of presentations, starting from antiquity, to middle ages and the modern history of the XX century. Our guests are distinguished professors, scholars, historians, and representatives from central bank museums who responded to our invitation to research and lecture on this topic.

The views and conclusions expressed in the presentations are of the authors and not necessarily of the respective institutions or the Bank of Albania. Wishing success to the conference, I hope that all the participants will benefit from the interesting presentations that will be shared with the audience today. I have now the pleasure to invite our keynote speaker, Prof. Olivier Picard, former Director of the French Archaeological School in Athens, Professor at the Sorbonne University, Member of the “Académie des Inscriptions et Belles – Lettre” (Institute of France), who will hold a presentation on “Minting of coins in Illyria in wartime”. Thank you! 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
Perhaps the biggest danger for the candidate countries is that they will come under too much pressure. One such risk is the exchange rate regime. From the point of view of foreign investors, the years immediately before and after membership run the risk of being characterised by unwarranted euphoria. The inflow of capital to equity and real estate markets in these countries can be so large that asset prices and real exchange rates become overvalued. When the capital flows then wane slightly and some capital leaves the countries again, this may come as a surprise. In connection with EU membership, with fixed nominal exchange rates, even within a fairly broad band, pressure on the exchange rate can arise. The best thing then is to have clear regimes with a clear target. Several of the large countries now have inflation targets with a floating exchange rate, which is not as exposed to speculation attacks. Other smaller and very open candidate countries have currency boards in euros and have shown that they can adapt flexibly to both shocks such as the Russian crisis and rapid fluctuations in investment flows. The choice of an exchange rate regime can affect flows of foreign capital. But it does not in itself change the pressures for real appreciation and depreciation created by large capital inflows or outflows. However the actual effect will vary depending on the regime.

This would involve “territorial” countries deciding to resolve financial institutions headquartered in their own jurisdictions on a universal basis. (A possible example of this approach in the recent crisis was the FDIC’s resolution of United Commercial Bank, which involved a “purchase and assumption” 5 that extended to the Chinese subsidiary and the Hong Kong branch following coordination amongst the authorities in the US, China and Hong Kong.) A “modified” form of universalism would involve host authorities choosing to defer to and cooperate with a resolution brought by the home country authorities, provided that certain conditions held. Separate insolvency proceedings might be employed by host countries, but allowing the proceeds to be remitted to the home country, “lead” resolution. Variations might be needed for subsidiaries and branches. Subsidiaries are distinct legal entities, but they too can have worldwide creditors and claims. So it would all need to be within some kind of joined-up whole. At a high level, the preconditions for something like this might include: (1)  equitable treatment of all creditors regardless of their jurisdiction, because if creditors in host countries were likely to be penalised in a resolution brought by the home country authorities, host authorities would have a strong incentive to ring-fence;  (2)  broad harmonisation of resolution regimes across the major jurisdictions.
The Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England, the FPC, has the task of identifying, monitoring and taking action to remove or reduce risks with a view to protecting and enhancing the resilience of the financial system in the UK. These risks at the level of the system can include those arising from structural features of financial markets, from the distribution of risk within the financial system, and from unsustainable levels of leverage, debt or credit growth. The emphasis here is very clearly on ensuring the resilience of the financial system. But our objective is not to achieve resilience at any cost – our actions must not have a significant adverse effect on the capacity of the financial sector to contribute to the growth of the UK economy in the medium or long term. Moreover, and here you will recognise the symmetry with the objectives of the MPC, the legislation provides that, subject to achieving our primary objective for financial stability – resilience – the FPC must also support “the economic policy of Her Majesty’s Government, including its objectives for growth and employment”. The reforms have also created the new Prudential Regulation Authority as part of the Bank of England. Here, the statutory objective of the microprudential regulator is the safety and soundness of the firms which we prudentially regulate – banks, insurers and major investment firms. Moreover, our objective of safety and soundness sits in the context of the stability of the financial system. What does that mean?

Andrew Bailey: Challenges of prudential regulation Speech by Mr Andrew Bailey, Deputy Governor of Prudential Regulation and Chief Executive Officer of the Prudential Regulation Authority at the Bank of England, at the Society of Business Economists Annual Dinner, London, 3 June 2013. *  *  *  Thank you for inviting me this evening – it is a great pleasure to have this opportunity and particularly at a time when we are embarking on major reforms to policymaking in the area of financial regulation. The financial crisis has provided hard lessons on what happens when the stability of the financial system is found wanting. It has reminded us how much we depend upon the supply of critical services from banks, insurers, investment firms, asset managers and other parts of the financial sector. If you take the banks as Exhibit One, there is good reason to curse them, but at the same time recent experiences have only served to emphasise how much we depend upon them, like it or not. The new legislation on financial regulation in the UK emphasises the importance of the continuity of supply of critical financial services. This is a permanent public policy objective, and rightly so. I use the term “permanent” deliberately to distinguish this objective from the support provided by Too Big / Important to Fail, which should not be permanent.
Consumer protection also has a high risk of being captured by the political cycle. This could be specially damaging in the financial system – and therefore every effort should be made to make the institutions safeguarding financial consumers autonomous and technical. For macroeconomists and financial economists, today it is difficult to focus on something other than the European crisis. The health of the global economy depends on a good resolution to this crisis. However, we cannot forget the duty of building a safer and fairer financial system. Today we have the opportunity to tackle this task, but we also have to avoid shortcuts that may end up rebuilding a weaker financial system. 3  References Arcand, Jean-Louis, Enrico Berkes and Ugo Panizza (2012), “Too Much Finance?,” International Monetary Fund Working Paper, WP/12/161. Cecchetti, Stephen and Enisse Kharroubi (2012), “Reassessing the Impact of Finance on Growth,” mimeo, BIS. De Gregorio, José and Pablo Guidotti (1995), “Financial Development and Economic Growth,” World Development, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 433–448. Diaz-Alejandro, Carlos (1985), “Good-bye Financial Repression, Hello Financial Crash,” Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 19, Issues 1–2, pp. 1–24. Dooley, Michael P. and Michael M. Hutchison (2009), “Transmission of the U.S. Subprime Crisis to Emerging Markets: Evidence on the Decoupling-Recoupling Hypothesis,” NBER Working Paper 15120. Korinek, Anton, Agustin Roitman and Carlos A. Vegh (2010), “Decoupling and Recoupling,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, pp. 393–397. Levine, Ross (2006), “Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence,” in Philippe Aghion and Steven Durlauf (eds.) Handbook of Economic Growth, pp.

2  It is easy to put the blame on the behavior of the financial industry, but the policy implications are not straightforward. But from the three points I have raised – misbehavior of market participants, comprehensive capture, and policymakers’ indifference – there are three simple conclusions: we need tight regulation, transparency and disclosure of conflicts of interest, and permanent monitoring of financial stability. What else may go wrong? Financial systems in emerging markets escaped from the crisis due to some extent to prudent regulation, built on a history of recurrent crises. But perhaps it was also due to the fact that we are somewhat slow to adapt to financial innovation. Indeed, many issues, such as the use of derivatives by the banking industry, were being discussed in emerging markets on the eve of the crisis. Of course, we are much more aware of the risks of financial innovation. It is particularly important to understand innovations – something that I think very few understood before the crisis. A simple rule for policymaking is that if you cannot understand what is really being proposed and you do not see the benefits, it is better steer clear. We used this simple dictum at the Central Bank of Chile. Not everything is bright in emerging markets. There are many challenges. One issue that has not been a problem so far, but presents potential risks, is the role of public banks.