samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
However, one interesting question is what effect the change in population structure will have on savings and on the securities markets in a few years time, when those of us born in the 1940s retire. We are a fairly large group from the baby boom years. The life cycle hypothesis assumes that we will sell large parts of our assets, which will lead to negative net savings. However, some studies indicate that pensioners may not consume their capital to the extent assumed. And of course, some people actually have something left to pass on to their descendants. One decisive factor for the future development of savings is how the pension system will function in practice and what responsibility the individual will have in the future for other parts of the traditional welfare system. Technological developments Another important driving force behind the securities markets is technological developments. These occur in several ways. Look, for example, at the current procedure for a securities transaction, from start to finish. The process from placing the order to buy or sell until the transaction is finally settled has become increasingly automated. I don’t just mean the actual trading, which has become increasingly electronic, but also the processes following on from this, namely clearing and settlement. Straight through processing, usually referred to as STP, is becoming more common. This involves the entire chain from placing the order to clearing and settlement being implemented without manual intervention. The increased automation has led to transaction costs falling.

Thomas Jordan: The Swiss economy in a weakened world Summary of a speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the General Meeting of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, Lausanne, 25 June 2015. The complete speech can be found in French and German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  Since summer 2007, the global economy has been in a state of near-permanent crisis. What began as a subprime crisis triggered the banking and financial crisis, leading to a deep recession. This culminated in the European debt crisis. The current strength of the Swiss franc is a reflection of this global crisis, and highlights the franc's status as a safe haven, which is especially pronounced in times of high global uncertainty. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has responded to the appreciation pressure by taking exceptional measures. In terms of Switzerland's economic activity and the SNB's balance sheet, no other country has seen its monetary policy so highly exposed. The decision to discontinue the minimum exchange rate was prompted by renewed changes in international conditions, particularly the growing divergence between the monetary policy stances of the world's main currency blocks. Had the SNB delayed its decision, it would have lost control of monetary policy and would have had to discontinue the minimum exchange rate at a later date under much less favourable conditions.
After all, misaligned incentives contributed greatly to the financial crisis and continue to affect bank conduct and behavior.2 Today, I will address this issue of incentives, with emphasis on the complementary roles of regulation, supervision, and bank culture. Each of these is necessary to ensure that we have a robust and resilient financial system not just today, but also in the future. Progress since the financial crisis The financial crisis was a watershed event that exposed severe deficiencies in the financial system—including the inadequacy of bank capital and liquidity buffers, poor risk management and internal controls, and bad bank cultures. Many financial firms took on an excessive amount of risk and did not always act in ways consistent with the interests of their customers or the broader public. The crisis revealed woeful shortcomings in many of these elements, with terrible consequences for the economy and millions of people. Over the past decade, the official sector and the financial industry have made considerable progress in addressing these problems. The banking system is much sounder and more resilient as a result, in a number of ways. First, systemically important banks are much safer.3 They have much bigger liquidity and capital buffers, and the quality of capital is much improved. Moreover, the capital regime now has a forward-looking element in which annual stress tests examine banks’ ability to withstand losses under severely adverse economic conditions and constrain the amount of capital that can be returned to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases.

At the same time, the Albania's budget deficit declined to 3.7% of GDP in 2022 from 4.6% of GDP in 2021, while public debt reduced to 64.6% of GDP from 74.5%. This improvement reflected the fast growth of public revenues, the reduction of the budget deficit in response to the fiscal consolidation policy, as well as the strengthening of the exchange rate. Last, but not least, financial markets have been relatively calm and the banking sector has performed positively, despite the elevated trend of interest rates and the higher uncertainty that has characterized the market actors. In particular, the banking sector appears robust, with good indicators of liquidity, profitability and capitalization. This sector has already turned into a stable business partner for Albanian households, supplying them with the necessary funds for the expansion of activity, providing reliable instruments for maintaining their savings, as well as by constantly expanding the range of financial products and payment instruments. Our analyses suggest that systemic risks remain contained, while the high level of capitalization and liquidity provides a significant buffer to withstand shocks. Dear ladies and gentlemen, The good resilience of the Albanian economy in the face of the ongoing crises of recent years is an evidence, first of all, of the dynamism, flexibility and sound balance sheets of Albanian businesses and households.
And we understand the need for social institutions to constrain our actions. Since Smith, economists have underplayed the importance of institutions, although there have been notable exceptions such as Douglas North and Ronald Coase. Over the centuries, theories of a competitive market economy have been refined. From these theories flows the remarkable result that, under certain conditions, the pursuit by each person of their individual self interest leads to a more efficient outcome for society as a whole. That work reached its apogee in the post-war work by Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu. Those economic models are, however, silent about many of the institutions that are fundamental to the results. 12 But without the appropriate institutions we tend to anarchy not prosperity. The challenge facing us is to design and maintain the right set of institutions or  8  Theory of Moral Sentiments, II,ii,3.3,p86. 9  In her 2002 Reith lectures “A Question of Trust”, Onora O’Neill argued that in order to interact with others, both as individuals and institutions, trust plays a crucial role. 10  Wealth of Nations, I,11,2,p26. 11  Rothschild (2001) puts Smith’s writings in the context of the Enlightenment and, while pointing to the complexity of Smith’s views and his caution in expressing them in public, paints an overall picture of a man who is not best described as a split personality. 12  Economists have grappled with the challenge of understanding worlds in which there are not markets for everything.

Smith’s close friend, the chemist Joseph Black, said that he was “obliged to weigh when strange students come, there being a very large number who bring light guineas, so that I should be defrauded of many pounds every year if I did not act in self-defence against this class of students." 16 And so we reach paper money. I have here a £ note. What is it? Money you say. Surely it is just a piece of paper. What is the difference between a piece of paper and money? You can “buy stuff with it”. 17 Why can we get anything in exchange for these intrinsically worthless pieces of paper? It is because those to whom we give the paper expect that they will, in turn, be able to get something for it. That rests on the expectation that whoever they pass the paper to will in their turn be able to get something for it, and so on, ad infinitum. In short, the value of money depends on trust. But it is not easy to trust paper money unless we trust the issuer. Much of the financial history of the past 150 years is the story of our collective attempts to manage paper money. In a democracy, we  13  Wealth of Nations ,I, iv,p38. 14  See Kiyotaki and Moore (2002). 15  Wealth of Nations ,I, iv,p38. 16  Rae (1895), p 49.
Approximation with best EU central bank standards and practices is a crucial process for a central bank not only for the effective discharge of the duties, but also for the efficient and stable functioning of the financial system, and benefit of the economy, overall. I am confident that the implementation of this project will be characterised by the cooperative spirit between the Bank of Albania and central banks in the region, on the one hand, and the European Central Bank and Eurosystem, on the other. I would like to conclude with a heart-felt appreciation and gratitude for all the stakeholders having an active role in the launching of this project: •  the European Central Bank for coordinating all the activities;  •  member central banks for providing a large number of experts to assist us with the project implementation;  •  Delegation of the European Union in Tirana for funding it. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  We highly appreciate the Commission’s assistance with regard to adopting the implementation of the European Union legislation and are seriously committed to continuing with the successful cooperation, established with the Delegation in the last twinning project. In this context, I would like to reiterate my message that the road to European Union integration passes through regional integration. The financial system and central banks spearhead this process. We expect that public and private economic agents will determinedly follow this step we are taking.

In my view, regional cooperation can and should serve as a forerunner to European integration. Lastly, my special thanks and highest appreciation for Mr. Mersch for the fruitful cooperation between our institutions during his mandate as the Governor of the central bank of Luxembourg, and now as an Executive Board member of the European Central Bank and, above all, as a friend of ours. Thank you for your attention! BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
Mr Duisenberg reports on the outcome of the latest meeting of the ECB Governing Council  Introductory statement given by Mr Willem Duisenberg, President of the European Central Bank, to the Press Conference, Frankfurt, on 9 September 1999. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, The Vice-President and I are here today to report on the outcome of today’s meetings of the General Council and the Governing Council of the ECB, which were attended by Mr de Silguy, European Commissioner. The Governing Council reviewed the outlook for price developments and the risks to price stability in the euro area, in line with its monetary policy strategy. As a result, the Governing Council decided not to change the prevailing ECB interest rates. The interest rate on the main refinancing operations of the Eurosystem will thus remain 2.5%. In addition, the interest rate on the marginal lending facility will continue to be 3.5% and that on the deposit facility has been kept at 1.5%. Let me give you some details about our review of the latest information on monetary, financial and other economic developments, as well as about our latest assessment of the monetary policy stance and thereby explain the decisions taken today. With regard to monetary developments in the euro area, the 12-month growth rate of the broad monetary aggregate M3 increased from 5.3% in June to 5.6% in July 1999.

The latest three-month average of M3 growth, covering the period from May to July 1999, rose to 5.4%, compared with 5.3% in the previous three-month period from April to June 1999. Overall, the annual rate of growth of M3 has been moving away from the reference value of 4.5% since the start of the year. This upward movement may be explained to a large extent by the very low opportunity costs of holding monetary assets, especially the most liquid components, but perhaps also by the gradually improving economic conditions in the euro area. At the same time, the annual growth rate of credit to the private sector remained high, even though it declined by 0.5 percentage point in July, to 10.4%. The monetary policy strategy of the Eurosystem assigns a prominent role to the behaviour of M3. Accordingly, recent monetary developments merit close attention. At the same time, taking into account the fact that we are still in a very early phase of Monetary Union and that figures for broad money growth have been subject to some revisions in recent months, shorter-term monetary developments need to be interpreted with caution. Concerning financial market indicators, the upturn in long-term interest rates in the euro area, seen since early May, continued in August and early September. Domestic factors seem to have played a dominant role, as indicated by the fact that differentials between US and euro area bond yields have narrowed further.
The effective exchange rate index measures how the currency relates to a basket of other currencies that are weighted in terms of their relative importance to trade. The real index is also adjusted for relative differences in the CPI. A downward movement in the figure entails a strengthening of the exchange rate. Source: Reuters EcoWin  This put some emerging economies with a floating exchange rate in an awkward position as they did not want to lose too much competitiveness in relation to China while at the same time large capital inflows tended to strengthen their exchange rates. The G20 has now agreed that in certain situations it may be justified to introduce temporary capital regulations to protect against volatile capital flows. The view is that in normal cases a country should use monetary or fiscal policy, or tools for macro prudential supervision, but that in exceptional cases it may be appropriate to introduce measures to control capital. Work is underway to set up common guidelines. 15 Why does Sweden have such a large current account surplus? Prior to the crisis of the 1990s, it was usual for Sweden to have current account deficits for long periods of time (see Figure 4). After the crisis the krona weakened substantially at the same time as the deficit became a surplus. Since then, Sweden has not only had a surplus, it has had a very substantial and, to a certain extent, a growing surplus.

Second, because both climate change and financial instability may threaten our ability to deliver on this primary mandate, we shall take their consequences into account, but with full credibility and transparency in our  Page 9 sur 9 models and actions/tools. Third, we should take care to avoid overpromising, as there is no world in which central banks alone can address those issues, starting with the absolute necessity of an adequate carbon price. Central banks have increased capacities, but they still have limits. This is a piece of wisdom we must never forget. A standard Phillips curve approach provides a simple narrative of the path of euro area inflation over the last 20 years. Let me describe you briefly the exercise: HICP inflation is regressed on (i) a variable of economic slack, (ii) oil prices in euros, (iii) the prices of agricultural commodities in euros, and (iv) a lagged term of inflation measuring its inertia. In two separate specifications, the economic slack variable is (i) the output gap estimated by the European Commission, or (ii) the unemployment rate (ILO concept). The equations are estimated on quarterly data ranging from 1998 to 2019. For more details on reduced-form Phillips curve models used at the Banque de France, see Chatelais, De Gaye and Kalantzis (2015) “Low inflation in the euro area: import prices and domestic slack », Rue de la Banque 6, and Berson, De Charsonville, Diev, Faubert, Ferrara, Guilloux-Nefussy, Kalantzis, Lalliard, Matheron and Mogliani (2018) “Does the Phillips curve still exist?”, Rue de la Banque 56.
The central bank’s role is to create an enabling environment for innovation to mushroom. In this environment, many will flourish but bankers who will really thrive will be those who are agile, pragmatic and flexible. I am optimistic, as bankers in Malaysia are well placed to do this. Most bankers are highly skilled. As at end of 2017, high-skilled workers formed around 75% of the banking workforce. The salaries of bankers are also supported by relatively high levels of productivity. If there is any profession that is able to quickly adapt for the future, I believe it is the banking sector. This is proven by data. Over the last three years, the banking sector has created close to 20,000 jobs, reflecting its continued ability to anticipate and address shifts in the workforce needs. As job functions evolve, some will be dislocated. In this respect, it is critical for the industry to have in place mechanisms that support workforce transition, through retraining, reskilling and outplacement assistance. To facilitate this, in collaboration with the industry, Bank Negara Malaysia will be working to formulate an assessment of the current and future state of the banking workforce. A report is expected to be published by the end of the year. The assessment will include identifying the quantum and nature of jobs that are potentially at risk of displacement in the coming years. This should assist the industry in evolving complementary job roles, and formulating strategies to facilitate staff transition to new roles.

This study being presented today is, therefore, a welcome opportunity to reflect on the progress since 2009. Financial institutions have a role to play in ensuring financial services and products are available at reasonable terms, including fair and practical know your customer (KYC) assessments, the use of alternative collateral and flexible lines of credit to mention, but a few. To enhance income-generating activities from survival level to strong and viable businesses, in particular for women led enterprises, access to credit, banking and financial services and facilities is essential to fully develop small scale to businesses. The firm, robust and sustainable growth can only be founded on strong and viable Small and Medium Enterprises hence the need to financially empower enterprises is cardinal through financial inclusion. This lack of access to finance by our entrepreneurs is a major concern for both, the Bank of Zambia and Government. Ladies and Gentlemen, Allow me to outline some of the measures the Bank has been putting in place to accelerate access to finance for all citizens generally, and in particular for women The Bank of Zambia is the lead implementer of the Financial Sector Development Plan on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Zambia. As you may be aware, the Zambian government formulated the FSDP as a comprehensive strategy for addressing challenges in the Zambian financial sector. Under the second phase of the FSDP, access to finance by the various strata of society, including access based on gender is identified as a key challenge to be addressed.
Supporting Moldova’s first currency issues via technical support, expertise and professional training was the first area of institutional cooperation. This was followed by a more focused collaboration in almost all areas of professional training. I would like to mention, for example, the 2001 project in the field of banking supervision, then the provision of technical assistance in the field of inflation targeting in 2010, but also the 2015–2017 twinning project on banking regulation and supervision. Also noteworthy is the multilateral cooperation, within the joint constituency at the International Monetary Fund, or during the meetings of the Central Banks Governors’ Club of the Central Asia, Black Sea region and Balkan countries. Given the time span of more than 30 years of close bilateral institutional cooperation between the National Bank of Romania and the National Bank of Moldova, highlighted by the strategic partnerships for developing and broadening cooperation in areas of mutual interest, I would like to emphasize the positive synergies created over time. I express my firm belief that these synergies are a major factor in advancing this project as well, but also the future ones. Let me also underline the major role played by the successive top-management teams of the National Bank of Moldova in carrying out these numerous bilateral cooperation projects and I take this opportunity to thank them and express my appreciation to those with whom we have worked.

While this means that MAS will be more probing in our supervision and dealings with financial institutions than in the past, we will need to be careful that this does not create an overly legalistic and combative relationship with the regulated entities. We share a common objective in having a regime that encourages growth based on sound and ethical business practices, and adherence to the spirit and letter of MAS’ standards, so that consumers can be well served. Consumers too have to play their part. The recent crisis reinforces the importance of investing only in products that they understand and taking steps to better safeguard their interests when making investment decisions. Although these points have been highlighted in various MoneySENSE guides and seminars, in times of rising asset markets, outreach efforts had not been easy, but we must persist. To help investors understand common financial products, we launched the MyMoney programme, in partnership with ABS, the Securities Investors Association (SIAS) and the Singapore Management University’s Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics. Speakers shared facts on the risks in investment products such as structured deposits, unit trusts, bonds and investment linked policies, highlighting risk-return trade-offs, and key issues consumers should consider before deciding whether to purchase a product. Going forward, we need to focus on new products when they are launched. We would like to see financial institutions organise educational initiatives in partnership with independent experts, when they launch products with features or structures that are new to the market.