samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Like households, companies repaired their balance sheets following the crisis but unlike households, corporates then went back to the well. Relative to earnings, aggregate corporate debt in the US and UK is 16  Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Household credit growth has been subdued, rising at an annual rate of less than 5% in each of the UK, US and euro area for the past decade, compared to rates of over 12% in the US and UK pre-crisis. 18 Highly indebted households are defined as those with debt servicing ratios of more than 40%. 17  10  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  10  nearing pre-crisis peaks,19 and the distribution is worsening. In the UK, the share of highly levered companies is above pre-crisis levels. This is despite the very modest growth in investment. Globally, the average quality of corporate borrowers has deteriorated materially. The share of lower-rated debt in global corporate bond markets has increased significantly over the last 10 years, with BBB-rated bonds now about half of the market compared to just a quarter in 2007. The global leveraged lending market grew by 21% in 2018, faster than the rate of growth in US subprime mortgages in the run up to the crisis. At $ trillion, the stock of outstanding leveraged loans is double that of subprime in 2007. Leverage of the most indebted issuers has been increasing rapidly (Chart 8).

In addition, drastic reductions of positions in domestic markets by non residents may also introduce excess volatility in the exchange rate markets as investors leave the country. Through these chains of effects, a reversal or even a slowdown in capital inflows may significantly weaken financial stability in the local economy and also potentially in the economies from which the inflows are being financed. A second source of vulnerabilities may arise from cross border flows that provide debt funding to local agents. These can be financial intermediaries or non-financial companies, and the funding can be via deposits or lending. If lending is short term, then this may result in maturity mismatches. If lending is in a foreign currency, then the risk of currency mismatches must also be factored in. The problem arises if local agents do not correctly internalize these risks or if regulation limiting these risks in the financial sector is inadequate. A third source of problems is that capital flows may increase the scale and the complexity of the local financial system, and this expansion may expose weaknesses in the regulatory and supervisory structure. For example, if external funding has not been readily available in the past for certain intermediaries, awareness of currency mismatches can be weak for these institutions or for their customers, and may not be properly addressed in the regulatory framework. Similarly, the availability of new funding may cause credit to rise at a faster pace than that of the supervisory capacity required to monitor its quality.
A small purple foil on the reverse side of the note echoes the spiral staircase at Tate Britain, which holds most of the Turner Bequest in the Clore Gallery. The main foil of the note contains an image of Turner Contemporary in blue. And the shape of the window around the foil is based on the Trafalgar Fountains, which are an iconic feature in the square outside The National Gallery where The Fighting Temeraire hangs. The purpose of design features like these is not simply to make the banknotes beautiful but also to strengthen their security. The new £ will be our most secure note yet, featuring several innovative elements. For example, rather than having a single foil element – the Turner Contemporary in blue – there is an additional foil in a second colour: the Margate Lighthouse in gold. And there is a second transparent element in the bottom corner of the note, inspired by the windows of Tintern Abbey, which was a popular tourist spot in Turner’s times and which he memorialised in another of his great watercolours in 1794. These security features are made possible by printing the new £ on polymer, rather than paper. Polymer banknotes also remain in good condition for longer, meaning the new £ will be safer, cleaner and stronger. 2  The self-portrait is currently on display in Tate Britain, and The Fighting Temeraire can been seen in The National Gallery. P. Ackroyd, Turner (Vintage, 2006) page 136. 4 See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4214824.stm.

Jean-Pierre Roth: Review of the Swiss economy Introductory remarks by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the end-of-year media news conference, Zurich, 13 December 2002. *  *  *  The National Bank has decided to leave the target range for the three-month Libor rate unchanged at 0.25%–1.25%. For the time being, the three-month Libor is to be kept in the middle of the target range. Owing to the low level of inflation, we have been able to ease monetary policy substantially since March 2001, having since then lowered the target range for the three-month Libor by a total of 2.75 percentage points. We took decisive steps in response to declining economic growth and the upward trend of the Swiss franc. Interest rates were last lowered on 26 July of this year. The imponderables with respect to the development of the global economy remain considerable, and a sustained economic upswing in Switzerland is not likely until some time in the second half of 2003. We are therefore maintaining our expansionary monetary policy and shall keep the attractiveness of Swiss franc investments low. This does not jeopardise price stability. Assuming that the three-month Libor rate will remain stable at 0.75%, average annual inflation is expected to lie between 0.7% and 1.6% in the next three years. For 2003, we are anticipating economic growth of just over 1%, while zero growth is to be expected in the current year.
Last but not least, efforts to further international collaboration will need to be supported by a solid platform for co-operation and information sharing amongst regulators. Formal agreements between regulators on the scope of cooperation and information sharing will be helpful in this regard. Singapore, as a full member of the IFSB, and a signatory to MOUs with various GCC countries, is keen to explore further avenues for cooperation and collaboration. Underpinning all these, of course, is the need to continue to broaden and deepen knowledge and expertise on Islamic Finance among regulators and industry players. An investors' education platform to promote risk awareness of Shariah compliant products will also serve to reinforce market discipline by raising awareness of the characteristics and risks of Shariah products, as well as boosting demand for such products. Conclusion – opportunities for Islamic finance I would like to end on an optimistic note by reiterating the opportunities available in Islamic Finance. While we must expect the global economy and financial activities to slow in the coming months, the long-term structural improvements in Asia and the GCC will continue. Between Asia and the GCC, for instance, total trade grew by 17% annually since 2000 to exceed $ billion in 2006. 8 Total cross-border capital flows between Asia and the GCC are also predicted to increase from $ billion at end 2006 to $ billion by 2020. 9 Even if only half of these projections are realised, growth is still sizeable.

It is thus crucial that we remain focused on enabling long term growth and development even as we tackle the current crisis. There are many productive areas for the private sector to work in close partnership. I look forward to working closely with our colleagues in the Middle East to further promote cooperation in financial services and Islamic Finance, which will serve as key pillars for promoting long-term, sustained economic development and cooperation in our two dynamic regions. On that note, I would like to thank you all for your kind attention this morning, and I wish everyone a fruitful conference. 8  Based on IMF and CEIC statistics. 9  Source: http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/05/25/10216034.html. BIS Review 147/2008  5
•  The sight deposit rate should be in the interval 3¼ - 4¼ per cent in the period to the publication of the next Inflation Report on 15 March 2007, conditional on economic developments that are broadly in line with the projections. New information may reveal aspects of economic developments that indicate that the Norwegian economy is moving on a different path than projected. On the one hand, major shifts in trade patterns, strong competition, weaker global growth or a stronger krone exchange rate may result in low inflation. On the other hand, low real interest rates or a further depreciation of the krone may lead to a higher-than-projected rise in output and inflation. BIS Review 108/2006  5  Projections are uncertain. Disturbances in the economy will affect interest rate developments. This reduces the uncertainty about developments in prices and output. Monetary policy cannot fine-tune economic developments, but it can prevent the largest effects from occurring when the economy is exposed to disturbances. In some situations, it may be appropriate to guard against particularly adverse developments. In the baseline scenario, the interest rate is gradually raised to a more normal level. Norges Bank continuously assesses the effects of interest rate changes and other new information concerning economic developments. Thank you for your attention. 6  BIS Review 108/2006

For me it is not important that it is the Riksbank, rather than any other authority, that is given the responsibility and the instruments to conduct  22  See, for example, Apel, Mikael and Carl-Andreas Claussen (2012), “Monetary policy, interest rates and risk taking”, Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 2012:2, pp. 66–80, for an outline of the relationship between low interest rates, increased credit expansion and the boom on the property market in many countries that to a large extent lay at the centre of the crisis. BIS central bankers’ speeches  15  macroprudential policy. But it is important that someone is given responsibility, otherwise we will have created a framework that is no clearer than the one we have today. Exactly how responsibility should be allocated is an issue that I am not prepared to discuss further today. It is an issue that will have to wait until the Riksbank submits its response to the interim report of the Financial Crisis Commission later in the spring. References af Jochnick, Kerstin (2013), “Monetary policy and macroprudential policy”, speech, Länsförsäkringar, Stockholm, 25 January 2013, Sveriges Riksbank. Apel, Mikael and Carl-Andreas Claussen (2012), “Monetary policy, interest rates and risktaking”, Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 2012:2, pp. 66–80. Borio, Claudio and Mathias Drehmann (2009), “Assessing the risk of banking crises – revisited”, BIS Quarterly Review, March, pp. 29–46. Englund, Peter (2011), “Swedish house prices in an international perspective”, The Riksbank’s inquiry into risks in the Swedish housing market.
Such manipulation has not come to light in Sweden, but the need to reform the reference rates has nevertheless become increasingly clear. Strengthening the interbank rate frameworks is not enough After the global financial crisis and the LIBOR scandal, extensive international work began, initially aiming to strengthen the framework around interbank rates. As a result of this work, both STIBOR and other interbank rates have changed and further changes are underway. However, as activity in the interbank market has continued to decline, it has become increasingly clear that this process of change will not be enough. The banks' judgements will still form much of the basis for the calculation. As we all know, the financial market is a confidence-based industry. As very significant sums are directly linked to the reference rates, a lack of confidence in these rates could affect large parts of the financial market and, ultimately, have negative consequences for the whole economy. Global initiatives for new reference rates There you have a brief background to me standing here today and talking about SWESTR. And it was against this background that authorities throughout the world, headed by central banks, took an active role in developing an alternative to interbank rates. The solution that soon seemed most appropriate was to move away from the system of reference rates based primarily on banks' judgements and instead calculate and publish new, fully transaction-based, reference rates.

A credible stress-testing process has to try to account for not just the effects of a discrete change to some dimension of market risk or some constellation of asset prices, but the effects of those changes on, for example, the behavior of financial market participants and on the broader macroeconomic conditions that might affect credit. It is also critical that firms assess their concentrations not only under current conditions, but also determine how firmwide credit concentrations to names, sectors or counterparties could build up under more stressful economic and financial market conditions. Of course, what is important here is not just that firms do a better job of capturing and valuing potential exposures, but that this information is translated into appropriately conservative judgments about limits and terms. Where uncertainty and complexity is higher, we should see this translate into higher cushions against potential loss. And senior management needs to be willing to lean against the erosion in credit terms and margin practice typically induced by competitive pressure during periods of low credit losses and implied volatility. Overall capital is, of course, an important part of what makes financial systems stable. But the size of the margin above the regulatory minimum or the thresholds that might affect a financial rating is critical, as is the extent to which the initial margin is set at levels that are likely to be sustainable over  2  BIS Review 28/2006  the cycle.
How the Executive Board as a collective views these issues will be made clear in the next Monetary Policy Report published later this month. Introduction A measure of productivity that is often used is production per hour or labour productivity. Unless I say otherwise, it is labour productivity that I am referring to in this speech. How has productivity developed over time? There was a considerable break in the rate of increase of productivity in the mid-1970s. From a rate of increase for the business sector of around 6 per cent a year during the 1960, the trend increase fell to around 2 per cent a year during the second half of the 1970s and in the 1980s. Since then the trend has been rising. In the long run, developments in productivity determine most of a country's GDP growth and prosperity. Another important factor is the development of the labour force and employment. It is therefore important to be able to assess how these will develop in the long run when studying growth and its driving forces. But also in the short term, productivity growth is important, particularly for monetary policy. Productivity affects a large number of other variables in our forecast work, such as employment and inflation. A good example of this is the calculations made with the aid of the Riksbank’s general equilibrium model. They show that the main reason for the low inflation in recent years is precisely the surprisingly high productivity growth.

At the end of 2003 the foreign reserves of BoA reached $ covering 4.7 months of imports. BoA continues to maintain its view of a free exchange rate regime. This was reflected in the fewer episodes of BoA’s intervention in the foreign exchange market during the first half of 2003, when the purchase of foreign currency was almost four times that of the second half of the year. Nonetheless, this did not hold back the domestic currency from appreciating against the euro and the US dollar, with a stronger appreciating trend in place in the second half of the year. The appreciation of the domestic currency was one of the factors behind BoA’s 2.0% interest rate cut during year 2003. Monetary indicators have generally been performed in compliance with the forecasts set out in the Bank’s monetary programme. The annual growth rate of lek deposits was 19.1% by the end of the year, which is significantly higher than the annual rates of the pervious years. The credit balance rose by L11.9bn or 30.9%. The new credit increased by 50% meanwhile 76% is in foreign currency. The loans/GDP ratio is still low, at about 7%. The banking system experienced important developments during 2003 and in the beginning of 2004. The entry of two new banks of Albanian capital was soon followed by the successful privatisation of the Savings Bank from the Raiffeisen Zentralbank (RZB) Austria. Now, all in all there are 16 banks in the Albanian Banking system.
Importantly, the authorities should engage the private sector early into the process of market development so that the direction of policy and development is aligned with needs of the private sector. Most of the issues that I have raised today are not new, but they are the important ones. Again, I will not be surprised if many of you are also having the same thoughts. Such convergence of ideas will be good in helping to advance our interest and work on regional financial cooperation. I am confident that we can move forward more rapidly in the direction that will be most beneficial to our economies, while sharing a common vision of greater prosperity and economic well-being for our region. Thank you for your attention. 3/3

BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  For example, to cool Singapore’s property market, we imposed multiple measures to target different aspects of systemic risk. •  Tighter LTV ratios on borrowers with multiple housing loans served to moderate credit-fuelled investor demand. •  Caps on housing loan tenures served to curtail the phenomenon of those who stretched out their loans in order to meet the tighter LTV ratios. •  Transaction taxes in the form of stamp duties served to constrain demand from investors who did not take loans to buy properties a. Stamp duties on sellers helped to deter speculators who resell their properties shortly after purchase. b. Stamp duties on buyers helped to curb investor demand by raising the hurdle rate. •  Such a multi-dimensional approach required close co-ordination among the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of National Development. So, where does all this leave monetary policy? •  To the extent that strengthened microprudential policies coupled with the newly developed macroprudential policies can adequately address the problem of financial stability, monetary policy is freed to focus on price stability. •  We are back in the Tinbergen world. •  Or are we? Monetary and macroprudential policies: working hand-in-hand? If only our job were that simple. Macroprudential policies are still in the experimental stage: •  Its transmission mechanisms are not well understood. •  Its collateral effects and potential distortions have not been studied in depth.
Let me start by stressing a key point: the Eurosystem's highly accommodative monetary policy is already helping to finance the transition thanks to very low interest rates and abundant liquidity. Green investment will have to be very significant, we are aware of this, – with more than EUR 1,000 billion in public and private investment planned as part of the European Green Deal; xi but never has monetary policy been so favourable for achieving this. The greening of the central bank's actions does not therefore require a further easing of monetary policy, but rather a recalibration of its tools. By next September, we will decide within the Governing Council on the conclusions of our "Strategic Review". To contribute to this debate, I would today like to present our ambitions in the form of a simple triptych: forecast, disclose and incorporate climate risk. 2.1  Forecast, and therefore model  First ambition: to deepen our understanding of the effects of climate change not only on prices but also on growth, both over the business cycle and over much longer time horizons. We are not starting from scratch! Much progress has already been made, notably driven by the NGFS. Our models already incorporate, over a three-year horizon, the effects of tax measures to facilitate the transition, such as the carbon tax. However, changes in the behaviour of economic agents are more difficult to take into account, even though - via expectations - their economic consequences could be felt well before their implementation.

Another notable development is the joint venture by Singapore’s Keppel T&T and Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi Group to create the world’s first Shariah-compliant data centre fund. Last week, the fund managed to secure an initial $ million from institutional investors in Asia and Middle East. We also understand that various market players are in the midst of preparations to launch and list Islamic Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which will further boost Singapore’s position as the largest REIT market in Asia ex-Japan. 16. In talent development, several credible players have initiated training courses and programmes to enhance the financial sector’s capabilities in Islamic finance. For example, the Singapore Management University has started an International Islamic Law & Finance Centre to promote high-quality research, training and professional education. Such efforts will further support the growth and innovation of Islamic finance in the region. Conclusion 17. I am therefore pleased to launch the inaugural WIBC Asia Summit today. Such events serve to bring industry leaders together to explore and create business partnerships to capitalize on new opportunities in the Middle East and Asia. The financial crisis has not diminished the Asian growth story; in fact Asia has emerged even more compelling with growing exports and investment spending. Singapore is well-positioned to be the launch pad  BIS Review 84/2010  3  for GCC businesses entering and investing in Asia. The Middle East also offers plenty of opportunities for Asian businesses to participate in its growth. 18.