samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In the context of actions taken to support the financial system, the Federal Reserve and other government agencies have provided considerable support to banking organizations and other large systemically important financial institutions. The employees and executives of those institutions have benefitted from our intervention. In a perfect world we would be able to prevent those individuals and institutions from benefitting; we would have a better way to penalize those who acted recklessly. But once the crisis was underway, one goal took precedence: keeping the financial system from collapsing in order to protect the nation from an even deeper and more protracted downturn that would have been more damaging to everyone. The Great Depression represents an important example of the consequences of inaction. Recall that during the Great Depression the unemployment rate rose to 24 percent. It is generally accepted that the authorities at that time, by not responding sooner and more forcefully, contributed greatly to the severity and duration of the Great Depression. In contrast, during this crisis, the Fed and other agencies acted much more aggressively to ward off a total collapse of our financial system – liquidity was restored to markets and the banking system was recapitalized much more quickly. These aggressive actions helped to prevent the type of deep and protracted crisis that occurred during the 1930s. Going forward, the Federal Reserve and other regulators need to move aggressively to change the system so we don’t ever find ourselves in this position again.

1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  More will be done if necessary, of course, but the diagnosis that was reached yesterday by the Governing Council is that a little less is necessary today because growth is stronger and Europe is doing better. And to make this quite clear, how much will the ECB disburse in, say, 2017? The decision that was taken yesterday is to extend our asset purchases for a further nine months by buying € billion per month of various financial instruments, which makes an additional € billion euro. That’s the decision: we will add € billion to the € billion per month planned for the first three months of 2017, making € billion, so for the whole of 2017 that comes to slightly less than € billion extra compared with what we are doing already. And since March 2015? Asset purchases today come to around € trillion in total, so if we add 1,500 and 800 it means that, at the end of next year, we’ll be at just over € trillion. Yes, and you realise that with this € trillion growth is good, average, but it’s not stronger. What would happen without this € trillion? Well, without it, if the ECB wasn’t doing what it’s doing, growth would be between 0% and 1%, inflation would be close to zero and unemployment wouldn’t be falling in the euro area. But as you know, unemployment is now falling fairly quickly in the euro area.
Systemic banks must have the capacity to replenish capital, up to minimum regulatory standards, even if all capital – of all tiers – has been completely burned through. 8 It’s a game changer because it hardwires the recapitalisation of failing banks. Bailedin debt holders become, very quickly, the proud new owners of the bank. Case study evidence is striking. Rapid recapitalisation of failed banks speeds economic recovery. It cuts the long-term costs of systemic bank failure in half. But resolution through bail-in is more than a fire extinguisher. It’s a non-flammable coating of the banking system too. It helps to prevent bank failures in the first place. Unsurprisingly, the evidence is that when debt holders face the consequences of failure, banks take fewer risks. International estimates suggest that the removal of the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose ‘too big to fail’ subsidy cuts the risk of failure by a third. As you know, the removal of that subsidy isn’t a pipedream. Rating agencies are already removing “state support” uplifts from bank debt ratings. 9 And yes, it will raise  7  This is very similar to estimates of Miles et al (2012), who find the effect of increasing capital from 3% of total assets to 6% of total assets to be around 6% of GDP. 8  The Bank of England, as UK resolution authority, is now consulting on proposals to implement that principle in the UK for all systemic banks, as it must do under the European Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive.

But one of them pays interest of 5% a year, the other one only 2%. [9] Let’s  Page 7  also imagine that you can put funds somewhere without any risk and earn interest of 1%, and that the Solvency II rules say that for assets with the credit rating of these bonds we have to allow 0.5% per year to cover the risk of things going wrong. Now under the existing rules, for the bond paying 2% the insurer treats 0.5% as the MA – this is the 2% interest on the bond, less the 1% risk-free rate and the 0.5% allowance for things going wrong. The insurer will bring all of that interest due in the future, so 0.5% for each year, forward to today and count it as shareholders’ capital. For the 5% bond, the insurer does exactly the same: although the bond pays so much more interest than the 2% bond, the insurer uses the same riskfree rate (1%) and allowance for things going wrong (0.5%). As a result the insurer books as capital up-front the entirety of the 3.5% (5% less 1.5%), so a much bigger amount than for the 2% bond. Some stakeholders think we shouldn’t allow this at all, even for the 2% bond. We don’t agree with that position, but we do think we need to ask: are we entirely confident that all of that extra return on the 5% bond can safely be considered risk-free and banked as capital up-front?
Likewise, Asia should ensure it has its own ‘carbon-fibre curtain’ of policy adaptability and flexibility to manage destabilising movements in the financial system. Despite the inevitable diversification of de facto reserve currencies, the dollar will remain a significant force to facilitate global trade and cross-border capital flows. Thus, it is of primary importance for Asia, in particular the emerging markets, to ensure that economic fundamentals are strong and financial markets are resilient with adequate buffers. At the same time, we need to continuously improve the necessary infrastructure for corporates, businesses and financial institutions to transact in a multi-currency environment. Currently, cross-border trade within the ASEAN region are transacted and settled mostly in dollars despite almost half of ASEAN trade being intra-regional. It makes economic and business sense, that transacting in local currencies would enhance the efficiency of trade and investments, with strong probability of reducing the cost of doing business. In an environment of volatile market conditions, businesses will have more options to choose the currency to transact, providing flexibility and insulation from exogenous shocks. Greater usage of local currencies would be an impetus for the development of the region’s financial markets, consistent with ASEAN’s collective vision for an integrated cross-currency market. Malaysia has been forward-looking in preparing for the inevitability of a multi-currency market: i. We have diversified our international reserves into emerging market currencies in early 2000, including into renminbi assets. We were confident in the diversification benefits given the strength and sustainability of China and emerging markets’ economic growth.

Peter Pang: Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation retail bond issues Opening remarks by Mr Peter Pang, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Executive Director of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited, at the Signing Ceremony for the Retail Bond Issue under the HKMC's Retail Bond Issuance Programme, Hong Kong, 1 September 2006. *  *  *  Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation, I welcome you all to this signing ceremony for the new retail bond to be offered to the public next Monday. Five years ago, in October 2001, the HKMC introduced a mechanism to offer retail bonds through placing banks. This move received very warm welcome from both the banking sector and retail investors. So far, we have issued eight retail bonds for a total amount of $ billion. Two major factors are behind the success of the HKMC's retail bond issues. First it is our strong credit rating. In fact, our credit rating has recently been upgraded by S&P’s to AA with stable outlook and by Moody's to Aa3 with positive outlook. Secondly, the HKMC meets the needs of retail investors through continual product innovation. On this occasion, we again bring some new features to our retail bond issuance. Apart from issuing two-year notes in Hong Kong Dollar and in US Dollar, we are introducing a new 10-year Hong Kong Dollar Zero Coupon Bond.
Free flows of capital across borders can make the domestic financial market deeper and wider, increase liquidity, and facilitate price discovery, thus improving efficiency of resource allocation. At the same time, diversification by investing overseas can help raise investment returns for households, which would in turn help promote private consumption and support sustainable growth. For emerging markets in particular, participation of foreign financial institutions can speed up the  1  Kaminsky, G.L., C.M. Reinhart and C.A. Vegh (2004), "When it rains, it pours: procyclical capital flows and macroeconomic policies", NBER Working Paper, 10708. BIS Review 141/2008  1  learning process and facilitate the adoption of best international practices by the financial sector. Therefore, while a more liberal regime for capital flows could at times bring about negative impacts, the relevant response should not be to keep the capital account closed forever, but to find ways of effectively managing the potential risks. International experiences have provided some broad suggestions on how such risks could be managed. Foremost is the importance of appropriate sequencing between liberalising the capital account and other domestic reforms. Development of financial institutions and markets, enhanced macroeconomic stability, and proper risk management by banks and enterprises would help to increase the resilience of the domestic entities in dealing with volatile capital flows. In addition, prudential regulation and supervisory framework need to be established, in order to prevent excessive risk-taking by domestic financial institutions.

This conference series is also a good way to organise informed discussions on the Mainland's financial sector issues. The first part of the conference examines the experiences of Chile, India, Korea and Thailand in their capital account liberalisation, with the view of drawing useful lessons for Mainland China. The second part focuses on the Mainland, assessing the effectiveness of current policies in dampening the impact of capital inflows on the domestic economy, their costs, as well as policy options of outward investment. A final paper will gauge the current level of financial integration between the Mainland and Hong Kong, and discuss the policy implications. I am pleased that this conference has brought together a group of experienced researchers and policymakers from a wide range of central banks, international organisations and research institutes. As earlier noted, the recent global financial turmoil will probably turn out to be the most critical time in recent economic history which will shape future economic and policy thinking. I hope this conference can provide a useful platform for fruitful discussions on capital account liberalisation to enhance our understanding on the issue. I wish the conference great success. BIS Review 141/2008  3
Stemming mostly from the lack of demand from China and other developing economies, this trend caused import prices in the Turkish economy to BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  recede in USD terms. Therefore, we made downward revisions to assumptions for crude oil prices and USD-denominated import prices With regard to annual averages, we reduced crude oil price assumptions from USD 54 to USD 37 for 2016. Also, we revised the assumptions for annual percentage changes in average import prices downwards by 4.9 points for 2016. We revised the assumed inflation for food prices upwards from 8 percent to 9 percent for 2016 due mostly to the effects of minimum wage adjustments on costs and demand (Chart 19). Chart 19. Revisions in Oil and Export Prices* Oil Prices* (USD/barrel)  * Shaded area indicates the forecast horizon. Source: Bloomberg, CBRT. Import Prices* (USD, 2010=100)  * Shaded area indicates the forecast horizon. Source: Bloomberg, CBRT. Effective as of January 2016, some items with administered prices saw price increases. We estimate that the additional effect on the year-end inflation of the portion of these increases that remain above 5 percent will be 0.4 points in 2016. In turn, we monitor meticulously how the rise in the minimum wage will affect the budget balance and tax adjustments.

We want our monetary and financial systems to be stable, not only throughout the economic cycle, but also across cycles. And what we also share is that we are still very much uncertain about how to achieve this goal perfectly. One, rather harsh expression of this uncertainty of ours, is the adage popular among some policy-makers. As financial stability is hardly a quantified (or maybe even quantifiable) goal, some in the community grumble that central banks targeting inflation are delivering price stability, while central banks targeting financial stability are delivering just financial stability reports. Yes, this is really a bit too strong statement, as we all know, explicitly or implicitly, that the banking sector faces a trilemma – or an impossible trinity of a kind, if you will. Banks can never be simultaneously: 1.  perfectly safe,  2.  perfectly efficient and  3.  always free of moral hazard  It is like in the area of public health care. This complex system also cannot simultaneously achieve three goals perfectly and be: 1.  cheap,  2.  of the highest quality and  3.  universally accessible to all without entry barriers  In the banking sector – like in the area of health care – we can either abandon one principle in order to achieve the remaining two more or less perfectly, or we have to balance all the three principles somehow, but all of them will be achieved and maintained only partially, imperfectly (and sometimes deeply imperfectly).
Broken red line shows an estimate of developments over the next 10 years without further measures. Shaded area indicates a feasible lower limit for when the risks are elevated in the economy. Broken lines show an estimate of the effects of different measures. “Debt-to-income limit (400%, exemption 15%)” means that 15 per cent of the volume of new loans may have a loan-to-income ratio exceeding 400 per cent. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank. I mentioned the debt-to-income limit earlier. A limit of 600 per cent in relation to disposable income would affect around 12 per cent of new mortgage borrowers. In Figure 13 we can see that the effect is considerably greater than it would be with the amortisation requirement, but also considerably smaller than with halved tax relief. If a debt-to-income limit of 400 per cent of income were introduced, for example, this would currently affect nearly 40 per cent of new mortgage borrowers. Indebtedness would thereby be dampened considerably in the long term, and we would also see a large amount of the effect within 10 years (see Figure 13). Our calculations indicate that the extent of the effect would be as great as if tax relief were halved. 20 Debt-to-income limits have already been introduced in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Figure 9 Ownership of Swedish covered bonds by type of investor Shares in per cent 50  50  45  45  40  40  35  35  30  30  25  25  20  20  15  15  10  10  5  5  0  0 02  04  06  08  10  12  14  16  Swedish banks Swedish funds Svenska insurance companies Public sector including national pension funds Foreign investors  Source: Statistics Sweden. Indirect risks for financial stability and the macro economy An indirect risk, going from the macro economy to financial stability, is that reduced demand from over-indebted households will push the general level of demand in the economy down. This will weaken economic activity, in turn increasing the risks that the banks will incur loan losses in the corporate sector. 11 Earlier, I mentioned that the banks may have problems obtaining funding in the event of a fall in prices on the housing market in Sweden. In such a scenario, it is also conceivable that the banks’ funding problems will lead to higher lending rates to households – and thereby to lower consumer demand. In practice, it is likely that all of these direct and indirect factors will interact so that the consequences of a decline on the housing market may be serious and also difficult to gain an overview of in advance. 11  See Financial Stability Report 2015:1, pp. 13.
The volume and value of cheques returned unpaid on account of insufficiently funded accounts continued to decrease following the issuance of the directives on dishonoured cheques and direct debit instructions by the Bank of Zambia in the second quarter of 2010. The volume of unpaid cheques decreased by 15% to 4,202 (Quarter 2: 4,929). The public is advised to ensure that they have sufficient funds on their accounts whenever they issue cheques in order to avoid charges. Economic reform programme An IMF Mission was in Zambia from 2nd to 15th September, and 28th October to 3rd November 2010, to conduct the 5th Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. Overall, the mission was satisfied with the programme performance and reached agreement with the Zambian authorities on a set of macroeconomic policies and structural measures for the remainder of 2010 and for 2011. The policies and structural measures would pave the way for the completion of the Fifth Review of the ECF arrangement, subject to approval by the IMF’s Executive Board. 4  BIS Review 148/2010  Total disbursed poverty reduction budget support (PRBS) in the third quarter of 2010 amounted to US $ million from the World Bank. A total of US $ million mining tax revenue was received while the Bank of Zambia foreign exchange purchases from the market amounted to US $ million. Preliminary data indicate that the quantitative performance criteria under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement were observed as at end-September 2010 and that all structural benchmarks were generally on track.

Europe accounted for 9,404 followed by Zambia (residents) at 7,308 while North America, Rest of America and Australasia were 4,016, 2,810 and 1,412 respectively. The rise in the entries into the country’s national parks was in part attributed to the world cup and improved weather conditions. External sector developments Foreign exchange market The slow pace of economic recovery in the United States continued to cast a dark shadow on the US dollar, the world’s most traded currency. The lingering economic uncertainty and the burgeoning fiscal deficit drove the US dollar weaker across all currencies. Therefore, benefitting from the broad based dollar weakness and relatively high levels of US dollar liquidity in the market, the Kwacha posted a 5.0% gain against the American currency. A sustained rise in the copper prices at the London Metal Exchange to an average of $ per tonne in the third quarter from $ tonne gave further support to the domestic currency, with the interbank rate ending the period at an average of K4,869.21 per US dollar. The weakness in the US dollar saw the Euro and the pound sterling rebound, underpinned by austerity measures instituted in Greece and the United Kingdom and favourable bank stress test results in the European Union banking sector. Reflecting this recovery, the South African rand, which tracks the euro, also performed well, posting significant gains in the currency market. These developments saw the Kwacha depreciate against the three currencies during the review period.
If the institutional features behind these developments are not reformed, there is a risk that, even after the most acute phase of the crisis is over, they will continue to hold back the Spanish economy’s possibilities of recovery and become a drag on further progress in real convergence with Europe. To rebuild sound foundations for growth, economic policy should contribute to setting in place the appropriate conditions to revive confidence, to return financing flows to normal and to reinvigorate spending plans. That will require headway in restoring health to the financial position of the private sector and the banking system, the completion of the adjustment in the  BIS Review79/2009  5  real estate sector and, above all, improvements in productivity, competitiveness and job creation incentives. The correction in the construction sector is proving most intense. And although there is still a sizeable stock of unsold housing, the reduction in interest rates and in house prices will no doubt make the residential market more accessible. Cheaper borrowing terms and the easing of credit restrictions will also help breathe new life into spending. But it will be the recovery in external demand, as we move out of the international crisis, that will act as the main support. And the more competitive national production is, the more powerful this effect will be. To this end, and as frequently indicated by the Banco de España, sustained increases in productivity must be attained and the pertinent cost, margin and price adjustments made.

Decisive and effective action in boosting the knowledge economy should contribute to substantially increasing technological capital and to bridge the gap blighting the Spanish economy in this area. And improving the competitive environment in which businesses take their decisions is crucial if all these steps are to result in overall gains in efficiency and competitiveness. One key area for progress along these lines is liberalisation in the services sector, which encompasses some of the most dynamic activities with the greatest employment-generating capacity and where new forms of labour relations may be more successful. Further, the growing interaction between industry and services has increased the influence of the latter in determining international competitiveness. It is likewise necessary to continue pushing through liberalisation and competition in the network industries, so that the conditions in which inputs are provided to other productive activities allow Spanish companies to compete on an equal footing with other developed countries. The liberalising impulse must be regained, in particular, in the energy, telecommunications and rail transport sectors. I shall devote the final part of my address to analysing the situation of the Spanish banking system in greater detail. An economic environment marked by a real and financial global crisis poses a first-order challenge to the normal pursuit of banking activity. As stated, the first wave of shocks, confined essentially to the financial arena, did not have appreciable direct effects on our banks, and the indirect effects were absorbed in an orderly fashion.