samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
BIS Review 23/2006  1  In the new global economy, the public sector must be active and innovative, and it must support its citizens and business community. By way of illustration, the National Bank of Poland, as part of its statutory tasks and in cooperation with its partners in the financial sector, has created a modern payment infrastructure for large-amount (the SORBNET system operated by NBP) and retail (the ELIXIR system operated by the National Clearing House — KIR S.A.) payment systems, thus ensuring provision of safe and efficient services related to settlement of both types of zloty payments. The scope of services for the banking sector was expanded in 2005 to include two new types of payment systems for settlement of eurodenominated (domestic and cross-border) transactions, namely: the SORBNET-EURO system, processing mainly large-amount (interbank and customer) payments, and the EuroELIXIR system, which provides cheaper and more rapid settlement of retail payments in euro. The SORBNET-EURO system facilitates transfers of payments to the TARGET system, thus ensuring real-time processing of cross-border payments between banks in Poland and those in the EU Member States. Apart from Poland, only three EU Member States outside the euro area (i.e. Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain) have introduced similar changes to the domestic payment system and ensured a link to the pan-European infrastructure. No other new EU Member State has implemented such changes to-date. The ELIXIR system, operated by KIR S.A., is one of the state-of-the-art payment systems in the European Union.

Hence, the abovementioned services are becoming more and more decentralized, based on public and private partnership, and privatized. The development of information and communication technologies is another factor that has an impact on the functioning of the state. Firstly, it facilitates the switch from one-way communication channels to interactive two-way communication, which leads to, inter alia, greater activity of citizens and business community and better adjustment of services provided by the public sector to the needs of citizens. Secondly, the growth of the ICT sector contributes to increased innovation demonstrated by the public  2  BIS Review 23/2006  sector worldwide, in other words, altered procedures employed by the public sector gradually cease to be of a reproductive nature, and the public sector becomes one of the leaders of innovation in the services sector. Consequently, the methods of functioning of the state and performance of its functions are irreversibly heading towards the use of technologies and assume the form of estrategy, e-policy, eregulations and e-services. Therefore, we are facing the e-reality in which e-administration has its liabilities towards e-economy. In the past, the public sector used to follow the private sector and apply the best methods of organization management, customer relations maintenance and management or use of technologies, which all lead to increased efficiency of activities. In the contemporary global e-economy the public sector has a much more difficult and demanding role to play.
The resulting financial landscape would, however, look rather different. There would be greater specialisation and diversity. The shopping experience for a banking customer would be more farmers’ market than supermarket. •  Governance – stakeholders versus shareholders  In deciding appropriate corporate governance arrangements, economists have tended to focus on the relationship between shareholders (as principal) and managers (as agent). Principal-agent problems arise when these two parties’ incentives are misaligned. Profitrelated pay is one means of achieving alignment, with managers remunerated in line with shareholder returns. In addressing one incentive problem, however, this approach may risk worsening two others – between shareholders and depositors on the one hand and between shareholders and the public sector on the other. Limited liability means that returns to shareholders are capped below at zero, but not above. That provides a natural incentive for owners to gamble, pursuing high risk/high return strategies from which they import the return upside but export the risk downside to depositors or the public sector. During this crisis, the pursuit of those strategies has resulted in the public sector picking up the cheque for the downside in an effort to reduce risks to depositors. A mutual model of corporate governance gives rise to a rather different set of incentives. Instead of external shareholders, savers and borrowers become the owners, with profits remitted directly to them in the form of higher deposit rates and/or lower borrowing rates. For that reason, measured profit margins appear consistently lower for building societies than for banks.

There is plenty to work on and think about. Finally, let me take up one other question that Stan has posed: Do I think you need to be an economist to be the President at the New York Fed? I don’t think so. If you look at the past five Presidents – Volcker, Corrigan, McDonough, Geithner, and myself, some have been economists, some haven’t. Yet I think all my predecessors have been very effective. I think there are other attributes that are more important than being an economist: 1) An analytical orientation; 2) the ability to synthesize a broad range of material so as to understand the interactions of markets, financial institutions, and regulatory and macroeconomic policy; 3) open-mindedness and pragmatism – the world is complicated and ever changing; and 4) the ability to lead – that means identifying the key issues and motivating people to do their best work in order to develop new insights and approaches. Having an economics background probably helps, especially on the analytics side, but, in my view, is by no means necessary and certainly not sufficient. One point on which I am certain is that regardless of the background of the President, having a very strong research group is essential. Thanks for your kind attention. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
Stock, J and Watson, M (2003), ‘Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?’, NBER Macroeconomics Annual, Vol. 17. Surowiecki, J (2004), The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, Doubleday Books. Taylor, M (2018), ‘What Democracy Needs Now’, Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, RSA Chief Executive’s Lecture 2018. Tetlock, P and Gardner, D (2016), Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Broadway Books. Tucker, P (2018), Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State, Princeton University Press. Tuckett, D (2011), Minding the Markets: An Emotional Finance View of Financial Instability, Palgrave. Tuckett, D and Nikolic, M (2017), ‘The role of conviction and narrative in decision-making under radical uncertainty’, Theory & Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 501-523. Turner, M and Pratkanis, A (1998), ‘Twenty-Five Years of Groupthink Theory and Research: Lessons from the Evaluation of a Theory’, Organizational Behavior and Human decision Processes, Vol. 73, Nos. 2/3, pp. 105-115. Wagner, C and Vinaimont, T (2010), ‘Evaluating The Wisdom of Crowds’, Issues in Information Systems, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 724-732. Van Reybrouck, D (2016), Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, Bodley Head.

Instead I want to discuss how to approach some of the challenging issues faced by many central banks as we seek to decide how best to organise our work and to allocate resources in order to promote financial stability. We need to be clear, accountable and transparent as to how we devote our resources in this area. And just as the financial system becomes more complex, so the judgements as to what we do and what we do not do are increasingly difficult. That is why we need a framework – a set of organising principles – that enables us to provide context and understanding to our endeavours, to provide a source of focus and rigour to our approach, and to motivate our people. The issues are, I believe, of general application. Though you will forgive me I am sure if I start by looking at the framework within which the Bank of England, as a non-regulatory central bank with a remit for system-wide stability, addresses the vulnerabilities. 2. Challenges in Creating a Framework  i)  Monetary Policy  I want to start by considering the governance of the Bank’s accompanying mandate, the conduct of monetary policy. This highlights the clarity of our accountability in the monetary policy arena. In line with many central banks, we have a mandate in statute – the Bank of England Act – to conduct monetary policy. The Government sets a target inflation level which we are required to meet.
Central banks are also state institutions, but with greater functional independence provided for in the respective statutes due to its specific nature of operations involving printing of money and conducting monetary policies. The simple reason for the central bank independence is that a Government cannot have one hand to spend through the fiscal policy and other hand to print money to finance expenditure through the monetary policy. Therefore, the clear separation between the Treasury and Central Bank is necessary, otherwise, economies and monetary systems will collapse sooner or later. Therefore, the Central Bank independence and the close co-operation between the Central Bank and the Treasury are highly recognized. I wish to quote from the Exter Report on this matter as the best piece of literature. I quote “….There are, however, many important problems of monetary policy, especially those relating to fiscal policy, on which a central bank must necessarily work in close harmony with the government. On such problems, experience in many countries has shown that a central bank with a degree of independence of the government proper can make economic analyses and hold views which are more detached and objective than those of a government department. Many governments have learned to value and to use the sort of independent and objective advice on monetary and other aspects of economic policy which central banks have been able to give.

As the Manager of Public Debt, the Central Bank raises local and foreign debt to meet expenditures approved through the Consolidated Fund, maintains such loan records and service such loans out of funds at Government Account with the Central Bank. The popular criticism here is the monetization of the budget deficit through Central Bank funds. The Central Bank’s purchase of Treasury bills is the cause of this criticism. The Central Bank purchases Treasury bills in order to use them for regulation of the domestic market liquidity (Open Market Operations) as permitted in the MLA and not for lending to Government. Further, under the MLA, the Central Bank is authorized to provide provisional advances to the Government up to 10% of the estimated Government revenue of the current financial year, subject to recovery of each advance within 6 months, and such advances are only to meet the expenditures authorized under the Consolidated Fund. Managing public debt by the Central Bank is beneficial for the country since the Central Bank can raise public debt in line with interest rate structure envisaged in its monetary policy. If the debt management is undertaken by a separate Government office, it may attempt to raise debts without regard to market interest rates and monetary policy and that will cause immense conflicts with the current monetary policy. The opposite view is that as the Central Bank manages public debt, its monetary policy is constrained by the need to attempt to raise and maintain public debt at low cost.
As QEs can reduce the short term pain and pressure brought by adjustments, there is a real risk the implementation of the much needed reforms in the private sector and the fiscal reform in the public sector could be delayed, or dropped altogether. This means the fundamental cause of the imbalances in the global financial system is not being addressed at all. The problem is particularly acute in the fiscal positions of many advanced economies that have built up high levels of public debt. According to the “Ricardian Equivalence” theory, when people believe the fiscal positions of their governments are unsustainable and that at some future stage the governments have no choice but to raise taxes to pay back the debt, this will materially curtail the citizens’ desire to spend and invest now because they need to save more to prepare for the “rainy” days ahead. (c) Finally, the third important cost or risk factor is the misallocation of resources and investments: Given the near zero interest rates and abundant liquidity in the financial system, it is to be expected that the asset markets, especially the stock and housing markets, will benefit. With US stock markets continually reaching historical highs and with a strong rebound in the housing market, the positive wealth effects should help boost consumption and investment.

As we don’t have a crystal ball, we can only wait and see what will happen in the re-pricing of assets across the globe as and when interest rates begin to normalise. In the meantime, it is crucial we are well-prepared for possible turbulence and shockwaves. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  17. But, I believe Hong Kong is on the right track. While we have been at the receiving end of massive international capital flows for several years, prompting a rise in inflationary pressure and overheating in the property market, we have acted swiftly to contain the adverse impact of such unprecedented monetary easing policies. Since 2009, the HKMA has undertaken six rounds of countercyclical prudential measures on mortgage lending, coupled with other supervisory action on bank capital and liquidity, to enhance the resilience of the banking system so it is better equipped to cope with future shocks. We have also launched a series of measures to contain credit growth, and recently we have further required banks with relatively fast credit growth to ensure they have stable funding sources to support that growth. 18. The prospect of a tapering in quantitative easing in the US has already caused jitters on global financial markets, including fund flows and exchange rates in some regional economies. Such volatility may continue, if not magnify, in the next couple of years. Therefore, we must remain vigilant against the possible spillover effects from other economies, as well as any other emerging risks.
I want to emphasize that this is first and foremost a public health crisis, and a human tragedy. It’s our doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals who are on the front lines, fighting this disease and caring for those who are suffering. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. My sincere thanks is also with the grocery store workers, those in law enforcement and transportation, and everyone who continues to carry out essential work each day. The Scale of the Challenge The necessary actions taken to slow and contain the spread of the coronavirus are not only changing how we live our lives, but are also having a profound effect on the economy and financial markets, both here and abroad. Although many people have drawn comparisons with the financial crisis of 2008, the current turmoil is fundamentally different from recessions of the past. The challenges before us do not stem from vulnerabilities at banks or the bursting of a bubble—I can only liken them to a natural disaster of global proportions. If we look back to February, the American economy was strong, with unemployment at historical lows. But, now, social distancing and other restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic are causing severe, rapid declines in jobs and income. Unprecedented numbers have filed for unemployment insurance in the past several weeks alone, and we know that more economic pain is still to come. The reality is that the full scale of the economic consequences is still unknown.

In the afternoon we will feature Sujit Kapadia and Prasanna Gai with an analysis of financial contagion using a network model. In addition, there will be two panels that will review financial risk management with two important nuances: its incidence in emerging economies on one hand, and on systemically significant financial institutions, on the other. The economists invited to these panels include Michael Bordo, Paul McCulley, Martín Redrado, José Darío Uribe, Martin Wolf and Roberto Zahler. Finally, Charles Calomiris will share with us his vision on the current crisis and the implications of the works presented in this conference. Two intense days that hold in store enormous technical content that, without any doubt, will make a fundamental contribution to our future view of macroeconomic and financial phenomena. I want to finish by thanking Rodrigo Alfaro, Dale Gray and Jorge Selaive for their work in putting together this conference. Also Mauricio Calani, Mónica Correa and Soledad Gallardo, and our Institutional Affairs Management for their help in organizing this event. I also want to thank the many authors and discussants of the papers for their dedication to preparing their valuable presentations. To all of you, dear participants, I wish you two days of fruitful discussion. Thank you. BIS Review 134/2008  3
With respect to borrowing, co-ordination is necessary in order to prevent separate Government agencies from competing with each other and ‘spoiling’ the market, especially in the early stages of its development, and to make possible the formulation of a properly diversified pattern of interest rates and maturities for the entire Government borrowing program.” Those Sections of the MLA that I referred to, and the relevant annotations in Exter’s Report, strongly suggest that the Central Bank should play a dynamic role in the formulation of fiscal policy, particularly in relation to a significant part of fiscal policy’s sphere of influence, namely that of borrowing and lending. In that context, it may be safely argued that, whilst the overwhelming responsibility for monetary policy has to be assumed by the Central Bank, a sizeable part of the responsibility in relation to fiscal policy is also cast upon the Central Bank. Fourth: Exter explains the unique position of the Governor, and the need for the Governor to be independent. This position is assured by the fact that the Governor is appointed for a 6 year term and cannot be removed from office, unless he has done any act, which in the opinion of the Governor General, (now, the President), is of a fraudulent or illegal character, or is against the interest of the Central Bank. Fifth: Exter discusses the limitations of the Central Bank: Once again, let me quote: “A central bank influences the economic life of a nation principally by monetary action.

There are now 14 Asian economies at investment grades, of which, nine are at or above the single A rating. At the same time, the supply side factors are also highly favourable. The huge financing needs of Asia will support a continuous expansion in bond issuance. According to the Asian Development Bank, Asia’ s infrastructure financing needs alone amounted to USD 8 trillion from 2010 to 2020. Equally important is the emergence of new and attractive bond asset classes. The two products that have caught most attention of global investors are the sukuks in Malaysia and the RMB dim sum bonds in Hong Kong. This is rightly so as these products connect the global market with the vast and increasingly prominent financial systems in the Islamic world and China. We have seen very encouraging development of the sukuk market in Malaysia, the symbol of Islamic financing. The amount of outstanding sukuks in Malaysia increased substantially from MYR 146 billion (USD 41.3 billion equivalent) at the end of 2006 to MYR 361 billion (USD 113.9 billion equivalent) at the end of 2011. Meanwhile, the growth of the RMB debt securities market has been phenomenal. In a short space of 5 years, the annual issuance amount lodged with the Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) in Hong Kong increased by 16 times from a modest amount of RMB 10 billion (USD 1.4 billion equivalent) in 2007 to RMB 172 billion (USD 27.3 billion equivalent) in 2011.
Economic hopes pinned on exports and consumption, do not appear to be resilient across Europe. The potential for further stimulus on the fiscal and the monetary front appears to be limited. On the one hand, the stability pact does not allow for further fiscal stimulus. On the other hand, the European Central Bank is unwilling to provide the same amount of monetary stimulus as its U.S. counterpart. The reason is simple. Inflationary pressures in the Eurozone continue to be a stumbling block for lower interest rates. The recent deterioration of the international business sentiment and the prolonged uncertainty witnessed in the financial markets has also influenced negatively the growth prospects in Switzerland. Our view at the beginning of 2002 was that economic growth for the current year would be moderate. Our GDP forecast was 1% growth for 2002. Other institutions were more optimistic. All in all, however, there was considerable agreement among forecasters that Swiss household consumption would register moderate but stable growth and that the economy would experience a recovery in the second half of this year. The recovery was to be underpinned by strong growth in exports. The economic information that stemmed from the first quarter of this year was consistent with the scenario just described. First quarter real GDP came in slightly stronger than expected. Although real GDP growth was only 0.6% in the first quarter, an important consideration was the upward dynamics after gloom had set in the second half of 2002. As anticipated, real growth was supported by private consumption.

Thus, our banknotes promote the historical and cultural heritage of our country and highlight the most powerful achievements of many prominent historical figures through centuries. I feel good when I see that the two first denominations of this series, 200 lek and 5000 lek, put in circulation since September 2019, are welcomed by the public, have met the expectations of the Bank, and already are gradually becoming a sustainable part of currency in circulation, by supporting the continuous strengthening the quality of banknotes in circulation, aimed at preserving their integrity, in relation with the public, and upholding a dignified image of both the Bank of Albania and the Albanian state. Today, nearly two years later following the launching and the successful issuance in circulation of the first two denominations, the Bank of Albania is launching the two other banknotes, part of the new series of the Albanian banknotes, the denominations: 1000 lek and 10000 lek. The latter is a completely new denomination in the series of the Albanian banknotes. The printing and issue into circulation for the first time of the new banknote with the largest value, 10000 lekë, represents in itself, the adoption of the banknotes’ structure to the evolution of the structure of prices and wages, the development the electronic payments, and of the other indicators related to the management of currency.