samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
For example, traders on the CCI-ILSTC have to rely on the multi-modal transport bill of lading or MTBL as proof of title as the goods are being carried on land, by rail, and over sea. However, the MTBL is currently not widely used as a negotiable document, unlike ordinary bills of lading which have clear legal status. This limits the access to trade financing facilities for importers and exporters using multimodal trade routes. We must step up efforts to enhance the acceptance of MTBLs amongst trade players in China and ASEAN. In fact, the MTBL will need to be recognised as a negotiable document, not only in its paper form but also its electronic form. Government agencies from Singapore are working with the Chongqing Port and Logistics Office to conduct a pilot to digitalise bills of lading, including the MTBL, using TradeTrust. TradeTrust is an interoperable framework to support the exchange of electronic documents. It uses distributed ledger technology to allow trade actors to establish the authenticity of a digital document. If we can scale the use of TradeTrust within the CCI-ILSTC, banks will be able to use these electronic documents for trade financing and we can effectively eliminate the risk of 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  fraudulent MTBLs. More broadly, the greater use of electronic trade documents will make verification checks easier, reduce the incidence of fraud and human error, and ultimately lower costs. But to achieve this, all stakeholders need to adopt digital tools and upgrade their trade practices.

In addition, the authorities should look into the possibility of supplementing the complex regulations with simpler and more robust indicators such as, for instance, more effective concentration limits and an upper limit for the indebtedness ratio. BIS Review 30/2008  1
Medium-term inflation expectations, forecasts, and models: nominal stuff In terms of the primary objective of delivering stable inflation, it has helped the UK to have a clear target. In contrast to many inflation-targetting countries 10 , we have a point target: 2% on the consumer price index. That leaves no room for debate in our (one person – one vote) committee about what the target is. And there should be no uncertainty amongst households, firms and participants in financial  4  Wicksell, K., 1898, ‘Interest and prices’, London , Macmillan, 1936. Translation of 1898 edition. 5  The classic reference, in the context of the relationship between money and inflation, is Friedman M., 1961, ‘The lag effect in monetary policy,’ Journal of Political Economy, vol. 69, no. 5. 6  For example, Svensson, L.E.O., 1997,’Inflation forecast targeting: Implementing and monitoring inflation targets’, European Economic Review, vol 41, issue 6. 7  See Batini N. & E. Nelson, ‘Optimal horizons for inflation targeting’, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, vol. 25, issue 6-7. 8  A recent example in relation to r* is Weber, A.A., 2006, ‘The role of interest rates in theory and practice – how useful is the concept of the natural real rate of interest for monetary policy?’, G.L.S. Shackle Memorial Lecture 2006, Cambridge. 9  ‘Remit for the Monetary Policy Committee’, letter from Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Hon. Gordon Brown, to Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, on 22 March 2006. Available at www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/pdf/chancellorletter060322.pdf.

These ABSs are in the balance sheets of non-banking financial entities (NBFEs) throughout the world, such as hedge funds agencies, or financial vehicles tied to banks, the latter particularly in Europe. Although the main global banks do not seem to be directly and significantly exposed to this component of mortgage loan risk in the US, they do have indirect exposures through credit lines or guarantees to NBFEs and in Europe they also have direct exposure to financial vehicles or conduits that they own. As these ABSs are illiquid, no direct information exists on their market value, which restricts the access to the market for NBFE trade securities that have – or are suspected to have – ABSs backed by sub-prime mortgage loans among their assets. This uncertainty has eroded insurance companies and pension funds’ appetite for buying NBFEs’ trade securities, which has substantially raised costs and reduced access to financing, hindering the renewal of their liabilities. Thus, the central point of this adjustment is located in the ABS-backed trade securities’ market and in NBFEs that have – or are suspected to have – large investments in ABSs backed by sub-prime mortgages. In addition, in face of the difficulties to renewing their traditional funding sources and investors’ redemption claims, occasionally these agencies or funds have been forced to make aggressive changes in their investing and financing strategies by selling off assets, using their commercial banking credit lines, raising capital contributions or resorting to sponsor banks’ guarantees.
The second goal is to achieve universal primary education. Sri Lanka has already made much progress in this regard. Promoting gender equality and empowering women is the third MDG. Sri Lanka has already eliminated gender disparity in both primary and junior secondary education, with the parity index being nearly 100 per cent in 2002. Goals 4 and 5 are to reduce child mortality and maternal mortality. The current trends indicate that Sri Lanka is on track to achieving child and maternal mortality goals. Other goals such as combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability are also amongst our priorities. The final goal, developing a global partnership for development is also being pursued diligently. We are aware that, our country is, by and large, on track on the achievement of most of the goals. However, there remain considerable challenges. The critical challenge is that one-fifth of Sri Lanka's population is still living below the national poverty line and we need to take proactive and practical measures in that regard. Mr. Chairman, at this stage, as a precursor to the wider discussion that will take place on tomorrow, I would like to share some thoughts on the subject in the Sri Lankan context. Where do we stand? Sri Lanka is now a lower middle income country with a per capita income of around US dollars 1,355.

Your own Chairman, Prof. A D V de Indraratne, chairs such Committee and we have benefited immensely from the insights and advice rendered by such Committee. In a similar manner, I am certain that the research findings that will be presented by you at the conclusion of this very timely conference, together with the professional views expressed at the technical sessions would help policymakers immensely to reshape their policy focus appropriately. In conclusion, let me emphasize our deep commitment to your theme by referring to our own Mission at the Central Bank. The Vision of the Central Bank is that of being a credible and dynamic Central Bank contributing to the prosperity of Sri Lanka. As set out in our Strategic Plan, the term prosperity has a wider connotation: i.e., the enhancement of the quality of life of people through sustainable wealth creation and inclusion of all segments of the society in enjoying the benefits of development. The Central Bank expects to facilitate this process by ensuring price stability and financial system stability while providing prudential and pro-active policy recommendations, as the Advisor to the Government on Economic Affairs. We have, so far, taken a pro-active stance in the delivery of prosperity and we are encouraging the key stakeholders in our country also, to implement the necessary strategies towards such end. We see the Sri Lanka Economic Association as being a key partner in the delivery of prosperity in our country and we commend you for your commitment and dedication.
In large part, and according to the analysis of the ratings agencies, these downgrades are due to the fact that as a country we have not yet taken the fiscal consolidation measures that our government and our parliament agreed were necessary to implement last year. It is a very costly delay as it raises the cost of financing of our public debt, it raises the cost of financing by private business, and it reduces employment and growth opportunities. There are things that can be done in order to reverse this. The policies that could reverse this deteriorating situation are well known, and they involve shoring up the long-term public finances of the Republic. So I repeat, all authorities must live up to their responsibilities. Q. Would you give me specific examples on how you believe the structural problems in the Cypriot economy can be addressed? We hear a lot about fiscal consolidation but what exactly should be done? I could mention a couple of the things that were already agreed by our parliament and government last year which unfortunately have not been implemented as of yet, with the associated damages from the delay. The most obvious I believe, because it has been repeatedly mentioned, is the sustainability of our pension system.

Our government has repeatedly over the past year stated that the current state of our pension system is, I quote, “a ticking time bomb which could destroy the Republic.” This is something that can be fixed by changing the parameters of the pension system going forward. Everybody recognises that these changes need to be made in order to ensure the sustainability of the system and the longer our country delays making these changes the more costly it will be to solve the problem. This is one example that is recognised. I do not think we have to look very far. In my view, it is not the most responsible policy not to defuse what has been recognised as a ticking time bomb. Q. How worried are you at the unfolding fiscal situation on the island and the inaction on the part of the authorities? I am indeed worried about our government’s delay in implementing the necessary fiscal consolidation measures because, as I mentioned earlier, any further delay raises the cost to the economy. The unemployment rate is already at historic highs. We do not help the economy generate additional growth and new jobs by not correcting the fiscal imbalances  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  that we face. The fiscal imbalances push up the cost of financing on businesses and discourage investment. I am quite worried about this. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches
Work is now underway in various international forums to develop a toolbox for macroprudential policy. So far, however, relatively few specialised macroprudential-policy tools have emerged. The tool that is probably attracting most attention at the moment consists of the countercyclical capital buffers that have been adopted within the framework of the Basel III Accord. The aims of these buffers are to make the banks more resilient and to dampen the cycles in credit growth and asset prices. The idea is that the authorities should force the banks to hold extra capital in good times, when lending is beginning to increase too quickly, in order to be able to reduce capital requirements later when times are not so good. This will make it more expensive for the banks to build up risks in good times at the same time as buffers are created that the banks can use in bad times when the risks materialise. However, this thus means that there must be a national authority that can decide when the countercyclical buffers should be turned on and off. The tools that can be characterised as “specialised” macroprudential-policy tools also include capital requirement surcharges for systemically-important financial institutions. Apart from this, most of the tools that can be considered for macroprudential policy are those that in one way or another are already included in financial supervision’s toolbox. These include, for example, the so-called mortgage cap, although this is usually justified in terms of consumer protection.

On the other hand, a tighter hold on the reins during the good years preceding the crisis would have increased resilience and provided more room for manoeuvre to manage the crisis when it did occur. It would then have been possible to manage the crisis within a couple of years and we wouldn’t still have to be dealing with it today. My conclusion is that well-balanced monetary and fiscal policies offer the best possible chances of preventing financial crises, but essentially other measures are needed. We need tools that are specially designed for working with the stability of the financial system. Macroprudential policy – a new policy area Traditionally, financial supervision has had a rather one-sided focus on the health of individual financial institutions. In practice this has also been the case in Sweden, although formally Finansinspektionen has the task of working for a stable and efficient financial system alongside its consumer-protection tasks. However, the fact that individual parts of the financial system appear to be healthy does not mean that they are immune to contagion from other parts of the system. The institutions have exposures to one another and it is sometimes unclear who is exposed to what risks. When an individual institution experiences problems, this may then have serious repercussions for the financial system and, ultimately, the real economy. However, traditional supervision has not sufficiently taken into account the risk of financial problems becoming contagious. Monitoring those risks is also a rather different process to monitoring the risks in an individual institution.
3000 per annum, the minimum income necessary to buy the required daily calorie level of 2250 per adult in terms of the price levels in 1989. In order to bring about a gender balance in sharing economic prosperity, the project envisaged to have, out of the total beneficiaries, at least 40% as women beneficiaries. The project was to be closed at end-1997, but the project agreement provided for its continuation for further 20 years by recycling the loan repayments so that the project objectives could be continued to be realised on a long term basis. The Project was a partnership among a number of stakeholders: government, banks, donors, community based organisations and beneficiaries. The project adopted a modified group lending mechanism with credit plus approach for delivering its services to the target beneficiaries, selected under a self-selection process by getting the target individuals to select their own group partners from among people of similar conditions. As such, individuals in elitist groups were kept out from becoming beneficiaries of the project, since they did not have incentives to move along with the poorest of the poor. This system ruled out political, bureaucratic or elitist intervention in the selection process and thereby ensured that only the deserving groups were mobilised to receive project benefits. By using a trained field officer network that functioned as change agents, the self selected beneficiaries were taken through a mandatory savings inculcation scheme and a social mobilisation cum leadership development programme.

In addition to this growth limitation, there is a capacity limitation too affecting the growth in the agricultural sector. Two main inputs used in agriculture, viz., cultivable land and water, are in short supply inhibiting an effective limitation on its growth. Further, agriculture in  7  Ibid, p 56. 8  For instance, in Sri Lanka, slightly more than a half of the national income is earned by people living in three main districts that make up the more lucrative Western Province. See, Economic and Social Statistics of Sri Lanka 2007 Table 41. 9  For instance, Ten-yea Horizon Development Framework 2006-16 has enunciated the vision, inter alia, of transforming traditional subsistence agriculture to a commercially oriented and productive sector. See, Annual Report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2006, p 17. 10  Lanka Business Online, provider of an internet based business and economic analyses, has reported results of a survey on the job preferences of the youth in two remote villages off Anuradhapura where none of the youth have selected agriculture as their future job preference. Visit www.lbo.com. 11  World Bank, Global Economic Prospects 2007, pp 81-3. 12  Sri Lanka’s case in this context is more disappointing with only an annual average growth rate of 1.1% during 1990-2005. See, World Development Report 2007. BIS Review 22/2008  3  certain areas such as the Western Province has now become commercially unviable on account of ever falling yield levels and rising costs of production 13 .
If we now add and subtract expectations about the general rise in prices in the economy, we are left with the following four variables that have a bearing on user costs: house prices, longterm real interest rates, capital depreciation and expected real rise in house prices.5  3  As did, for example, Knut Anton Mork, chief economist in Handelsbanken Norge, in the Norwegian financial daily Finansavisen on 25 August. 4  See for example Lebow, David E. and Jeremy B. Rudd (2003): “Measurement Error in the Consumer Price Index: Where Do We Stand?” Journal of Economic Literature, vol. XLI, pages 159-201, or Boskin, Michael J., Ellen R. Dulberger, Robert J. Gordon, Zvi Griliches og Dale Jorgenson (1996): “Toward A More Accurate Measure Of The Cost Of Living.” Final report to the Senate Finance Committee, Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index, 4 December 1996 or Gordon, R. J. (2005): Apparel price 1914-93 and the Hulten/Brueghel paradox, NBER Working Paper 11548. 5  For purposes of simplification, capital gains tax of 28 per cent is disregarded. Interest rate expenses are tax deductible, while capital gains on the sale of a dwelling are not liable to tax if the dwelling has been owned for more than 12 months and the dwelling has been occupied by the owner for at least 12 of the 24 months prior to sale. Any losses are tax deductible only if any capital gains are liable to tax.

In a world of low growth, the political rhetoric in some major economies has tended to focus more on the costs and less on the benefits. That is unfortunate, because given the current circumstances of the global economy, it is likely that we need deeper and fairer integration. For emerging economies in Asia and Latin America, the question for us is whether deeper economic and financial integration offers a feasible path towards unlocking sustainable growth of our economies? How do we mitigate the costs and maximise the benefits? The World Bank theme paper for this conference provides a useful starting point for thinking about these issues. I will leave it to the learned speakers today to ponder on that. I will just briefly share my perspective on this issue with respect to ASEAN and Malaysia. Asian regional economic and financial integration The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025 contains ASEAN’s vision of regional economic and financial integration over the next 10 years. When it came to formulating the 2025 Blueprint, the issue of the nature of integration has always been central. The fundamental challenge remains on how to use regional integration to leverage on ASEAN’s diversity in terms of economic size and structure, income levels, resource endowments and stage of financial sector development. Here, in the interest of time, l will just focus on ASEAN financial integration. I remember that soon after the Asian Financial Crisis, there was a lot of interest in looking at the European model of a single currency.
Jean-Pierre Danthine: Monetary policy is not almighty Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Danthine, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Journée Solutions Bancaires, Geneva, 31 May 2012. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure for me to be here with you all today. At the outset, please allow me to thank the organisers at Unicore for having invited me to speak at the 14th Journée Solutions Bancaires to be held here in Geneva. Today, I will reflect on what monetary policy can and cannot do. I would like to emphasise where central banks’ powers and responsibilities end and where those of fiscal policy and the private sector begin. “Why is he focusing on this now?” I hear you ask. “We are in the midst of a crisis. Shouldn’t he be emphasising what central banks can do, instead of what they cannot?” My answer to you is this: while the monetary policy measures taken in recent years have had a stabilising effect, today, monetary policy has acquired a degree of prominence that could lead to its powers and its reach being overestimated. Central banks are far from almighty and, in efforts to emphasise this, I will review the various policy options at the zero lower bound and the risks associated with the measures currently in place. I will first examine the issue in universal terms, before concentrating on the very unusual case of Switzerland.

The scale of central bank intervention has been significant, as indicated by the combined balance sheets of central banks in the US, the UK, the euro area, Japan, China and Switzerland, for example. The total now amounts to some USD14 trillion (slide 4), i.e. over 30% of GDP in these currency areas. These exceptional monetary policy measures do, indeed, appear to have exerted downward pressure on interest rates, thus sustaining the real economy in the spirit of the IS/LM model. What are the risks associated with these policies? Despite these positive (short-term) effects, I would first like to argue that the general message of the IS-LM diagram has not been invalidated by recent central bank actions. That is to say, when interest rates are close to zero, it is most appropriate to resort to fiscal policy and monetary policy becomes less effective. Moreover, the current policy-mix can entail risks, to which I would now like to draw your attention. My greatest concern is that the general public could come to overestimate the impact of central banks’ actions and the suitability of their intervention in each and every  1  For a discussion of the impact of fiscal measures in Switzerland between 2008 and 2010, see, “Die Konjunkturmassnahmen des Bundes 2008–2010: Evaluation der Konzeption und Umsetzung der Stabilisierungsmassnahmen,” Swiss Federal Audit Office, May 2012. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  economic situation that is deemed “unsatisfactory”. This could result in central banks being perceived as all-powerful, though such expectations are far from realistic.