samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Given this definition, measuring volunteering activity is likely to be a tricky business. Would you know how many hours you had spent over the past year helping your neighbours? Those London commuters might know – a roundish number? – but the rest of the UK population is unlikely to keep score. Household surveys can help. In the UK, the Community Life Survey and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) ask respondents about the nature and scale of their volunteering activities. Although far from perfect, they enable us to build up a good overall picture of the volunteering sector. And what a picture they paint. First, the volunteer army in the UK is huge. Figure 4 illustrates the extent of participation in voluntary activities in 2012, based on the Community Life Survey. Around 44% of respondents had done some form of formal voluntary work over the previous 12 months and 29% volunteer formally at least once a month. This means around 15 million people in the UK volunteer “frequently”. Looking at hours worked, this equates to just over 2 billion hours per year spent formally volunteering. To give you some context, that is just under one hour per week for every person over 16 in the UK. It is 5% of the total hours worked in the UK by paid employees. It is equivalent to 1.25 million full-time equivalents (FTEs), or double the number of paid FTEs in the voluntary sector.

If randomly selected individuals are made happier – for example, by having their TVs removed on a Saturday evening – they are approximately 12% more productive. Since we know volunteering has a significant impact on an individual’s well-being, it is a short step to think it is also productivity-enhancing. 17  This figure is calculated as the estimated impact on well-being from volunteering £ x the number of volunteers in the UK (15m) = £  18  Casiday et al (2008). 19  For further details see http://neweconomymanchester.com/stories/832-unit_cost_database  20  For further details see Volunteering England: http://www.volunteering.org.uk/who-we-can-help/employers/thebusiness-case-for-esv  21  Estrada et al (1997), Wright and Staw (1999), Diener et al (2005). 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  That, too, is consistent with PBE’s experience. Employers of the economists used by PBE as volunteers have often given fed back that this has enhanced their motivation and skills. And it is worth just putting in context how big a potential benefit that could be. If the UK’s 15 million volunteers were each 5% more productive, that would deliver a boost to national income of £ billion each year. 22 Once you tot up the private benefits of volunteering – well-being, health, skills – something quite striking becomes apparent. The benefits to volunteering might be as large, if not larger, for volunteers themselves as for recipients. In other words, in giving we really do receive – possibly as much as we give!
At the same time, it is also an effective instrument used by corporations, institutions and sovereigns in tapping funds at competitive rates to finance long term funding needs. At this juncture, the demand for sukuk is tremendous. The high demand for the sukuk instrument is evidenced by the over subscription which has ranged from two to thirteen times. This has pushed down the cost of issuance by at least 10 to 20 basis points. 2  BIS Review 6/2008  This demand has originated from several different parts of the world, both from conventional as well as Islamic financial investors. Due to the scarcity of sukuk issuance, the investors have tended to hold the sukuk for investment thereby reducing the secondary activity in the market. Thus, has resulted in a higher pricing in the sukuk secondary market thereby generating good investment returns for investors. The sukuk thus offers a positive value proposition for both issuers and investors. Let me turn to Malaysia's experience in Islamic finance. Malaysia has had three decades of experience in which we have developed a comprehensive Islamic financial system that operates in parallel to the conventional system. The supporting legal framework includes a dedicated legislation that takes into account the unique principles of Islamic contracts. The legal infrastructure also includes the court system and arbitration mechanism to resolve disputes to ensure that contracts relating to Islamic financial transactions are effectively enforced.

The primary criteria of the AMA could be summarized as falling into three broad areas: first, the development of strong corporate operational risk governance and management structures - structures that include business line integration into a firm-wide process; second, the incorporation of qualitative factors such as control self-assessments into the overall capital measurement process; and finally, loss data quantification, which includes scenario analysis. Our review of those major U.S. banks that intend to adopt the AMA indicates they are clearly in various stages of preparation. However, most of these institutions already have in place, or are well along towards establishing, a corporate level operational risk management function, with firm-wide policies for managing and assessing this risk. Moreover, many firms already have in place good, and improving, firm-wide control self-assessment methodologies. Finally, an increasing number of banks are now turning their attention to collecting internal loss data in a consistent manner across the firm. Some have already been collecting such data for a year or two and some have been particularly effective at mining their existing historical loss experience for certain risk types. A few leading institutions have made real progress in pulling all this together - by piloting operational risk quantification methodologies that combine the quantitative and qualitative elements of the AMA into an overall economic capital assessment for operational risk.
However, the task is complex and banking supervision in itself is too important to present solutions under time pressure that will not work in practice. We should therefore take the time it takes to get it right. Financial stability and monetary policy Having reviewed the additional tasks that central banks are asked to take over, a question regards the implications for the practice of monetary policy. I will hence explain in the following how the two responsibilities will complement each other. The crisis has clearly demonstrated how essential financial stability is for the effective conduct of monetary policy. Financial market developments have always been an integral part of our monetary policy considerations and have influenced the design of our non-standard measures. Nonetheless, in my view and looking forward, monetary analysis and financial market analysis should play an even greater role for the conduct of monetary policy – particularly with regard to financial imbalances and financial fragilities. Here I would see three main areas in which further work is needed to incorporate the lessons from the crisis. First, we are faced with the fact that the smooth functioning of the financial sector is key for macroeconomic outcomes and monetary policy transmission. We saw that adverse financial conditions can have strong and impairing effects on the effectiveness of monetary policy. Academia and central banks have already taken up this research agenda and  BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  macroeconomic models and monetary policy assessments are refined in that regard.

As part of the Financing Union, completing the Banking Union Allow me now to dwell for a moment on the third area of progress, which is also my third concentric circle: completing the Banking Union. The Banking Union is a major step forward for the euro area and is now operational, based on the single rulebook and – already – two pillars: the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) since end-2014; and the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) since the beginning of 2016. Those two pillars will have to be complemented by a third pillar: Deposit Insurance, where we could find practical and reasonable compromises. But there are two additional challenges that are less often mentioned: consistency, and consolidations. The first challenge in order to complete the Banking Union is to achieve better consistency between regulation, supervision and resolution, at three levels: First, in the concrete mechanisms: finalising and simplifying the resolution pillar should be a priority. The case of the Italian banks has illustrated just how complex it is to combine the resolution regime laid down in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) with the State aid framework for orderly liquidation. In addition, confidence in the Single Resolution Fund (SRF) and its capacity to intervene has to be bolstered. The setting-up of a common backstop, as mentioned in the European Commission’s communication of 11 October, is a promising avenue, which could take the form of a credit line granted by the ESM.
As such, FSB reforms would amount to little if they did not represent the best collective judgement of our members on how to deliver efficient resilience. But because they are the product of the authority, expertise and shared objectives of its members, the FSB reforms create the foundations for an open, global financial system. We now have agreed common minimum standards that are being consistently and transparently implemented. The playing field for cross border activities is being levelled. Opportunities for regulatory arbitrage are being reduced. In short, a platform is being created for deference to each other’s approaches when they achieve similar outcomes. To seize this opportunity and to build responsible financial globalisation, authorities also need to share relevant information and work together to manage cross border challenges to financial stability. 9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  9  The FSB and Basel Committee have developed a number of information sharing guidelines to help foster trust and cooperation between international regulators. These include supervisory colleges and crisis management groups. One of the most critical elements of supervisory cooperation is understanding how each other will behave when things go wrong. In this regard, operationalising new “gone concern” regimes is critical. Best practice is captured by the FSB’s Key Attributes and involves resolvability assessments and regular crisis management group meetings for systemic firms.

Of course, since new forms of shadow banking activities are certain to develop in the future, FSB members will continue to monitor for emerging risks, and share data and analysis in order to support any future regulatory response. 9 The data refer to the UK, the US and the Euro Area, as of June 2009 (see Bank of England Financial Stability Report, June 2009). 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  5  These include reforms to secure the tools and powers authorities need to deal decisively with failing banks. At the same time, major banks are required to make themselves easier to resolve, including by writing ‘living wills’. Most importantly, global standards now require that banks hold sufficient debt in life such that, in the event one fails, its successor can be recapitalised to support the continued operation of its most important activities. The combination of these initiatives and the determination of authorities to complete the job explains why the too-big-to-fail public subsidy for private systemic banks has fallen by 90% in the UK. Put simply, a decade on, market discipline is coming back. The system is also fairer because we are addressing the root causes of misconduct. In the wake of the crisis, a series of scandals ranging from mis-selling to manipulation undermined trust in banking, the financial system and to a degree markets themselves. The economic consequences have been enormous.
Again, a simple thought experiment is illustrative: counterparty credit risk, unanticipated margin call and the scale of margin related liquidity flows around the system would have been greater and destabilising had the pandemic struck ten years ago. So if the banking and derivatives markets reforms operated broadly as intended can we conclude that the financial system as whole has – so far – functioned well and proved resilient in the current crisis? Here the judgement is more difficult. We have not seen systemic bank failures, credit crunches or ballooning counterparty credit risks. But we have seen a massive liquidity shock and incipient dysfunction in core financial markets that required central bank intervention on an unprecedented scale. 11  Ben Bernanke has pointed out that panics can be a major cause of credit crunches. Reforms that avoid such panic reduce the likelihood that financial stress transmits to real economy stress. 9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  9  It is arguable, as I noted at the outset, that the extreme liquidity shock was simply a function of the scale of the economic impact of the COVID crisis, and the central bank response a necessary and unavoidable consequence of a tail event. Supported by central bank intervention, markets have certainly stabilised.12 Indeed, some seem to have fully recovered their pre-crisis levels. I would reiterate, however, that the crisis is far from over and further negative COVID19 developments could cause financial instability to return.

In contrast, the UK banking system has, I have noted, so far been able to absorb the initial surge in demand for credit from firms6 and extend payment holidays to households. The FPC stress test indicates that banks have the resilience to continue to maintain credit to the real economy. Admittedly, given the risk around economic prospects and the impact on firms, much of the additional lending that is necessary needs to be supported by government guarantee. But we would be dealing with a very different credit environment now absent the resilience – both capital and liquidity – that has resulted from the post crisis reforms. The FPC stress test also illustrates one of the key lessons of the great financial crisis, that if banks have resilience and can use it to help to maintain credit in the real economy in a stress rather than deleveraging, the outcome is in the end better for banks themselves. The capital they might preserve by deleveraging is 4  Since the 2008/09 financial crisis, the Bank has increased the range of collateral it accepts, which now extends to loans and a wide range of securities. 5 To take a very simplified example: the aggregate CET 1 ratio of major UK banks was around 4.5% in 2007 (compared to over 14% now). A 3.8 percentage point capital drawdown (the drawdown we expect banks to face in the MPC’s illustrative scenario) would have depleted a very significant fraction of the capital banks had available.
9 / 17  BIS central bankers' speeches  First, we should not grow despondent over our slowing rate of economic growth. The empirical experience of countries over time shows a negative relationship between level of income and the growth of income. It is not a perfect negative relationship as you can see from the scatter but it suggests that countries with low levels of GDP per capita tend to have higher rates of GDP growth. This is called “catch-up” in the literature. Meanwhile, countries with higher levels of GDP per capita tend to grow at slower rates as they are more mature. Singapore is a mature economy as you can see: it has one of the highest levels of per capita income in the world. We will not be able to sustain the 6-7% rates of growth that were seen a decade ago. And there’s nothing to be unhappy about this. In fact, our position above the downward sloping line in the slide shows that we have managed to grow faster in recent years than countries with similar levels of per capita income. 10 / 17  BIS central bankers' speeches  But while we must accept a lower rate of growth than before, as a global city, we cannot afford to grow too slowly either. It seems many leading global cities grow at rates between 2.5-3.5%, faster than the national average of the countries they are a part of.

Ravi Menon: Economic dynamism amidst demographic change Transcript of remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the IPS Singapore Perspectives 2018, Singapore, 22 January 2018. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I want to first thank IPS for the opportunity to share my thoughts with this large audience. I would also like to commend IPS for convening a conference on what is an important, existential topic: the implications of demographic change. I will focus my presentation on the economic implications of demographic change: what it means for economic growth and economic dynamism. The two are different. My presentation will centre around two broad themes. First, I will describe our demographic trilemma – the constraints and the choices we need to make. Second, I would like to argue that demographics is not destiny – why economic dynamism is not a numbers game and how we can remain dynamic amidst this demographic challenge. 1 / 17  BIS central bankers' speeches  Let’s start with the total fertility rate, or TFR. By the way, we must be one of the few countries in the world where most people know what TFR stands for! It is indeed an existential issue for us. The TFR is the starting point of all demographic analysis. Singapore has had a sustained decline in its TFR. Our TFR fell from around 1.8 in the 1980s (which is already below the replacement level of 2.1) to about 1.3 in the early 2000s.
To accompany this new language, Berners-Lee created some new co-ordinates for this global web – Universal Resource Identifiers, the most well-known of which is the URL (Uniform Resource Locator). These were a unique character string for identifying web locations. With a common language, common locators and an agreed syntax, the stage was set for the web to spread (as Berners-Lee had originally envisioned) worldwide. At first progress was slow. In June 1993, there were still only 130 websites. But as web browsers became available for home use, the web began to spread exponentially. By 1996, over 15 million users were surfing 100,000 websites. Today, 7 million web sites and around the same number of users are added each week, with over 2 billion web users in almost every country in the world. A common language has been the linchpin. Like all good languages, HTML has had to adapt to these changing demands, with Version 5 currently under development. Since 1994, the evolution and the maintenance of web standards have been overseen by a global organisation – the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C, like GS1, is a not-for-profit organisation, with 346 members drawn from across the globe.9  Measuring the benefits of a common language So taking these two examples, what benefits has a common language been able to deliver? (a)  Improving risk management in firms  Gobal companies face a hugely complex logistical problem. They manage multiple products, in multiple locations, with multiple suppliers operating to multiple time-lines.

Digital publishing and distribution has fundamentally changed this market. Both the books and the shelves are now electronic. Authors can now format books for e-readers in a couple of hours. Sales platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct give access to a worldwide audience with essentially no upfront costs. Supply can close to perfectly match demand as the marginal cost of creating and delivering an eBook is effectively zero. This digital revolution has caused barriers to entry to plummet while simultaneously raising returns to author entry: they now receive as much as 85% of the royalties from an eBook, compared to as little as 10% from a physical book. Previously unpublished authors now sell millions of books. The incumbent middle men – book publishers, distributors and retailers – have found their lunch devoured in one sitting. In effect, they have been disintermediated by technology and (in a delicious irony) a common language. This pattern has been replicated in the music industry. For half a century or more, the music supply chain was unchanged. New acts were discovered by large record labels who distributed physical goods (vinyl, tapes or CDs) to retailers for sale to the public. Over the past decade, the costs of copying and distributing music have fallen to close to zero. As in publishing, barriers to new artist entry have plummeted. The middle-men – music production companies and distributors – have seen their piece of the pie eaten. And as a direct result of this industrial transformation, the pie itself appears to have grown.
In addition, the social partners have concluded agreements in different areas on various types of collective pension schemes, many of which are based on funds. It is no coincidence that pensions are in focus when this type of fund is built up. In some way or another, systems must be created so that people have financial resources for their whole life. And this means that the perspective is very long-term. Neither is it so strange that the Norwegian oil fund is actually called Statens pensjonsfond utland (The State’s pension fund abroad). A century of collective pension wealth in Sweden How much funded collective pension wealth has then been built up in Sweden? What share of the wealth in Sweden is in collective pension funds? Figure 1 answers these questions. Figure 1. Funded collective pension wealth as a share of total wealth in Sweden, 1920-2019, per cent. 30 25 20  15 10 5 0 1920  1930  1940  1950  1960  1970  1980  1990  2000  2010  2020  Source: Swedish National Wealth Database, 1810-2019. See also Waldenström (2016) and (2017). Note: Total wealth is the sum of financial and real assets, with a deduction for financial liabilities, and funded collective pension wealth. 1 Ore and forest are natural resources that have been and still are of major importance in Sweden. But extensive  investment has been required to be able to benefit from these natural resources. Norwegian oil is a “windfall gain” in a completely different way.

SPEECH DATE:  12/04/21  SPEAKER:  Deputy Governor Henry Ohlsson  VENUE:  LO  SVERIGES RIKSBANK SE-103 37 Stockholm (Brunkebergstorg 11) Tel +46 8 787 00 00 Fax +46 8 21 05 31 registratorn@riksbank.se www.riksbank.se  Hidden wealth* Expansionary monetary policy causes asset prices to rise and thereby makes those who own assets wealthier. But this wealth is unevenly distributed among households, and therefore the income from it (capital income) will also be unevenly distributed. Expansionary monetary policy can thus lead to more uneven capital income. At the same time, unemployment decreases when monetary policy is expansionary. This makes labour income more even than it otherwise would have been. As the effects on capital income and labour income counteract each other, it is unclear what effect the expansionary policy has on income distribution in total. But this does not stop higher asset prices leading to more uneven wealth distribution. In this speech, I will highlight a phenomenon that can mitigate this effect. I will start with an example that illustrates what I mean by hidden wealth. The Norwegian oil fund is one of the world’s largest funds. In 2019, the value of the fund was 285 per cent of Norway’s nominal GDP. Norway's revenue from oil operations are added to the fund and the assets are then invested abroad. The nominal return has been a good 6 per cent a year on average since the fund started in 1996. Every year, the Norwegian state may utilise the fund’s average real return.