samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It has to be said at the outset that some of the pressures businesses are facing are the result of longrun structural change affecting the global economy. The spread of international free trade under the auspices of the WTO is undoubtedly a positive development for all of us at the macro-economic level, but it is an added challenge to existing producers at the micro-economic level, and this country is not alone in re-sourcing supplies to some of the transition economies in Eastern Europe or to emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere. Nor can we - or should we seek to - avoid the impact of technological change. But there are two main reasons for the particular pressures recently affecting the internationally exposed sectors of our economy: the synchronised economic slow down over the past year or so in all major industrial countries, on the one hand; and the puzzling and persistent weakness of the euro in foreign exchange markets not just against sterling but even more against the dollar, on the other. It is a striking fact that world trade in goods, which has grown at an average rate of around 7% since 1990, and grew by over 12% in the year 2000 alone, hardly grew at all last year! What that has meant for the UK manufacturing sector is that output in the year to January (the latest month for which we have internationally comparable data) fell by around 6%, and employment in manufacturing fell by 165,000 people, or by some 4%.

Such fluid arrangements are also being leveraged to build internal capacity building and support transition. A survey conducted by Capgemini reported that more than 60% of businesses fill new jobs powered by AI and automation with fluid workers first, then gradually seek to transfer knowledge from these specialists to other full-time employees in the organisation. These strategies will have important implications for how we build the future workforce from without rather than within. Such strategies can create greater flexibility for organisations to respond to changing business needs, but they also call for a fundamental re-thinking of pre-existing organisational and cultural norms. As we move forward, deepening employee engagements will become more important to enable firms to better anticipate shifting trends and inform approaches to building a future-fit workforce. It is not uncommon today to find up to four different generations coexisting in many workplaces, each with different perspectives on leadership, learning and workplace culture. Recognising these differences within talent strategies will be important to successfully cultivate a future-ready workforce. Closing message: In closing, I am reminded of the words of Mr. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State who said: "One of the greatest talents of all, is the talent to recognise and develop talent in others". This lies at the heart of building a workforce fit for the future. We all have a part to play – as employers, professional development bodies, training providers and workers – to build a resilient and sustainable talent pipeline for the future.
The basic principle of the free movement of capital goes back to the Treaty of Rome 5 and has enjoyed the same status as the other fundamental freedoms since the Maastricht Treaty. I think it is time that we consider what regulatory and institutional adjustments have become necessary since then so that we can take full advantage of the single capital market. Turning first to the regulatory dimension, let’s stick with our example of the entrepreneur in Osnabrück. If his company wishes to issue a bond in the Netherlands, it will agree with the investor whether the transaction is to be carried out under German or Dutch law. This initially sounds like a relatively simple way to conduct cross-border financial transactions despite divergent national legislation. However, financial transactions are often far more complex than that. There might be an entire chain of financial intermediaries, meaning that it is not clear for the final buyer what his/her legal claims and property rights are. The account holder’s legal position from the moment a security is posted to his/her account varies substantially. In some countries, the account holder has full and undivided ownership. In other countries, he/she has an “inferior” legal position, i.e. he/she holds an indirect interest in a property or just a claim against the account provider. At the turn of this century, a group of financial market experts, led by Alberto Giovannini, developed a number of suggestions as to how greater harmonisation in the EU financial markets could be achieved.

Yves Mersch: Advancing Monetary Union Speech by Mr Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Euro Exhibition, Osnabrück, 25 January 2015. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, Euro banknotes and coins are not just a means of payment. The bridges and arches on our banknotes are a symbol of European integration. They stand for the fact that there is a lot which connects us within the Monetary Union, and that our once so divided continent has succeeded in overcoming these deep divisions, as the crisis has recently shown. Our common currency also therefore stands for shared values. “Stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities” have been some of the accession criteria for membership of the EU since the European Council in Copenhagen in June 1993; “Membership presupposes the candidate’s ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.” 1 The recently published legal opinion of the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice in the case of Peter Gauweiler and the Die Linke party against the ECB on the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme also refers to these constitution-like shared legal values. This “constitutional compact” underlies European integration and includes the German constitutional principle of constitutional identity review – it does not exclude it.
I will then broaden my perspective and turn to the question on the role of finance for economic growth more generally. So let me briefly discuss how we reached the point where we stand. Following the November 2008 meeting in Sao Paulo, the G20 meetings in Washington in the same month, in London in spring 2009 and finally in Pittsburgh in autumn 2009 led to an agenda for putting financial regulation on better footing. Already the declaration of the Washington Summit established the major principles that should henceforth guide the reform of financial markets: first, strengthening transparency and accountability; second, enhancing sound regulation; third, promoting integrity in financial markets; fourth, reinforcing international cooperation; fifth, reforming international financial institutions. As for the call for better regulation, the declaration pledged “to strengthen our regulatory regimes, prudential oversight, and risk management, and ensure that all financial markets, products and participants are regulated or subject to oversight, as appropriate to their circumstances.” The G20 Leaders’ Statement of Pittsburgh in 2009 foresaw “strict and precise timetables” for the implementation of the reforms. However, after the initial impetus following the impression of the climax of the financial crisis, the steps to reform have been frequently criticized to have lost momentum. In fact, the Financial Stability Board has put in place a framework to monitor the progress on implementing the G20 financial reforms. This shows that for some of the  1  See http://www.g20.org/index.aspx for the G20 statements.

For Kabwe Municipal Council, the main accountability and responsibility will be to maintain and preserve the tree and its surroundings to ensure that the area is well protected and cleaned. The Bank has also worked closely with Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) who have kindly facilitated the provision of power to enable us light the MUKUYU TREE on a continuous basis. We have also worked closely with the National Heritage Conservation Commission whose input has been invaluable in providing insight into the history and status of the MUKUYU TREE as a national heritage site. On behalf of the Bank of Zambia Board of Directors, senior management and staff and indeed on my own behalf I wish to thank all our partners for the good cooperation and oneness of vision that has culminated in the commemoration and re-launch of the MUKUYU TREE today. Distinguished Guests Before I conclude my speech, I wish to pose a challenge to the general members of the public and in particular to the people invited to grace this occasion today. The MUKUYU TREE has been identified and depicted as a national monument under the Laws of Zambia. By this assignment the tree belongs to all ZAMBIANS, young and old alike. My challenge to you all is to cherish it and preserve it.
‘Crypto’ was born in unregulated space: indeed, part of the objectives of its early developers was to create a financial system outside regulation. While not yet of systemic scale, the crypto ecosystem has grown very rapidly in recent years and broadened to encompass a range of financial services. The experience of the past year has demonstrated that it is not a stable ecosystem. Part of this is because, its foundation is completely unbacked instruments of extreme volatility that can swing wildly in value. But part is also because the crypto institutions at the centre of the much of the system exist in largely unregulated space and are very prone to the risks that regulation in the conventional financial sector is designed to avoid. It is in part for this reason that, since September, the FCA has warned publically on FTX that “this firm may be providing financial services or products in the UK without our authorisation… you are unlikely to get your money back if things go wrong”[3]. Some, of course, would argue that the answer is not proper regulation of the risks in centralised crypto platforms, like FTX, but rather the development of decentralised finance in which functions like lending, trading, clearing etc. take place through software protocols built on the permissionless blockchain. In such a world, it is effectively the ‘code’ that manages the risks rather than intermediaries. And indeed, there is some tentative and limited evidence that the failure of FTX has stimulated some transfer of activity to decentralised platforms.

The FPC made clear last year that to deliver that regulatory outcome “regulatory safeguards will be needed for a non-bank systemic stablecoin to ensure that the coin issuance is fully backed with high quality and liquid assets, alongside loss absorbing capital as necessary, to compensate coinholders in the event that the stablecoin fails”[9]. It also made clear that in the absence of deposit protection for coinholders, other elements of the regime would need to be strengthened to deliver the necessary level of assurance. The consultation will set out in more detail how the coinholders’ claims on the stablecoin issuer and wallets should be structured to deliver redemption at par in line with commercial bank money, how the backing assets should need to be managed to ensure they are always available to meet redemptions and, more generally the requirements for corporate structure, governance, accountability and transparency necessary to meet the standards we expect in other parts of the financial system that carry out the same functions. The FTX example underlines how important these aspects are. The legislation covers the use of crypto technologies for the payments function. The Treasury intends to consult in the near future on extending the investor protection, market integrity and other regulatory frameworks that cover the promotion and trading of financial products to activities and entities involving crypto assets. At present, in the UK, it is, to a large extent, only the anti-monetary laundering regulatory framework which applies to these activities and entities.
The supply might come from lifeinsurance companies, who benefit from increased longevity to the extent that fewer early deaths mean lower claims, and financial intermediaries collecting the savings of those younger investors prepared to bear some of the longevity risk of the old.24 How close private markets can get to providing the optimal amount of risk sharing is hard to say. Private annuity markets which could pool individual longevity risk are small. For collective longevity risks, the burden of unexpectedly high longevity for a particular cohort should be spread over as many generations as possible. In theory, this provides a potential role for government to share risks across generations. 18  Fanny Dashwood is claiming that annuities lead to “moral hazard” to use the modern jargon: the provision of an annuity changes behaviour in a way that increases life expectancy. 19  See Yaari (1965) and Davidoff et al. (2003). For a discussion of pension arrangements in the US see Diamond (2003, 2004). 20  For a theoretical study of annuity provision under adverse selection, see Brugiavini (1993). 21  Finkelstein and Poterba (2004), for instance, note that 65 year old men who voluntarily buy annuities live about 20 percent longer than other men. Pauly and Zeng (2003) found that in the United States adverse selection made it impossible for a private market in prescription drug insurance to function.

We therefore aim to agree a glide path to the new level, which, depending on circumstances at the time, could involve a multi-year transition period of incremental increases. But let me emphasise one perhaps rather obvious but nevertheless vitally important aspect of this – that a clear path to profitability (whilst meeting full capital requirements) is a necessary condition for success in this part of the climb. Two other points are worth emphasising here. The two factors that invariably provide a harness to firms that are successful in climbing the competitive and regulatory mountain are the quality of their governance and the strength of their relationship with the PRA. Our expectations of boards are high – and rightly so. Good, proactive governance is key to delivering a sound and well-run business. And, I should note, the opposite is often a leading indicator of a firm in trouble, and the root-cause of firm failure. In addition, just as mountain guides require an increasingly diverse set of skills as they ascend the varied terrain of the mountain, so too does the board. This means the board composition will invariably have to change as the firm grows, not only to become predominantly independent but also to ensure sufficient diversity of specialisms to support the executive and hold it to account. Relationships with the PRA need to be open, honest and constructive too. And for local entities of international groups, this is true not only for the local entity but for our relationship with the group and home state supervisor.
Empirical evidence based on the Phillips curve, which I shall discuss in greater depth in a minute, confirms that inflation in the euro area is less reactive to the 6 degree of resource use than it is in the United States. The euro area’s greater inflexibility in price formation has an impact on the mechanism for the transmission of monetary policy. Empirical analysis confirms that, if the European economy were as flexible as the US economy, a given interest rate hike would have a 7 greater impact on inflation. This has a direct implication for the desirable level of monetary policy activism. First of all, according to neo-Keynesian economic models, the greater the degree of price inflexibility, the higher the impact will be of a drop in the interest rate. Thus, for a given variation in the interest rate, the impact on economic activity tends to be greater in the euro area than it is in the United States. In other words, to achieve the same impact on economic activity as that achieved in the euro area, the Federal Reserve has to change the interest rate to a larger extent. Several studies have shown that in the negative phase of the cycle, even though the interest rate in the euro area is changed to a lesser degree than it is in the United States, the impact of monetary policy on economic activity is nevertheless stronger.

In deciding interest rates, central banks do not only look at the nature of economic shocks but also at the way in which those shocks are spreading to the economy and at the mechanism for the transmission of monetary policy. These characteristics are determined by institutions and practices that develop gradually by comparison with the time frame within which monetary policy influences economic trends, and thus the central bank tends to regard them as given. A distinctive feature of the euro area’s structural context is the level of both real and nominal market inflexibility. The Product Market Regulation indicator compiled by the OECD, which is often cited as a measure of market inflexibility, is 50% higher in the euro area than in the United States. All available indicators on real labour market inflexibility are higher in the euro area. One has but to recall the OECD indicator on Employment Protection Legislation, which is ten times weightier in the euro area than it is in the United States. Collective bargaining 4 mechanisms cover 76% of the euro area and only 14% in the United States. The most exhaustive empirical evidence is available for nominal inflexibility. The mean duration of consumer prices – a yardstick for measuring time used by retailers to change the price of  183; Christiano, L., R. Motto and M. Rostagno, “Shocks, Structures or Policies? A Comparison of the Euro Area and the US”, in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (due to be published very soon).
I don’t want to reveal too much now, but there are a few points worth considering in this context. First of all is the importance of real-time settlement, which enhances efficacy and security. This has been a feature of payment intermediation in Iceland for a decade and a half, and it is where other countries are heading. It is therefore vital that we preserve that feature during the changes now taking place. Second, it is important to keep the cost of domestic payment intermediation down. New and more diverse solutions that, for example, work directly with core financial market infrastructure, such as bank deposits and the Icelandic Banks' Data Centre’s systems, could help in this regard. Third, it is important that it be impossible to stop domestic payment intermediation through some sort of foreign intervention. Fourth, there must be alternate routes in the system, in case anything goes wrong. This could call for some diversity in payment intermediation, using different types of technology. Electronic krónur could play a role in this. But the topic of electronic krónur gives rise to big questions that must be discussed — questions about the possibilities for the general public to use electronic claims against the Central Bank (and indirectly against the State) as a medium of payment instead of bank deposits, and questions about the repercussions this could have on the role and stability of the banking system. The discussion promises to be an interesting one, and it is just beginning.

those caused by fluctuations in economic activity. This applies both to the development of productivity and the labour supply. At the same time, distinguishing between processes that are lasting and those of a temporary nature is one of the most important aspects with regard to the discussion of a country's capacity for long-term growth. Let us then study the determining factors one by one. Signs of a better growth in productivity My third slide shows the development of labour productivity, measured as GDP per hour worked, together with an estimated trend (Figure 3). We see that productivity growth varies strongly, but also that it shows a tendency to increase over time, particularly during the 1990s. This is a marked difference compared with developments in the 1970s, when the trend was instead a downward one. During the 1980s the actual productivity growth levelled out at a low level and was often around 1 per cent or below - with the exception of a few individual years. During the 1990s, on the other hand, there was a rapid increase and productivity growth stabilised at a level above 2 per cent. We don't know exactly what was the driving force behind this development. But allow me nevertheless to indicate some factors that may have played an important role. The economic crisis at the beginning of the 1990s probably played a not so insignificant role in raising productivity growth during the first half of the 1990s.
As insurance regulators, these emerging trends place new demands on our skill sets, expertise and competencies. We have seen the need to become more agile, pragmatic and experimental. We also need to be more open to new ways of formulating developmental policies and regulation. In this respect, we can learn from each other the evolving practices, environment and developments that we face in our respective markets. As a group, I believe ASEAN regulators will continue to work closely towards achieving a consistent approach in driving the development of a holistic insurance ecosystem and infrastructure in the region. Regular dialogues and exchange of information among and between 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  regulators and the industry will continue with new areas for collaboration, particularly in the management of risks and developments brought about by innovation. These include consumer data protection issues, rise of cybercrime, potential job loss or disruption, and rapid and unexpected climate change and natural disasters. Closing This week’s ASEAN events continues our commitment towards promoting continued development in the insurance sector. The challenge herein lies with ensuring that the ASEAN insurance market has the capacity to reinforce the economic growth momentum and stand wellprepared against the evolving trends and risks. In doing so, we should never forget to uphold the highest standards of integrity, professionalism and ethics. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches

No immediate consequences have been felt so far in the US debt market which remains the most liquid one and the ultimate benchmark for assessing risk. However, a pervasive uncertainty has been created, which might be responsible for the decline in confidence that has occurred over the last weeks. In Europe, on the contrary, sovereign credit risk has had immediate and dramatic consequences. It is difficult to foresee how, in the longer run, markets will assess debt sustainability. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  But let me challenge some current analyses about debt sustainability in Europe. –  First competitiveness. In the UK, for instance, the effective real exchange rate has depreciated by 23% over the last four years and its exports have grown by a healthy 15%, year-to-year over the first semester of 2011. But Italy, Spain and Greece have done better, with exports growing respectively by 16%, 19% and 37% over the same period, with, of course, no internal exchange rate adjustment. Linking competitiveness with exchange rate depreciation is therefore too simplistic. Improving competitiveness can be achieved by proper domestic reforms with a lasting result. –  Second, the euro is the only major currency area with its external accounts in balance, which is a strong guarantee of long-term solvency. –  Third, the euro area’s aggregate budget deficit will stand at around 4.1% in 2011, less than half that of the UK or the US.