samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Similarly, the Circular will determine the circumstances in which bank foundations will be compelled to diversify their investments and, if appropriate, to relinquish control of the credit institutions which they own through the corresponding divestment. I trust that the period for public consultation of the Circular will open shortly. Second, the new European framework of resolution is already prompting, in most national jurisdictions, reflection on the institutional architecture of bank resolution. In the past, resolution agreements have required close collaboration between the various authorities involved in the process; namely, the supervisor, the resolution authority, if any, and the governments concerned insofar as the resolution has habitually required the use of substantial public funds. The experience in our country has been no exception. The current distribution of functions between the Banco de España and the FROB – whose Governing Committee includes representatives of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Competitiveness, the Ministry of Financial Affairs and Public Administration, and the Banco de España – has required that the two institutions were intensely involved in the resolution processes. Thus, while the supervisor is responsible for initiating the resolution process of an institution and approving the resolution plans, the FROB must prepare these plans, put them into practice and, in sum, manage the State’s ownership interest in those institutions that received financial aid, including any future divestment. Consequently, the coordination between the Banco de España and the FROB has been pivotal in ensuring effective management of the crisis.

These APSs, therefore, involve a cost that depends on the actual losses incurred whose real amount will only be known at the end of the period over which the guarantee is in force. In any event, the expected value of this cost shall be regularly evaluated by independent experts so that the guarantor agency (the FROB or the DGF) may make the related provision in its financial statements. Finally, the third type of public aid comprises State-backed guarantees of debt issues by certain banks and the extraordinary credit facilities offered to provide liquidity to the sector. As regards these guarantees, no loss from these contingencies is expected to arise for the State, which will in turn receive revenue in the form of fees and commissions. Currently,2 69% of the guarantees granted have been returned and the termination process is expected to continue in accordance with the redemption of the issues. Likewise, all amounts drawn down on the credit facilities were duly repaid and the other available facilities have been settled following the recapitalisation or, where appropriate, disposal of the recipient banks. As of today, therefore, the public assistance granted is essentially in the form of the capital contributions made and the guarantees offered. That said, not all of the public assistance granted that I have described involves a direct cost to the taxpayer, since the banking industry has also contributed via the DGF.
A study by the ECB 9 presented a model that can identify just over 80 per cent of the cases in OECD countries where excesses have later led to costly downward adjustments in the economy. In the IMF’s most recent “World Economic Outlook” 10 the conclusion is more cautious. It is claimed in this study that it is possible at best to identify around half of the excesses (including the most recent crisis) that have later led to significant corrections in developed economies. Both of the studies conclude that (global) credit growth is the best individual indicator of overheating. A study by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in 2004 11 also concluded that although it is difficult to find relevant bubble indicators, it is not impossible. The study claims that there are signs of asymmetry as some central banks have a tendency to stimulate the economy when the stock market falls, but not to tighten their policy when stock market bubbles are building up. The conclusions of these studies are that central banks should try in various ways to take into account, for instance, an overly rapid growth in credit that risks leading to a severe downward adjustment in the economy later on. However, it is emphasised in many studies that further research in this field is required to be able to draw more definite conclusions for future monetary policy. The development of this type of indicator is now high on the agenda both nationally and in the international economic policy cooperation.

Let’s be clear on this: French and European savers aren’t going to become Americanised in their savings behaviour or appetite for risk. These transatlantic differences have historical, cultural and sociological roots. And it’s not our role to go into them here, even less try to change them. However, the French debate would be made much easier if we distinguished clearly between the two main objectives underlying savers’ aversion to risk: security and liquidity. With regard to security, or capital protection, this is something that is important for savers. Genuine risk-taking, with all the potential gains it entails, will only ever be for a minority of investors. In the case of liquidity, however, increased life expectancy, lower pension replacement rates and the greater health risks associated with living longer are all pushing French savers to adopt longer and longer investment horizons. We need to be able to offer them suitable savings products: ones that are less liquid, with or without a long-term capital guarantee, and that allow savers to benefit from the higher returns offered by equities over the long term. A crucial point is to avoid any tax distortions that might mean these products are penalised more than liquid and risk-free investments. This level playing field in terms of taxation should also apply to the companies that are financed: in other words we need to avoid making debt financing more attractive than equity financing.
Of course, the world has changed a great deal since the Treaty of Paris, and with it the political motives driving the integration process. Nevertheless, if one draws a parallel between the world of 50 years ago and the world of today, one cannot deny that the current enlargement process is driven, at least in part, by the desire to ensure a future of peace and stability for the whole of Europe, and not just for the 15 nations which currently comprise the European Union. Of perhaps even greater significance in today’s globalising world are the “economic” forces driving European integration. This is not to say that they were not already important in the early years of the process. Indeed, just as it became apparent 50 years ago that Europe needed to break free from the ghost of nationalism, so too it became clear that the protectionism of the inter-war period also had to be abandoned. This was an essential prerequisite for restoring economic growth and improving social conditions in post-war Europe. And so it is for the accession countries today, which no doubt see their integration into the EU as a way of ensuring that the necessary conditions are created for the sustainable, long-term growth of their economies. Of course, these political and economic forces to which I refer are very closely linked. So much so, that it is hard to imagine one without the other.

Furthermore, real estate prices continued to rise but, as in 2013, momentum remained below the levels observed until 2012. Developments still varied widely from one region to the other. Whereas real estate prices in some regions hardly increased or even decreased, other regions continued to register significant price rises. However, it is still too early for an all-clear. First, the imbalances that have built up since the beginning of the low-interest-rate phase remain at a high level. Second, mortgage interest rates have again dropped to historically low levels in the past few months. And third, there are no broad-based indications of a change in the banks’ risk appetite. Mortgage lending growth at the domestically focused banks has also decreased, but is still markedly higher than overall market growth. Moreover, the affordability risk (loan-to-income ratio) in mortgage lending has continued to rise, interest rate risk remains at a historically high level, and interest rate margins have fallen even further, from a level which was already low. In these exceptional circumstances, banks should ensure that their resilience is high enough to be able to bear the risks taken, even in the event of a marked real estate price correction combined with an interest rate shock. The countercyclical capital buffer plays a significant role in this context by ensuring that banks hold additional capital as a buffer in the current situation. Adding to that, many banks have a surplus of capital with respect to the regulatory requirements. Such surplus capital is especially important under the current circumstances.
The risks the world economy faces in the medium term - associated to an abrupt resolution of global imbalances, a commodity price downturn, a slowdown of global growth, or an abrupt shift in risk perception and valuation by global investors - require that the agenda on international financial architecture be focused more on preventing, rather than resolving crises ex post. As countries are progressively more integrated into a more global financial system, new challenges emerge for economic authorities. The increased mobility of international capital flows - beyond their potential benefits - entails the risks of sudden and unexpected reversal of capital flows that could be further worsened by the contagion associated to the financial market reaction. Also, in the current market-driven international environment, characterized by increasing access of emerging economies to private funding, and by a more complex international financial system, externalities, market failures and perverse incentive effects are still in place and impede private financial flows to become a permanent and stable source of financing. Therefore, strengthening countries’ resilience is not only about developing and improving appropriate and consistent policies and institutions, but also about providing countries with access to emergency liquidity and the possibility to obtain short-term liquidity by private financial instruments. The Fund should therefore play a leading role in facilitating the development of more complete global financial markets, which will ultimately help emerging economies to protect themselves against external reversals while complementing authorities’ efforts in building up a sound policy framework.

I hope that we will continue to build on this great relationship. Ladies and gentlemen, Tomorrow, March the first, the Bank of Thailand will implement a final review of the reserve requirement measure to give more flexibility to investors. Fully hedged capital inflows for the purchases of bonds, mutual fund shares, and property fund shares will be exempted from the reserve requirement. In essence, all investment flows that are until today subject to the reserve  4  BIS Review 20/2007  requirement will be given a full-hedging option. With this announcement, let me conclude my talk this evening. Thank you for your kind attention. BIS Review 20/2007  5
7 [13]  Figure 7. Households have increasingly high debt and shorter interest-rate fixation periods Household indebtedness has increased  Shorter interest-rate fixation periods for household mortgages 100  100  80  80  60  60  40  40  20  20  0  98  01  04  07 Variable  10  13  16  0  Fixed  Note. Left-hand graph. Percentage of disposable income. Total household debt as a share of their disposable income, totalled over the past four quarters. Right-hand graph. Percentage of mortgages. Refers to loans from mortgage institutions. Percentage of mortgages in each category is calculated based on the value of the loans. Variable rate refers to interest-rate fixation periods up to and including three months. Fixed rate refers to interest-rate fixation periods over three months. Sources: The Riksbank and Statistics Sweden  Most households can continue to pay their mortgages even at significantly higher interest rates ... The question is whether households’ interest-rate sensitivity – in combination with rising interest rates – might result in them quite simply not being able to meet their interest payments. This could lead to banks incurring direct credit losses on their mortgages, which in turn might affect financial stability. But I am not overly worried about this risk. Banks do what is known as a “left-tolive-on” or “discretionary income” calculation, as part of their credit assessment. As a rule, they don’t grant mortgages if there is a deficit in the calculation.

This has been as a result of Government’s sound macroeconomic management and the critical contributions that various sectors of the economy have made, of which the insurance sector is a part. Let me once again thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts with you on the role that your noble profession plays in this economy. On our part as Bank of Zambia, we shall keep on facilitating the development of, among others, the insurance sector by continuing to improve macroeconomic conditions that are critical to the expansion of your businesses. In turn, it is expected that other sectors of the economy will benefit and contribute to accelerated economic growth and development that the country is craving so much for in order to reduce poverty. May I, at this juncture, point out that in order to facilitate your work, you may track some of the developments in our economy on the Bank of Zambia website, which you can visit on www.boz.zm. You can also contact us directly for any information you may require on the economy. I thank you for your attention. BIS Review 72/2006  3
If households and businesses believe that the Fed has run out of tools to provide monetary policy accommodation or is unwilling to use certain tools for that purpose, the risk of inflation expectations becoming unanchored to the downside would increase, which would make it even more difficult for the central bank to achieve its goals. For these reasons, LSAPs should be viewed as a viable tool in our arsenal to be used when the zero lower bound is a relevant policy concern. In terms of calibration, if LSAPs are not as powerful as some of the event studies imply, the answer is not to simply discard the tool, but instead to look for ways to enhance its efficacy and use it more aggressively. In this respect, I believe that LSAPs work best when they are openended. In such circumstances, the use of the tool is likely to be helpful in reducing tail risks and making the bad states of the world less likely rather than signaling to market participants a significant deterioration in the Federal Reserve’s outlook. LSAPs may also be a useful means of making forward guidance more credible.

The Committee as a whole needs to explain its view of where the economy is heading. The Inflation Report has been the main vehicle for expressing the collective view of the Committee. Together with the minutes of the monthly meetings, it provides an explanation of past actions which should enable others to understand how we are likely to behave in the future. At the same time, the voting records of individual members of the MPC are in the public domain. That disclosure improves the quality of decisions, as well as the accountability of Committee members, because there is no better incentive to cast one’s vote for the policy most likely to hit the inflation target than the prospect of having to defend that voting record in public. Of course, all members of the MPC are well aware that there is no certainty about the precise level of interest rates which is desirable in any given month. That is why we discuss with each other at great length the appropriate course of action before each member makes up his or her own mind. For such a system to work it is crucial that MPC members give their best judgment and do not try to reach an artificial consensus. How, then, should we balance the need to give a clear view about how the Committee sees economic developments and the requirement of individual accountability? There have been two main criticisms of the MPC in this respect. First, that the MPC has been too open about differences within it.
Compensating factors may have been at work, one of which is longer working hours. One of the clear benefits of home-working is reduced commuting time, some of which might have been allocated to work. Studies point to daily savings in commuting time of almost an hour. They also suggest around a third of that saved time has been spent working.12 Assuming an eight-hour working day, that represents a 4% increase in working hours. Studies of the length of the working day – measured by the time between the first and last email being sent – point to a larger effect still, with close to an 8% rise in working hours as a result of home-working.13 If that is roughly right, this suggests most workers’ overall economic contribution may not have been much affected by the switch to home-working, with extra hours compensating for reduced productivity. Another relevant factor is that some of initial losses in productivity from home-working might be expected to lessen over time: as the kitchen chair is replaced by an office chair (office equipment sales have soared); as the video-conferencing facilities become less daunting to navigate; and as children return to school. Consistent with the last of those, there is evidence both of women assuming more of the childcare responsibilities during lockdown and of their productivity being harder hit.14 Indeed, one of the beneficial long-term side-effects of home-working is that it has brought about a forced improvement in both our digital kit and our digital skills.

Complementing these efforts is our development of the Capital Account Liberalization Master Plan aimed at facilitating and encouraging more outward investment by Thai residents in foreign assets. Apart from the sizeable diversification gains to be had, a more streamlined capital account and foreign exchange regulatory regime will help to boost financial market development and reduce costs for the private sector. Finally, in recognition of the fact that the full benefits of improvements in financial services cannot be realized without adequate readiness on the part of consumers, we have recently launched the Financial Consumer Protection Center to provide financial education to the public. In all this, it must be stressed that the BOT can only do so much. Effective upgrading of Thailand’s competitiveness and lifting our level of productivity requires strong commitment from all segments of the economy. A common vision among all stakeholders is necessary, especially when it comes to implementing tough structural reforms. The BOT will strive to be an active participant in pushing forward the national agenda on reforms, particularly on issues that involve the public sector, to upgrade the efficiency of our economy. Let me end by thanking the German business community for the substantial contribution that you have made to our economy and I very much hope to see the mutually beneficial relationship between our countries continue to blossom into the future. Thank you. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
In trying to draw attention to this area, I have often said that while billions of dollars are spent in building highways and airports as part of the physical infrastructure, in order to move people around efficiently and safely, there is by comparison very little money spent in building the financial highways and airports to move money around efficiently and safely. As a result, the money does not move, at least not as much as one would like to see. Consequently, effective financial intermediation domestically and across economies in the region is inhibited, notwithstanding the rather attractive returns offered by the prosperity of this region. Financial markets remain fragmented along with geographical fragmentation of the region, and there is a lack of liquidity because the regional critical mass has not yet been formed. 55. Another common complaint about Asian financial markets is the inefficiency of settlement and clearing processes for money and financial products. As a result, the tendency is for many of the Asian economies to make use of established clearing and settlement systems in Europe and America. For example, Asian trading of Euro-yen paper has to be cleared and settled in European time. There is of course no logical answer to the question why trading of Asian paper by Asians cannot be settled and cleared in Asian time. I am often reminded that the Eurodollar and Eurobond market took off when Euroclear was established in the late 1960s.

So, referring again to one of the purposes of the IMF, as defined in its Articles of Agreement, there is a clear need “to promote international monetary co-operation” through “consultation and collaboration” on these “international monetary problems” that we now face in the Asian region. The Way Forward 40. I would like now to spell out how I think monetary co-operation in this region should proceed. In order to have effective monetary co-operation, we must have clearly defined and realistic goals. Over-ambitious goals may not be credible, and may even be counterproductive. In any case, they may not be politically acceptable to the individual economies. Monetary co-operation, and indeed any type of co-operation, is meaningless when you do not have common goals. 41. Notwithstanding increasing economic integration, one has to accept reality, and this is that the economies in Asia are a very diverse group. There are dramatic differences with regard to political institutions, economic systems, basic infrastructure and any aspect you care to think of. In terms of economic structure, for example, they range from some of the largest agricultural economies in the world to the most urban economies. In terms of economic philosophy, they range from some of the freest economies in the world to economies where there is considerable central planning. In terms of the stage of economic development, they range from economies with the highest per capita incomes to those still with a large part of their population living in poverty.