samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The current weakness of the dollar, although it had been expected for some time, is a cause for concern for us especially as it comes at an unfavourable time. We watch therefore the exchange rate development very closely. In the present economic situation it is not easy to identify positive factors. One of them is definitely the environment of price stability and strong competition which is keeping inflationary expectations at an historical low level. As a result, monetary policy can remain expansionary. This is clearly the case in Switzerland. A second positive element are the structural adjustments. In Switzerland, the private sector has adjusted courageously to the new low-growth environment in which the price/quality ratio becomes a key factor of success. I think that our economy is well positioned now to benefit fully from an upturn in international trade. Last but not least - and here we join Poland - our main source of hope lies in Europe. Since Switzerland is heavily dependent on exports, sluggish economic performance in Europe, and especially in Germany, is a major cause for concern. But there are now signs of hope : the German government is considering a reform programme which should increase potential growth, and manufacturing orders are improving; in France GDP growth is positive; in the UK industrial production is accelerating again. We can now expect a gradual improvement in the overall economic picture and a progressive strengthening of consumer and investor confidence.

Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus: Building trust and transparency collaborate, accelerate, strengthen Speech by Ms Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the 11th International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing (IFCTF) 2019, Kuala Lumpur, 5 November 2019. * * * Last year, I spoke at this same conference about our shared responsibility to combat financial crime and the need for us to have a deep understanding of new and emerging risks. I also called on reporting institutions to strengthen their compliance functions. I was therefore delighted to learn that the theme of this year’s conference is “Building Trust and Transparency: Collaborate, Accelerate, Strengthen”. This afternoon, I would like to briefly expand on some of the ideas that I put forward last year, which will build on this year’s conference theme. First, on the point on collaboration. We speak a lot about how combating financial crime is a shared responsibility. This is because of its massive impact, imposing a cost to governments, businesses and individuals. A Thompson Reuters report from 2018 revealed that nearly half of 2,000 plus large companies surveyed were victims of financial crimes in the past one year, losing an estimated 3.5% of their turnover. This goes to show that this is a battle that needs to be waged together. Key to this is the sharing of information.
MAS, in partnership with the industry, has recently developed an Insurance Talent Development Framework, which maps out training and career progression pathways for both new entrants and existing insurance professionals. New industry-wide programmes will be launched in 2014 across a spectrum of roles and seniority levels. At the entry level, we will have two programmes. •  The Insurance Executive Assistant Programme (IEAP) will prepare diploma holders for junior entry-level positions. It will complement the GIP, which is targeted at university graduates. •  The Insurance Management Associate Programme (IMAP) will place and train top-tier fresh graduates through a structured apprenticeship programme. For existing industry professionals, there will also be two new programmes. •  The Insurance Specialist Programme will deepen participants’ specialist and technical knowledge in key functions such as underwriting and claims, as well as in specialist lines such as trade credit, political risks, aviation and marine risks. •  The Hi-Po Leader Programme will provide those with leadership potential with a series of programmes to prepare them for senior management roles in the insurance industry. The second critical success factor is Regulation. Strong prudential and regulatory standards have always been a source of Singapore’s competitive advantage as a financial centre. Through promoting sound risk management and a safe environment, regulation fosters confidence in the industry and helps attracts business. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Singapore was one of the early movers to a risk-based supervisory and capital framework for insurance, in 2005.

Since then, MAS has been actively refining the regulatory framework and approach. We are currently undertaking a comprehensive review to enhance the risk-based capital framework, taking into account evolving international standards and market developments. In particular, we are seeking to improve the comprehensiveness of the risk coverage and the risk sensitivity of the framework. Conclusion Let me conclude. The operating environment – be it for individuals or enterprises – is becoming more complex and uncertain. Managing risk has become an increasingly important part of our existence, and doing it well has become a key determinant of success. Insurance – at its core – is about managing risk. You are in an industry that serves a larger public purpose. You are also in an industry that has great promise. Asia offers tremendous opportunity for the insurance industry. As the leading insurance and reinsurance hub in Asia, Singapore is well-equipped to serve the growing needs of the region. But to become a global marketplace for insurance, we have to continually reinvent ourselves. The industry’s support and partnership are critical to the achievement of this vision. Let us work together to build a truly global insurance marketplace in Singapore. Thank you. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches
As a further gloss on that piece of history, I should perhaps disclose that, working to Eddie, Mervyn and the then DG , Howard Davies, I was the Bank official who “held the pen” during that work. 21  As stated in Balls, E and G. O’Donnell, 2002, Reforming Britain’s Economic and Financial Policy, “The role of the Chancellor in appointing the four outsiders was part of the delicate constitutional balance that was struck in a move towards a legitimate model of central bank independence consistent with British-style accountability to Parliament.” (page 99)  4  BIS Review 66/2007  This is what I have been leading up to: an “individualistic” committee was a necessary condition for operational independence in the UK. In terms of solving the time-consistency problem and establishing credibility, the UK system does not rely on handing monetary policy, lock, stock and barrel, to a group of “conservative central bankers”; in terms of the literature familiar to this conference, the system is as much Walsh as Rogoff. 22 The regime is based on combining an objective set by democratically elected politicians, with clear accountability mechanisms. One of those mechanisms was triggered for the first time recently when CPI inflation rose to 3.1% in March, requiring the Governor, on behalf of the Committee, to write an open letter to the Chancellor about what we thought was going on and what we planned to do to get inflation back to our target of 2%.

Banks’ accountants and auditors are now working hard to calculate losses and reductions in earnings. It is also important to limit the macroeconomic effects so that banks can put this episode behind them as soon as possible. At the same time, we know – not least from the Nordic countries’ experience in the 1980s and 1990s – that the situation is demanding when the value of collateral falls. The most realistic scenario is therefore that it will probably take time for the turbulence to abate. There are important lessons to be learned here. The turbulence has revealed a number of shortcomings, primarily in the markets themselves, but also in the regulatory and supervisory systems. First, it became apparent that there are serious shortcomings in the originate-and-distribute model. Banks used to retain mortgages on their balance sheets. They had an incentive to assess the credit risk carefully in order to avoid losses. Now it has become common for banks to grant mortgages and then sell them in capital markets, to investors that have traditionally purchased securities, such as pension funds and life insurance companies, but also to special purpose vehicles established for this purpose. The mortgages have thus been removed from the banks’ balance sheets, leaving the banks apparently free of credit risk. The sale of mortgages via the securities market can diversify risk and make the financial system more stable and robust. However, the risk has proved to be considerably more concentrated than participants themselves or supervisory agencies had believed.
BIS Review 150/2007  1  The financial sector weaknesses are being addressed through a public and private sector partnership. The implementation structure is chaired by the Secretary to the Treasury at Ministry of Finance and National Planning with the secretariat function responsible for the coordination of activities based at the Bank of Zambia. Mr Chairman, the goal of the FSDP is to have a financial system that is stable and marketbased in order to support efficient resource mobilization necessary for economic diversification and sustainable growth. A number of reforms have already been undertaken under this plan. For instance, a Credit Reference Bureau has been established and we expect it to be operational in the coming year. In addition, studies have also been taken to comprehend the constraints to broader access financial services. One of the outputs of the FSDP has been a market knowledge study called Finscope Zambia which is a nationally representative survey of the use of, and demand for, financial services. It provides insights into how consumers source their income and manage their financial lives. This is the first time a survey like this has been conducted in Zambia and provides valuable information for players in the financial market. The survey, which was conducted in 2005, notes that very few Zambians use the formal financial sector. The report reveals that most Zambians prefer to invest in non-financial instruments such as a business, livestock, land or agriculture equipment.

Our expectation is that after this forum, we shall see the emergence of an interactive and symbiotic alliance between International and Zambia financial institutions whose goal will be to provide financial services that will uplift the well-being of the Zambian populace at large. This sounds like a difficult task to achieve but it is my conviction that it is better to begin a step towards this direction rather than waiting for it happen in future. On a lighter note, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me remind you that the Soccer World Cup to be hosted by South Africa in 2010, has attracted increased demand in the construction and tourism sectors in the whole Southern African Region. Zambia needs to take advantage of this and invest heavily in the tourism industry to benefit from the event; particularly that it has a vast number of national parks and the Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Obviously this can only be done if there is long term partnerships between local financial institutions and International financial institutions like the ones invited here today. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention. BIS Review 150/2007  3
The fact that economic mechanisms function in this way was pointed out in Report 29 (2000-2001) to the Storting from the Stoltenberg Government and in Annex 4 to Report 1(2001-2002)to the Storting from the Bondevik Government A deterioration in competitiveness can be caused by two factors: high wage growth, or a nominal appreciation of the krone. In isolation, an expansionary fiscal policy must lead to a tightening of monetary policy if the inflation target is to be attained. Without such a tightening, the labour market would be tighter, and competitiveness would deteriorate as a result of rising wage and price inflation. BIS Review 49/2002  9  In the debate, it has been stressed that the scaling back of manufacturing has come faster and with greater intensity than expected. But nor was wage growth expected to take the turn it did. Not this year, not last year, and not the year before that. Wage growth that is 15 per cent higher than other countries (from 1998 to 2003) is bound to have repercussions. The krone exchange rate has also appreciated. But the reaction in the foreign exchange market cannot be called an overreaction when wages have increased so much. The same forces that have driven up the krone, could bring it down if they were reversed. Competitiveness is the ability to pay high wages on the basis of high productivity. For a number of years, Norway has had high wage growth that has not been matched by equally high productivity growth.

Over time, growth in real wages must be consistent with growth in labour productivity. An inflation target of 2½ per cent and trend productivity growth of around 2 per cent, according to updated national accounts figures, imply annual nominal wage growth of about 4½ per cent. Under the “Solidarity Alternative” in the 1990s, a stable exchange rate and the rate of wage growth among our trading partners functioned as an anchor for the social partners. Up to 1997, this anchor remained effective. However, growth in labour costs jumped in 1998 and has since been around 2 percentage points higher than among our trading partners. Wage growth is high in relation to earnings in many enterprises. It is demanding to improve efficiency at the pace required to keep up with the rise in labour costs. 10  BIS Review 49/2002  The sharp rise in labour costs in recent years carries with it a potential for higher unemployment. The interest rate is an effective instrument for countering lower demand and growing unemployment when measures to stimulate demand do not translate into higher wage growth or unstable financial markets. However, there is little monetary policy can do to prevent an increase in unemployment that is driven by high cost inflation. Developments in wage settlements have been a driving force behind the appreciation of the krone. The foreign exchange market has responded as expected.
But they were not sufficient to get liquidity to non-banks quickly enough, or in sufficient scale. That also required large and aggressive asset purchase operations, what we call in the paper “go Big” and “go Fast”. I am not going to say more on this, save that it raises very important points about market structures, the extent of self-insurance against liquidity shocks by non-banks, and the nature of central bank interventions. This is the subject of a review currently being undertaken by the Financial Stability Board. The Covid crisis called on central banks to act in what has been the first big test of the post financial crisis world. Monetary policy has had to respond to an unprecedented shock. For many central banks, the main tool to date has been further Quantitative Easing, in unprecedented scale and pace of purchases. This has inevitably rekindled questions about exactly how QE works and whether its effectiveness is conditional on the state of the economy and the financial system – to what extent is its effectiveness state contingent? Moreover, looking across monetary policy and financial stability, it has re-emphasised the importance of central bank balance sheets as a direct tool of policy intervention, rather than primarily a passive by-product of the activity of setting the price of money and meeting the demand for reserves to satisfy the liquidity needs of the banking system. So what is our latest thinking on the effects of QE and how it works? Viewed from the depth of the Covid crisis, QE worked effectively.

Where that requires larger purchases of a broader array of assets, it inevitably raises risk management questions for central banks. So, I think the Covid crisis has demonstrated the need to ensure central banks have as many tools as possible in their box, of which expanded purchases of private sector assets is one, but given the issues it raises I would emphasise state contingency here in terms of when some tools may be more appropriate or necessary, given the severity or particular nature of the circumstances at the time. The MPC has considered its prospective approach to QE unwind in recent years, and in June 2018 set out that the balance sheet would be unwound at a gradual and predictable pace, allowing reserves to fall back to a level demanded by banks through their participation in regular repo operations, and once the Bank Rate had risen to around 1.5%, thus creating more headroom for the future use of Bank Rate both up and down. The MPC keeps this approach under review, though I should make clear that it does not seem like an imminent issue in current conditions. But we are looking at the next decade at this conference, so who knows what will happen. We should keep the options to use all our tools as open as possible, so I would conclude that the appropriate policy mix going forwards over a decade may be more nuanced than  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  previously thought.
For these reasons, fiscal policy is set so that the public finances follow a sustainable medium-term path. This commitment to budgetary prudence is enshrined into the net debt rule and the rule that public borrowing should finance investment and not current expenditure. In Hamlet, the advice of Polonius to his son was, “neither a borrower nor a lender be”. If we update Shakespeare’s dictum to “neither a borrower nor a lender be over the economic cycle except to finance public investment”, then you have the spirit of the government’s fiscal policy rules, if not the same elegance of language. So fiscal policy is set on an annual basis to maintain a sustainable path for the public finances in the medium-term. Monetary policy is set month-by-month to meet the inflation target. It is no part of the government’s responsibility to make life easier for the MPC by manipulating fiscal policy to manage the economic cycle. What matters to the MPC is the overall fiscal stance, and that it remains on a sustainable basis. Decisions on that are made once a year in the Spring Budget. In the UK, coordination between monetary and fiscal policy works well. 4. Conclusions  In conclusion, therefore, I do not offer any simple solutions to the imbalances between different parts of the British economy. Fiscal policy is not an alternative to the month-by-month determination of monetary policy. And interest rates cannot target both inflation and asset prices, whether the exchange rate or share prices or house prices. Nor should they.

To do this the MPC has to assess the prospective balance between demand and supply in the economy as a whole. That requires an analysis of both demand and supply developments. The interesting feature of recent quarters has been the combination of strong demand growth and a tight labour market, on the one hand, with weak wage and price pressures, on the other. So the MPC monitors monetary data as well as signs of tightness in both labour and product markets in order to detect early warning signs of inflationary pressures. The MPC needs as much timely and accurate information as possible. Official statistics and surveys provide an excellent starting point. But they often need to be complemented by more timely and focussed information on particular aspects of the economy. So the Bank has a network of twelve Agencies, which gather economic intelligence from all parts of the United Kingdom – from Cornwall to the Highlands, and from County Tyrone to the Norfolk Broads. The task of these Agencies is to provide information on the state of the local economy. In total, the Agents have around 7,000 business contacts covering all sectors of the economy from farming to finance and textiles to tourism. Our Scottish Agent, Janet Bulloch, who is with us tonight, is well known to many of you. I would like to thank those of you who give your valuable time to see Janet and her team.
Stefan Ingves: Ongoing changes in securities markets Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Nasdaq OMX, Stockholm, 4 December 2008. *  *  *  Counterparty risks and functional aspects At present a lot is happening in the financial markets. Besides being in the midst of the current crisis, we are experiencing functional changes in the securities market. These changes can improve the workings of the market, which is particularly important in connection with financial turbulence. However, the changes also make greater demands on cross-border cooperation. One change, which began some time ago, is that the Swedish systems for handling securities are becoming increasingly integrated with systems abroad. Other changes are reducing the counterparty risks of financial players and making securities trading more transparent. In a discussion of changes in securities markets, it should be born in mind that an effective monetary policy also requires an efficient fixed-income market. The vocabulary for my discussion of these changes and of the importance of a properly functioning fixed-income market is somewhat technical, particularly in the sections on integration and counterparty risks. That should not be a problem for my audience today. Many of you are occupied with precisely these matters. Changes in the securities markets I shall begin with a brief account of the financial infrastructure. It is made up of systems, instruments and routines that together constitute the conditions for making payments and securities transactions in ways that are safe and efficient.

The steering system has been successful in the sense that overnight loans between the banks are arranged as a rule at the repo rate. A potential drawback of the fine-tuning operations is that the operational risks grow with the volume of these operations. We therefore make a weekly offer of one-week Riksbank certificates at the repo rate. As this withdraws liquidity, the fine-tuning operations do not have to be so large. BIS Review 153/2008  5  The way in which we implement monetary policy means that we are active at two time horizons or, as we usually say, at two points on the yield curve. One is for overnight loans or deposits, where our fine tuning helps to keep the overnight rate at the repo rate; the other is for one-week certificates, likewise at the repo rate. As we are active in the market only once a week, with one-week certificates, we cannot steer the one-week rate as effectively as the overnight rate, which we steer on a daily basis. Neither do we intend to do so. Our operational goal is precisely to steer the overnight rate. Which measures should be said to be connected with the implementation of monetary policy and which should instead be seen as more directed at assisting the performance of markets and promoting financial stability? There is no simple answer. Something that a financial crisis makes clearer is how monetary policy and financial stability interact. Neither of them can evidently function without the other.