samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Product markets must be further liberalized in order to unleash the full productivity potential of the new information and communication technologies. This will in turn further enhance ICT enabled capital deepening by European businesses. Such a virtuous cycle may well be enhanced by an insufficiently understood productivity lag effect from ICT investments which could further benefit European businesses in the years to come. 4  Mervyn King, “Foreword”, in: James Proudman und Stephen Redding (ed. ), “Openness and Growth”, Bank of England, 1998. BIS Review 27/2005  3  This virtuous process can be initiated. Indeed, many European countries are well on their way. Germany, for example, has steadily increased its competitiveness and is the only G7 country with a growing global export share over the last 5 years. By the same token, we must recognize that the process creates uncertainty for many European citizens. Such heightened levels of uncertainty may impede consumer confidence. Increasing overall labour input decreases labour productivity at least in the short-run and leads to downward pressure on wages. It seems to me of vital political and economic importance to counteract this pressure along two lines. First, as I have already indicated, we have to ensure that by way of product market reforms these productivity gains find their way through to consumers in the form of lower prices thereby dampening the downward pressure on real wages.

In other words, expanding fiscal and monetary policy will be no panacea to Europe’s growth challenge. Longer-term fiscal consolidation is imperative in light of a rapidly aging European population. On the monetary side, there is no indication that policy is too restrictive in light of real interest rates at or near zero for the Eurozone. Indeed, based on a standard Taylor rule framework, the ECB’s monetary policy stance is equally or in the recent past even more expansionary than that of the Federal Reserve. At any rate, neither fiscal nor monetary policy can ultimately address structural impediments to higher growth dynamics in the Euro area. In an effort to augment the EU’s growth potential, the focus must therefore be on breaking down labour market rigidities for additional labour input on the one hand and on accompanying policy measures to increase productivity on the other hand. Despite the subdued nature of the current growth outlook which is adversely affected by a strong Euro and rising oil prices, there are some promising signs that structural change is under way. Both the gradual dismantling of the 35 hour week in France and the shift to part-time and temporary employment in Germany are boosting labour input. In line with this positive albeit hesitant trend of bringing more workers back into the economy, productivity growth rates have begun to recede in Europe. The primary challenge for the European economy is to compensate this natural initial decline in productivity as a result of higher labour input.
I would like to draw your attention on the following topics: •  The system should be more active and keep its public promises to put its windows at the service of selling Treasury bills directly to the interested public. We as Bank of Albania have kept our promises, applying a commission, which is supposed to cover the transaction cost, while this measure will be accompanied by the inhibition of cash receipts at the Bank of Albania windows. Also, banks should invest in modern technology to enable the reallocation of funds of their customers in various investment alternatives, by electronic means and not as it happens more frequently today that individuals still move carrying cash bags. •  Banks should be more active in the T-bills secondary market. We should clearly inform the public that whoever is interested can discount his/her bills at any time like each individual  3/4  who has put little money aside can refer to the banking system not only to deposit but also to purchase Treasury bills. •  The interbank market can and must improve. Nowadays, commercial banks exchange a big quantity of liquidity with the central bank. But, even exchange of this liquidity among commercial banks must be intensified. This would ensure more financing and investing opportunities for individuals and companies, including banks. •  Banks should give more attention to foreign exchange and Treasury bills markets, to further deepen and expand them.

Only in this way, the information evasion can be minimized as well as its integrity can be ensured, and it would be simultaneously available for each of member banks of the system. 2/4  Being aware that credit issue is complex and connected with many obstacles arising from inaccuracy and misadministration of the mortgage system, from deficiencies in the civil procedure for mortgage execution, which make the operation of Executor Office difficult in administering correctly these procedures, we will undertake initiatives aiming at enhancing the effectiveness of mortgage system, as a guaranteeing and selective instrument of great importance. The banking system has a primary role in creating a warm climate in the relationships between business and bank. Above all, I would like to request that the banking system be more transparent and open to the public. Transparency is one of the most important factors, which strengthens the relations between client and bank and, furthermore, it gives a wider meaning to the reciprocity concept in the bilateral relations bank-depositor and bank-business. I think that most of the common people still manifest a certain hesitation to refer to banks. One cause might be also the lack of detailed information. Banks should be more active, not only for advertising new products and services, but also for explaining more correctly the prices/costs they hold and the necessary requirements that are to be met for their benefit.
And bank supervisors will be more plentiful and in future they will be smarter. That has been the response to virtually every financial crisis of the past fifty years. It has not arrested the crisis cycle – if anything, the incidence of crises appears to have risen.2 It may  1  Goodhart (2011 forthcoming). 2  Bordo et al (2001). BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  not even have slowed this cycle, as the massive costs of this time’s crisis attest. So although the recent Basel III package may be necessary, there must be a real question about whether it will be sufficient to cope with next time’s crisis. History, at least, provides grounds for pessimism. As a thought experiment, imagine instead we were designing a regulatory framework from scratch. Finance is a classic complex, adaptive system. What properties would a complex, adaptive system such as finance ideally exhibit to best insure about future crises? Simplicity is one. There is a key lesson, here, from the literature on complex systems. Faced with complexity, the temptation is to seek complex control devices. In fact, complex systems typically call for simple control rules. To do otherwise simply compounds system complexity with control complexity.3 Uncertainty would not then divide, it would multiply. Robustness would be a second. This has a particular meaning in the context of complex systems: resilience given ignorance.4 More often, this is called Knightian uncertainty or simply model error.

To begin with this was perceived as just a temporary dip - a blip in the stocks cycle, a minor adjustment in the IT sector or something else. But stock markets seemed to be clearly over-valued and it would have been odd, particularly after such a long upward phase, if this had not led to a certain amount of overinvestment. There were also clear signs of insufficient saving, particularly in the United States. Consequently there were grounds for believing that once a slowdown had started, it could prove to be both relatively deep and long. Against this background, in the March Inflation Report we talked not so much about a V-shaped path as a U-shaped one or a “banana”. Since then the outlook has become darker but more of that later. For monetary policy, turns in the business cycle are not inherently a major problem, apart from the difficulty of foreseeing them. Falling resource utilisation, for example, should normally led to lower inflation in the future. That in turn can pave the way for interest rate cuts. In the past year, however, things have not been quite as simple as that. Two partly interrelated factors have contributed to this. One is inflation, which has been higher than expected and also above our target. The other is the exchange rate, which has been weaker than anticipated and also weaker than the real economy warrants. During a period in the late spring, moreover, the krona fell rather uncontrollably in the absence of similar movements in other currencies.
Islamic banking operations therefore need to be governed by its own standards and best practices in parallel with the international best practice. The establishment of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) in 2002 as an international prudential standard-setting body to promulgate the international regulatory and supervisory standards for Islamic financial institutions is aimed towards achieving this objective. In this regard, the IFSB has already made progress in developing the prudential standards on the capital adequacy and risk management framework. These standards are expected to be completed in 2005. In addition, the IFSB will commence work on developing standards on corporate governance. At present, some countries have adopted the Basle Accord standards in their regulatory and supervisory framework for their Islamic banking industry. However, these standards do not adequately  2  BIS Review 3/2004  address the requirements of Islamic banking operations and transactions, resulting in gaps in the standards. Therefore, these gaps will be taken into account with respect to the capital treatment and risk associated for the different types of Islamic financial contracts to truly reflect their features and characteristics. While certain products in Islamic finance by their nature may not attract capital, the Islamic financial institutions need to have a more rigorous risk management systems in managing the funds placed under this arrangement. In this regard, the risk management standard needs to specifically address this concern. The Islamic financial institutions can expect to be better regulated and supervised following the adoption of the standards to be issued by the IFSB.

This is achieved through the intermediation process to facilitate trade, business and investment. This will facilitate the integration of the Islamic financial system as a viable component of the global financial system. It is the ability of the Islamic financial industry to build institutional capacity, intensify the collaborative efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of the Islamic financial infrastructure, and the acceleration of its global integration that will provide the synergies and opportunities for the Islamic financial industry to evolve into an important component of the international financial system that can contribute to greater global financial stability and enhance the prospects for a more balanced global growth. BIS Review 3/2004  7
We also cautioned repeatedly against the positions taken by some Member States – particularly those who traditionally uphold the independence of monetary policy – and ultimately reflected in 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  the draft amended text of Article 22 discussed by EU legislators. Under this approach, the ECB would have had no competence over EU CCPs, contrary to its mandate as central bank of issue for the euro, which calls for powers over all euro clearing regardless of its location. The ECB would have been given an exhaustive list of specific and circumscribed powers – replicating the present and future provisions of EMIR II – in respect of some systemic third-country CCPs, as designated by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). This would have been uncharacteristic and overly granular for the ESCB Statute, which is primary law and gives the ECB broad discretion in the exercise of its monetary mandate, and it would have violated the ECB’s functional independence. This was compounded by a requirement that ECB measures be “in alignment with” legislative acts and measures taken under those acts. Given these grave legal concerns, the Governing Council concluded that the final text seriously distorted its recommendation and interfered with fundamental principles of the Treaty, including the independent exercise by the ECB of its monetary policy. The recommendation to amend the Statute was therefore withdrawn, which is a matter of regret.

(2018), “ Euro Clearing – the open race”, keynote speech at the Frankfurt Finance Summit, Frankfurt,  29 May. 5 Bursian, D. and Faia, E. (2018), “Trust in the monetary authority”, Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 98, pp. 66–79. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
This increase in the Spanish dependency ratio amply exceeds that projected for the European Union as a whole, where it will rise by a factor of 1.6 in the same period, according to Eurostat. This change in the age composition of the Spanish population will affect a very wide range of economic factors. The most obvious is perhaps the challenge it represents to Spain’s welfare state. The increasingly higher proportion of older people puts upward pressure on the expenditure of the pension, health and dependency system, which poses a challenge to its financial sustainability that must be faced soon. 14  See the 2014 report entitled ERAC Peer Review of the Spanish Research and Innovation System, commissioned by the European Commission. 16/18  But the issues associated with population ageing are not limited just to the public expenditure of the welfare state. Their implications encompass many more facets of the economic arena and range from the potential growth of the economy to the management of economic policy. Firstly, I would like to point out the close connection between population ageing and the long-term growth of the economy. As we have seen, the latter is affected by changes in employment and in productivity, which in turn is inextricably linked to technical progress. Thus, it is important to extend people’s working life to stop the employment rate from falling and thus sustain Spain’s capacity for long-term growth.

2  BIS Review 60/2008  Climate change and environmental sustainability Another longer term issue that the world has to deal with is climate change. This is a topic of increasing importance and it is timely that Merrill Lynch has introduced the environmental theme in this year’s conference. Many countries have come to realize that economic development without taking into account the environmental cost presents a classic case of the Tragedy of the Commons. Problems caused by climate change and global warming affect all of us. As a country lacking in natural resources, Singapore sees a critical need to promote sustainable development. Singapore’s National Research Foundation has dedicated significant resources to facilitate research efforts and encourage commercial spin-offs. R&D initiatives have been complemented by both domestic and foreign investment in the areas of sustainable water and solar energy projects. Some of you would have read about Renewable Energy Corp from Norway, which is building a Euro 3 billion plant in Singapore for the manufacturing of solar modules. By 2010, NEWater, our very own water recycling industry, will be able to meet 30% of Singapore’s water demand. Singapore has also adopted a model to promote sustainable urban design for housing development, environmental management and transportation. For example, Singapore is working with China on a project to help develop environmentally friendly townships via the Singapore-Tianjin Eco-city project. Access to funding for such projects is the key to the success of developing a sustainable model of urbanization and production of renewable energy.
There is a risk the bank will fail and be unable to repay its debts to depositors. Similarly, when a bank lends money to buy a home or start a business, there is a risk that the borrower will default. 2/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  In the United States, these risks are mitigated through a combination of public laws and internal controls, including deposit insurance and lending guidelines that, since the financial crisis, have become more stringent. Those are simple examples of risks taken by banks, and there are relatively straightforward ways to mitigate those risks. But the more complex banking activity becomes, the more difficult it is to identify and manage risks. And the more connections exist in a global financial system, the more risk can be distributed or amplified, and the greater the opportunity for new systemic risks to emerge.2 Banks can face risks from employees, some of whom are located in offices in financial centers around the world. Some risks are, again, inherent. We are all human, which means we sometimes make honest mistakes. There is also a risk from intentional employee misconduct. For example, a trader may seek personal gain by taking undue risks in investing someone else’s money. An analyst may disclose confidential information without permission. Or, more simply, in an institution that deals with money, some people may decide to take some for themselves. In some of these cases, the bank may be the victim of the crime.

This can, unfortunately, lead a bank to conclude that it has reduced one set of risks and can therefore afford to take on an additional set of risks. But what if the technology was imperfect, and the sophisticated models were flawed? Overconfidence in risk models can itself become a significant risk. Risk and responsibility There is a popular phrase in the United States among risk management professionals who want to be clear about accountability for risk. We often say that a person, or division, or firm “owns the risk.” Let me explain what I think that phrase means, at least in some contexts. When a business line manager understands that she “owns the risk”—and not, say, the lawyers, compliance professionals, or anyone else—it means that she is accountable to a more senior manager and to the firm for the risk. Presumably, that means she will bring an appropriate focus and attention to issues of risk management. She will not assume that risk management is somebody else’s problem. Sometimes I worry, however, that this phrase—“own the risk”—has become overused and can itself give rise to risk. To be clear, clarity of roles and responsibilities with respect to risk management is critical. Business managers should not be able to outsource accountability for risk management to others. Still, I wonder if it is time to retire the phrase “own the risk” or at least be more thoughtful about its use.
The Board of Directors, thus, needs to act as a check-and-balance against the Management with a view to ensuring the safety and soundness of the enterprise. Meanwhile, shareholders also expect the Board to perform its role as a watchdog or guarantor that the corporation would not incur losses or go into bankruptcy. They also expect the Board to check Management against excessive risk taking. Therefore, it goes without saying that if the roles of Chief of Management and the Chairman of the Board are performed simultaneously by the same individual, then other Board members cannot fully perform their duties of providing the check-and-balance required by good governance. Worse yet, shrewd CEO will tempt other Board Members with stock options so that they would go along with his policy direction. This would especially be the case when the CEO aims for high growth or business expansion, which usually implies a quick rise in the company’s equities. Though, these policies are often prone to higher risks, Board members may become less inquisitive and more optimistic in their judgment as a result of the personal interests in potential profits from stock options. At the end of the day, their own personal interests would overtake their sense of conservatism and responsibilities. BIS Review 24/2006  1  One can think of an even worse scenario when the CEO would like to cover up any wrongdoings or poor performances. Since this CEO is also chairman of the Board, he can easily influence the agenda of the meeting.

However, it is still premature to assess the effect of these shocks on world economic growth. Significant data are not yet available on how economies have performed after the shock. In any event, the size of the possible effect will depend closely on how much the US economy is affected by the turbulence that has arisen there. The information available so far shows that the United States is more resilient to the residential investment crisis than originally envisaged, so the foreseeable effects seem limited. This diagnosis is consistent with the forecasts of international organisations which, while acknowledging a considerable heightening of uncertainty and downside risk, continue pointing to a scenario of ongoing world buoyancy. Realistically, however, if the United States went into recession, a significant  BIS Review 134/2007  1  change in the world economic scenario could take place, although the impact would in any event be cushioned by the continued buoyancy of the emerging economies, which have generally been little affected by the financial turbulence. The extent of the impact on global growth will also depend fundamentally on the force and duration of the shocks generated. In the past, in episodes such as that of 1998 sparked by the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management fund and by the Russian debt crisis, the financial turbulence barely influenced world economic buoyancy despite the dark predictions that accompanied it.