samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In particular, we needed to bear in mind that the euro area’s financial system is predominantly bank-based. Take the structures of private credit outstanding as an example: recourse to banks makes up more than 70% of non-equity external finance in the euro area. By comparison, in the US the equivalent proportion is only around 30%. This reflects the fact that the US financial system is primarily market-based. In the euro area, guaranteeing steady access to credit for households and companies largely means preserving the viability of the banking system. Banks play such a dominant role in our economy that it was appropriate to focus our non-standard measures on the banking sector. This profound contrast in financial and economic structures explains the different responses by central banks to the crisis as exemplified by the approaches of the ECB and the Federal Reserve System of the US. We rely on different channels as regards the transmission of our policy action. But these variations do not reflect conflicting views on fundamental principles or objectives. On the contrary: given the different structures, the approaches need to be different to achieve the same objective. Thus, I would strongly argue that central banks around the world are united in purpose. As I indicated before, the remarks I just made on the ECB’s response to the crisis did not contain any message concerning future monetary policy, and should not be interpreted as containing any such message.

In this context, I would like to underline that since the introduction of the euro in 1999, the ECB’s quantitative definition of price stability – an inflation rate of below, but close to, 2% in the euro area, over the medium term – has proved to be an invaluable asset. It has guarded against undesirably high inflation and against deflation. Long-term inflation expectations in the euro area, whether based on surveys or extracted from financial indicators, have been and continue to be firmly anchored at levels consistent with our definition of price stability. Inflation expectations have been exceptionally resistant to sudden upward short-term price changes, and we have ensured that is also the case with sharply falling inflation. Non-standard measures In addition to reducing interest rates, we have taken exceptional policy actions in response to the crisis – “non-standard” measures related to liquidity management. At the very start of the money market stress in August 2007, the ECB reacted within a few hours and temporarily provided additional liquidity to banks with immediate liquidity needs. We were in fact the first central bank to take non-standard measures. When in mid-September 2008 the crisis intensified and interbank trading came to a virtual halt, the ECB engaged in a new mode of liquidity provision. We started to provide refinancing well above the levels that banks had absorbed to fulfil their reserve requirements in normal times. Our approach comprises three main “building blocks”. •  We significantly adapted our regular refinancing operations.
In many countries or economic areas, the institutional framework for financial stability is being strengthened in the light of the lessons learnt from the crisis, and incorporates new supervisory tasks and bodies responsible for the macroprudential regulation of systemic risk and Zambia is no exception. Overall, the current crisis has revealed that microprudential supervision in many cases proved inadequate to identify, in a timely manner, the nature and size of accumulating risks and to impose appropriate  4  BIS Review 63/2010  remedial action; and that there is therefore, a need to strengthen both the macroprudential and microprudential supervision of the financial system. The Bank of Zambia with the help of the World Bank is currently conducting pilot tests of the World Bank developed Financial Projection Model (FPM) on a number of financial institutions. Among many other things, the FPM is a tool designed to simulate the effect of internal and external events upon financial institutions’ solvency and profitability to implement stress scenarios in a dynamic fashion. The Bank of Zambia is also developing a financial sector contingency plan to address problems of a systemic nature and enhance practical tools for effectively managing financial distress and potential systemic crisis. Chairperson, let me conclude by stating that in the wake of the global financial crisis, Governments around the world and the international community acting together, have an important opportunity to address some of the structural weaknesses in our domestic economies and in the global financial system that were laid bare by the crisis.

In order to ensure timely and credible information for the effective supervision of banks and other financial institutions, the Bank of Zambia has been playing a key role in developing the Bank Supervision Application System (BSA), which is a Southern African Development Community (SADC) region initiative. The BSA is a standardized tool designed for capturing supervisory information, financial and risk analysis and provides a workflow mechanism for communicating the different aspects of the supervisory process. Distinguished delegates, the legal and regulatory framework governing the supervision of the financial sector must provide for a fast and flexible way of adapting the banking system to the constantly changing financial landscape. The legal and regulatory frameworks in Zambia  2  BIS Review 63/2010  comprise of the Banking and Financial Services Act, Chapter 387 of the Laws of Zambia; the Bank of Zambia Act, Chapter 360 of the Laws of Zambia; the National Payment Systems Act; the Prohibition and Prevention of Money Laundering Act; the Bank of Zambia Anti-Money Laundering Directives; and the Bank of Zambia Corporate Governance Guidelines. The speed at which changes to these regulatory frameworks can be made is a crucial element of the reform process in regulatory and supervisory arrangements as it improves policy responsiveness. A number of challenges exist in this area including the need to update some of the Statutory Instruments (SIs) in order to reflect the dynamics presently characterizing the financial markets.
Mugur Isărescu: Opening speech - Annual EBRD EU-11 Meeting Opening speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the Annual EBRD EU-11 Meeting, Bucharest, 13 April 2018. * * * Vice President Heilbronn, Minister Teodorovici, Your Excellences, Ladies and gentlemen, You are most welcome here, at the National Bank of Romania. Together with the Board of the Bank we are privileged to greet you here, today, for the Annual European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EU-11 Meeting. Let me begin by saying that the National Bank of Romania has always had a consistent and reliable cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Several high ranking officials from the EBRD have visited the National Bank of Romania, Jacques de Larosière being one of them, in order to discuss topics of mutual interest and, of course, the EBRD activity in Romania (especially EBRD’s contribution to the reform of the banking sector in Romania). I would like to recall that the National Bank of Romania has hosted, over the years, more than a few official presentations of the EBRD Transition Report, including the 2014 edition, ”Innovation in Transition”. On a more personal note, I confess I am among those who signed the Agreement establishing the Bank in 1991, as the representative of Romania to that historical moment. I will take this opportunity to acknowledge the role that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development had in mitigating the global financial crisis.

This provision builds up a buffer during the benign part of the cycle, which starts to be released when recession comes knocking on banks’ doors. Counter-cyclicality is intrinsic to dynamic provisions and part of its usefulness can be seen in the resilience shown so far by Spanish banks in the current crisis. Furthermore, its direct impact on the profit and loss account (reflecting losses at a time when these losses are really being built up in balance sheets) constitutes a way to make banks more aware of how credit must be priced, reducing the underestimation of loans risk premia and, to some extent, compensating the relaxation of credit granting standards in good times. It also delivers the right information to investors about the financial position of the bank. In all, dynamic provisioning allows a proper recognition of credit risk. I must also admit that there are voices raised by some institutions that do not agree with this view, and particularly, accounting standard setters. In this respect, we should call for further dialogue between accounting rule setters and supervisors as well as a clarification regarding roles and objectives of each of them. I really think that our objectives are compatible and that delivering the relevant information to investors should not be an impediment for supervisors to ensure the stability of the banking sector by promoting the most adequate measures that experience and results have proved to be useful. Very much in line with dynamic provisions, the buildup of capital buffers also deserves room in our discussions.
By requiring prime MMFs to adopt a system of gates and fees, the reform made them less money-like; floating NAVs reduced the money-likeness of the institutional subsegment even further.16,17 The differential impact of the SEC’s MMF reforms—which made prime MMFs less money-like yet not riskier—can be used to distinguish between investors’ preferences for money-likeness and safety in normal states of the world. Figure 2 shows the industry’s aggregate assets around the implementation of the new rules. In anticipation of implementation, more than $ trillion flowed from the prime MMF sector into the government MMF sector.18  3 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  Moreover, the absence of other changes in investors’ behavior suggests that MMF investors were driven by a narrow desire to preserve the money-likeness of their investments. When moving from prime to government MMFs, investors largely remained in the same fund family. Figure 3 illustrates this observation using a scatter plot of outflows from prime funds versus inflows into government funds at the family level. Additionally, investors shifted into funds that invest primarily in agency debt, the sub-segment of the government MMF industry with a riskreturn profile most similar to that of prime MMFs. 4 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  This response to MMF reform differs significantly from what happened in 2008.

31 Reverse repos with the Federal Reserve use Treasury securities held in the Federal Reserve’s System Open  Market Account as collateral, but they do not directly increase the amount of Treasury collateral available for use in the financial system. This is because nearly all of the counterparties in the Federal Reserve’s reverse repo transactions are unable to rehypothecate the collateral. However, by reducing these counterparties’ demand for collateral in the private market, the Federal Reserve’s reverse repos increase the amount of collateral available to other market participants. Primary dealers, who have access to both the ON RRP facility and securities lending facility of the Federal Reserve, do rehypothecate collateral and thus can directly add to collateral available in the private market. 10 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches
Over the course of the program, our purchases ran at about the same pace as the total net Treasury supply coming to the market. Moreover, with the completion of the program, the SOMA portfolio holds about 18 percent of the outstanding stock of Treasury securities. Our share of the market is even higher at intermediate maturities, where our purchases were concentrated. Part of the challenge to the Desk was to structure our operations in a manner that would allow the market to absorb such a large volume of purchases. Several features of the program’s design may have helped to promote robust participation by market participants, including the decisions to relax the 35 percent limit on SOMA holdings of individual issues and to include recently issued securities in the range of eligible issues in nearly every operation. These features allowed our counterparties to offer us a wide range of securities at each operation. In the end, dealers participated aggressively, with an average offer-to-cover ratio of over 3.5. Moreover, we managed to execute these purchases at prices that were, on average, at or very near the indicative quotes on these securities that we collect as a pricing reference. In addition to focusing on the performance of our operations, we have also monitored measures of liquidity in the Treasury market. The market seems to be functioning well despite our sizable presence. Measures such as bid-ask spreads, quote depth, and trading volumes have held relatively steady at favorable levels over the life of the program.

In terms of shortages in the supply of individual Treasury securities, our securities lending program appears to have generally relieved any such shortages that have resulted from our holdings. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  financial conditions presumably depends on the period of time for which the assets are expected to be held. Alternatively, economic developments could instead lead to a policy change in the direction of normalization. The FOMC minutes released last week provided valuable information on the sequence of steps that might be followed in that case. The minutes indicated that the removal of policy accommodation was expected to begin with a decision to stop reinvesting some or all of the principal payments on assets held in the SOMA. If all asset classes in the SOMA were allowed to run off, the portfolio would decline by about $ billion per year on average over the first several years. Under the interpretation of the policy stance noted earlier, this shrinkage of the balance sheet would amount to a tightening of policy. 9 However, one should realize that this step represents a relatively gradual and limited policy tightening. Indeed, using the mapping that has been discussed by Chairman Bernanke, this path for the balance sheet would, in terms of its effects on the economy, be roughly equivalent to raising the federal funds rate by just over 25 basis point per year over the course of several years.
Many of the positions were equity financed – so, while significant wealth was lost, financial institutions and financial markets did not suffer severe repercussions. That loss in wealth helped ignite the 2001 recession, but it was a much more mild downturn than the one we have experienced of late. With the financial infrastructure not significantly damaged, the impact was much less severe than if individuals and firms had taken highly leveraged positions. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Financial myths in the recent crisis Now I’d like to describe, and present some charts that illustrate, four financial myths that played a role in the recent crisis. Myth 1 – Diversification eliminated the risk of declines in residential real estate holdings Despite the experience of Japan’s real estate in the 1990s, and substantial declines in real estate prices in many regions of the United States throughout history, many commentators argued that a significant, widespread housing-price decline in a country as large and varied as the United States had not happened historically and was very unlikely to occur. That logic was based on what you see in Figure 5, which highlights that there had been significant declines in some regions of the country – but the declines were coincident with increases elsewhere. As Figure 6 shows, there had not been recent, sustained declines in national real estate prices.

Mugur Isărescu: The macroeconomic perspective in Romania Welcome speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, at the Romanian-Czech Business Forum, Bucharest, 20 May 2014. *  *  *  Your Excellency, President Zeman, you are most welcome here, at the National Bank of Romania, a place that holds within its walls countless pieces of history, tails of how Romania has grown into a modern state. We are privileged to greet here, today. Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, Allow me to extend a very warm welcome and thank you all for gracing us with your presence at the Romanian-Czech Business Forum. It is a great pleasure for the National Bank of Romania, and an honor for me and for the members of the board, to host what will be a substantial discussion about the challenges currently facing Europe, in particular the development of economic relations between the Czech Republic and Romania. Here, at the National Bank of Romania, we take pride in having always been a forum for debating, in an open and profound manner, the themes and trends defining our age. A few weeks ago we celebrated the 134-th anniversary of the Romanian National Bank, a central bank ranking 16-th in the world. During the break, after the working sessions, you are kindly invited to visit/walk the outstanding halls of the Old Palace of our national bank.
Fiscal domination remains a constant risk to price stability, as it came out of the experience presented here by Mr. Baschi (Turkey). We hope that the commitment of the government for developing a better coordination of monetary and fiscal policies will continue in the future, as the Minister of Finance, Mr. Malaj stated in his speech. This idea was further elaborated on in the presentation authored by Mr. Hida and Mr. Haderi. Dollarisation or FX may constitute another obstacle that places financial stability and monetary policy independence at risk, as argued by Mr. Driessen. Therefore, it is a problem that needs attention. What inflation rate should be targeted remains a subject of debate. This concern was presented by Mr. Olters. The Bank of Albania is closely addressing this issue in a very prudential manner, so that it does not become an obstacle for economic growth. In light of the above difficulties for passing to a new regime, as stressed by Mr. Mayes, it is important to implement a robust strategy so as to avoid large mistakes. Price stability, as stressed some times during the conference, helps economic growth. On the other hand, the second pillar of the Bank of Albania, the financial stability, is likely to play a more important role for economic extension. But, as Mr. Blejer stressed in his speech, stability should not be turned into an end in itself. A good regulated but undeveloped financial sector may be as ineffective as a deregulated sector.

For instance, a central bank cannot prevent oil prices rising in the wake of the concern over a possible war in the Middle East. On the other hand, a central bank could of course try to quickly tighten demand in the country to push down prices in other areas and thus ensure the average rate of price increase remains in line with the target level. The focus on inflation 1-2 years ahead, entails monetary policy being conducted gradually, little by little, rather than a constant acceleration and braking, which would risk creating unnecessary variations in demand and which could in turn have a negative effect on production and employment. The focus on the coming 1-2 year period thus means that temporary rises or falls in the inflation rate can be tolerated. However, it is important that the Riksbank is clear in its communication of whether it considers the rise to be temporary and when it expects it to subside. One-off shifts in price levels can have a more lasting effect on future inflation if, for instance, those involved do not believe that the rise is temporary, assessing that it will be lasting and thus wishing to compensate for the upturn. If this occurs, monetary policy must be used to intervene, even if the economic situation in itself does not provide cause for concern with regard to inflation, to prevent inflation taking a hold through expectations.
In the area of financial stability at least, there appears to be some merit in Sam Goldwyn's admonition that one should 'never make forecasts, particularly about the future'. So whilst we may be able to ensure that the banking system is protected against the normal ups and downs of a developed economy, more extreme events will continue to require tailored solutions. Changing composition of bond markets I have speculated on the possible long-term effect of the new Basel framework on securities markets. I want briefly to touch on a third topic and that is the significant change that the markets seem likely to face in the composition of the bonds being issued. A recent BIS report on trends in collateral in wholesale financial markets shows that the share of US government bonds within the dollar bond markets decreased from over 44% to under 29% between March 1994 and September 2000, with the increase mainly in bonds issued by financial institutions and government sponsored agencies. Worldwide, the share of government bonds decline from 53% to under 45%. Of the G10 countries, only in Japan is the share of government bonds on the increase. In the US, the Congressional Budget Office recently projected that the government debt might be repaid as early as 2006. From a macro-economic perspective, sound government finances are clearly desirable. Smaller government borrowing requirements can also encourage private sector issuance or "crowding in" to revert to the terminology of a similar debate from the early 1980s.

Ladies and gentlemen, these findings must be an important ingredient in the design and implementation of the framework for collecting and analyzing sex –disaggregated data. As I conclude, I wish to thank you all for attending this workshop and hope that you will use this opportunity to delve into the survey findings, the reasons behind the findings, and recommend appropriate response measures that will shape the framework to facilitate information based policies for bridging the financial inclusion gender gap. It is now my honor and privilege to officially open the workshop and I wish you fruitful deliberations. I thank you and God bless! 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches