samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In order to reap the benefits from economies of scale and scope, Nordea has chosen to concentrate its different functions, such as treasury operations, credit decision-making and risk management to specific centres of competence within the group. It is therefore questionable whether the different entities within the group really are selfcontained, even if they are legally independent subsidiaries. With this structure, it is also less likely that the group as whole can survive a failure of one of its entities. Hence, operationally and in economic terms, Nordea increasingly resembles a bank with a branch structure. A consequence is that the present regulatory structure may be less well-suited for efficient supervision and regulation of the group. A fourth challenge is that the practicalities of supervision and crisis management are greatly complicated as the number of relevant authorities increases. In normal times, this means that the regulatory burden for the financial firms increases. Also, the need for supervisory cooperation increases, which demands new supervisory procedures and the creation of common supervisory cultures. In times of financial crises, sharing information and coordinating action becomes a difficult priority, especially since time is a scarce resource in crises. A fifth challenge is that conflicting national interests emerge as banks become truly crossborder. The national authorities have a national mandate and are responsible to the national government or parliament. They are therefore unlikely to take the full external effect of their actions in other countries into account.

The Ministry of Finance now assesses the value of the government’s share of the remaining petroleum wealth at NOK 3.6 trillion, which is about NOK 550 billion lower than the Ministry’s estimate one year earlier. Chart: Ownership interests In summer 2007, the Ministry of Finance decided to increase the allocation to equity from 40 per cent to 60 per cent and reduce the allocation to bonds correspondingly. Surging oil and gas prices, high oil production and favourable economic conditions for the Norwegian economy led to high transfers to the Fund in the course of 2007 and 2008. Equity prices fell sharply through 2008. It was against this background that the Fund purchased equities for more than NOK 1 trillion between summer 2007 and summer 2009. With a fall in value of 23 per cent or NOK 630 billion, it is understandable that the results in 2008 attracted considerable attention. The most important development for the Fund was perhaps a doubling of its global equity holdings. After earning high returns in the past year and a half, the Fund has also recovered the losses. Chart: Nominal interest rate level and cost of equity capital  7  See “Future management of the Government Petroleum Fund”, Norges Bank’s letter to the Ministry of Finance of 10 April 1997 and “An analysis of the Government Petroleum Fund’s equity allocation”, Norges Bank’s letter to the Ministry of Finance of 15 March 2001. 8  If 1997 is included, the figure is somewhat higher. The money-weighted average return is somewhat lower.
The reason, of course, is that there is no simple, direct, link between our essential instrument - the short-term interest rate - and our objective, the rate of inflation. BIS Review 23/2002  1  Interest rates essentially affect the demand side of the economy. They do not directly influence the supply side, which depends upon a whole host of structural characteristics of the economy which are largely beyond the direct reach of monetary policy. What we have to do in managing short-term interest rates is to keep overall demand growing broadly in line with the underlying - sustainable supply-side capacity of the economy as a whole to meet that demand. In other words we are trying to maintain overall, macro-economic, stability in a much broader sense, in the medium- and longer- and not just the short-term; and the Government's inflation target is the criterion against which our success, or otherwise, in achieving that broader macro-economic stability is to be measured. Our problem is that we don't know with any great precision or confidence exactly what is happening on the supply-side - that's to say precisely what rate of growth we can hope to sustain. We don't know precisely either what is currently happening, or what is likely to happen, looking forward over the next couple of years or so, to overall, aggregate, demand. And we don't know precisely what the full impact of a change in interest rates will be on aggregate demand, or how long it will take before that full impact is felt.

I'm bound to say I welcome that distinction because the fact that the Government sets the target for monetary policy means that it is unambiguously committed to what we are tasked to do, and that, in turn, helps in some degree to distance the Bank from political debate. But there are two necessary consequences of this arrangement. The first is that you need independent, technical, experts to do the technical job entrusted to the MPC - not people appointed for their political convictions, nor representatives of particular economic or social interests. In that respect I think we have been extremely well served: the members of the Committee have been invariably well qualified for the technical jobs they've had to do; but more than that they have typically known enough, including about the inevitable uncertainties I have referred to, to know when they could be reasonably confident in their views and when they were guessing - as we all have to do at the margin. The Committee has been divided, generally very narrowly divided, in its forecasts and policy judgements more often than not since we started. That is both natural and healthy. But what is important is that the debate has typically been measured and reflective - and remarkably free of acrimony and dogma. And that to my mind is fundamental to the strength of the process. The second corollary is that the MPC process should be transparent and that its members should be individually and collectively publicly accountable for their decisions.
But I do believe there are areas in which change could beneficially be made, which would have the effect of strengthening the international financial architecture, to the benefit of us all. There are four areas in which I would like to see further improvements. First, we need a comprehensive set of international accounting standards which attract broad support, and high quality independent audit to help enforce them. Second, the role of the Financial Stability Forum could be developed and strengthened. Third, and linked to that change, there are gaps in the global regulatory system which could and should be plugged. Fourth, we need to find ways of bringing developing economies more closely into the process of setting standards. I will say a word or two about each of these suggestions. (i)  Accounting and auditing  Accounting standards are the foundation stone of the financial system, and of financial regulation. Without accounting numbers in which investors can have confidence regulation, cannot hope to be effective. And those accounts must be audited objectively and independently. Since the reformation of the International Accounting Standards Board three years ago a determined effort has been under way, led by Paul Volcker and David Tweedie, to complete the standard set and  BIS Review 25/2003  3  secure broad agreement to their acceptance around the world. They are now close to success, but there are some difficult obstacles still to be overcome, notably the question of the treatment of financial instruments (IAS 39).

In the ASEAN-5 economies, food accounts for about a third of the consumption basket, much higher than advanced economies. Given this high weight of food, food price increases have a strong direct impact on headline inflation. 11. Second, strong inflows of capital adding to asset price and domestic demand pressures. Low interest rates in the advanced economies have prompted global investors to seek higher returns in emerging economies, especially in Asia. 12. Third, Asia’s strong recovery from the crisis has led to high rates of capacity utilisation and tightening of labour markets. This has prompted a gradual build-up in wageprice pressures. 13. I do not want to minimise the inflation risks in Asia – no central banker would take a light attitude towards inflation risks – but I do want to put the issue in perspective. 14. Some of the price pressures facing Asia are no doubt structural. We can expect the relative price of food – and commodities in general – to increase over the medium to long term on the back of growing global demand especially in the emerging economies. Likewise, capital will continue to flow from advanced economies to emerging economies, reflecting growth differentials and a shift in global portfolios towards higher yielding Asian assets. These two factors will be a source of inflation bias in emerging Asia over the medium term. 15. But a good part of the inflation in Asia is also temporary.
Four Rs: Creating the conditions for long-term sustainable growth in the life annuity sector – speech by Charlotte Gerken | Bank of England 2. PPF7800 Index March 2023 update 3. Risk Transfer Report 2023 - Hymans Robertson 4. Pension Trustees: The Planning Puzzle | Charles Stanley (charles-stanley.co.uk) 5. Defined benefit bulk annuity market favours full scheme transactions as funding levels improve (xpsgroup.com) 6. Report of the Member Options Working Party - Actuarial profession 7. Illiquid assets throw UK pensions off balance - Risk.net 8. Asset managers cut debt in pension scheme investing strategies | Financial Times (ft.com) 9. Shifting up a gear – WTW 10. Insurance supervision: 2023 priorities (bankofengland.co.uk) 11. Who’s concentrating? Trends in the life insurance sector and the need for strong reinsurance and investment risk management − speech by Charlotte Gerken | Bank of England 12. Why private equity sees life and annuities as an enticing form of permanent capital | McKinsey  Page 10  13. UK pensions implosion could end with a deals boom | Financial Times (ft.com) 14. Buy-in and buy-out volumes £ in the first half of 2022 - Hymans Robertson 15. bulk annuity provider ESG index - WTW (wtwco.com) 16. Insurance Stress Test 2022 feedback (bankofengland.co.uk) 17. The groups are due to report in early Q2. The inputs from these groups will be a consideration amongst others as we work through potential proposals and their workability. 18.

In this connection, we also believe that it is crucial that banks should review and revamp their incentive systems so as to avoid rewarding staff on the basis of sales volume and commission earned, which would  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  nurture a tendency to push financial products to customers to meet business targets without giving sufficient regard to the interests of the customers. This change in the incentive system to reduce mis-selling is taking place in the more advanced markets, and Hong Kong must not lag behind if we wish to continue to pride ourselves as one of the leading international financial centres. In terms of helping the customers to become smarter and more responsible, we need to enhance the financial literacy of our citizens. Surely there is plenty of scope to include financial literacy education in our school and university curriculum. In addition, the HKMA, in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Consumer Council as well as the Investor Education Centre set up by the SFC, is going to launch a new public education programme that seeks to help bank customers become “Smart and Responsible”. The first of a series of programmes will be rolled out in the next few months. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure all of you are frequent users of banking services.
Be it the not-always-proper manner of fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria by accession countries or the revision of the Stability and Growth Pact or the purchase of government bonds by the European Central Bank, we have repeatedly seen how things that are initially unthinkable become reality over time. I am doubtful that investors, who are well aware of Europe’s relationship to the rules, will change their attitude as a result of the fiscal pact. My overall view on the current design of the Facility is none too optimistic. To enhance its ability to face the debt crisis, we need to find a clear consensus on its mission. We need to precisely identify whom it is supposed to help, under what circumstances and to what extent, and to derive from that the amount of funding it needs. This will predetermine the solutions to all the issues surrounding its operation. We have time to solve all these problems, but not much time. Thank you for listening. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3

Based on what I’ve said today, let me identify four such questions:  -  First, do we understand why intermediaries struggled to make effective markets in core government bond, money and foreign exchange instruments at crucial moments during the crisis? Was it simply the sheer scale of the shock, combined with the operational challenges of remote working? Or did regulatory constraints also play a role? If there are circumstances where our traditional counterparties aren’t able to intermediate, do we need to fix that at source? Or do central banks need to change the design of their balance sheet facilities more profoundly to fill that gap? -  Second, are we comfortable with the central role played by highly-leveraged but thinly-capitalised non-banks in arbitraging between key financial markets, if the unwinding of those trades can amplify instability so starkly? -  Third, how do we deal with the risks posed to financial stability by the structural tendency for Money Market and some other open-ended funds to be prone to runs, without having to commit scarce public money to costly support facilities? -  And, fourth, how can we ensure timely transition away from LIBOR, whose weaknesses were highlighted so starkly by the crisis? The Bank’s Financial Policy Committee will be reflecting on these and other issues in the months ahead. Closer to home, there are lessons too for us in some of the ways of working that we’ve been forced to explore whilst in lockdown.
Firms should use the design of the CBES and the underlying NGFS scenarios to inform their own scenario analysis, build their understanding of the climate risks they face, and enhance their climate risk management capabilities. I hope it will act as a catalyst, increasing firms’ knowledge of the risks they face, and incentivising them to take steps to address these risks. In turn, this will require firms’ clients in the real economy to improve their understanding of how climate change and the transition to a net-zero economy could impact their businesses and operations. Lessons learned from the CBES will also be shared with the NGFS as part of the collaborative approach taken by central banks, and on that note, I want to commend the ACPR’s recent publication of its own ambitious scenario exercise for the French financial system. 3  Through both its scenario work in the NGFS, and its internal analysis, the Bank has developed a clearer understanding of where climate knowledge gaps persist and what these might mean for our objectives. For example, there is particular value in the deepening of our understanding of the macroeconomic implications of climate change and the pathways to net-zero. It is for governments to set out a pathway to net-zero and the policy levers that will be used to deliver it. But as central banks, we will need to understand any implications of the transition for the economic outlook and our potential policy responses.

Gent Sejko: Transparency, communication and the importance of the media partnership Address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the end-of-year meeting with the media and the Governor’s Award ceremony, Tirana, 13 December 2019. * * * Dear ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Bank of Albania, to spend some time together as the year end approaches. Sadly, the atmosphere at the end of this year is different from previous ones, following the devastating earthquake, which hit Albania in late November. In the aftermath, we are all heartbroken by the tragic loss of 51 lives, with hundreds of others injured and many buildings, which have collapsed or have been heavily affected by the strongest quake in decades. Yet, beyond the material consequences and psychological shock, this tragic event foregrounded another – somewhat dormant – dimension of our society: solidarity and unconditional support for each other. We all witnessed an impressive demonstration of voluntary support from fellow citizens to those affected by the devastating earthquake. In this extraordinary situation, the media played a key role in promoting solidarity and alleviating the human pain caused by this natural disaster. In light of this event, and in retrospection of 2019, let me express my sincere thanks and heartfelt gratitude to the media, to those who are present here tonight, and those that were unable to attend, for their invaluable work, reporting news truthfully and in real time.
  Total merchandise export earnings rose by 71.2 percent to $ million in 2010 from $ million recorded in 2009, following increases in both metal and non-traditional export earnings.   Metal export earnings rose by 81.6 percent to $ million in 2010 from $ million in 2009, of which copper export earnings were US $ million and cobalt export earnings were US $ million. This was explained by the rise in copper and cobalt production following increased capacity utilisation at various mines and higher global market prices.   Exports of non-traditional products registered a growth of 34.3 percent to $ million in 2010 from $ million the previous year. This was driven by higher exports of copper wire, cane sugar, burley tobacco, cotton lint, electrical cables, gemstones, maize and maize seed, and wheat and meslin.   Total merchandise imports grew by 40.3 to $ million in 2010 from US $ million in 2009. Exchange rate   Following strong macroeconomic fundamentals and increased supply in foreign exchange, the Kwacha performed favourably against all the major traded currencies in 2010, except for the South African Rand. The Kwacha appreciated by 4.7 percent against US dollar to trade at $ from $ in 2009.   Similarly, the Kwacha appreciated by 6.0 percent against the British Pound and by 8.0 percent against the Euro to trade at £ and € respectively. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  However, the Kwacha registered a depreciation of 8.8 percent against the South African Rand.

Fiscal sector developments   Fiscal prudence has improved over the past years, with domestic revenues performing well following higher collections of value added taxes, as well as income taxes from mining companies.   This in effect has also been seen in increased government expenditure on growthsupporting activities such as infrastructure and social sector spending. Over the last few years, Government has also reduced its borrowing from the banking sector, thereby avoiding the crowding out of the private sector and contributing to downward movements in interest rates. Financial sector developments   The overall financial condition and performance of the financial sector in 2010 was satisfactory, as reflected in adequate capitalisation and most financial institutions meeting their minimum regulatory requirements.   The banking sector was adequately capitalized and asset quality, liquidity and earnings performance remained satisfactory. The Bank granted a licence to International Commercial Bank (Z) Limited, bringing the number of commercial banks operating in the country to 18.   Similarly, the overall financial performance and condition of the Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs) in 2010 was fair. On average, the leasing finance institutions and bureaux de change sub-sectors reported adequate capital, fair asset quality, liquidity position and earnings performance. Prospects for 2011   Several indicators point to continued strong economic performance in 2011.   Real GDP is projected to grow by at least 6.8 percent and will continue to be driven by strong performance in the agricultural, mining, construction and tourism sectors.
Working from such a low level of interest rates, we do not know for sure whether those effects remain the same, given pressure on the incomes of savers and high debt levels of borrowers: further cuts in rates may not feed through to higher consumption in the normal way and some of the effects could even be perverse. We may well find that getting rates back to normal is part of re-establishing economic activity at potential in due course. If monetary policy is limited in terms of its ability to generate growth, what else could we do to support the real adjustment of the economy? In the banking sector we have been particularly active. The Funding for Lending Scheme has been extended until the end of 2014, and amended to provide additional incentives to lend to SMEs and to non-bank providers of credit to the real economy. The FPC’s capital recommendation should be seen as complementary – seeking to spur the increased capitalisation of the banks’ balance sheets so they are seen as safe and sound and hence have market access to reasonably priced funding in the future, while using our facilities to make sure they have access to sufficient reasonably priced funding in the meantime. The banks are responding, quite rightly, by not adjusting their strategic balance sheet aims of running off weak portfolios, often commercial property related, but they are maintaining or increasing lending to their core customers. Some are consciously rebalancing their books between retail and corporate lending.

Since US banks are increasingly engaged in securities areas, their functions are also subject to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and consumer lobbies. Regulation may be based on product types such that each regulatory authority specialises in one financial product. Under this framework, a securities regulator will concentrate in the oversight of securities activities, irrespective of the type of financial institutions that are carrying out this business. Functional regulation is generally conducted by two separate regulatory bodies, an investor protection arm and a systemic stability arm. The investor protection arm deals with retail depositors and small investors to ensure fair conduct, equitable competition and customer protection. The systemic stability agency, on the other hand, looks at the larger players and wholesale activities. It would also be responsible for the safety, structure and functioning of all payment systems and financial markets. Preventive measures include capital adequacy requirements; constraints on connected lending and other rules aimed at preventing insolvency; and an official safety net such as lender of last resort or deposit insurance. This approach follows the Goodhart (1995) model, which suggests that the difference in focus and function of investor protection and systemic stability is large enough to justify two separate regulatory bodies in each country to share the regulatory responsibilities. According to Goodhart, the formulation of rules for the safety of the system should be the responsibility of the systemic stability arm.