samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Growth in compensation per employee fell slightly in the last quarter of 2018 from 2.5% to 2.2%, but remains just above its long-term average. Unit labour cost growth rose to 2.4% in the same period, partly driven by a fall in productivity growth reflecting the resilience of employment growth to the economic slowdown. The key question – and one currently being asked in many advanced economies – is why these labour cost pressures are not already being reflected in rising prices. Underlying inflation has moved broadly sideways over the last year, repeatedly falling short of expectations and staying below the levels recorded before 2008. Academic literature based on US data has responded by casting doubt on the link between labour costs and inflation, in particular at shorter horizons. Studies find no conclusive results on whether, empirically, labour costs tend to precede or follow prices. 10 This has led to a debate as to whether “cost-push” models from wages to prices can still accurately describe the inflation process. There are certainly a number of forces at work today that make forecasting inflation more complex, not least the effects of globalisation and digitalisation. Yet research by ECB staff finds that, unlike in the United States, the structural conditions for pass-through from wages to prices remain in place in the euro area.

Mario Draghi: Monetary policy in the euro area Speech by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the conference "The ECB and its watchers XX", Frankfurt am Main, 27 March 2019. * * * The last year has seen a loss of growth momentum in the euro area, which has extended into 2019. This has been predominantly driven by pervasive uncertainty in the global economy that has spilled over into the external sector. So far, the domestic economy has remained relatively resilient and the drivers of the current expansion remain in place. However, the risks to the outlook remain tilted to the downside. The monetary policy measures we took at the last Governing Council meeting reflect this assessment. In the face of a weaker growth outlook, they help maintain the accommodative policy stance that we managed to preserve last year as we rotated our instruments from net asset purchases to forward guidance. Our policy thereby continues to accompany the economy on its path towards our inflation objective. The outlook for the euro area economy We expected the expansion to slow in 2018 as the business cycle matured and growth retreated towards potential. But as the economy weakened in the second part of last year, it was not yet certain whether we were witnessing a temporary departure from this scenario, or a more lasting deterioration in the growth outlook.
Sukhdave Singh: The rise of the South at a crossroad – a view from East Asia and Latin America Opening address by Dr Sukhdave Singh, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the World Bank Knowledge and Research Hub Conference “The Rise of the South at a Crossroad: A View from East Asia and Latin America”, Sasana Kijang, Kuala Lumpur, 16 May 2016. *  *  *  I am pleased to welcome you to today’s Conference on “The Rise of the South at a Crossroad: A View from East Asia and Latin America” organised by the World Bank Knowledge and Research Hub in Kuala Lumpur. For those of you who have not been here before, I would also like to welcome you to Sasana Kijang. I congratulate the World Bank Knowledge and Research Hub for organising this conference on economic integration. Economic integration within the current global context It is indeed an opportune time for us to look at economic and financial integration and what it can offer to emerging economies in Asia and Latin America. It is an opportune time because the world seems to have been unable to bounce back towards a healthy growth path after the financial crisis in the developed world. It is an opportune time because policymakers have not been successful in generating strong sustainable growth. The traditional tools for nursing the economy back to health don’t seem to be working as well – possibly because of overuse or misuse.

A pedantic approach to monetary policy in much of the developed world has led to near zero and negative interest rates in many of these economies. Yet growth has remained stubbornly weak. Such policies also risk merely creating the transfer of growth across time rather than promoting sustainable growth over time. It is perhaps time to start asking whether the best way to recover from the blow-out of one debt bubble is to create the conditions for another. Central bankers and financial markets seem to be caught in a cycle of brinkmanship and central banks are caught in a trap of their own making. The outcome has been almost a decade of worsening financial repression, the progressive build-up of risks in the global financial markets, accompanied by weak investment and weak growth. It is clear that the lessons of the financial crisis have not been fully learnt in these economies – not by the financial markets and not by the policymakers. Similarly, fiscal policy is supposed to be a tool that should be useful in supporting demand. But that is only if it is used prudently and has been used prudently.
A reference to the letter appeared in Skidelsky, R. John Maynard Keynes Volume 1: Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920, Macmillan, London, 1983, page 280. The official attendance on 13 September was 38,575; the Villa scorer was the incomparable Clem Stephenson, who may have lacked pace but whose passes were, according to contemporary observers, “as sweet as stolen kisses”; and the ‘most expensive’ right winger for Blackburn Rovers was John “Jocky” Simpson who cost Blackburn a record fee of £ when he was transferred from Falkirk in 1911. BIS Review 5/2004  1  do those prices come from? Each month - on “Index Day” (either the second or third Tuesday of the month) - around 300 “price collectors” visit a wide range of retail outlets and record the prices charged for 130,000 different items, ranging from small loaves of brown bread to large lawnmowers. Each of these different items will have changed in price by a different amount. A key difference between the CPI and RPIX is how these 130,000 price changes are averaged to give a measure of overall inflation. RPIX inflation is, for most goods, an arithmetic average of the inflation rates for each item. In contrast, CPI inflation is measured as the increase in the geometric average (the average of the logarithms) of the different prices.

Surveillance has been and will be intensified to detect vulnerabilities that may emerge in this period of uncertainty. As such, the financial institutions as well as the designated non-financial businesses and professions, or the DNFBPs, must be ready to respond to emerging risks and threats. These risks and threats include money laundering and terrorism financing that may undermine the efforts undertaken to maintain financial stability. For this purpose, it is apparent that the efforts to further strengthen the AML/CFT regime need to be intensified. Individual countries may benefit from robust AML/CFT regimes as enhanced financial sector integrity and stability facilitates their integration into the global financial system. They will also contribute to more transparent governance and effective fiscal administration. At the international level, there is renewed interest to review policies relating to banking secrecy and transparency, which are two of the factors identified to have contributed to the current financial meltdown. In this regard, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has initiated a study to assess the effectiveness of its policy tools in response to the current financial and economic crisis. The FATF is now identifying policy tools which may need further strengthening and evaluating whether new policy tools or responses may be needed to meet any new challenges. This is an opportunity for us to provide feedback to the FATF on its 40+9 Recommendations, including implementation challenges. Against this backdrop, the theme of this conference, “Strengthening Vigilance During Turbulent Times”, aptly describe what I believe should be considered by every institution during this challenging times.
This is not meant to be a realistic model – in fact it isn’t even a model, it is simply a set of stark assumptions. But it illustrates why using interest rates to try to control leverage – at least for companies – may not be at all effective. And I believe that high leverage has been at the centre of the financial problems of recent years. Bean et al (2010) provide some evidence on the impact of monetary policy – that is interest rates – on credit and asset prices. They find that monetary policy has some effect on asset price inflation, but little on bank lending. For example, in a counter-factual experiment using vector auto-regressions, they estimate that for the US if policy rates had started rising in 2003 and peaked at around 7.5% in late 2006, then the peak of the real house prices would have been around 7.5% lower; real credit growth would have been just 3% lower by the end of 2006. For the United Kingdom, if Bank Rate would have been around 7% from the end of 2004 to mid-2007, real house prices would have been around a fifth lower at the end of 2006, while the stock of real credit would have been only 4% lower, trivial compared to the almost 50% increase in the stock of credit seen over the period.

Regardless of how the system for managing problems is constructed, it is also important that there is finality in the intervention. There are several examples of what can go wrong otherwise. Any errors should be corrected by means of damages, rather than reversing the decision. There should be many tools If there is a system in place that means there is a credible threat that the owners will lose their influence in a situation where the bank is in serious violation of the regulations, then there is scope to try out alternative methods of solving problems in individual cases. It is desirable that the authorities should have a broad range of tools at their disposal. It is reasonable that the deposit guarantee or the government can take part in a voluntary restructuring where the owners contribute capital, or that the government can issue guarantees in the case of a private takeover. Important is that owners and creditors should not be able to gamble on such solutions always being the cheapest option for the government. Cooperative banks may be converted into a limited liability company One special issue is how to deal with cooperative banks and savings banks. These are often small, but it cannot be excluded that problems in such banks can have systemic implications. It is not realistic to believe that a savings bank facing major problems can be restructured in its original legal form.
As we see more of this in the horizon, we are then able to realign the current business thinking to a fresher lens of value-based financial dealings that resonate with Shariah, which propagates equitable access and circulation of wealth, with no one left behind. As efforts continue to sustainably rejuvenate the economy, a great headway to embark on is to build stronger capacity and support in real and productive economic sectors. An example is to enhance wider trade facilitation to spur growth in Islamic trade finance, which has promisingly surged to USD186 billion in size and is growing both in scale and demand. This signifies huge opportunities to be tapped on. Surely, more needs to be explored to widen the spectrum of Shariah-compliant trade finance offerings by the financial sector. A funding option for businesses can perhaps be tailored to the lifecycle of production. This allows companies to obtain short-term liquidity via the sale of current assets such as receivables and inventories to financial institutions without increasing indebtedness – which is in parallel with the maqasid of preservation of wealth, particularly on striving to avoid excessive debt beyond one’s ability to afford. The delivery of financial solutions therefore is compelled to reflect the needs of the economy and consumers, without eluding the broader benefits to the environment and people. The third and my final point relates to advancing the balanced responsibility in building social resilience. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that the pandemic has aggravated the pre-existing inequalities in the labour and income market3.

Both banks and regulators need a proactive strategy to deal with social and political environment that will shift banking environment and regulatory paradigm. Thus, the strategy for banks going forward must also include proactive governance and accountability framework that seeks to restore trust in market mechanism, and improve the social and political environment in which they operate. Failing to recognize the powerful social forces will result in less than optimal regulations. Similarly, the strategy for successful global regulatory reform is to assure an inclusive process, to garner commitment and credibility for the reform. In concluding, the key strategy for dealing with this paradigm shift of known-unknown is based on 3 Cs. Coordination to deal with our interconnected financial stability. Commitment forged by inclusive global reform process. And, Communal responsibility, or governance, that can regain trust of society in market mechanism, so that we can rebuild market discipline as a key governance and pillar of the financial system. These are our best  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  hope for striking the right balance between risk and return, growth and stability, and regulation and market discipline at a time of known-unknown. Thank you for your attention. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
The last but by no means the least point I would like to make is that we now have an occasion for showing, once more, the ability of the Turkish economy to overcome adversity by meeting the challenge to our resilience following a major earthquake. During the last two years, we have survived the South Asian, Russian and Latin American crises, and also an economic slowdown in the EU region that is an extremely vital trading, financial and economic partner for Turkey. We also had the uncertainties preceding the early election held in April 1999, which tested the resistance of the Turkish economy. I truly believe that we have already passed these exams, and also that we have gained enormous experience. I have always said that we are extremely good in bad times, although we don’t like them. This time the situation and prospects are different, and we will show the abilities of the Turkish economy in good times as well as bad. If the program we have begun implementing is successful, that success will affect at least the next 50 years of Turkey’s economic and social life. I believe these messages are clear and will be well understood by our international partners. BIS Review 109/1999  4

Why would the most efficient retail bankers not be able to export their  BIS Review 22/2004  1  concept, just as IKEA, McDonald’s, or American Express, to name a few other retail service companies, have done in their industries? However, there are economic obstacles related to the cost of entry into new markets. Major cross-border expansion must, with few exceptions, be made through mergers or acquisitions. The success of a cross-border deal depends on the ability to realise synergies. This takes a number of tough decisions regarding reductions in staff numbers and overlapping or inefficient systems and operations. If then to this entry cost are added extra hurdles in the form of regulations and politics it is easy to see that the difficulties related to cross-border expansion might seem insurmountable to a bank manager. On the margin, I think these extra hurdles or barriers might be more important than the inherent economics of banking. Generally, in countries where the costs of entering the national banking market are relatively low, the market share held by foreign banks tends to be higher. In the last decade, countries with less developed banking systems and few or no powerful incumbents have seen extensive entry by foreign banks. Witness the expansion by European and American banks into emerging markets, e.g. in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. In the EU, in contrast, national banking markets are generally well developed and incumbents are strong, making entry costs much higher.
Jaime Caruana: Coordinating regulation and supervision of banks - Basel II and beyond Remarks by Mr Jaime Caruana, Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, at the Global Operational Risk Forum of the Risk Management Association, Paris, 24 October 2003. *  *  *  I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to this forum on operational risk. As the new Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, it is a pleasure for me to join you, the members of the Risk Management Association, in a discussion about the latest trends in capital and risk management. Overview Many of you have travelled great distances to join us here. Perhaps part of the attraction was the chance to enjoy the charms of autumn in Paris. But the main reason is that you believe risk management matters. Indeed, from their first meetings in Philadelphia almost 90 years ago, the members of the Risk Management Association have long helped to promote sound risk management, offering training, educational resources, and forums such as today’s event to financial professionals. Moreover, for more than 80 years the RMA has emphasised the analysis of quantitative data in helping to evaluate risk through its collection and annual publication of financial data and benchmarks. Through your efforts, and the efforts of associations similar to the RMA, you are helping to advance the state of the art in the management of credit, market, and operational risk and to encourage responsible banking practices.

Consistency in application of AMA standards The challenges of implementing the New Accord across borders raise concerns as well about consistency in the application of AMA standards. These concerns also address more broadly competition between AMA banks, which is the final theme I’d like to mention today. While many banks welcome the flexibility to use their own methodologies under the AMA, some are concerned that too much flexibility might allow competitors at home or abroad to employ methods that are subject to less rigorous supervision. Ensuring the consistent application of the New Accord in its entirety is a critical concern for the Committee. The minimum standards were developed to help ensure that global competition in banking markets will be driven by each bank’s strengths, rather than by differences in each country’s rules. Moreover, Pillars Two and Three were created to a great degree to promote a more level playing field for banks. For example, incorporating supervisory review - or Pillar Two - into the international guidelines represents a genuine breakthrough for all of us. By developing guidelines for the supervisor’s evaluation of a bank’s internal capital allocation process, the Committee believes that supervisors and banks will engage in more focused, more consistent, and less burdensome discussions of the risks that banks face and the responses they adopt. National laws and regulations provide different avenues through which supervisors may conduct such reviews, and consequently Pillar 2 affords each jurisdiction the flexibility to accommodate those differences.
To find something profound that I might pinch for your amusement today, I pored over the sayings of the great minds through time: Plato, Socrates, Mencius, Muhammad, St. Paul and St. Augustine, Voltaire, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa … Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber. The maxims put forward by the sages of the ages are inspiring, but you already know them or you would not be where you are today: Be disciplined; be prepared; be loyal and thrifty and brave; always question conventional wisdom; take risks; push the envelope; be true to yourself; never promise more than you can deliver; never compromise your integrity; don’t waste your talents; never forget that you have been given those talents in order to do good; never, ever, ever, ever give up the pursuit of excellence. These are all wise maxims. But, truth be told, it would save time and expedite many a graduation ceremony if organizers would forgo a commencement speaker and simply remind the graduating class to read and, throughout life, reread the Old and New Testament or the Quran or Confucius or Shakespeare – the ultimate sources of almost every graduation speech I have ever read or listened to. For example, it would tax the capacity of the most powerful search engine to pull up the countless commencement speakers who have lifted and adapted variations of Shakespeare’s lines in King Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene VII that “ignorance is the curse of God, [k]nowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven”.

News conference  Berne, 13 December 2018 Fritz Zurbrügg  Introductory remarks by Fritz Zurbrügg  In my remarks today, I will be looking at the current developments in the area of financial stability. I shall look at the big banks first before turning to the domestically focused banks. Big banks  The financial market situation facing the two big banks has become more volatile since the press conference in June. Given this heightened uncertainty on the markets, the share prices of big banks both in Switzerland and abroad have come under pressure. By contrast, premia for credit default swaps of such banks have remained at a similar level as in June overall. The SNB’s assessment of the situation at the two big banks is essentially unchanged from that at the last press conference. This applies both to resilience and to the orderly resolution of a distressed bank. As regards resilience, Credit Suisse and UBS are still on track to meet the revised ‘too big to fail’ requirements on going-concern loss-absorbing capacity. They already meet all final 1 risk-weighted capital requirements. However, as regards the leverage ratio, i.e. the unweighted ratio of capital to assets, further improvement is needed. The big banks have made significant progress in recent years in the area of resolution. They have steadily expanded their holdings of bail-in instruments. At group level, both institutions are already compliant with the final requirements for gone-concern loss-absorbing capacity.