samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
A gradual phasing in of petroleum revenues is clearly preferable to large and, to some extent, unpredictable changes in fiscal policy from one year to the next. Without clear limits for the use of petroleum revenues, considerable uncertainty concerning the formulation of economic policy ahead could arise. For monetary policy, the guidelines are not a challenge but a benefit. When the implications of the guidelines for Norway’s industry structure become apparent, it is not given that everyone will be equally enthusiastic. If, at the same time, we have a strong exchange rate, some may want monetary policy to counter a strong krone exchange rate even if we are on track in relation to the inflation target. Monetary policy cannot and shall not do this. The objective of monetary policy is to contribute to low and stable inflation. Reducing interest rates in order to weaken the krone, thereby jeopardising the inflation target, would mean that we are not doing our job. Nor would this change the necessary structural adjustments that the increased use of petroleum revenues implies, but only increase their costs. Thank you for your attention. BIS Review 7/2002  11

Dimitar Bogov: Challenges of countries from South-Eastern Europe in the current economic and financial turbulence in the euro area Opening speech by Mr Dimitar Bogov, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the NBRM conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the monetary independence of the Republic of Macedonia, Skopje, 27 April 2012. *  *  *  Dear Deputy Prime Minister, dear ministers, distinguished Governors, Your Excellences, dear guests, colleagues and friends It is an honor to greet you and wish you welcome to this conference, which is a part of the activities for marking the 20th anniversary of the monetary independence of the Republic of Macedonia. The last two decades of monetary independence, the Republic of Macedonia has faced, and in our opinion, successfully addressed many challenges. Our twentieth anniversary takes place in exceptionally turbulent developments of global economy, particularly marked by events triggered by the euro area debt crisis. This means that as the other central banks from the region, we face a new challenge. Taking into account the timing of the conference, its topic came quite spontaneously, and therefore we consider that it will raise interesting discussion of current issues of the central banks of the South-Eastern Europe and beyond.
It is easy to conceive of a situation where a bank that is in fact solid, but has payment problems, might collapse if the authorities expose the problems to the general public. Moreover, banks may take excessive risks if they know the authorities will come to their rescue. It can be argued that in this case it may be appropriate for the  36  Guthorm Immanuel Hallager (1935): Norges høiesteret: 1815-1915 (The Supreme Court of Norway: 18151915), 1 vol., H. Aschehoug & Co, p. 131. 37  See parliamentary deliberations for August 1821, Part 5, Addendum, p. 119. 38  The Supreme Court argued that if the citizens discern “svagheten af den menneskelige kundskab og viden netop der, hvor han ventede at finde vished da er det meget at befrygte, at saadan erfaring heller vil nedstemme den agtelse, han forhen følte for den samme domstole, saalænge han blot kjendte de for ham forstaaelige resultater af stemmegivningen og deliberationerne. (weaknesses in human knowledge and expertise notably where they expect to find certitude, there is a risk that such an experience will diminish the high esteem in which the court was previously held before their insight was confined to the comprehensible outcome of the voting and deliberations.)”. See parliamentary deliberations for August 1821, Part 5, Addendum, p. 128. 39  Professor Peter Lødrup wrote in 1998: “Den offentlige voteringen er etter nåtidens rettsoppfatning en selvfølge, og det må konstateres at Høyesteretts motstand mot den var et feilsyn.

49  As part of its project to disseminate information about the central bank to various target groups, the Reserve Bank of India has made several comic strips for the benefit of school children. See http://www.rbi.org.in/financialeducation/Home.aspx. 50  See article “Bergen fikk Bislett Games 2004 (The 2004 Bislett Games goes to Bergen)”, NTB, 6 October 2003. 51  A more detailed explanation was probably available but was not included in the media coverage. 52  My predecessor, Jarle Bergo, delivered a speech a few years ago where he presented a mathematical equation that illustrated the assessments underlying our interest rate setting (see “Interest Rate Projections in Theory and Practice”, speech at Sanderstølen, 27 January 2007). I remember that we were uncertain about the reactions to this. My Swedish colleague Lars Svensson had recommended that such a target function be published in the interest of transparency, but no central bank had ever done this before. There was no firstpage news of the type “this equation determines the interest rate”. Our “bold step” proved to be fairly undramatic. It would seem that this is really the rule rather than the exception every time we have moved towards greater transparency. Bergo’s lecture was included in the curriculum of economics Professor Michael Woodford of Columbia University in New York. 53  Norges Bank Watch 2008 writes: “Norges Bank should facilitate a more open discussion regarding the empirical performance of their (mechanical) forecasting models by communicating the role played by the “judgment component” more clearly.
One thing people often misunderstand about inflation targeting is that we only care about inflation. This misunderstanding is propagated in the media through a narrow interpretation of the regime by some of its critics. For example, in a widely quoted article, The Failure of Inflation Targeting, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz writes that inflation targeting implies “whenever price growth exceeds a target level, interest rates should be raised” and hence is destined to failure. This is certainly not true since all inflation targeting central banks look as well at indicators of real economic stability in a balancing act. The framework of inflation targeting as is currently practiced is flexible to accommodate secondary policy objectives. One needs not to look further than our MPC statements that the Bank of Thailand is also concerned about economic growth in addition to price stability. Other things that we do look at include external stability, financial conditions of households, financial institutions , and corporate sectors, and fiscal sustainability. Another point that I would like to stress here is that, in the context of a small open economy like ours, taking care of inflation also has a positive impact on growth through a competitiveness channel. This works through the real effective exchange rate which takes into account our inflation differentials with our trading partners and trading competitors. Despite the recent weakening of the baht, Thailand’s real effective exchange rate actually appreciated due to the surge in inflation.

I will have more to say about this term because – ironically – simplicity is not itself a simple idea. I will therefore explain what we mean by ‘simple’ and how that gives rise to some important design choices for the simpler regime. We know that banking regulation doesn’t always seem simple. Research by Bank staff has documented a near-doubling in the length of UK banking regulation since the financial crisis of 2007-2008 to almost three quarters of a million words.6 It won’t surprise you to hear that I’m firmly convinced that new rules were needed to address vulnerabilities which that crisis revealed. But I also recognize that we have a complexity problem when we have more rules than we need. That can happen when we apply all of our rules to all the firms we supervise. Some of the rules we need for big, complex firms might not be needed for smaller firms. One problem with complexity is that it brings costs. Firms must spend money interpreting rules and operationalising requirements and, as with other sorts of overheads, some of these costs are fixed costs which are the same for all firms regardless of their size.
The market for information and statistics There are market based statistics-producers in developed countries. The market agents are ready to pay a price in order to acquire such statistics. The producers of statistics conduct frequent market surveys, analyse results, supply them on line at a price and help market agents to create wealth. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, we do not have such market based statistics-producers. The collection and analysis of vital data that are useful to market agents are being done by a few governmental organisations. Like any other product supplied by the government, such data are also supplied as a public good free of charge. Even when the governmental agencies could sell statistics at a price, they do not venture to do so, because they are guided by such principles as “doing utmost benefit” to people as a social service. The country too, therefore, expects free goods from these governmental organisations. But this creates a problem known as “the agent-principal problem” in economics. The agent-principal problem The agent-principal problem is typical to any government service. It says that the agent who is a government bureau or a department or even a university does not have incentive to produce its output at its best. The principal who is the user of the service, on the other hand, is scattered and not in a position to influence the agent to improve quality.

The Government has launched the SkillsFuture initiative last year, to allow all Singaporeans to acquire a mastery of skills and to be better prepared for future jobs. This can be helpful to financial market professionals such as our trading representatives as example. 48. The Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) has worked with SGX to conduct a survey polling some 1,200 trading representatives last year for their feedback on their training needs and professional development. IBF has also organised extensive consultations with multiple stakeholders such as Securities Association of Singapore (SAS) and the Society of Remisiers of Singapore (SRS), as well as arranged focus group discussions with individual remisiers and dealers. 49. As a follow up to these consultations, IBF will be introducing a new set of competency standards to help trading representatives acquire competencies to service their clients better. IBF will also be working closely with the SGX Academy, SRS as well as the larger brokingfirms to have in place a wide offering of training programmes to be made available to trading representatives 50. MAS will continue to support the various training initiatives. All learning and development programmes formally recognised by IBF will receive at least 50% funding subsidy 2 2 from the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF). In addition, trading representatives who are prepared to undergo the IBF Standards certification programme will receive 70% funding subsidy. You might be aware that the SkillsFuture Credit has already been rolled out early this month. Trading representatives can use the $ Credit for eligible training programmes.
At the same time, there is a need for increasing the awareness of the basic principles underlying the surveillance and enforcement process. Ultimately, this requires striking a delicate balance between the sovereignty of national governments, the responsibility of the ECOFIN Council for enforcing the Pact and the independence of the Commission, the latter being essential for an effective assessment of national budgetary positions. The ECB has always considered the fiscal rules enshrined in the Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact as an essential element of Monetary Union. These rules already contain significant scope for flexibility. While the implementation of the preventive arm of the Pact could no doubt be strengthened, in particular to enhance incentives for compliance in good times, we reject proposals that would undermine the Pact’s corrective arm and the excessive deficit procedure contained in the Treaty. If all policy areas concerned respect the aforementioned allocation of objectives and responsibilities and act accordingly, they will already be making the best possible contribution to the Community objectives. 3. A sound institutional arrangement  A clear allocation of responsibilities is essential for well-designed policy-making, especially in a complex institutional set-up as the one governing monetary union in Europe. At the same time, a continuous dialogue between different policy actors on the basis of the allocation of tasks is also important for effective governance.

Conflicts of interest with regard to investments in mid and large cap banks can come about because, according to its mandate, the SNB is also required to contribute to the stability of the financial system. Under certain circumstances, this can mean that the SNB has an information edge over the market with respect to the financial situation of individual banks. In order to avoid any suspicion that the SNB might make use of this information edge in its position as an investor, we completely exclude all investments in equities of such banks. Moreover, by doing so, we prevent market participants from attributing any signal effects to our transactions. On the question of conflicts of interest, I would also like to stress that, as a matter of principle, the SNB does not own equities in any Swiss companies for investment purposes. Should equities of individual companies be excluded from the investment universe on the basis of ethical criteria? We have been discussing this question for a considerable time and last year we made a fundamental decision. We do not invest in companies that blatantly infringe certain ethical principles. This decision was already implemented in the fourth quarter of 2013. To be specific, we do not hold equities in companies which produce internationally banned weapons, seriously violate fundamental human rights or systematically cause severe environmental damage. We believe that it is in the best interests of monetary policy if the SNB achieves sound investment returns through the widest possible diversification.
There were other economists who would have preferred seeing more economic convergence between and within euro-zone member countries first, and they spoke out too. Both groups of economists did their jobs remarkably well. Today, most economists speak out in favour of labour market reform and other programmes for reform to make the euro zone work. Other economists prefer macroeconomic demand management. All of them want to help politicians to realise their legitimate economic ambitions. The economists’ papers, non-papers, reports and opinions are welcome. Economists in government work hard and their work is useful. Their professional life is fascinating. 4. Economists in business  The Occupational Outlook Handbook of the US Department of Labor contains the following description of what economists in business do: “Economists working for corporations are involved primarily in  BIS Review 62/2004  3  microeconomic issues, such as forecasting consumer demand and sales of the firm’s products. Economists working for corporations might also analyze their competitors’ growth and market share and advise their company on how to handle the competition. Other economists working for corporations monitor legislation passed by Congress, such as environmental and worker safety regulations, and assess its impact on their business. Corporations with many international branches or subsidiaries might employ economists to monitor the economic situations in countries where they do business, or to provide a risk assessment of a country into which the company might expand.”2 - This list is by no means complete but it provides a good first impression.

You would agree with me that it is quite difficult for a central bank, like ours, to implement monetary policy effectively in an environment characterised by inadequate banking facilities. It is for this reason therefore that I commend the Management of Stanbic Bank Zambia for bringing banking facilities closer to the people. In this regard, I wish to assure you that on our part we shall continue to support you in your endeavours to open more of such branches, because we firmly believe that you are making our work and that of the Government much easier. However, may I take this opportunity to advise the Management of Stanbic Zambia that if you want this branch or many of such branches you intend to open in future to be beneficial to the communities in which they operate, kindly be flexible on the requirements for opening accounts as well as lowering  BIS Review 13/2005  1  the minimum account balances to be maintained by your clients. I say so because communities like Matero and the surrounding areas comprise mainly of people who are in the informal sector. Therefore, it would be unreasonable for you to ask an unemployed prospective customer to bring a letter from their employer before an account could be opened with your branch! In other words, I strongly urge you to tailor your banking services to the needs of the community you operate in.
A dispassionate analysis of what is needed will almost certainly lead to better decisions and a more effective regulatory framework. The legislative proposals concerning the Federal Reserve are not limited to the Federal Reserve’s role in supervision. Consider, for example, one proposal that calls for what it terms “audits” of the Federal Reserve by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an arm of Congress. These wouldn’t be audits at all in the commonly understood sense of the term. The Federal Reserve’s financial books and transactions are already audited by wide range of professionals internal and external to the institution. Rather, these new audits would involve ex-post review of Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions, a potential first step toward the politicization of a process that Congress has carefully sought to insulate from political pressures. The notion that the Federal Reserve’s financial dealings are somehow kept hidden from the public is a surprisingly widely held view – and it is simply incorrect. An independent outside audit of the Federal Reserve’s books is conducted annually. You can find the results online, including a detailed accounting of the Federal Reserve’s income and operating expenses in its annual report. The financial books of the regional Federal Reserve Banks also undergo independent outside audits, also available online. In addition, the GAO is empowered to review almost all Federal Reserve activities other than the conduct of monetary policy, including the Federal Reserve’s financial operations, which the GAO has done so frequently.

For example, its efforts over the past two years to promote market functioning and minimize contagion were critical in preventing the strains in our financial markets from resulting in even more severe damage to the economy. These “lender of last resort” interventions on the part of the Fed, including facilities such as the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), as well as programs such as the foreign exchange reciprocal currency agreements, are examples of the rapid and responsive application of basic central bank tenants to the unique challenges we faced as this crisis evolved. Indeed, in many ways, the crisis has underscored why the Federal Reserve was created almost a century ago: to provide a backstop for a banking system prone to runs and financial panics. BIS Review 6/2010  1  Where it proved necessary and feasible to do so, the Fed also used its emergency lending authority to forestall the disorderly failure of systemically important institutions. These actions truly were extraordinary – well outside the scope of our normal operations, but our judgment was that not taking those actions would have risked a broader collapse of the financial system and a significantly deeper and more protracted recession. Faced with the choice between these otherwise unpalatable actions and a broader systemic collapse, the Fed, with the full support of the Treasury, invoked its emergency lending authority and prevented the collapse of certain institutions previously considered to have been outside the safety net.
It took over supervision of the insurance industry in 1977, and the securities industry in 1984. From the beginning, MAS’ approach to supervising the financial sector was centred on a strict admission policy, high prudential requirements, and rigorous enforcement. We sought not only to maintain systemic stability, but also to protect individual institutions from failing, and the public and investors from losses. Lacking any track record, this approach was necessary to establish credibility with international financial institutions and their home regulators. When it emerged that Singapore had been spared the fallout from the collapse of BCCI because MAS had steadfastly refused BCCI entry despite persistent lobbying, MAS’ reputation as a thorough and uncompromising regulator went up. But despite our best efforts, we did have one major failure – the Pan-El crisis in 1985. Pan Electric Industries, or Pan-El, was a holding company with interests in hotels, property and marine operations. It went into receivership in November 1985, threatening the solvency of many stockbroking firms with whom it had forward contracts. MAS closed the stock exchange for 3 days while a lifeboat fund was organised. The four major local banks agreed to provide a standby line of credit, to aid the affected stockbrokers and restore market confidence. Pan-El showed up certain weaknesses in our regulatory framework. Following Pan-El, MAS revamped the Securities Industry Act, raising standards and putting in place mechanisms for the proper regulation of the market. MAS considerably tightened its supervision of the stock exchange and the securities industry.

The demand for skills in Islamic finance throughout this region and other international financial centres has generated further growth in Islamic finance. In this regard, Malaysia has also embarked on several initiatives towards creating a supply of qualified human capital both in Shariah and Islamic finance. The International Centre of Education in Islamic Finance  2  BIS Review 26/2009  (INCEIF) is established to be a premier university in Islamic finance, to offer postgraduate qualifications in Islamic finance as well as the Chartered Islamic Finance Professional (CIFP) qualification. CIFP is the world's first Islamic professional qualification and it is accredited as a Masters degree level equivalent. Recently, INCEIF produced its first batch of 32 CIFP graduates from nine countries, of which three are from Indonesia. INCEIF has also entered into strategic partnership with Universiti Airlangga in Surabaya and Universiti Indonesia in Jakarta where the CIFP programmes are now being taught. Through these strategic alliances, the efforts would be directed to jointly produce high-calibre talent that have the combination of knowledge in Shariah and finance. It is our hope that PT. Bank Muamalat Indonesia would consider Malaysia as a platform for securing foreign currency business ventures in the region and contribute to the development of Islamic finance in Malaysia.