samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Outsourcing, job contracting and such other more advanced managerial restructuring technology might well therefore be given emphasis in the near future, in the same way as there might now in October be two permanent secretary level jobs at some government ministries to enhance their workload capabilities just as most countries have decided long ago that since the chief civil servant was not the chief policymaker, it might be a good idea to have more than one, the way that CEOs have COO, CFO and CCOs. At this time of writing my statement, the results of TPI court cases have just been announced. That the court has decided in favour of the creditors is probably a decision welcomed by many, but the due process of the law be carried out is probably more important than the results. It does seem that the process of restructuring does not have too much to do with debtor, creditors or the Thai people in the country. As a poor man, my sympathy is often with the debtors who somehow honestly or otherwise having made all that money must now lose it all solely because they were greedy and try to take more or take too big a risk at the period when few people could foresee the cataclysm that would strike the country. The TPI court decision seems to be “Classical Thai”. In the sense that we are a country which has a lot of compromises. I urge a new governance on the country where society would be rule-based.

There has also been some further deregulation. For instance, state monopolies have been abolished and freedom to establish new companies with regard to, for instance, transport, communications and energy has been introduced. Changed competitive conditions thus affect productivity growth, but they can also affect price developments more directly. Despite the fact that we gained much stiffer legislation on competition in 1993, developments in this field appear to be moving slowly. Swedish prices remain higher than in other countries in several areas without explanations for this in the form of differences in VAT rates and wage levels. Increased competition can contribute to price levels converging, but this assumes that the relative price changes will be accepted and it can entail, as in the 1990s when electricity and telecommunications were deregulated, such large price reductions in some sectors that our inflation rate will be lower than that of other countries. Special interests and consumer interests Limits to competition are a clear example of how special interests dominate over general consumer interests. There are many examples of this in various areas of the Swedish economy, and in particular the construction sector. This means that we allow inefficiency to remain, which reduces growth and the development of most people’s standard of living. One interesting and very recent example of how special interests have declined concerns pharmaceutical prices.
Leasi Papali’i Tommy Scanlan: Samoa’s economy, interest rates and the expanded mandate of its central bank Address by Mr Leasi Papali’i Tommy Scanlan, Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa, on the induction of new graduates to the Samoa Institute of Accountants, Apia, 25 March 2010. *  *  *  Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen 1. Introduction  At the outset, I want to thank the President and her Committee for inviting me to address you on this special occasion. It is indeed both a privilege and an honour for me to be here this evening. In 1970, when the Minister of Finance (Hon. Niko Lee Hang) and I attended form 4 at Saint Joseph’s College, we were told that a number of students in our class will need to take “physics” as an option, while the rest will take “accounting” or “bookkeeping”, as it was called in those days. Physics was a relatively new subject at that time, and they needed some guinea pigs to continue their experiment with. And, that was where we came in. We were never given the chance to decide which subject to take. So, from 1970 to 1972, nine of us studied physics while the rest of our colleagues studied accounting. I can never forget what one of the best accounting teachers in the country in those days used to say to us. He said, “you can study physics all your life, but none of you will ever go to the moon”.

Let me first remind you that France and the United Kingdom have already developed a similar – and I believe promising – approach to regulating innovation. Call it “proportionality” in Paris or “sandbox” in London. But it is the way of solving an apparent paradox: for many, regulation is the enemy of innovation. In fact, regulation has a role to play in order to boost and secure innovation at the same time. To give an example, by allowing third parties to safely access payment data, the revised European Directive on payment services (PSD2) is a significant driver of innovation. More broadly, since its creation in 2016, around 300 Fintechs have been guided by France’s ACPR Fintech Innovation Hub. There are so many promising innovations which will increase customers’ satisfaction, enhance competition and reduce costs. And clearly each of them – from big data to payment services – requires a specific monitoring and response by regulators, with an open and evolutive view. “One size fits all”, and “one time seizes all” would be two bad answers to financial innovation. Let me however share some thoughts on four common challenges and opportunities: cyber risks, crypto-assets, artificial intelligence and climate change. Cyber risks are a major threat, and so investing in cybersecurity is the first booster to innovation. It is clear that the current level of coordination of cyber-attacks can only be mitigated by a similarly coordinated response. We should strengthen the G7 Cyber expert group, and the “Bari principles” adopted last May.
There is no guarantee that these measures will be taken in a uniform manner and in line with the need for stability within the Single Market. Competition between national financial centres in reality risks deterring national authorities from adopting measures proposed by the European authority. 6  K. Assenmacher-Wesche and S. Gerlach (2008), “Can monetary policy really be used to stabilise asset prices?”, available at www.voxeu.org. 7  J. C. Trichet, “Closing address at the Fourth ECB Central Banking Conference” on “The role of money and monetary policy in the twenty-first century”, Frankfurt, 10 November 2006 ( http://www.ecb.int/press/). 8  Report of the High Level Group on financial supervision in the EU, Brussels, 25 February 2009. BIS Review 66/2009  3  It is not only in advanced economies that monetary policy has encountered problems. Alan Greenspan has claimed in particular that the increase in global liquidity of the past few years was not caused by the interest rates decided by the US central bank, but by the financing flows stemming from Asia, and China in particular. 9 In other words, in a world characterised by high levels of financial integration, the monetary conditions within individual countries, including large ones, are no longer determined solely by the respective policies of those countries, but also by those implemented in emerging economies, particularly if the latter, as China has done, fix their exchange rates at levels which lead them to accumulate extensive foreign exchange reserves.

3  See for example this comment which appeared in the July 2005 edition of The Economist: “ […] The pursuit of price stability is a means to an end (to achieve maximum sustainable growth), not an end in itself. While the ECB's prime task is price stability, it is also legally charged with supporting growth. Last year it could have cut interest rates to offset the impact of the rising euro; today it should stand ready to ease monetary policy to cushion the impact of structural reform and fiscal discipline.”  4  See, for example, O. Blanchard e F. Giavazzi (2005), “Credibility does not require dogmatism - only clarity of purpose”, at www.voxru.org. 5  S. Cecchetti, H. Genberg and S. Wadhwani (2002), “Asset Prices in a Flexible Inflation Targeting Framework,” NBER Working Paper No. 8970, June, and N. Roubini (2006), “Why Central Banks Should Burst Bubbles”, International Finance 9, No 1. 2  BIS Review 66/2009  harder to interpret financial asset prices and to derive from them indicators regarding the risks of instability. And it is even more difficult to adjust the course of interest rates on the basis of these indicators. For this reason, the proposition of leaning against the wind remains an abstract concept for now. It would be important to develop economic models which give a more precise idea of the quantitative dimension of these phenomena, in particular of the correlation between monetary policy variables and financial asset prices.
This hampered the monetary policy transmission mechanism and the effective conduct of monetary policy. At the same time, fears about the implications of growing fiscal imbalances in some euro area countries and the potentially adverse impact on banks’ exposures to higher sovereign credit risk – including their funding costs and portfolio exposures – led to an increase in perceived  1  The cut-off date for data included in the June 2010 FSR was 19 May 2010. BIS Review 75/2010  1  systemic risk for large banking groups in the euro area to the highest levels seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. To help improve the market functioning and the transmission of monetary policy, the Governing Council decided on 9 May 2010 on several remedial actions. In parallel, at an extraordinary meeting on 9/10 May, the Ecofin Council agreed to establish a European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism. This back-stop financing arrangement will be subject to strong conditionality. The mechanism will have up to € billion of funds to be provided by euro area Member States at its disposal. The IMF will participate in the financing arrangements and is expected to provide at least half as much as the euro area countries’ contributions. Following the implementation of these measures, market volatility was significantly contained. A second main risk is the possibility of adverse feedback between the financial sector and public finances continuing. The review summarises various contagion channels through which persistently large fiscal imbalances could pose risks to financial stability.

However, in contrast to the uncertainties created by securities valuations in 2008 and 2009, banks should largely be in good positions to forecast the loan losses facing them, using their internal models, and they should thus be in a better position to manage the potential future write-downs without unexpected capital shortages. The second risk that we have identified within the euro area financial system relates to vulnerabilities of financial institutions associated with concentrations of lending exposures to commercial property and to Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. You may recall that, in the December issue of the FSR, we drew your attention to these two types of exposures. Since then, in the commercial real estate sector, prices and rents have continued to fall in most euro area countries, although at a moderating pace. Reflecting this deterioration, estimates of losses facing banks on their commercial property loan portfolios had been revised upwards by almost 50% over the past six months, as shown in Chart 7 on slide 12, and concerns remain about concentrations of such exposures among some euro area banks. This increase in estimated losses on commercial property loans is expected to more than offset the recovery in the valuations of commercial mortgage-backed securities held by banks in the euro area. As regards banks’ exposures to the CEE region, since December, the economic outlook in the region has improved.
Now, at the end of this exposition, it might be useful for me to tell you what is the assessment that the European Systemic Risk Board has expressed after its last meeting only two days ago:  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Since its previous meeting on 22 June 2011, risks to the stability of the EU financial system have increased considerably. Key risks stem from potential further adverse feedback effects between sovereign risks, funding vulnerabilities with the EU banking sector, and a weakening growth outlook both at the global and the EU level. Over the past few months, sovereign stress had moved from smaller economies to some of the larger EU countries. Signs of stress are evident in many European government bond markets, while the high volatility in equity markets indicates that tensions have spread across capital markets around the world. The situation has been aggravated by the progressive drying-up of bank funding markets, and availability of US dollar funding to EU banks had also decreased significantly. In that context, central banks have decided on coordinated US dollar liquidity-providing operations with longer maturities. The high interconnectedness in the EU financial system has led to a rapidly rising risk of significant contagion. This is threatening financial stability in the EU as a whole and adversely impacts the real economy in Europe and beyond. Looking ahead, decisive and swift action is required from all authorities.

In normal times, if a country’s currency appreciates to the point where it begins to jeopardise price stability, that country’s central bank will react by lowering the reference interest rate. Lowering rates makes portfolio investments denominated in the relevant currency less attractive, thereby weakening it on the foreign exchange markets. However, when nominal interest rates reach their lower bound at or close to zero, central banks must take unconventional measures to prevent an undesired tightening of monetary conditions. A minimum exchange rate is one such measure. In summary, a minimum exchange rate is first and foremost a temporary instrument for use in situations where foreign exchange markets are extremely unsettled, a country’s currency is substantially overvalued against most other currencies, and nominal interest rates are at their lower bound, meaning that the exchange rate can no longer be influenced by cutting interest rates. The introduction of the minimum exchange rate against the euro in September 2011 In summer 2011, the decision to introduce the minimum exchange rate undoubtedly made sense. We had already lowered the target range for the reference interest rate to between 0.0% and 0.25%, with the aim of reducing the three-month Libor to zero. Moreover, uncertainty on the financial markets was exceptionally high and the debt crisis had raised questions about the future of the euro. The acrimonious budget dispute in Congress was taking its toll and the US dollar was showing signs of weakening.
But if you can find a way of tying yourself to the policy in advance – like Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship – then this is in principle an effective way of easing monetary conditions, even when the policy rate itself can’t be lowered any further. It’s striking that this “Odyssean” guidance has received much more attention in the economics literature – but, in the real world, and despite often being right up against the lower bound, central banks have used it only rarely. This may be because, in practice, it’s quite difficult to make credible commitments of this sort (and because central banks have also been able to use QE). Whatever the reason, most “forward guidance” has been of the “Delphic”, more conditional form. Yet my impression is that outside observers can sometimes mistake one for the other: the “if” clause is forgotten, or downplayed, and purely conditional statements somehow get interpreted (or rather misinterpreted) as hard commitments. It’s not entirely clear why this is the case. It may be quite a deep-seated tendency. Some psychological research demonstrates that people can misconstrue “if…then” statements, particularly if they’re fairly abstract. It may also be wishful: because people don’t like uncertainty and would therefore prefer there to be some fixed path of interest rates set in advance, perhaps they’re prone to believe that this is what they’re being told. But there’s no doubt it happens.

I have just explained how we are currently addressing this issue ;    In the longer run, ageing and slower innovation may push up saving rates and bring down the return on capital. Therefore, the ultimate response to the risk of secular stagnation is to improve the return on investment, thus pushing the natural interest rate back into positive territory. Again, this is not only a European problem. But we do have difficulties in this regard. Structural reforms are not easy. Many, however, are currently being implemented. France, although at too slow a pace, is reducing taxes on labour and has somewhat improved labour market flexibility. Adjustments efforts conducted by several countries, especially in Southern Europe, are starting to pay off. Competitiveness gaps between Northern and Southern Member States have been reduced, notably through real wages decreases in countries like Spain or Portugal, which are exporting more and more. This builds the way for a healthy growth in peripheral countries, which are experiencing a trade surplus of 2% of their GDP on average, and a moderate public deficit, taken down to 3%. III. Short-term policy challenges and responses  The main challenge, of course, is low and declining inflation, with inflation expectations in the euro area drifting downward at short to medium-term horizons. This prevents adjustments in relative prices, – an important mechanism to eliminate gaps in competitiveness – and increases the risk of outright deflation, should a negative shock occur in the future.
The recent rapid interest rate increases show instead that the central banks do not hesitate to raise interest rates, despite the fact that this entails losses on their balance sheets. Bernanke (2020) says that the signalling channel has been important, but thinks that it works differently. According to him, market participants rely more on central banks' communication on future asset purchases than on their communication on future interest rate decisions. In addition, they expect the central bank not to raise the policy rate while an asset purchase programme is still in progress. By communicating a purchase programme with a certain duration, the central bank can therefore keep interest rate expectations low.18 Signalling in this way has hardly been important in Sweden, at least not as a conscious strategy on the part of the Riksbank. This is because the market's interest rate expectations during much of this period were lower than the forecast for the policy rate published by the Riksbank. This was most evident when the purchases started in February 2015, as shown in Figure 6. If our ambition was to push down expectations of the future policy rate, this should have been reflected in a lower forecast for the policy rate.19  18 I find it difficult to see the logic of this reasoning (why is central banks' communication on asset purchases  more credible than their communication on interest rates?) but recognise it from expectations that I have sometimes heard expressed by market participants.

In case of massive shocks, these investors could be better suited to absorb the losses, as there is limited leverage to trigger further spillovers through defaults or  6  This caveat might seem an important element of hindsight. But one reason why the complexities were not addressed was the assumption – based on local correlations – that the fundamental risk was negligible. 7  A general idea explored by Viral Acharya, 2009, “A Theory of Systemic Risk and Design of Prudential Bank Regulation”, Journal of Financial Stability, 5(3), in a somewhat different context. See Also Haldane, 2009, Op Cit and Nier, Yang, Yorulmazer and Alentorn, 2008, “Network models and financial stability”, Bank of England Working Paper No 346. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  panic driven asset sales. Many of these investor groups are, however, subject to an extensive regulatory framework, making them unable to hold such risks in their portfolios, in many cases even as a very small fraction of total assets. There is a potentially difficult tradeoff here between public policy objectives of appropriate investor protection and systemic stability considerations. That probably deserves to be debated more fully. It is clear, however, that highly leveraged institutions such as banks and hedge funds are not really suited to be the ultimate repositories of extreme tail risk8. What does all of the above tell us?
This non-internationalisation policy, supported by our strong macroeconomic fundamentals and substantial foreign reserves, has helped us to maintain a stable Singapore dollar, and to avoid large swings in our exchange rate which would have severely damaged our economy. The trade-off was less vibrant capital markets. Indeed in some cases, the tight domestic restrictions fostered the growth of offshore markets in these restricted activities, undermining our purpose. Recognizing this, we have over the past four years progressively relaxed the $ restrictions. Our approach has been a cautious one: weighing the trade-off between development and the risk to exchange rate management, and feeling our way forward step by step. Our efforts have yielded encouraging results. The outstanding volume of Singapore Government Securities (SGS) has doubled since 1998 and average daily turnover volume increased about threetimes. SGS outstanding volume in 2001 was $ billion and average daily turnover was $ billion. New corporate debt issuance has continued to grow strongly, with $ and $ corporate bond issuance totalling a record $ billion in 2001. This was an almost 8-fold growth over issuance volumes in 1998, spurred by exceptional merger and acquisition activities, but significant nevertheless. Outstanding corporate bonds have also more than doubled to $ billion. Besides higher volumes of issuance, we are also seeing a greater diversity of corporate bonds in the market. The tenors issued range evenly across a spectrum of maturity up to 15 years. The average size of $ issues has also increased.

More generally, the thin capital markets in Asia accentuated price movements when investor preferences shifted. This made Asian economies more vulnerable to financial shocks. So how have countries responded in the wake of the Asian crisis? On the East Asian growth model, no Asian country is abandoning exports or foreign investment as engines of growth, not even those countries which harbour reservations about the risks of globalisation. For small Asian economies, and Singapore in particular, the idea of relying on tiny domestic markets to stimulate growth and enterprise is inherently implausible. Larger economies may make more of their domestic markets, and indeed the ASEAN countries as a group need to integrate their markets in the ASEAN Free Trade Area, to make themselves more attractive to foreign investments. But no single domestic market can substitute for the world market, in an age where economies of scale are global, whether in industries like electronics and pharmaceuticals, or services like banking and telecommunications. BIS Review 19/2002  1  Indigenous enterprise is an important factor in economic development. Strong local companies add depth and resilience to the economy, while a spirit of entrepreneurship enables the population to seize new opportunities and thrive in uncertain times. But indigenous enterprise cannot rely on the traditional family firms, doing small scale businesses on the margins of a modern economy.