samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Whatever the merits of cryptocurrencies as money, authorities should be careful not to stifle innovations which could in the future improve financial stability; support more innovative, efficient and reliable payment services as well as have wider applications. 23  On the downside, at present, crypto-assets raise a host of issues around consumer and investor protection, market integrity, money laundering, terrorism financing, tax evasion, and the circumvention of capital controls and international sanctions. The Bank of England’s FPC is currently considering the risks posed to UK financial stability. And internationally the Financial Stability Board (FSB) will report to the G20 in Argentina later this month on the financial stability implications of crypto-assets. At present, in my view, crypto-assets do not appear to pose material risks to financial stability. This is in part because they are small relative to the financial system. Even at their recent peak, their combined global market capitalisation was less than 1% of global GDP. In comparison, at the height of the dotcom mania, the valuations of technology stocks were closer to about a third of global GDP. And just prior to the global financial crisis, the notional value of credit derivative swaps was 100%. In addition, major UK financial institutions have minimal exposures to the crypto-asset ecosystem. Looking ahead, financial stability risks could rise if retail participation significantly increased or linkages with the formal financial sector grew without material improvements in market integrity, anti-money laundering standards and cyber defences.

Bad things come in threes: geopolitical, economic, and policy uncertainty  Before expanding on what the Bank can do, I would like to apply some rigour to the relationship between uncertainty and economic performance.1  1  Formally, “risk” and “uncertainty” are distinct – one being quantifiable with probabilities, either physical or subjective, and the other not. Economic theorists have discussed and modelled this distinction at least since Knight (1921). The empirical literature in macroeconomics tends, however, to elide this distinction somewhat, attempting formally to measure “uncertainty” by constructing indices mentioned in the text that probably also capture some elements of “risk”. Knight, F (1921), Risk, uncertainty, and profit, Boston. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Science, including social science, begins with measurement. Although imperfect, there are at least three distinct types of uncertainty that influence economic performance.2 The first is geopolitical uncertainty. It doubled after 9/11 and remained elevated and volatile for years afterwards (Chart 1).3 After settling in the wake of the global financial crisis, geopolitical risk spiked with the passing of the Arab Spring and the rise of tensions in Eastern Europe. The second class of uncertainty – economic – is probably the most familiar. In recent years, economic uncertainty has been elevated because of fragilities in the financial system and overhangs of public and private debt.
Eddie Yue: Why challenges reinforce Hong Kong’s value as an international financial centre Keynote speech by Mr Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Asian Academy of International Law Conference “Why challenges reinforce Hong Kong’s value as an international financial centre”, 26 February 2021. * * *  Opening 1. Good afternoon. I am delighted to be your keynote at this important event today. I thank the Secretary of Justice, Tony (Neoh) and Stephen (Phillips) for inviting me. 2. This conference is titled ‘Why Hong Kong is irreplaceable’. And in the context of international finance, I think it’d be fair to start this session with a question rather than a statement and ask: why is Hong Kong irreplaceable? 3. The answer is that no city is totally irreplaceable as a financial centre. For decades, London has been established as one of the leading global financial hubs. But even with this entrenched position, we have been hearing questions whether London can maintain this dominance in Europe after Brexit. 4. Or look further back in time. Modern banking was probably pioneered in Genoa in the 15th century. But no-one sees this picturesque Italian city as a financial centre today. In China, Pingyao in Shanxi was once the cradle of banking during the Qing dynasty; it is now more of an open-air museum for tourists. 5. The truth is that what financial centres do is irreplaceable, not where they are.

And we are revising our tax code to make it more competitive for a wide range of financial services, including corporate treasury activities, the fund industry, private equity and wealth management. Closing remarks 48. Ladies and gentlemen, I started my speech with the question why Hong Kong is irreplaceable. In the past 15 minutes or so I highlighted the strength of Hong Kong’s ecosystem as an international financial centre, the scale of opportunity ahead and the actions we are taking to maintain our competitiveness. I hope you will agree with me that Hong Kong’s exceptional resilience under recent pressure reinforces – rather than calls into question – its long-term future as a global financial hub. 49. The legal profession has an important role to play in this journey, and I look forward to our continued close collaboration. 50. Thank you. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  But in several countries, the process of real convergence proved itself difficultly sustainable. During the period before the global crisis, expectations were overly optimistic, and investors and consumers engaged in economic behaviour that generated excess domestic demand, strong credit growth and inflationary pressures. As in many other markets, risk premia were squeezed, leading to asset price misalignments (particularly in the housing market) and over-indebtedness in a context of abundant global liquidity and a strong appetite for risk. Foreign direct investment flows often focused on the non-tradable sector, for example, construction and financial sector intermediation. Furthermore, foreign currency lending grew rapidly, leading to increasing balance-sheet mismatches. As a result a number of countries experienced notable departures from price stability and wide external imbalances that eroded competitiveness – developments that went over and above what could be justified by “equilibrium” catching-up. Macroeconomic policies added to the risks. In countries with a fixed exchange rate, independent monetary policy was not available, resulting in monetary policy conditions that became too expansionary. In principle, this could have been compensated by very tight fiscal policy. But with the benefit of hindsight, fiscal policies were often insufficiently restrictive or even loose. The global crisis revealed these weaknesses with particular virulence. When capital flows dried up in late 2008 and trade collapsed, real output declined sharply, in some cases leading to severe recessions. With the main and remarkable exception of Poland, the region was severely hit by the crisis.

Thus, along with more incentives to promote short sales, steps should be taken to facilitate the timely and orderly absorption of these properties back into the market including as renteroccupied housing. An interagency group including the Federal Reserve is working on issues relating to REO-to-rental conversions. Appropriate policies would simultaneously lessen downward pressure on home prices and upward pressure on rents. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Among other steps, investors could be encouraged to purchase REO to be made available as rental housing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could increase the number of loans offered to individual investors, provided the investor puts up an adequate amount of equity for each mortgage. And REO properties in a given locality could be bundled for sale. The government might consider a package of tax incentives for purchases of REO that are used as rental properties. Such incentives might include a reduction of the current 27½ year depreciation period and/or a reduction of capital gains tax liability if the property is held for a minimum period, such as five years. One idea developed by my staff – let’s call it “homes for heroes” – would be to create a new tax credit or other home purchase subsidy specifically for veterans of our foreign wars that would enable these veterans to purchase such properties at a discount.
The earlier spike in inflation largely reflects the effects of the rapid reopening of the economy, which pushed supply and demand in extreme ways. In fact, we are now seeing some of the pandemic-related spikes retrace, including prices for lumber, used vehicles, and rental cars. This process of adjustment may take another year or so to complete as the pandemic-related swings in supply and demand gradually recede. As the economy gets through these highly unusual dynamics, I expect inflation to come back down to around 2 percent next year. One reason I expect inflation to moderate is that measures of underlying inflation and longer-term inflation expectations have been relatively stable during this period of otherwise volatile inflation readings. There are two important aspects of longer-term inflation expectations: their level and their sensitivity to economic conditions and, in particular, to inflation. In terms of the level of inflation expectations, survey- and market-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations have reversed the declines of the past several years and are now around levels seen seven or eight years ago. They currently appear to be well aligned with our 2 percent long-run inflation goal. A second issue is how well anchored inflation expectations truly are, and whether there is a risk that they could drift higher in response to the elevated rates of inflation we have been experiencing. A group of economists at the New York Fed took a closer look at recent behavior of 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  inflation expectations from the Survey of Consumer Expectations.

Looking ahead, I expect the New York economy to continue to strengthen along with the national economy over the next few years. The Fed’s Policy Response This brings me to the Fed’s policy response. In its December 2020 statement, the FOMC said it would continue asset purchases at the current pace until it sees substantial further progress toward our maximum employment and price stability goals.3 Given what I have said, I think it’s clear that we have made substantial further progress on achieving our inflation goal. There has also been very good progress toward maximum employment. Assuming the economy continues to improve as I anticipate, a moderation in the pace of asset purchases may soon be warranted. It is important to remember that even after the asset purchases end, the stance of monetary policy will continue to support a strong and full economic recovery and sustained attainment of 2 percent average inflation. In particular, the FOMC has indicated that it will continue to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at its current level until the economy reaches conditions consistent with its assessments of maximum employment, and inflation has reached 2 percent and is on track to moderately exceed 2 percent for some time. There is still a long way to go before reaching maximum employment, and over time it should become clearer whether we have reached 2 percent inflation on a sustained basis. Conclusion I began by saying that it’s nearly impossible to predict the future.
As we already know, the payment and settlement systems are the backbone of the modern economy. In this regard, the Bank of Thailand has laid down financial market infrastructure to facilitate business operations. This year the Imaged Cheque Clearing and Archive System (ICAS) coverage will be expanded across the country to speed up the provincial cheque collection and clearing. This will help promote a more efficient payment system, enabling fast, safe, and secure financial transactions. The Bank of Thailand also encourages the use of electronic payment by coordinating with relevant parties to build infrastructure to facilitate this process. Concluding remarks Ladies and gentlemen, Despite many roles that the Bank of Thailand plays in ensuring economic and financial stability, I would like to say that the Bank of Thailand’s policy alone cannot ensure sustainable economic growth. Given Thailand’s structural shortcomings, there is the need to improve Thailand’s infrastructure and productivity, by improving technology and innovation. The well-being workforce and quality of education and training are also crucial to increasing competitiveness. For this, long-term coherent vision and concerted efforts among all stakeholders, both public and private, are needed. Let me close by leaving you with some final thoughts. Thailand is now challenged by both external and internal risks. These are not necessary unfavorable, as they also come with opportunities to urge us to prepare ourselves collectively to cope with uncertainty in the global economy. In an increasingly volatile world, we must do more.

Exchange rate volatility vis-à-vis the euro area has declined, while it would continue to exist vis-à-vis the US dollar even after integration. The as yet more flexible labour market ushered in by the transition period II of the Bilateral Agreements I is the flagship of Swiss economic policy. It keeps unemployment and the resultant national costs low in the long term and strengthens the incentives for individual performance. It is essential to translate openness and flexibility, also with respect to internal structural reforms and external relations, into autonomously implemented reforms and a practical global orientation. BIS Review 49/2004  1
It could become one of the convincing responses of the European banking industry to the competitive challenge posed by PayPal and similar new types of payment service providers. I would explicitly like to encourage the banking industry, and especially the EPC, to step up the work on the new payment methods. 2. Mobile payments  This is a market segment where the development in Europe is still in its infancy – although high expectations had been raised a few years ago. On a global level, m-payment initiatives have now gained strong new momentum. The GSM Association has announced the next steps of its Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative. This initiative builds on the infrastructure of the major credit card companies and aims at enabling global interoperability between contactless chip cards and point of sale terminals. 4  BIS Review 134/2007  At the same time the EPC is looking for viable models of m-payment solutions for the SEPA market. Potential benefits could be for example an even higher level of payment convenience, speed and security experienced by the users. These types of benefits are the reason why I think that the EPC’s official dialogue with the mobile industry should start soon, to define viable cooperative models and standards for this area. 3. E-invoicing  I mention e-invoicing in the context of eSEPA because it offers a vast potential of benefits to users and providers alike.

By the end of the last century, Asia less Japan had doubled its share to 30 per cent of global GDP. China is already the second largest economy in the world, India the fourth largest, and you are all familiar with the various projections of when these two economies will become the largest and third largest respectively. The rest of Asia will continue to be the most buoyant region in the world, as it has been for the last 50 years. 4. The story of China and India as the new growth engines of the world has been told numerous times. I would therefore like to tell the story of the third growth engine of Asia – ASEAN. The ASEAN value proposition 5. ASEAN is a two-trillion-dollar economy, the fifth largest in the world at purchasing power parity terms, ahead of Russia, Brazil, France and the United Kingdom. The external trade volume of the ASEAN-5 economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore) is more than three times that of India’s total trade and about 60 percent that of China’s. ASEAN provides good diversification for investors’ Asian portfolios. Last year, foreign direct investments into the ASEAN-5 totaled nearly $ billion, roughly three times the inflows into India. 6. Let me touch on three aspects of the ASEAN story. First, ASEAN is resilient: it rode the global financial crisis very well. I will assess how ASEAN is now coping with the post-crisis risks of inflation and capital inflows. Second, ASEAN is getting more integrated.
As investors realised there was a risk they may not receive their original investment in full, or that their holdings in MMFs may be suspended, a run on other funds followed, contributing to the extreme volatility in money markets and broader financial markets observed at the time. Following the financial crisis, considerable work was undertaken to build the resilience of MMFs. In 2012 the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published policy recommendations for the regulation and management of MMFs. Many of the reforms that were subsequently implemented have helped improve the resilience of MMFs, however it is clear they 1/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  did not go far enough in solving the underlying problems. And in some cases they may have had unintended consequences, such as the introduction of a link between the level of illiquid assets held by a fund and the potential use of tools (such as fees or gates) to manage redemptions during periods of stress. While introduced to manage potentially disruptive outflows, these changes have made funds more sensitive to so-called cliff edge effects – thus increasing an incentive to exit before the gate closes. One of the important, broader changes in the financial system post financial crisis has been the shift in the importance of bank and non-bank finance, with the latter growing relative to the former. This is not accidental: the post crisis reforms meant that there were asset classes which were no longer suitable to hold in large scale on the balance sheet of banks.

In summary, the political economy case for one person/one vote does not entail the equivalent of postal voting, which I believe would impair the quality of our discussions and so, probably, of our decisions. Communication of the Committee’s reaction function: whether to publish an expected path of Bank Rate Central bankers know that expectations matter. So they know that delivering their goals requires more than being able to set the overnight money market rate from one policy meeting to the next. It matters where agents – businesses, households, financial markets – expect the policy rate to be set in the future. More than that, it matters that agents have a broad understanding of how the monetary authority will react to unforeseen developments in the economy; their “reaction function”. That being so, some central banks have started publishing their expected future path of rates, or a range for the future path. This could have advantages. For example, absent a clear agreement and statement of the strategy being pursued by the Committee, differences amongst members about the monthly decision can occasionally stem from judgments about how the precise timing of Bank Rate changes would affect perceptions of the Committee’s future course and so monetary conditions. But in my book, there are two reasons for not publishing a planned policy path – both related to the political economy context in which the MPC operates.
In the description of the framework for the Riksbank’s monetary policy, which we published recently it says: “The Riksbank routinely takes into consideration changes in asset prices and other financial variables (exchange rates, house prices, share prices, household and corporate indebtedness, etc.) in monetary policy decisions. This should not be interpreted as introducing targets for different asset prices or other financial quantities. However, situations may arise where the consequences for the real economy and inflation of the development of different financial variables threaten to become very unfavourable and serious without it being possible for that reason to quantify or capture this type of risk in the normal analytical and forecasting work. This means that there are risks of sharp corrections in the future which in turn affect the real economy and inflation. It may be necessary to take these risks into account in monetary policy decisions in a different way than in the normal approach, where the forecasts for inflation and the real economy for the next two years serve as the foundation.” Although it is difficult to quantify the risks related to strong and long-term growth in asset prices and debts using normal methods, there is a fairly large flora of research into how different types of imperfections can cause and reinforce the types of imbalances I have discussed. One research area, for instance, is based on psychological factors being able to lead to expectations becoming an independent driving force behind fluctuations in the real economy.

Although the general government “structural deficit” is not directly observable and, therefore, its calculation is based on assumptions subject to a high degree of uncertainty, it is a useful indicator of the underlying state of public finances. This indicator will, moreover, play a more important role in the new phase of fiscal policy due to begin, in the event that the EU Council eventually rules that Spanish general government is no longer in an excessive deficit situation. As I have already mentioned, the latest data point in this direction. In fact, exiting the “corrective arm” of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact would involve Spain automatically entering the “preventive arm”.