samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In any field, financial, scientific or other, the most effective disclosures are: •  Consistent – in scope and objective across the relevant industries and sectors;  •  Comparable – to allow investors to assess peers and aggregate risks;  •  Reliable – to ensure users can trust data;  •  Clear – presented in a way that makes complex information understandable; and  •  Efficient – minimising costs and burdens while maximising benefits. Meeting these standards requires coordination, something the G20 and FSB are uniquely placed to provide. The logical starting point is a co-ordinated assessment of what constitutes effective disclosure, by those who understand what is valuable and feasible. One idea is to establish an industry-led group, a Climate Disclosure Task Force, to design and deliver a voluntary standard for disclosure by those companies that produce or emit carbon. Companies would disclose not only what they are emitting today, but how they plan their transition to the net-zero world of the future. The G20 – whose member states account for around 85% of global emissions 28 – has a unique ability to make this possible. This kind of proposal takes its lead from the FSB’s successful catalysing of improved disclosure by the world’s largest banks following the financial crisis, via the Enhanced Disclosure Task Force. The EDTF’s recommendations, published in October 2012, were the product of collaboration between banks, analysts and investors.

On a national level, there is still the need for deep structural reforms and all efforts should be made for them to operate in a concerted way across the SEE region. I believe that the European Union structures should closely orientate, monitor and assess this process. This is the only way to steadily convert our countries into highly productive economies, attractive to foreign investors against the backdrop of favourable labour cost. This all makes sense once we fully re-dimension our educational capacities, particularly in technology and other areas where we could discover and explore advantages compared to other economies. Instead of looking at each other merely as competitors, we should approach the regional cooperation as a non-zero-sum game, where each country has to gain in partnership. Summarizing, this process calls for risk adverse macro and development policies; well coordinated policy mix; stronger cross border co-operation, and concerted efforts – perhaps harmonized and motivated across the region – to deepen the quality of structural reforms. Structural reforms targeted to improving the business environment will help foster new capital inflows and strong and sustainable growth. In this respect (and in the light of the last crisis lessons), countries can make better use of the EU fiscal surveillance process as explicit policy commitment devices. Candidate and potential candidate countries on one side and the EC on the other have the opportunity to transform this surveillance process (possibly enhancing it with an analytical input form IMF) into an efficient foreign anchor. BIS Review 164/2009  3
As can be seen in Figure 7, policy rates in the United States and the United Kingdom have remained close to zero throughout this period. The ECB began to raise the policy rate in the euro area in 2011, but quickly had to begin cutting it again. 8  The spring budget bill for 2008 describes situations in which discretionary fiscal policy is justified as “crisis situations or in connection with supply shocks where fiscal policy may need to support monetary policy”. The Swedish Fiscal Policy Council interprets this to mean that, in the government’s view, the Riksbank has the main responsibility for business cycle stabilisation. See Chapter 1 of the 2011 report of the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council, “Swedish Fiscal Policy”. 9  The publication “Monetary Policy in Sweden” describes the Riksbank’s flexible inflation targeting regime (Sveriges Riksbank 2010). 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Many central banks have also conducted so-called unconventional monetary policy by purchasing assets or providing liquidity at longer maturities than normal in other ways.10 All in all, this has led to a more expansionary monetary policy in large parts of the rest of the world than in Sweden, despite the fact that the repo rate is at an historically low level. The fact the Swedish monetary policy has been less expansionary than in many other countries may seem reasonable considering that the Swedish economy has also performed much better than that of many other countries.

The proposal of the Financial Crisis Commission has now been circulated for comment and I and the other members of the Executive Board of the Riksbank will now formulate our joint response to the proposal during the spring. Conclusions I thus believe that there are many indications that demand is too weak in the Swedish economy and that in principle this has been the case ever since the autumn of 2008. One should not have exaggerated expectations of what monetary policy can achieve when it comes to reducing the relatively high level of unemployment in Sweden. However, as long as inflation is expected to be clearly under the target of 2 per cent I believe there is scope to use monetary policy to try to alleviate the situation on the labour market. I have argued that one of the reasons why fiscal policy and monetary policy have not been used more actively to increase demand in the Swedish economy is the concern about financial stability. The risk that public finances will be radically weakened if the government is forced to intervene to support banks in crisis seems to be an argument for being cautious with public finances at present.
To facilitate the collection of information, the Central Bank has established an on-line Web-based reporting system through a central database for all licensed banks. The banks forward their periodic reports to the Central Bank through this system, which facilitates collation and analysis of the information for off-site surveillance and to pursue corrective action by banks. In this respect, technology has not only changed the way banking business is conducted, but also to modernize the supervisory and regulatory framework in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. 6.3 In addition to spearheading with the introduction of new technology platforms for payments, clearing and settlements, the Central Bank also established a conducive legal and regulatory framework for IT related operations in Banks. During 2002 – 2006, the Central Bank introduced several amendments to the Registered Stocks and Securities Ordinance, Local Treasury Bills Act to facilitate RTGS and SSS transactions. In addition, the Central Bank also passed a dedicated law, i.e. the Payments and Settlements Act to regulate the national payment system with enabling powers to the Central Bank to monitor and regulate new payments instruments, systems and service providers. This Act also includes appropriate provisions for customer rights. In the retail payments area, prior to the introduction of the cheque imaging system through LankaClear, the Central Bank initiated amendments to the Bills of Exchange Ordinance, and Evidence Law to enable cheque images be recognized in courts.

I understand LumenLab already has an existing relationship with NUS, and aims to seek more partnerships across industry sectors such as data analytics, market research, pharmaceutical, and technology, to explore new business opportunities. LumenLab is a prime example of how a large enterprise can create an environment like this within its  4  The LTA and A*STAR has been working on the Singapore Autonomous Vehicle Initiative (SAVI) since August 2014, and has successfully rolled out Autonomous Vehicle (AV) trials in One-North in March 2015. 5  Telemedicine is the use of telecommunications and IT to provide remote clinical healthcare. 6  Oscar Health is a New York-based start-up that provides policy holders with telemedicine tools, enables drug and doctor searches, price comparison for healthcare services, and rewards policy holders for hitting activity goals. Obamacare start-up Oscar Health hits a $ billion valuation, Forbes (2015). 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  structure, to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, and partner with organisations across industry sectors and academia in Singapore to identify opportunities for innovation and growth. Singapore as a smart financial centre Singapore, too, needs to position ourselves for this new future.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  depression. 5 And there have been several notable shifts in the nature of employment which may have affected people’s satisfaction with their job. One is in the changing nature of employment. The number of people in self-employment has risen from 3.6 million in 2005 to around 4.7 million today and so, less dramatically, have numbers of workers on temporary contracts. Those on zero-hours contracts have risen from 120,000 to 800,000. Some of this shift in employment practices is likely to have been a voluntary choice by workers to increase their job flexibility – for example, those nearing retirement or returning to work after childcare seeking part-time employment. But this is not the full story. Around 15% of those working part-time would prefer to be in full-time employment. And around a third of those on temporary contracts would prefer to be on permanent contracts. For those individuals, the darkside of labour flexibility – job insecurity – may be being felt. Some measures of job insecurity are consistent with that. For example, job insecurity would tend to lower the likelihood of people moving jobs. 6 As Chart 6 shows, job-to-job flows began rising slowly after 2010 but remain at levels well below their pre-crisis levels. Meanwhile, surveys suggest around a quarter of workers currently are afraid of losing their jobs, the highest level in several decades. 7 Citizens Advice has recently estimated that around 4.5 million workers in England and Wales are in insecure employment.

Lars Nyberg: Developments in the property market Speech by Mr Lars Nyberg, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Fastighetsvärlden (Swedish newspaper), Stockholm, 30 May 2007. *  *  *  I would like to begin by thanking you for the invitation to come here to Fastighetsvärlden and talk about the Riksbank’s view on the property market. The property market is a subject that arouses considerable interest and is discussed frequently in many different forums, both in Sweden and abroad. I have on several occasions held speeches on the subject of the property market and I see good reasons for returning to this field to give the Riksbank’s views on current developments. In recent months the US mortgage market has come under focus, mainly because of developments in the subprime market. An increasing number of US households have experienced problems in paying their loan costs and some US mortgage institutions have gone bankrupt in recent months. This has given rise to some concern that we might see a similar development in Sweden. However, I believe there is very little likelihood of this. I will explain why a little later on. Today I intend to speak mainly about how we at the Riksbank view the recent developments in the property market. In many respects, I am basing my answer on the reasoning put forward by the Riksbank in the Financial Stability Report published last week.
If expectations of future growth prospects at the same time are interrupted, a need for consolidation can arise in the household and business sector, which will strongly dampen growth. The consequences of altogether too strong growth now could therefore be instability in inflation and production later. If the financial imbalances have become altogether too great, there is a risk that the consequences will not be limited to great variations in growth and inflation but will even lead to lower overall production. The same course of development as in the USA? As we have said, it is incontestable that the Swedish economy has functioned better than before. However, there is a risk that we will overshoot. The exceptionally long upswing in the USA has contributed to strengthening expectations on faster long-term growth in Sweden as well. There are certain developmental features in the Swedish economy that are reminiscent of the American economy which could indicate that. An important basis for the favourable development in the USA is probably the approach to budget consolidation and price stability that has guided economic policy there for a long time. And in those areas we have had a similar development in Sweden although the process started later here. At the same time, the strong penetration of information technology in the American  3  BIS Review 48/2000  economy is considered to be a factor that has contributed to the productivity improvements recorded in the USA.

On 1 January 1999, a new Riksbank Act came into force. It states that the goal for the Riksbank’s activity is to maintain stable prices. The Riksbank shall also be responsible for a secure, efficient payment system. In the preparatory legal material on the Act, it is also further stated that the Riksbank, without setting aside the price stability target, shall also support the objectives of general economic policy with a view to achieving sustainable growth and high employment. The price stability goal has then been confirmed by law. The Riksbank’s Executive Board is responsible for making the price stability goal operational and designing the framework for monetary policy. Among other things, this means that the Executive Board decides on how the price stability goal is to be defined and over what period price stability is to be maintained. The Executive Board of the Riksbank has decided that price stability shall be defined as an annual increase in the consumer price index of 2% with a tolerance interval of plus/minus one percentage point. If the consumer price index is affected by factors that are considered to only have a temporary effect on CPI, the Executive Board has agreed that we shall be able to disregard this. The reason is that monetary policy otherwise risks leading to unnecessary fluctuations in employment and production. A lot has been achieved although some things remain to be done Economic policy has been very successful in many areas during recent years.
They showed that GDP fell by only 0.3 per cent between the first and second quarters of this year, which was slightly better than we anticipated. Employment continued to fall in July, but less than expected, and unemployment fell by a tenth of a percentage point, which was better than market expectations. 2  2  IMF, World Economic Outlook Update, July 8 2009. BIS Review 98/2009  CPI inflation in the United States fell to -2.1 per cent in July, but when food and energy prices are excluded it fell to 1.5 per cent (see Figure 7). The underlying inflation rate measured in this way has been relatively stable in recent years and has only declined slightly over the past year. An important condition for a turnaround and stabilisation in the US economy is that house prices touch bottom and begin to rise again. Developments in real house prices in the United States since 1950 comprise a good example of a price bubble (see Figure 8). The question now is how far house prices will fall before the turnaround comes. The Federal Reserve notes in its most recent monetary policy report that developments in the housing market remain weak, although there are some signs of an improvement. 3 Euro area GDP growth in the euro area remains weak. According to the forecast in the Monetary Policy Report, GDP in the euro area will fall by an average of almost 5 per cent in 2009.

Our new conditional inflation forecast has been revised downwards once again. Above all, the appreciably lower oil price will push inflation into negative territory during the next four quarters. Moreover, the economic outlook for the euro area has deteriorated once more. Together with persistently low inflation across the globe, this is dampening the medium and long-term inflation outlook for Switzerland. For the current year, we have revised our forecast downwards by 0.1 percentage points to 0.0%. For 2015, we are now even anticipating a negative inflation rate of –0.1%, with inflation turning positive only in 2016, at 0.3%. This constitutes a downward adjustment of 0.3 percentage points for 2015, and 0.2 percentage points for 2016. These forecasts assume that the three-month Libor will remain at zero over the entire forecast horizon, and that the Swiss franc will weaken. The revision of the inflation forecast is a clear sign that deflation risks have increased once more. Global economic outlook The SNB’s inflation forecast is embedded in a global economic scenario. Let me now discuss our assessment of the global economy. Global economic developments continue to be mixed. The US, UK and China all saw robust growth in the third quarter. In the euro area and Japan, by contrast, it was weaker than expected. In addition, inflation in the advanced economies was below central bank targets – in some cases by a considerable margin. In the euro area, it is only just in positive territory.
For instance, the economy could suffer a major supply shock that led to prices of commodities, energy and foods rising or falling substantially. In these situations it might be reasonable to accept a longer deviation from the target than two years if the strain on the real economy would otherwise be unacceptably high. Let me summarise: The Riksbank has one objective for monetary policy and that is to maintain price stability. The Riksbank's method of working encompasses possibilities within this framework to take into account different aspects of interest rate decisions, such as fluctuations in the real economy. However, such considerations do not mean that we have specific targets for other quantities than inflation. A look back - inflation 2005 Finally, I intend to take a look back at developments in inflation over the past year. This is to follow the usual custom at the first hearing of the year and give an account of the outcome of the monetary policy conducted. As you know, inflation was low last year (diagram 6). For the second year in a row, the inflation rate was below the Riksbank's tolerance interval for inflation. UND1X inflation was 0.8 per cent and CPI was 0.5 per cent on average for the year. The forecasts of inflation made by the Riksbank in 2003 and 2004 anticipated that inflation would be much higher than that in 2005. Why was inflation surprisingly low? To begin with, one can observe that it was not due to a weak economic upturn.

To understand the most recent interest rate decisions, it is important to remember that we do not adjust the repo rate to affect the present inflation rate, but to influence inflation a couple of years ahead. It takes time for monetary policy to achieve its full impact on the economy. Monetary policy must therefore be based on expectations of the future, i.e. we are dependent on forecasts. It is therefore necessary that we occasionally ”lean against the wind”, that is, that we raise the repo rate despite the current inflation rate being below target level or that we lower the repo rate despite inflation being above the target level. If we were only to look at the present inflation rate, there is a risk that we would be forced to make more drastic adjustments further ahead and this type of roller-coaster interest policy would benefit no one. How do we assess future inflation prospects? The economic outlook is currently bright, both in Sweden and abroad. International growth has been both high and stable in recent years (diagram 1). Strong growth in the United States and parts of Asia has been a driving force for global economic activity. Increased participation in global trade by, among others, several Asian countries has contributed to this upswing and to stiffer international competition. So far, the increase in global  BIS Review 12/2006  1  demand has not had a visible impact on consumer prices.
Second, other, stronger, questions are raised as to the “quasi fiscal” implications of Central Banks’ balance sheets. There is a perception that expanded balance sheets create a new environment where the relationship between Central Banks and governments gets more complicated. Basically, the expansion would expose Central Banks to new risks, increase their vulnerability and compromise their independence. Third, there is a huge theoretical literature on Central Banks’ solvency. I read the conclusions as follows. Nearly all analysts agree that a Central bank cannot go technically bankrupt as it 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  can issue as much currency and reserves as needed to face its payments and commitments. Indeed, a few Central banks with great reputation have operated in the past with negative net equity for long periods of time. Most economists would point, however, that unlimited issuance of base money would certainly endanger price stability in ordinary circumstances. So, while the existence of a Central bank cannot be put into danger by its technical insolvency, its ability to fulfill its mandate might certainly be compromised. And so would its independence as the Central bank would depend on the Government to rebuild its capital. It is very important to understand that the Eurosystem is fully protected against such a contingency. It has been created with a solid capital base and has kept strengthening it through retained profits and occasional recapitalizations. The Eurosytem is unique, in this regard, amongst advanced economies.

It can and will be deployed all the more efficiently that the rest of the policy environment remains sound. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches