samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The insurance protection gap is widening inexorably: •  Close to half of the world’s most underinsured countries are in Asia, and of these, half are in Southeast Asia. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  •  In the past two decades, Asia has borne 50% of the estimated global economic cost of natural catastrophes. Yet, less than 5% of all disaster losses in Asia are insured, compared to 40% in developed nations. •  The 2008 Sichuan Earthquake is a case in point. Less than 1% of the total economic costs of $ billion were insured. The disaster further left governments and taxpayers with a hefty reconstruction bill of almost $ billion after the event. Going forward, it will also no longer be sufficient to just focus on traditional risks. As Asia continues to grow and become more digitally-connected, new and emerging risks will arise and we should be proactive in adapting to these needs. I would therefore like to challenge the industry to: •  raise insurance penetration of traditional risks and find innovative ways to cast the net wider to cover more insureds, and  •  develop innovative and meaningful risk transfer products for new and emerging risks. Specifically, I would like to highlight 3 key growth drivers for insurers and reinsurers today: •  New and emerging risks  •  New capital  •  New technology and innovation.

Jacqueline Loh: Managing risks in an uncertain world Keynote address by Ms Jacqueline Loh, Deputy Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the 13th Singapore International Reinsurance Conference, Singapore, 3 November 2015. *  *  *  Opening Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is my pleasure to join you today at the 13th Singapore International Reinsurance Conference. I believe the theme of this year’s conference, “Managing Risks in an Uncertain World”, is one which will resonate with many of you, as insurers, reinsurers and brokers alike navigate the crosscurrents in the reinsurance industry, in search of profitable growth and better returns. In keeping with the conference theme, I would like to share a few observations on how the Singapore insurance industry can capitalise on the opportunities created by new risks, new client segments, and new markets in Asia. Too much capital finding too little risks Those of you who attended the recent Monte Carlo Rendezvous would have discussed extensively the challenging conditions in the current reinsurance market, which some have warned would be the “new reality”, or the “new normal”. We have seen how structural responses – winning market share from competitors, and bulking up through acquisition of rivals – are largely built on a zero sum game. This becomes a problem when the pie is not growing, as could be the case if the industry does not innovate and create uncontested space.
Please, take a look around you… I can assure you that there is more than one John Global in this room… I suggest that after leaving the room each one of us should take a moment to think what you yourself, as an individual, can do to start preparing today for a meeting with John Global in 20 years. And what can each of us individually do to make us share a vision so that we can become citizens of the world and master the fine art of capturing the benefits brought by the homo sapiens globalus society. Thank you very much for your kind attention and I announce the topic open for discussion. 2  Methods employed in European Commission’s survey to assess the services provided involve defining a five-stage framework to determine the level of services provided. STAGE 0 – Total absence of any publicly accessible website or lack of possibility to qualify the existing website to any of levels 1 to 4 (0% – 24% in the figure). STAGE 1 – INFORMATION – The information necessary to start the procedure to obtain this public service is available on-line (25% – 49% in the figure). STAGE 2 – ONE-WAY INTERACTION – The publicly accessible website offers the possibility to obtain in a non-electronic way (by downloading forms) the paper form to start the procedure to obtain this service (50% – 74% in the figure).

Thanks to specialized software, every morning I receive information from the web that has tags I am interested in (for instance in the Technorati service), along with information about the blogs I am interested in (for example from bloglines) and search results on .gov and .edu domains for the entries I am interested in. I get RSS messages from the selected newspapers from several continents containing information I am interested in. Moreover, I have a number of favourite websites with articles by outstanding economists or columnists. Specialized software informs me once a day when there have been any changes to these websites, that is when these people publish something new. As you can see, my problem today – and simultaneously John Global’s problem in 20 years’ time  BIS Review 90/2006  5  – is not lack of information but its abundance, and the ability to smartly select important and useful information. Today, I use a program that summarizes texts in English. I use 25% compression. It is sufficient and allows to make reading 4 times more efficient. What is more, I occasionally visit the website of the People’s Bank of China translated live into English by specialized software. Soon, I will start my own blog on economics, which will allow me to use the emerging global networks of experts to solve problematic issues, exchange views and create knowledge along with other experts. That was about our Global and a bit about me, too. And what can be said about e-government in today’s Poland?
For example, Sweden shows no signs of the strong growth of investment that has been seen in the USA in the last four to six years. Further, there are no indications that the productivity of labour has increased very much, which appears to have been an important element of the strong growth in America. In the opinion of the Executive Board of the Riksbank, as stated in the Inflation Report (1999:3), the trade-off between inflation and growth has improved to some extent, even if there is considerable uncertainty about how much. In conclusion, the Swedish economy appears to have undergone only some of the structural changes that the American economy has implemented. It remains to be seen whether the “new economy” can have any further impact in Sweden. 5  BIS Review 132/1999

In my view, the experiences of including indebtedness in the balance when making monetary policy decisions in Sweden are therefore not particularly positive. Swedish monetary policy leaning against the wind The Riksbank has recently been much clearer about how the risks linked to housing prices and household indebtedness have affected the monetary policy decisions.2 The risks have  1  The minutes of the monetary policy meetings in 2005 and 2006 show that the Executive Board took into account the then very rapid increase in household indebtedness and housing prices (see, in particular, the minutes of the monetary policy meetings in April 2005 and February 2006). At the monetary policy meeting in December 2009 I myself mentioned developments in household debt and housing prices as a reason for not cutting the repo rate. 2  In the summary of the Monetary Policy Report published in October 2012, it is explained that the repo-rate path “is expected to go hand in hand with households’ debt ratios not rising”. The introduction to the Monetary  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  been allowed to justify a higher repo rate than the prospects for inflation and resource utilisation would have indicated. Thus, one can say that the Riksbank has practised what is known in central bank contexts as leaning against the wind, to counteract a potentially harmful growth in debt.
(G)  Enhancing Research and Talent Development  The HKMA, together with our anchor partners, Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, Science Park and Cyberport, will step up our already close collaboration in research and talent development. Of course, we will also make good use of our cooperation frameworks with authorities and partners in other jurisdictions to achieve a win-win outcome in this area. Ladies and Gentlemen, the upgrading of our banking system to a new and higher level of Smart Banking is not just something nice to have. It is a must! To meet the rising aspirations and demands of customers, banking and technology must converge sooner rather than later. Unlike the social media world, which deals with messages and life style amenities, it is not enough for tech firms just to offer speed and convenience when it comes to banking and finance. Tech firms wishing to venture into finance must recognise and accept the need for regulation, which is essential in the provision of appropriate protection to consumers and investors. The element of trust cannot be earned by speed and convenience alone. For the banking industry, it is not realistic or sustainable to rest on the laurels of public trust they presently enjoy and refuse to adopt new technologies that can offer more efficient and personalised services demanded by the customers. In the new era of Smart Banking, the industry, the fintech community and the HKMA must work together to transform the financial ecosystem of Hong Kong.

In addition to customer onboarding and account maintenance, Banking Made Easy would seek to facilitate the use of technology in the areas of online finance, online wealth management and robo advisers. (E)  Open API  The HKMA is currently consulting the banking industry to formulate a framework for facilitating the development of Open API. In the context of banks, Open API refers to a set of publicly available coding that enables recognised third-party service providers, with the consent of the customers 4/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  concerned where appropriate, to connect to, and conduct data exchange with, the IT systems of the banks. Open API can serve many purposes. For example, it may allow users of online discussion forums and social media platforms to obtain information about products and services of banks for comparison and analysis. Many lifestyle websites and mobile apps may make use of Open API to integrate banks’ foreign exchange and payment services to offer end-to-end holiday or health-care packages. A bank customer may benefit from Open API by using thirdparty applications to consolidate for analysis purposes his cash flow and investments kept in several bank accounts. However, the key benefits of Open API can be reaped only if it is widely adopted in the banking sector. And this is precisely the reason why some jurisdictions are taking steps to encourage or, in the case of the EU including the UK, even mandate through legislation financial institutions to subscribe to Open API.
Economic activity is therefore expected to remain sluggish and uneven in 2010, with GDP expanding by less than 1.0% in both the euro area and the United Kingdom. 4 Mirroring these expected trends abroad, the Central Bank of Malta’s projections point to a modest GDP growth rate of around 1.0% in 2010. Net exports are likely to contribute negatively to growth, so that the main growth impulse is expected to come from domestic demand, driven by higher investment outlays on infrastructure projects and, to a lesser extent, by a moderate expansion in private consumption. Labour market conditions are unlikely to improve this year, with the unemployment rate remaining above 7%. This subdued growth outlook, together with the expectation that inflation will remain more elevated than in the euro area, will exert downward pressure on disposable income. Overall, therefore, the economic environment facing small businesses in the foreseeable future, both domestically and in our main trading partners, will be less favourable than that which prevailed before the onset of the financial crisis in 2007. 4  2  European Commission Interim Forecasts, February 2010. BIS Review 50/2010  Small businesses access to finance Since SMEs and micro enterprises are typically more dependent on bank financing than larger firms, the ongoing deleveraging of bank balance sheets in many EU countries represents a potential threat. The prospect of a prolonged period of restricted access to both working and investment capital at a time of subdued demand could result in the closure of many enterprises.

Now this large dollar amount in and of itself is not a problem. When governments invest in long-lived capital goods like water and sewer systems, as well as roads and bridges, it makes sense to finance these assets with debt. Debt financing ensures that future residents, who benefit from the services these investments produce, are also required to help pay for them. This principle supports the efficient provision of these long-lived assets. Unfortunately, as the Volcker-Ravitch task force emphasized, issuing debt to finance infrastructure investments is not the only reason that states and localities borrow from the future. Governments have also borrowed to cover operating deficits, and this kind of debt has a very different character than debt issued to finance infrastructure. Let me take a moment to explain what I mean and why I think this distinction is important. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  When a jurisdiction borrows to invest in infrastructure, the cost of the debt to local residents – and those considering locating in the jurisdiction – is offset by the value of the services that the infrastructure provides. This tradeoff is part of the “fiscal surplus” that a jurisdiction offers: the value of the services minus the tax price that residents have to pay. A well-run capital budget will match these costs and benefits over the life of each project to ensure that the jurisdiction remains attractive to current and future residents.
5  See IMF (2010), chapter 2, and references contained in it, for a discussion of balance sheet and asset co-movement approaches to determining systemic institutions. 6  Actually, the SBIF may deny authorization to any bank merger, acquisition of assets of a bank by another banking entity, or taking control of two o more existing banks by the same person or group, or to increase substantially the existing control if the acquiring bank that performs said merger, acquisition or the resulting group of banks reaches a significant market share. In order to deny authorization, the SBIF needs prior approval by the Central Bank Board, issued by the majority of all Board members. 6  BIS Review 124/2010  Figure 1 Net flows of investment funds to emerging economies (billions of dollars accumulated in twelve moving months, weekly data) Equity flows  Total flows  Emerging (1) Latin America Total equity  120  Asia ex-Japan Other emerging (2)  120  80  80  40  40  0  0  -40  -40  -80  Total  Total fixed income  Total equity  -80 06  07  08  09  10  06  07  08  09  10  (1) Global Emerging Markets (GEM). (2) Middle East, Emerging Europe and Africa. Source: Emerging Portfolio Fund Research. Figure 2 Monetary Policy Rates in the world (1) (percent)  Developed economies (2) Chile (4) Survey emerging ec. 35  Emerging economies (3) Survey developed ec.

Under Dr Richard Hu as Chairman, and Mr J Y Pillay and Mr Lee Ek Tieng as Managing Directors, MAS set about establishing the high standards of financial regulation and supervision that Singapore has become known for, while dealing with crises from Pan El to Barings. 6. The arrival of then Deputy Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong as Chairman and Mr Koh Yong Guan as Managing Director in 1998 launched a wide-ranging liberalisation of the financial sector in the midst of the Asian financial crisis. 7. And MAS built on those reforms while navigating the financial sector through the 2008/2009 crisis under the leadership of Mr Goh Chok Tong as Chairman and Mr Heng Swee Keat as Managing Director. 8. We thank the past management and staff of MAS at all levels. They are the unsung heroes who made it all possible. Highly professional, and driven by a strong sense of public service, they did not hesitate to do what was right even if it was unpopular. 9. In crisis after crisis – be it the speculative attack on the Singapore Dollar in 1985 or the global financial crisis in 2008 – staff of MAS worked long and hard behind the scenes, keeping our exchange rate strong, our banks safe, and the system sound. Next, we thank our partners in government 10. MAS could not have done it alone. If Singapore government had run persistent budget deficits instead of chronic surpluses, outcome would have been very different.
The extra margin is well named because there’s real value for a firm in being able to choose when to invest. Able to pick its moment, the firm can go ahead with an investment project when there’s good news about future returns – and, equally, avoid committing itself when there’s a risk the investment will make a loss. 3  Abel (1983) points out that, for given capital, a firm’s profits are a convex function of the price of its product: they rise more in response to a given increase in the price than they decline as a result of the same-sized fall. This means that uncertainty about future prices actually raises expected profits, and therefore the incentive to invest. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  5  In fact, it turns out that these downside risks are the more important determinant of the decision. The reason is that, as long as it doesn’t take long to implement an investment, the firm can always respond to good news as and when it comes through. It has the same exposure to upside risks whether it invests in advance of good news or in response to it. What it can’t do, however, is to undo an investment it’s already made if it subsequently gets bad news about future returns. The real value of waiting is that, if things do take a turn for the worse, the firm will have avoided the resulting losses.

Chart 5: Surveys suggest underlying investment  Chart 6: Investment growth unusually weak  trend still negative  relative to employment growth  Sources: BoE, BCC, CBI, ONS and Bank calculations. Sources: ONS and Bank calculations. However, even then it was quite a bit weaker than in other countries, weaker still than in previous economic expansions in the UK (Chart 4). And it then started to decline. Business investment fell in every quarter of 2018 – outside recessions that’s the longest period of continual declines on record – and, although preliminary estimates suggest it recovered slightly in the first quarter of this year2 the standard business surveys suggest the underlying trend is still negative (Chart 5). This is remarkable at a time when the economy has been growing. What’s particularly striking is that firms have been cutting back on investment while adding jobs. Even as investment was shrinking, employment grew in every quarter of 2018, and quite strongly over the year as a whole (Chart 6). 2  It’s possible that this was driven, somewhat perversely, by the same no-deal worries that pushed up firms’ inventory holdings (certainly there will have been similar incentives to expand warehousing and logistical capacity). 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  3  As I say, the impact of Brexit uncertainty on investment has been talked about quite a bit already and I’m not looking to give an exhaustive account of it today.
Moreover, it is worth noting that since the MPC’s mandate dictates that we should support growth and employment provided that it does not conflict with achieving the inflation target, we are in any case charged with seeking to eliminate that part of the shortfall in nominal demand that is associated with an output gap, or that can be eliminated without generating inflationary pressure. Second, hard-wiring in higher inflation for a while is not without risk. In many economic models – including the one I used earlier – it is only the real interest rate that matters: it is irrelevant whether a lower real interest rate comes about through a lower nominal interest rate or a higher inflation rate. In the real world, inflation erodes the real value of cash, nominal bonds and fixed-interest debts. In itself, that may reduce the impact on demand of the promise to keep policy loose for long. But it is also apt to breed suspicion of a deliberate attempt to inflate away debt burdens, and may thus lead to inflation expectations becoming de-anchored. This is a serious risk: we should not forget the high levels of unemployment in the 1970s and 1980s associated with bringing inflation expectations back under control. Third, maintaining low interest rates even after the economy has recovered carries financial stability risks. My baseline simulations suggest that the period of very loose policy is already quite extended.

So the central bank’s mandate needs to permit a temporary undershooting of its inflation target if it thereby reduces the risk of a subsequent painful bust. The past few months have, however, seen questions asked of our inflation-targeting framework for other reasons. According to some, the framework has constrained the ability of monetary policy to support the recovery; an objective giving higher priority to growth or employment might have produced a better outcome. A particular, and increasingly popular, variant of this involves combining growth and inflation into a single target for nominal income. The first thing to be said is that the MPC’s mandate already incorporates a growth and employment objective. While our primary objective is to maintain price stability, subject to that we are also expected to support the Government’s policies for growth and employment. The Chancellor’s annual remit letter puts flesh on those bones, by specifying not only the 2% target for CPI inflation but also the Government’s desire for high and stable growth and employment. And the letter goes on to note “that the actual inflation rate will on occasions depart from its target as a result of shocks and disturbances (and that) attempts to keep inflation at the inflation target in these circumstances may cause undesirable volatility in output.” If we had tried to offset the impact on consumer prices of, say, sharp movements in import prices, then we would need to engineer countervailing movements in domestically generated costs, in particular pay.