samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
More recently, we also notice an upward trend in mortgage loans to homebuyers who search for rental yield and capital gain, driven partly by high LTV ratio for mortgage loans offered by the intense competition in the financial sector. Furthermore, mortgage loan NPLs, especially among second- and third-home buyers have continued to rise. Ladies and gentlemen, I have outlined for you the four sources of risk that we are currently facing. Even though I talk about them separately, the interplay between these risk factors make it so that the slightest change in circumstances could have a huge effect on an economy. The latest market turbulence in Turkey speaks volume about how markets can sometimes overreact, leading to a sell-off in a general risk-off mood. Closer to home, we have seen some of our Southeast Asian neighbors faced with difficult financial market conditions despite their robust economic growth. Lastly, in addition to the four risks I mentioned, there are other developments that could at some point become one of the key risk factors, such as the rapid technological advancement that could disrupt traditional business models, or the effects of climate change that are projected to intensify in the coming years. With all these risks in mind, there comes a question: where does Thailand stand amidst these risks? If we look back over the past few years, we would notice that Thailand’s growth was filled with imbalances.

Monetary policy must be conducted with caution as to not contribute to further build-up of financial vulnerabilities. Furthermore, amidst the prolonged period of low interest rate and the increasing search-for-yield behaviors, it is our view that supervisory coordination is increasingly imperative for effective risk monitoring to make sure that the regulations across different regulators are broadly aligned and that financial 4  activities cannot simply move from a regulated to an unregulated umbrella. This is reflected through our close collaborations with other regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC). Ladies and gentlemen, While we have adequate external buffers to withstand short-term vulnerability in the global market, what would ensure the economy’s stability and resilience in the longer-run are productivity-enhancing infrastructures and ecosystem. This is crucial for the country’s competitiveness in the years to come. I am delighted to say that we are on the path of productivity improvement. With the limited time I have, it is difficult to do justice to all the projects that have been initiated. Some of the most notable examples are the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) and transportation and digital infrastructure projects that have been long-overdue. On our side, the Bank of Thailand is doing its part to develop infrastructure and ecosystem needed for the ongoing transition towards the digital economy. Under the e-Payment Masterplan, we, together with the Ministry of Finance and the Thai Bankers’ Association, launched PromptPay, which has allowed real-time fund transfers among individuals and businesses.
This refers to the sum of Basel II, Basel II.5 and Basel III and covers liquidity, leverage and risk-based capital requirements. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  past samples. For example, a typical credit risk model might comprise 20-30 years of sample data – barely a crisis cycle. A market risk model might comprise less than five years of data – far less than a crisis cycle. Regulatory complexity has also found its way into the numerator of the capital ratio – the definition of capital. Under Basel I, the focus was on common equity capital, with restrictions on non-equity instruments. Progressively, a complex undergrowth of new non-equity capital instruments began to emerge. Additional “tiers” of regulatory capital, and tiers within tiers, were added. In the end, it did all end in tears. During the crisis, investors lost confidence in non-equity capital instruments. Basel III simplified the definition of core regulatory capital, basing it around a common equity Tier 1 definition. Yet measuring capital remains a complex task. The numerator of the capital ratio adds dozens, perhaps hundreds, of parameters to the complexity quotient. This degree of complexity complicates greatly the task for investors pricing banks’ financial instruments. For example, serious concerns have been expressed about the opacity of the Basel risk weights and their consistency across firms (Haldane (2011), Le Leslé and Avramova (2012)). Their granularity makes it close to impossible to account for differences across banks. It also provides near-limitless scope for arbitrage.

Measures of risk-weighted capital are statistically insignificant, while the leverage ratio is significant at the 1% level. Contrary to the risk-sensitivity doctrine, less appears to have offered more. These results are robust to the inclusion of a broader set of macro factors, such as GDP growth and credit (Table 3). Using different methods and samples, other studies support the predictive superiority, or at least equivalence, of leverage over capital ratios (IMF (2009), Demirguc-Kunt et al (2010), Estrella et al (2000)). A second source of regulatory complexity is the definition of capital. Table 4 considers the predictive performance of a selection of measures of capital for a sub-set of banks. Two key conclusions emerge. First, simpler measures of accounting capital based on equity capital (core Tier 1) outperform broader, more complex, measures. Second, simple market-based measures of banks’ equity dominate accounting measures in their crisis-predictive performance. Simple, once again, beats complex. Put another way, consider a straight horse-race between the most complex measure of banks’ capital position (the Basel Tier 1 ratio) and the simplest (the market value of equity relative to unweighted assets). The explanatory power of the simple measure is about 10 times greater than the complex measure. However well they perform in theory or in sample, complex capital rules do not appear to have performed well in practice and out-of-sample. That is a sobering message for the architects of the Tower of Basel. (5)  Predicting bank failure – simple or complex?
In other words, the central bank operates normally within a traditional inflation targeting framework, but, in response to low inflation crises driving interest rates close to their lower bound, it commits to a make-up strategy to recover the “lost inflation” over that period in the future.8 In recent years, several central banks (including the ECB and the US Federal Reserve) have launched monetary policy strategy reviews. Against this backdrop, the Federal Reserve announced at the end of August the main findings of its strategic review. Among other changes, this has led it to adopt a new average inflation targeting strategy, albeit without specifying some of its key elements, such as the length of the period over which the average inflation to be stabilised is calculated. In particular, the Federal Reserve affirms in its new strategic framework that following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2%, it will aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2% for some time.9 In January 2020 the ECB announced the launch of its monetary policy strategy review. The outbreak of COVID-19 has delayed this process, which is expected to spill over into 2021. Given that this is an ongoing process, the takeaways are as yet unknown. However, I can reveal that it is an open process; both the ECB and the national central banks of the Eurosystem are conducting a great deal of analysis and are seeking the input of civil society, academic economists and other professional and social cohorts.

I am reliably informed that the number of branches has increased from 17 at the beginning of April last year to 55 at the end of November 2007. What is even more impressive is that these branches are found in areas which were previously not serviced by commercial banks. This indeed is a bold move and for this we must commend Barclays Bank Zambia. I am aware that the expansion programme is backed by a capital injection of approximately K40.0 billion which will make it possible for Barclays Bank Zambia to increase its services in the country, particularly to the SMEs sector. Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2005 Finscope Survey undertaken by FinMark Trust confirmed that levels of access to financial services in Zambia are low. Fewer than 15% of adult Zambians are reported to have had access to commercial banks. The reasons given for this low accessibility varied but some of the critical reasons included the distance to banks, the time spent getting to a bank and the cost of getting a bank service. With Barclays Bank Zambia opening branches closer to the people it is our conviction that the number of Zambians to have access to banking services will increase. We therefore encourage as many Zambians as possible to use these facilities. To the residents of Chilenje, I urge you to utilize the services offered by Barclays Bank, otherwise the bank may opt to close its branch due to lack of business and you will be left with no bank in your area.
The development of household debt is linked to the development of housing prices, which is not so strange as housing purchases as largely financed through loans (see Figure 7). A high level of indebtedness makes households more vulnerable to various shocks. Ultimately, shocks in, for instance, incomes, housing prices or interest rates can trigger adjustments that have fairly significant effects on the macro economy: weak demand, high unemployment and difficulties stabilising inflation around the target. Naturally, we wish to avoid this type of development. There has recently been a debate on whether giving consideration to financial imbalances in the repo-rate decisions is compatible with the Riksbank’s monetary policy assignment. I consider it to be entirely compatible with the monetary policy assignment, as financial imbalances ultimately risk jeopardising both real economic stability and inflation stability. In a really negative scenario, financial imbalances may not only lead to unfavourable macroeconomic outcomes, they may also pose risks to financial stability.5 Financial stability is an important condition for monetary policy to function smoothly. The monetary policy transmission mechanism and the possibility to attain the monetary policy objectives – price stability and real economic stability – deteriorate substantially if a financial crisis breaks out. The monetary policy decisions taken in recent years have thus involved a balance between stabilising inflation in the shorter term and also taking into consideration the effects the repo rate has on household indebtedness and thus the risk of an unfavourable scenario later on. Figure 8 is a way of illustrating this balance within monetary policy.

The upper half illustrates the effect of the repo rate on inflation and resource utilisation during the forecast period, and the lower half illustrates the effect of the repo rate on indebtedness and risk in the longer run.6 In the situation we have had in recent years – with inflation undershooting the target – a lower repo rate and repo-rate path has typically meant that inflation will approach the target faster, but also that household indebtedness – and thereby the risks in the longer run – will increase more. Our most recent assessment assumes that household indebtedness, measured as debt in relation to disposable income will increase from an already high level, and moreover increase somewhat faster than in the previous forecast (see Figure 9). At the same time, the percentage of loans at a variable rate is increasing. This is natural in a situation where the Riksbank is signalling that interest rates will be low for a long time. However, the combination of high indebtedness and a large percentage of variable-rate mortgages makes households more sensitive to changes in interest rates. The low inflation is motive for lower interest rates – indebtedness must mainly be managed within other policy areas As on so many previous occasions in recent years, the monetary policy balance in July concerned balancing the low inflation against the high household indebtedness and the risks this entails.
Strong and Simple Speech given by Sam Woods, Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation and Chief Executive Officer, Prudential Regulation Authority  Mansion House, London Thursday 12 November 2020  I am very grateful to Thomas Papavranoussis, Hannah Schraer, and the Strong and Simple team for their help in preparing this speech. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  Introduction  I am reliably informed that following my last Mansion House speech the chair of one of our banks was so enraged that I had spent ten minutes talking about credit unions that they nearly choked on their beef fillet. This, arguably, did not advance the PRA’s objective of safety and soundness. So it’s a very good thing that this year the Lord Mayor has introduced new safety measures by removing all food from this event. You will, however, still need a strong dose of caffeine in order to make it to the end of my speech. I’m also delighted to join the Lord Mayor in welcoming Nikhil to this event. Nikhil and I have known each other for a long time. I’m sure he will be a great leader of the FCA and I’m confident that with him at the helm the two regulators will continue to work well together. Now, coming back to those credit unions – the reason for the chair’s anger was that I announced that we would bring in a radical simplification of capital requirements for credit unions, but didn’t announce anything on banks.

So boring in fact that when I gave an inordinately long speech on this topic I went all the way to Switzerland so that I could inflict it on their bankers rather than all of you – had I done otherwise I am sure the Lord Mayor would finally have banned me from speaking at this event. But this is a very, very important issue for financial services in the UK because it is the fundamental bedrock of increased dynamism in our  4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  4  regulation. I am delighted therefore that this is the approach the government has proposed in its consultation on the Future Regulatory Framework, and I hope that it will be taken forward as the wider regime develops. Graduation  At this point I fear that the chair whom I annoyed so much last year is becoming restive again, fearing a long lecture on regulatory plumbing. So let me stick with dynamism, but move us on to something a little more tasty that we have been cooking up in the PRA kitchen. We made changes to simplify the credit union regime last year both because it is a good idea and because we are not constrained by EU regulation in that area.
Continuing on this subject, I will next talk about the way macroeconomic policies have helped in the context of the large swings of the price of copper. Macroeconomic policies and copper in the current scenario To make economies less vulnerable to commodity price fluctuations, having an adequate macroeconomic policy framework is imperative. As will be argued in this section, this is the case in Chile today. 3 It is common knowledge that in Latin America, cycles have historically been very pronounced. Global economic downturns have triggered strong adjustments in the countries in the region. This is largely due to the destabilizing effects of terms of trade fluctuations on public finances (Gavin and Perotti, 1997). Due to the importance of copper for fiscal income, a positive shock on its price should be expected to prompt destabilizing policies. This does not occur, however, because Chile’s fiscal policy is countercyclical, and is based on a  3  This issue is also discussed in De Gregorio (2006). BIS Review 106/2009  3  structural fiscal balance rule. To determine the structural balance, a key element is the estimated long-term copper price. This rule began being applied in 2001 with a target of 1% of GDP; last year it was brought down to 0.5% because of a large accumulation of resources in sovereign funds, and this year, to provide an extra fiscal impulse, it was reduced to 0% (figure 8).

The reasons for this are that natural resources can lead to rent-seeking activities diverting scarce resources such as human and physical capital away from activities that favor growth. At the same time, natural resource abundance may cause a persistent real appreciation that may weaken the rest of tradable goods sectors, which is known as the Dutch disease. A natural conclusion of these works is that in countries that prevent rentseeking, with human capital abundance, access to credit and macroeconomic policies that promote stability, these damaging effects can be avoided. Subsequent studies have been oriented in that direction. Several studies have explored new links between natural resources and growth, controlling for the strengths of each economy. For example, Arezki and van der Ploeg (2007) find that this negative relationship between natural resource abundance and growth is heavily affected by the country’s openness to international trade. They find that, the more open the economy, the less likely for natural resources to have a negative contribution to growth. Therefore, trade openness can change the curse into a blessing. Meanwhile, Mehlum et al. (2006), using the same data as Sachs and Warner (1997), include an interaction between the quality of institutions and natural resource abundance to examine its effect on growth. They find that the critical element behind the natural resource curse is bad institutions. In other words, if the country has good institutions, natural resources allow them to grow faster. 1 The interaction with the human capital endowment is also important.
Mr Yam elaborates on the role of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority as the lender of last resort Speech by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Mr Joseph Yam, JP, at the Half-yearly Dinner of the Hong Kong Association of Banks in Hong Kong on 29 June 1999. The HKAB and HKMA Partnership I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak to the Hong Kong Association of Banks (HKAB) at its half-yearly dinner again. The last opportunity for doing so was in December 1992 when, ahead of the formation of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), I spoke as the Chief Executive (Designate) of the HKMA. It has been almost seven years, and although it is rare for the HKAB to invite the same speaker a second time, I must confess that I was privately beginning to wonder. Then your current Chairman picked up the phone with this very timely invitation that I gladly accepted. This is perhaps yet another good indication of the close partnership and understanding built up over the years between HKAB and HKMA. Together we have been through a lot and have achieved a lot. Our work together has embraced the continuous process of monetary reform; the strengthening of our supervisory framework; the building of a sophisticated financial infrastructure, notably the establishment of CMU and the introduction of RTGS; the preparation for the handover; and the handling of the Asian financial turmoil or, to give it perhaps a more appropriate term, the crisis of globalisation.

paper, the monetary and non-monetary signals were reconciled through an analysis of portfolio shifts driven by the near-zero interest rate policy at that time. Understandably, some of you might be concerned that not giving a prominent and distinct role to monetary aggregates could lead to relegating money to an insignificant role in the decision making process. This is not the case. To the contrary, I would argue that the SNB’s "plurality of approaches" concept guarantees that money will retain an important role in policymaking, as long as money provides useful information for subsequent inflation fluctuations. There are theoretical as well as empirical studies which indeed suggest that money provides useful additional information for subsequent price developments. 4 Using Swiss data, empirical work conducted at the SNB show that money growth rates and deviations from an estimated money demand equilibrium contain useful information for both short- and long-term Swiss inflation developments. 5 Similarly, a more recent study, again drawing on Swiss data, finds that money growth adjusted for changes in the equilibrium interest rate has a significant and proportional influence on subsequent inflation developments relative to information in output and interest rates. 6  4. Money and long-term financial imbalances  Let me conclude by stressing a final point, which strikes me as being worth emphasizing more prominently in the Fischer et al. paper: the role of money beyond a medium-term inflation forecast. Clearly, the relevance of money extends beyond the medium-term. Several recent studies have discussed the relationship between monetary aggregates and asset prices.
2  BIS Review 48/2001  I understand that the SEACEN Board of Governors will deliberate at length a strategic review of the SEACEN Centre during the Conference. This is an opportunity for Governors to re-examine the relevance of SEACEN activities, and explore ways in which SEACEN can better serve its members. SEACEN has to reposition itself to meet the challenges of the new globalised economy. Conclusion We have a full and demanding agenda ahead of us. At the same time, the Conference tomorrow will allow us to share experiences and exchange ideas, as well as strengthen existing relationships and forge new friendships. I would also like to wish all participants a pleasant stay in Singapore. I now have the pleasure of declaring the 36th SEACEN Governors Conference open. Enjoy the evening. Thank you. BIS Review 48/2001  3

Thus, we have ended up in a somewhat strange situation where countries that not long ago were complaining about receiving too much capital inflows are now complaining about a potential shortage of funding. Countries in this situation should consider the temporary postponement of tapering as a welcome opportunity to reduce their vulnerability by strengthening their fiscal position and addressing potential risks in their financial systems. There is still time, but the clock is ticking. Let me be clear: tapering will take place, global monetary conditions will and should eventually normalize, and the times of extremely cheap and abundant international financing will end. In Chile, we are currently in a situation where we do not consider tapering as bad news. After declining for some quarters, our trade balance has gradually improved. Gross inflows are still concentrated in FDI, and an important part of foreign expenditure goes to investment goods. Furthermore, Chilean residents, mainly through pension funds, have large gross foreign asset positions, which have lately acted as a buffer against fluctuations in gross inflows by non‐ residents, as mentioned in the latest World Economic Outlook. Our fiscal position is solid. The on‐shore peso rates have not moved in tandem with the latest global increase in long term rates, but instead they have actually fallen. And we have maintained a regime of fully flexible exchange rate that has helped us deal with external shocks in an economy with small degrees of dollarization.