samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Following the default on its debt by the Russian government, the imposition of capital controls by Malaysia, and the near collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, financial markets world-wide have exhibited extraordinary volatility, driven by a fear of risk, a flight to quality and liquidity, and the beginning of a significant reduction in leverage by financial institutions. What does this turbulence mean for the British economy? Before answering that question, I want to say a few words about the Monetary Policy Committee. Just under two weeks ago, the Monetary Policy Committee, for the first time in its short history, cut interest rates. When I accepted your invitation to speak today, I did not know that I would be able to explain to you the reasons behind our latest decision. For, until today, the minutes of our meetings were published with a lag of some five to six weeks. But, as the Bank announced earlier this month, the minutes will now be published only two weeks after the monthly meetings. And the minutes from our meeting on 7-8 October were published at 9.30 a.m. this morning. This increase in transparency should help commentators and financial markets alike to assess the actions of the MPC and to predict its future decisions. As I have said on other occasions, the aim of the MPC is to pursue economic stability, not to spring surprises on an unsuspecting world. Surprises may be good for newspapers, but not for most other businesses.

And the MPC has asked the Bank’s regional Agents to conduct a survey of borrowing conditions faced by businesses around the country in time for the MPC meeting in November. The international situation is, of course, only one of the factors that influence interest rates. In the August Inflation Report, the MPC made clear that it expected - indeed wanted - the growth of domestic demand to continue to slow throughout this year and into next. A slowdown is necessary because, as the restraining effects on retail prices from the rise in sterling start to wear off, domestically generated inflation must fall if the inflation target is to be met. The latest data from the Office for National Statistics show that domestic demand and output have been growing broadly in line with the desired path. But survey data show a markedly weaker picture for output and orders, both over recent months and, more importantly, looking ahead. The lags with which changes in monetary policy affect the economy mean that the MPC can not wait to find out whether the surveys provide an accurate prediction before it sets policy. Each month the MPC balances the information contained in official statistics, surveys, anecdote and the impressions of conditions in industry relayed to us by our network of regional agents. An issue of considerable importance is the state of the labour market. The August Inflation Report argued that the outlook for inflation depended critically upon the labour market and, in particular, on the behaviour of earnings.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Asia’s new development strategy – where now? Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the ASEM Conference "Asia's New Development Strategy: Where Now? ", Kuala Lumpur, 19 October 2009. *  *  *  Introduction The experience of economic development in Asia - home to more than half of the world population and one of the most diverse regions - for more than half a century has been remarkable. Despite being interrupted by turbulence from time to time, Asia has, in general, attained and sustained high growth rates during this period, experienced rapid structural economic transformation and shifted from economies based on agriculture to capitalintensive production of modern goods and services. From a mix of poor and less developed economies after the Second World War, Asia today features five of the twenty largest economies in the world and several of the fastest-growing economies, contributing around one-third of global output and world trade. The objective of economic development is, however, not solely based on trade, finance or even wealth. Economic development is fundamentally about the welfare of people, where growth is but a means to achieve continued improvements in the standards of living. Viewed within this context, Asia has achieved significant progress too. Asia's rapid development has led to a more than four fold increase in average per capita income, lifting more than 500 million people out of poverty and destitution since the 1980s.

Thus, deeper regional financial integration would facilitate Asia's growing intra-regional trade and investment trends. Third, Asia is home to more than half of the world population, with a growing middle income and young population in the region. This represents a massive potential market for financial products and services. The high rate of savings also provides a large local investor base. Whilst extensive regional cooperation have been initiated and undertaken in the liberalisation of the Asian financial systems and in the development of financial infrastructure, there still exist several areas where efforts needs to be further strengthened to deepen financial integration in Asia. The important four areas include financial sector liberalisation, capital account liberalisation, regional payments and settlements systems, and cooperation among regulators and central banks. These priorities would, however, need to take into account the diversity of the various economies within the Asian region, in terms of the level of development both the financial system and broader economy. Therefore, reforms need to be sequenced and aligned to the heterogeneities of the various economies. First is the further liberalisation of financial services undertaken to allow for the greater presence of regional institutions in the individual domestic markets, which would further facilitate trade and investment flows within the region. Beyond the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitments, limits on licenses, branch networks, ownership share and voting rights still remain in most Asian financial sectors today.
Overall, this would be about 10 per cent up until the bond matures. This loss can be seen in Chart 5 as the difference between the repo rate, i.e. the funding cost, and the forward curve that follows from the pricing of the bonds. This difference increases from about 0.3 percentage points on short-term maturities to about 2 percentage points on the ten-year horizon, and is hence on average 1 per cent. The example shows that the interest rate risk and the possible loss are particularly large when we purchase bonds with long maturities. But ten-year bonds are not, as I have said, representative of the bonds purchased by the Riksbank. A more representative bond has a maturity of five years. For a five-year bond purchased today, the loss will be between 3 and 4 per cent of the purchase sum if the interest rate develops as in this example. This is of a similar magnitude to the calculations based on the estimated term premium. 12 This forecast is based on the National Institute of Economic Research’s interest rate forecasts. The low interest  rates have also led to an increase in the market value of the foreign exchange reserve, which has contributed significantly to an improvement in the Riksbank’s reported profit. This improvement is however almost entirely an accounting illusion that will be counterbalanced by lower profit in the period ahead even if interest rates remain at their current low level. 13 af Jochnick (2015) described why income was expected to be negative.

At end-2008, the largest ownership interests were in British Mondi (8.7 per cent), Australian Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group (7.8 per cent) and Finnish UPM-Kymmene (5.8 per cent). In bond markets, the largest issuers are sovereign states. The Fund will therefore normally have large holdings of government debt. The Fund’s average share of market capitalisation in fixed income markets at the end of 2008 was around ½ per cent. The Fund has a longer investment horizon than the vast majority of other market participants. The important question is therefore how sound today’s investments prove to be in the long term. The government now owns a fair share of the global business sector. This represents real value that will provide a return reflecting both global economic growth and the risk related to fluctuations in equity prices. Active ownership Active ownership has also become an important part of Norges Bank’s investment operations. The purpose is to help safeguard financial wealth for future generations by promoting good corporate governance and encouraging high ethical, social and environmental standards at investee companies. As a shareholder in almost 7 900 companies, Norges Bank has both rights and obligations in relation to these companies. Our long time horizon exposes us to developments in markets traditionally of less concern to more short-term investors. We use our position as a shareholder to address topics relating to traditional shareholder rights, such as the right to equal treatment and influence.
To return to the ice skating metaphor, you may fall through the ice despite being careful. But then you will hopefully have both the equipment and the training to manage to get out of the water and get home in dry extra clothing. Everything may not happen exactly as you have trained for, but you know what to do – you have both the tools and the techniques required. And we do. We are well-prepared to manage our task, even when there is turmoil in the world around us and when unforeseen events occur. We are aware that extraordinary events may require extraordinary measures. If necessary, we can act both quickly and forcefully. If necessary, we can implement more unconventional measures as a complement to our interest rate policy. This is the way we have worked so far, and this is what we will continue to do. If necessary! Concluding reflections – why are things better this time? There have been many gloomy headlines regarding economic developments recently. We are certainly in an economic downturn. And the global financial crisis will probably affect us all for some time to come. But, particularly in the light of all of the measures taken and those that will be taken around the world, we are expecting economic activity in Sweden to pick up again next year. After our most recent interest rate decision some analysts wondered why we believe that the Swedish economy will recover more quickly now than after the crisis at the beginning of the 1990s.

But when the US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September the uncertainty over borrowers' credit ratings increased dramatically. Access to credit in the financial markets around the world declined and the interbank rates, that is, interest on loans between banks, rose substantially in Sweden, too. In a couple of days we went from a situation where Swedish financial markets were functioning fairly well to one where some sub-markets were in principle at a standstill. We also went from expectations of a fairly smooth slowdown in economic activity, to significantly more gloomy economic prospects. I myself was sitting in a meeting in Frankfurt when I was told over the telephone that the Swedish treasury bill market had been put on hold. This was on 18 September and it was now clear that events had put a spanner in our otherwise well-oiled financial works. This changed the conditions for our policy. Although monetary policy and financial stability have always been closely linked, under the circumstances that have prevailed since September one can say that the dividing lines between our two main tasks have in many ways been erased. Financial stability affects monetary policy… Our most important tool in conducting monetary policy is normally the repo rate. By adjusting it we can influence, by means of the banks and the rest of the financial system, the interest rates faced by households and companies when borrowing money. In this way we try to influence activity in the economy and ultimately inflation.
Progressive recovery in the Spanish economy  Allow me to begin with a brief overview of the current situation of the Spanish economy, which is far different from that two years ago, when the extreme tensions on the capital markets derived from the institutional crisis of the euro area, the vulnerability of public finances and of part of the banking system, and the recession under way drove the Spanish government to apply for financial assistance. At present, the economy, after beginning to show moderately positive growth rates in the second half of 2013, is set on a path of recovery. The information available indicates that year-on-year growth rates might draw close to 2% late next year. Positive figures can likewise be seen in the labour market. Following a process of job destruction that ran for over five years, the incipient recovery in the market observed in the closing months of 2013 has gained in momentum in the first half of 2014, providing for a slight reduction in the unemployment rate which, however, remains at unacceptably high levels. The firming of the improvement in the labour market is crucial for driving the expansion of domestic demand and, thereby, making the incipient path of recovery sustainable. Contributing factors here must also include the adjustments made by the economy, which have seen an appreciable moderation of the main imbalances in public finances, the external balance, private-sector debt and the real estate market.

Banks have in the past two years also stepped up the process of re-sizing initiated at the onset of the crisis. Overall, in the last six years, the sector has reduced numbers of offices and employees by around 25%. This has appreciably strengthened the average operational efficiency of the sector. ii)  Secondly, bank balance sheets have been subject to an intense clean-up. This has enabled one of the main sources of vulnerability of the Spanish banking sector, namely its excessive exposure to the real estate sector, to be defused. In particular, claims on the real estate sector, including loans and foreclosures net of provisions, declined by close to 60% from December 2011 to December 2013. This has been possible mainly thanks to three fundamental factors: i) the increase in provisioning requirements established in 2012 by royal decree-law, ii) the revision of the classification and level of provisioning of restructured and refinanced loans in light of the related guidelines issued by the Banco de España in 2013 and iii) the transfer of real estate assets to Sareb by the banks that received public aid under the financial assistance programme. iii)  Lastly, bank solvency ratios have been notably strengthened thanks to the recapitalisation of vulnerable institutions under the financial assistance programme.
In particular, there has been a shift from bank to bond funding in the last decade, with bond debt increasing from 16% to 24% of non-financial corporations’ total debt. The faster policy pass-through to bond rates than to bank rates implies faster transmission. Moreover, loan origination is contracting rapidly judging by the short lag from the first rate hike. The evidence available shows a strong econometric relationship between Bank Lending Survey (BLS) credit standards and a so-called credit impulse a couple of quarters later, and likewise between the credit impulse and GDP growth. 15 The first link in the chain – between the BLS and the credit impulse – is already evident. We should expect to see the latter link to real activity assert itself soon. Third, as regards the cash flow channel of monetary policy, we have seen a significant shift of funds between overnight deposits (with very low remuneration) and time deposits (whose remuneration is more sensitive to market interest rates). Furthermore, in net terms, money supply is decelerating rapidly, with M3 growth slowing from around 9% in September to 4% in January. Fourth, the housing sector is a key area to watch given the turnaround in financial conditions, as well as the sharp increase in house prices in some economies over the last decade. There was significant evidence of exuberance in this market in some countries before the pandemic, as has been repeatedly emphasised by the European Systemic Risk Board.

The issue, amidst the challenging global financial markets, was highly successful, attracting significant interest from a wide investor base with Asia accounting for 60 percent of the issue. The combined size of the Petronas global sukuk and conventional bond issuances amounting to 4.5 billion US dollars is the largest global issuance in Asia (excluding Japan) for the year. The brief time-to-market for the issuance of the US dollar Petronas sukuk and bond took approximately one month, from structuring the instrument and date of submission to the authorities, to book building and the issuance date – reflecting the efficiency of the Malaysian market. Prior to this, Malaysia has also seen wide ranging ringgit-denominated issuances by nonresident issuers. Multi-nationals, foreign corporations and Multilateral agencies such as the International Finance Corporation, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Islamic Development Bank have successfully issued sukuk in Malaysia. All these issuances garnered overwhelming response from resident and non-resident investors as reflected by the oversubscription of these sukuk issuances. The liquidity and tradability of these ringgit issuances have been supported by the diverse range of players in the domestic Islamic financial system and the increasing demand from foreign investors. The establishment of CMH marks a further milestone in the development of the Islamic financial system under the MIFC initiative, sustaining the continued evolution and the development of Islamic finance.
One reason for this is that our data allow a more comprehensive description of student debt delinquency and repayment rates than was previously possible. Our data come from consumer credit reports 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  for a 5 percent random sample of the population – that is for 12 million individuals aged 18 and older. Instead, existing knowledge of student federal loan defaults is based mainly on the three-year cohort default rates computed and released by the Department of Education each year. An institution’s cohort default rate is calculated as the percentage of borrowers in a cohort who default before the end of the second fiscal years following the fiscal year in which the borrowers entered repayment. In research that will be released later this month in a series of blog postings on our Liberty Street Economics blog, we use our data and a slightly different definition to compute comparable 3-year cohort default rates. Importantly, we find that three years out, we haven’t seen the full picture of borrowers who will default. Our calculations indicate that the 3-year default rate for the 2009 cohort rises by more than a third by year 5. This is also true of earlier cohorts. The 2005 cohort had a 3-year default rate at 13 percent – but this is only half of the defaults that we see nine years out. Taken together, these findings indicate that the student loan delinquency problem is much worse than currently understood.

With new cohorts continuing to leave college with high debt levels and entering the housing market at older ages, we can anticipate an overall persistently lower home ownership rate than in the pre-recession period. So what is causing the withdrawal from home and car purchase markets? It is likely that rising student debt and an uncertain economic outlook have depressed demand. But most likely, declines in credit supply play an important role as well. Our analysis shows that average credit scores have fallen for student debt holders relative to those with no student debt. Clearly for the substantial and growing group of student loan borrows who are delinquent or have defaulted on their debt, access to credit is reduced through potentially long-lasting negative effects on credit scores. Better data is required to evaluate the extent to which the decline in car and home loan originations is concentrated among those delinquent on their student loans and those who dropped out of college, or whether it is more widespread among all those with student loans. The fast growth of student debt and delinquencies, and the associated withdrawal of student loan borrowers from mortgage and other credit markets have led to a renewed policy debate about the viability and optimality of our higher education funding model. Some call for increased federal and state support for higher education to reverse the recent trend towards shifting the cost of higher education to students and parents.
Conclusion In closing, I want to emphasize that effective supervision of modern banking organizations will necessarily entail a closer and more cooperative partnership between industry participants and official supervisors. The industry’s participation in the formulation of a more risk-sensitive capital adequacy framework is a good example of this kind of constructive interaction. Indeed, the three pillars of the proposed framework - minimum standards, supervisory review of banks’ capital assessment methodologies, and market discipline - reflect the understanding that regulatory requirements alone are no longer sufficient to address the growing complexity of banks’ activities and the associated risks. Consistent with this notion is the need for effective corporate governance, which plays an increasingly important role in a rapidly evolving banking environment. It is clear to me, as a former commercial banker and now as a supervisor, that only if the industry and supervisors work together, each meeting our responsibilities and reinforcing the other, will we be able to successfully manage and supervise a modern financial system. While perspectives may differ from 5  BIS Review 51/2000  time to time, our objective is the same - to maintain a strong and vibrant financial system over the long term. BIS Review 50/2000  6

Unicredit Group can probably be qualified as the quintessential European cross-border banking group, with operations in 22 European countries and, amongst these 22, in 19 Central and Eastern European countries. Alessandro is also the President of the European Banking Association. The last 2 to 3 years have been especially eventful for financial integration and stability, with once in a life-time developments. After Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, the global financial system experienced unprecedented stress and policy makers had to tread unknown territory in dealing with it. BIS Review 47/2010  1  The financial crisis has raised a host of policy issues that will provide food for reflection for generations to come. I will mention a few of them to set the scene and to kick-start the discussion. The first set of issues relate to the developments in the late nineties and early 2000s. The combination of high economic growth, ample liquidity, increasing financial integration and development, and “light handed” regulation sewed the seeds of the crisis to come. I believe that a number of people and organisations, including mine, identified vulnerabilities in the financial system before the crisis erupted. Nevertheless, we did not anticipate the timing and the intensity. We should ask ourselves what we missed in the run-up to the crisis and what the lessons are for the future. Once the crisis erupted in full force, a first casualty were the money markets, which provide the oil to make the banking system run smoothly. Money markets came to an unprecedented stand-still.