samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
(2012): “Are American Homeowners Locked into Their Houses? The Impact of Housing Market Conditions on State-to-State Migration”, Working Paper No. 12-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston  10  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Looking more closely at the external dimension, an important characteristic that distinguishes us from other models, such as the one in Cyprus, is the fact that the international banking sector in Malta is only lightly linked to the domestic economy and to the remainder of the Maltese banking system. Meanwhile, unlike the situation in other countries, the core domestic banks have very low reliance on non-resident deposits. They operate along traditional lines, applying a prudent business model and, like the rest of the banking sector, carrying minimal exposure to securities issued in the distressed economies. The core domestic banks are highly capitalised, profitable and liquid, and the other categories of the banking sector are similarly robust. …in terms of interest rates, Malta needs to further align with its peers. Although various indicators place Malta with the stronger performing group, there is room for further improvement. Interest rates on loans to businesses are currently around 2% to 3% higher in Malta as compared with Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, and Luxembourg. In contrast, deposit rates offered by Maltese banks are broadly in line with those across the euro area, as shown in Chart 6. As a result, bank interest margins are higher in Malta, as shown in Chart 7. A closer alignment of margins with those of our peers appears to be warranted. The recently proposed Budget measure to conduct a review of bank charges to businesses makes sense.
By contrast, under standard commercial-banking resolution regimes, the “bad bank” goes into an insolvency process as a gone concern, with de facto haircuts applied to its creditors ex post, after realisation of the assets by the liquidator – a process that almost always destroys value. A “going concern” approach would in effect combine features of standard regimes for resolving commercial banks (rapidity, public policy objectives) with some features of the US Chapter 11 for non-financial companies (haircuts for creditors in a continuing business). Of course, the kind of super-special resolution regime I am airing could not be an exact replica of Chapter 11 – if only because the capital structure of a distressed LCFI would have to be restructured very quickly, over a weekend if not overnight, and so could not rely on a negotiated settlement with creditors. For that reason alone, in common with the existing commercial-bank resolution regimes, there would plainly need to be safeguards. 1 Perhaps the most important might be that such  1  For safeguards in the UK SRR, see the Banking Act 2009 (Restrictions of Partial Property Transfers) Order 2009 (SI2009/322). 2  BIS Review 33/2010  super special resolution powers could be applied only where the authorities made a formal determination that the firm’s distress would otherwise seriously threaten systemic stability. The modalities would, I suspect, end up varying according to countries’ particular circumstances.

And perhaps most important of all: Norwegian businesses and the social partners have previously shown an ability to restructure. That ability will also be decisive this time. Thank you for your attention. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  6  BIS central bankers’ speeches
And as we can see, the shocks are pretty asymmetric among countries in the EU and the Eurozone. I believe in the stabilisation role of monetary policy and its ability to make cycles smoother and shallower. But you have to be prepared to use monetary policy. For instance, the population in my country is not happy with zero interest rates and the weaker crown, but we nonetheless believe it is one of the key reasons why we now have the lowest 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  unemployment rate in the EU and increasing real wages. C. The third reason is that some expectations regarding euro adoption were, to say the least, not fulfilled. The euro was supposed to help the Eurozone countries become richer and outperform those outside the Eurozone. As the data show, this has not been the case so far. My article for the forthcoming issue of the New Direction magazine calculates that on average the Eurozone countries grew by 1 percentage point less every year after the euro was established, compared to the countries staying outside. This is significant. Add to that the fact that many people realised during the crises that the euro project was probably not well prepared for bad times and that the Eurozone is now looking for new creditors rather than anything else, and you will understand the low attractiveness of the euro in the Czech Republic. However, it was not ever thus.

Mojmír Hampl: Life outside the Eurozone Speech by Mr Mojmír Hampl, Vice Governor of the Czech National Bank, at the 5th A/symmetrie (Italian Association for the Study of Economic Asymmetries) conference "Euro, market, democracy", Montesilvano, Italy, 13 November 2016. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, Good morning. Many thanks to Alberto Bagnai for kindly inviting me to speak at this event today. And many thanks to you all, to this audience. It is my first time here and I must say I am really impressed that so many people are willing to invest their effort, money and whole weekend (literally two days) in actively listening to debates on many – sometimes rather abstract – macroeconomic topics. That is truly amazing and at the same time encouraging. Believe me, many people I know are unable to concentrate on presentations even during their working hours in the office, even though they are actually being paid to do so by their employer. So my applause goes to you and to Alberto for mobilising you. Great job. Ladies and gentlemen, The downside of my presentation today is that I am a part of the monetary establishment – of the disliked club of central bankers. That means a thumb down for me in your eyes. The upside – and what saves me today – is that I’m a policy-maker not in your monetary zone, in the Eurozone, but in the Czech monetary zone, where we pay with our own currency, the Czech crown.
So, at year-end 2004, 3491 persons were employed at the Albanian banking system, from 2816 persons in the previous year. This constitutes a growth of 24% per year and expresses clearly the priority the banks are giving to the enhancement of human resources, as a necessary condition for growing the activity in the future. •  These developments indicate an improved perception, not only by banks but also by businesses and households for the investing environment in Albania, encouraged even by the sustainable macroeconomic environment. The annual increase of the number of employees that work at the banking industry by about 24%, versus 26% of the previous year is a logical outcome of the positive developments in the banking sector. An important role in these developments has been played by the Bank of Albania, in terms of creating a favourable climate for the development of business and the economy. We may highlight here:  •  The monetary policy followed in the recent years has always aimed at cutting the interest rates, with a slight change in 2006, intending to keep inflation rate under control. This has impacted on the establishment of a stable business climate, where the business plans and decisions are not jeopardised by the insecurity of inflationary erosion. •  Since some years the Bank of Albania has been committed to create an updated payment infrastructure, so that the banking system is open and closer to customer relations.

These improvements are being driven by the need for adopting the European directives in this area, and by the Basle principles for an effective supervision. Compared to the existing law, the new draft is aimed at being more complete, more accurate in some of its elements, including new concepts in compliance with the European directive 83/349 and other important directives. Amendments are envisaged in the way of licensing activities according to capital level, in the consolidated supervision, etc. Many provisions are planned to be introduced in the law, as concerns to risk management, which so far has been covered by some regulations. The draft-law, for which international financial institutions have also given their assistance, has been subject to a large discussion with the banking industry and is currently submitted to the Parliament for passing it. In conclusion, I would say that: As a result of reforms undertaken, the Albanian banking system, as the most dynamic part of the financial system, has recorded a constant progress in the recent years. This process is the fruit of clear visions and earnestness with which the Albanian authorities have treated the banking sector reformation, fruitful collaboration these authorities have had with international financial institutions, such as the IMF, the WB, for drafting the medium-term strategies and beyond, for the development of this sector as a vital sector of the market economy and the numerous challenges it has been faced with throughout these years.
In a few moments the HKMA will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with each of them to formalize the framework of cooperation. 4. Now I would like to report on the latest progress of four major fintech projects launched by the FFO earlier. First, following my announcement of the launch of the Cybersecurity Fortification Initiative (CFI) in May, the FFO has been making very good progress in developing the three pillars of the CFI. A three month industry consultation of the first pillar of CFI, the Cybersecurity Resilience Assessment Programme, was completed in August, with positive responses from the banking sector. Taking into account the comments received, the FFO is finalising the Assessment Programme and will announce the detailed framework next month for implementation by banks in Hong Kong. Regarding the second pillar of the CFI, the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing Platform, again good progress is being made. The computer platform will be in operation and available to the banking sector next month as planned. The last pillar of the CFI is the Professional Development Programme, a training and certification programme for the cybersecurity professionals. A six-week consultation with the cybersecurity professionals and industry associations was conducted in the summer. The industry in general welcomes the programme and has suggested the need to recognise certain equivalent qualifications in the market for conducting the cybersecurity assessment and testing. We agree with this suggestion, and have already formed an industry expert panel with the task of identifying equivalent qualifications and working out the implementation details.

The programme will be rolled out next month as planned. All in all, with the support of the banking industry and the stakeholders, the CFI implementation is on track and on time. 5. Second, the HKMA has commissioned ASTRI to carry out a comprehensive study on distributed ledger technology (DLT). The very fact that DLT allows information or records to be transferred and updated by network participants in a trustworthy, secure and efficient way, carries enormous potential in its application. However, while the value proposition of DLT is gradually crystallising, the use of DLT in financial services may bring about new risks and challenges in its application. As a regulatory authority, the HKMA needs to have a better understanding of these issues before DLT can be adopted for wide application in the banking sector. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  6. In this connection, I am pleased to announce that the first stage of this research project is completed and a white paper is published by ASTRI today. While the white paper affirms the good potential of DLT for application in financial services, it also highlights a number of possible issues which need to be carefully dealt with if DLT is adopted by the banking sector. For example, the decentralised model may pose some challenges for constructing an effective governance structure and oversight mechanism.
Hourly wages Annual percentage change (3 year moving average) 14  14  Real wages  12  12  Nominal wages 10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0  -2  -2  -4 1962  -4 1967  1972  1977  1982  1987  1992  1997  2002  Sources: NIER, National Mediation Office  BIS Review 93/2006  7

Of importance is to develop a broader range of Islamic financial market instruments that include instruments with equity ownership features, Islamic asset-backed securities, inclusion of permissible forms of credit enhancements as well as Shariah-compliant risk mitigating instruments. The development of an Islamic derivatives market for hedging is required for market-making activities to support the development of secondary markets. Malaysia has recently established a Shariah Scholar's fund to fund such research and development efforts. The fund also aims to promote greater engagement among the international Shariah scholars and thus provide a platform for deliberation on the Shariah compatibility of newly developed Islamic financial instruments and markets. As Islamic finance continues its robust international expansion, an adequate supply of talent and expertise is vital to support the growth. While shortages in talent are now being felt, this is being addressed on several fronts. To develop the expertise to meet the increasing manpower requirements of Islamic finance, Malaysia has in 2006 established the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF). It is envisioned that INCEIF acts as a professional certification body and education institute for post-graduates in Islamic Finance. Reinforcing this is the International Centre for Leadership in Finance (ICLIF) in Malaysia that provides for leadership and management programmes for the financial services sector including for Islamic finance. As Islamic finance forges ahead, successful Islamic financial institutions will be those that have the scale and are able to exploit the full potential and opportunities that arise from the advances in information technology (IT).
Digital publishing and distribution has fundamentally changed this market. Both the books and the shelves are now electronic. Authors can now format books for e-readers in a couple of hours. Sales platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct give access to a worldwide audience with essentially no upfront costs. Supply can close to perfectly match demand as the marginal cost of creating and delivering an eBook is effectively zero. This digital revolution has caused barriers to entry to plummet while simultaneously raising returns to author entry: they now receive as much as 85% of the royalties from an eBook, compared to as little as 10% from a physical book. Previously unpublished authors now sell millions of books. The incumbent middle men – book publishers, distributors and retailers – have found their lunch devoured in one sitting. In effect, they have been disintermediated by technology and (in a delicious irony) a common language. This pattern has been replicated in the music industry. For half a century or more, the music supply chain was unchanged. New acts were discovered by large record labels who distributed physical goods (vinyl, tapes or CDs) to retailers for sale to the public. Over the past decade, the costs of copying and distributing music have fallen to close to zero. As in publishing, barriers to new artist entry have plummeted. The middle-men – music production companies and distributors – have seen their piece of the pie eaten. And as a direct result of this industrial transformation, the pie itself appears to have grown.

I want to talk a little about how we have been able to grow relatively strongly over the past couple of years despite very weak productivity growth; but why that is unlikely to be possible over the coming years. And why we expect productivity to improve – albeit moderately – in the future. And in doing so I will also talk about why the UK’s productivity performance has been so puzzlingly weak, not just in the depths of the crisis and recession but in the recovery and expansion that has been underway since the middle of 2013; and whether the boom and bust of the financial sector can help us to understand the UK’s recent productivity performance. The importance of productivity Productivity growth matters hugely. In the end it is the key determinant of rising living standards. For 18 centuries – from the year 1AD to 1800 when the industrial revolution started – living standards in the West were fairly stagnant. It is because of the step change in BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  productivity growth launched by the industrial revolution that living standards are now 20 times higher than they were then. 1 Increases in population and the labour force can make the national economy bigger. But in the end only productivity growth – producing more output relative to input – can consistently raise GDP per person. Central banks like the Bank of England foster monetary and financial stability, which support investment and productivity growth.
The most advanced approaches are able to assess the impact of rate, spread and implied volatility movements under multiple scenarios in both normal and stressed market conditions. These institutions also strive to achieve a balance between shorter term earnings impacts, and the longer-term preservation of economic value. •  Liquidity risk: Similar evolution has occurred in liquidity management with leading practice now subjecting dynamic cash flow projections to a range of adverse scenarios relevant to the risk profile of the firm (such as a sustained loss of access to funding or a significant ratings downgrade or a systemic disruption to market liquidity) to assess the impact on funding. •  Compliance risk management: Many firms are working to enhance their overall corporate compliance management processes, and the supervisors expect that firms will employ strong risk management practices with appropriate levels of testing. In response to the more exacting requirements of the Bank Secrecy and Patriot Acts and anti-money laundering controls, leading firms have now moved beyond manual systems with very limited capacity to look at patterns of transactions over time and across businesses and countries, and have put in place automated systems for monitoring transactions with more sophisticated filters for identifying suspicious patterns of behavior. The quality of internal compliance controls in the leading firms has advanced in other areas as well, with higher level oversight of an independent compliance function with more rigorous policies to address conflicts of interest involving hedge funds and proprietary trading and the flow of confidential information across the firm.

This will contribute to fairly high growth in the Norwegian economy without the emergence of constraints on the supply of labour or productive capital. The high rate of growth in output nevertheless implies that the output gap will approach zero towards the end of 2004. The output gap is a measure of the difference between the actual level of output and potential output. Developments in the output gap provide a basis for assessing cyclical developments and can thus shed light on domestic price and cost pressures in the economy. It is difficult to know how high capacity utilisation is at any given time. Output and employment figures are often revised and do not therefore always present an accurate picture of the current economic situation. Norges Bank therefore also uses a number of other indicators to gauge the temperature of the Norwegian economy. Fiscal policy in 2004 appears to be somewhat more expansionary than assumed in the Revised National Budget. The Government estimates that underlying nominal spending growth over the central government budget will be close to 11 per cent between 2003 and 2005. Local government revenues  BIS Review 67/2004  3  are estimated to rise by slightly more than 11 per cent in nominal terms during the period. which is more than nominal growth in mainland GDP. Employment has picked up. The number of persons employed in the second quarter of 2004 was 0.2 per cent higher than in the same quarter of 2003.
Moreover, alignment of market expectations with the central bank’s own targets, through fluent and transparent communication, allows monetary policy to exert a stronger influence along the entire yield curve. Yet notice that this latter channel becomes most relevant if central bankers approach markets from the sort of leadership position emphasised by Professor Blinder. I agree with him on this important point: central bankers should continuously monitor markets and should extract from them as much information as possible. But they must not put themselves under the thumb of what is sometimes capricious and short-sighted market sentiment. In any event, one of the most robust lessons we can extract from the recent period of global monetary and output growth stability is that low inflation may well be consistent with episodes of high financial volatility. Cases of financial stress have been recorded both in industrialised and in emerging market economies over the last few years without noticeable inflationary pressure. Even in countries whose financial system has proved more resilient, financial cycles have become wider and more volatile. Indeed, a long period of monetary stability coupled with low interest rates, as has been the case for some years now, may arguably be conducive to certain types of imbalances in asset markets. In such an environment the poor returns on low-risk investments and the softening of lending standards may lead investors to take on increasingly riskier projects.

Hence, there is much to be gained in terms of greater resilience and efficiency of the financial system through the design of regulatory and supervisory frameworks aimed at combating the factors that underlie a poor assessment of risks at their root. In this sense, a sound prudential framework should provide financial institutions with the right incentives to properly assess and monitor the risks of their investment and lending policies, incorporating them accordingly into their pricing decisions. Increased awareness of risks, and how these evolve along the business cycle, favours earlier reactions to changing conditions and smoother adjustments in the flow of credit, thus reducing the likelihood of episodes of abrupt liquidity and credit contraction. The New Capital Accord, known as Basel II, is an example of a prudential framework that makes the foregoing principles I have outlined its centrepiece, since it seeks to strengthen the stability of the international banking system by promoting the implementation of more robust and comprehensive risk management practices. It does so mainly by establishing a more precise and sensitive system to link banks’ real risks and the minimum regulatory capital requirements, and by imposing higher levels of transparency in banks’ financial reporting, hence fostering closer scrutiny by market participants. A more risk-sensitive capital framework tends to make banks more watchful of the actual risks of lending policies focused on short-run targets, such as market share or portfolio size, which presumably are important ingredients in periods of credit booms sustaining speculative activities.