samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Moreover, the valuation of property as a basis for wealth tax has been completely arbitrary. The new property valuation system is a small but is the right step towards applying market valuation as a basis for housing taxation. Third, property is an effective tax vehicle but property taxes are low. Property cannot be relocated. Nor does property tax distort the use of resources in the way that taxation of labour and entrepreneurship does. An increase in property tax will dampen fluctuations in house prices and credit cycles, reducing the magnitude of both gains and losses. Tax on capital gains on housing, and deductibility of losses, would in particular make a considerable contribution to attenuating price spirals in the housing market. The result would be a more stable economy. 3 Driven by the tax system, housing accounts for a large share of household wealth. On an uncertain basis, the value of housing capital can be estimated at over NOK 4.5 trillion, or more than one and half times the size of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. 4 The high degree of concentration on housing investment crowds out business investment. Higher property taxes would increase growth potential because business investment would become more profitable. 3  See Paul van den Noord (2005) “Tax incentives and house price volatility in the Euro area: Theory and evidence.” Economie international 101, pp. 29–45. 4  The figures are based on the model documented in Staff Memo 2006/4, Norges Bank.

In total, sterling money market funds saw outflows of around £ or 10% of their total assets, in the eight days between 12th and 20th March last year. At first, the outflows were met by running down their holdings of cash, but as the outflows increased, they sought to liquidate some 2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  of their bank assets – CDs and CP. But they found that the market for those assets – which typically comes primarily from dealers buying back their own paper – was closed. The dash for cash meant that the tide was flowing fast against them. As the regulatory system currently works, if MMFs’ liquid asset ratios fall towards prescribed thresholds, and they are unable to top up their liquid assets (cash) through sales, they are able to ‘gate’ or impose fees on investors, in other words decline to provide immediate liquidity. As with banks, the broader danger of this situation – which is a threat to financial stability – is that such a problem in one fund could trigger contagion to other funds, through fear that they might have the same problem, and thus lead to a highly destabilising run on money market funds. These thresholds can, therefore, also affect the behaviour of fund managers, making liquidity buffers not usable in times of stress, for fear this would fuel investors’ desire to run.
While these are inspiring examples from the past, it is no question that waqf remains relevant today. It can play an important part in our quest to develop a more dynamic, progressive and inclusive economy. It can do so by tackling some of the major challenges facing society, such as inequality and improving access to quality education and health. We must not allow intergenerational inequity to widen and magnify. And waqf, as a vehicle for those in a more privileged position to voluntarily give back and reinvest in the society, can help promote social mobility and stem this vicious cycle of inequity. As a sustainable, intergenerational mechanism for social investments, waqf could effectively contribute towards a more equitable society. As stated in the Quran, wealth that has been bestowed by Allah should not merely circulate among the rich. The Prophet said: “Blessed is the wealth of a Muslim from which he gives to the poor, the orphans and the needy travellers.” In Islam, wealth is regarded as a means and not an end, and Islamic wealth management acknowledges responsibility towards the community and benefitting those in need. Strategies to strengthen the effectiveness of waqf It is, therefore, timely to revive waqf and to bring back its glory days. Let me put forward three strategies that we can explore to unlock waqf’s full potential as a platform for Islamic social finance. First, is to broaden waqf assets and their applications. Fundamental to this is the need to correct the perception of waqf.

I don’t mean it would be completely smooth right now; it would be smoother in a year or so as more progress is made. But in extremis, it could be done now. That surely is a massive signal to bankers and markets. Europe has not yet reached the same point, but contrary to some commentary is not far behind. The necessary legislative regime is close to completion. In contrast to the US, however, many of the largest European – including UK – banking groups will need to reorganise in order to make themselves susceptible to either Single Point of Entry or Multiple Point of Entry resolution. That brings me to my second point. (2)  The Single Point of Entry versus Multiple Point of Entry resolution strategy distinction may be the most important innovation in banking policy in decades  We will learn to speak of banks and dealers as either “SPE groups” or “MPE groups”. Some technical developments don’t matter hugely. This one does. A lot will follow from it, as I will sketch in a moment. But first I should recap the difference between SPE and MPE resolution strategies. A single-point-of-entry or SPE resolution works downwards from the group’s top company – most simply, a pure holding company (Holdco). Losses in subsidiaries are first transferred up to Holdco. If Holdco is bankrupt as a result, the group needs resolving. The “bailin” tool is applied to Holdco, with the equity being written off and bonds converted as necessary into equity to recapitalise the group.
Towards the end of the year, there were clear signs that growth in the Swedish economy had also slowed down, partly due to reduced demand for Swedish exports. Figure 7 shows how the Riksbank and other analysts revised down their forecasts for the increase in Swedish exports in 2012 during the second half of 2011. The second occasion is when inflation began to fall from already low levels during the latter part of 2013 and the beginning of 2014. This happened in connection with a sequence of negative inflation surprises indicating that the underlying inflationary pressures in the economy had fallen. For example, inflation had appeared unusually low for a time in relation to the increase in unit labour costs (see Figure 8). Even after that, inflation has been lower than expected, most recently in September this year. Figure 9 shows how the forecasts for CPIF inflation in 2014 have been revised down from just over 1 per cent to around 0.5 per cent. It is clear in both of these examples that it is the general picture that has changed, not that the Riksbank suddenly realised something that everyone else had known for a long time. The fact that inflation has been surprisingly low is by the way not a specific Swedish problem, but very much an international phenomenon.

I believe we need to have this new framework in place by 2010, as the current crisis is left behind, hopefully, and growth and stability are restored. As part of the work program already laid down in the G-20, critical points in the reform include the need to make regulatory capital more neutral over-the-cycle, by integrating the macro prudential framework into the required capital of individual institutions; the need to reach, with prudential regulation and supervision, all quarters of the financial industry; and the need to enhance transparency of financial instruments and markets. Thank you very much. 2  BIS Review 44/2009
The financing of the state pension systems are of vital importance for the taxpayers’ confidence in the economy. If we have learned anything from recent economic developments, it is that households and firms have become better and better at putting things in context, and to change their behaviour accordingly. When forward-looking taxpayers have realised the obvious - that the pension systems  BIS Review 45/2003  3  sooner or later must be overhauled - it has also affected their behaviour. Because in the end, the taxpayers have to foot the bill when the systems are underfinanced - either by way of higher pension charges or lower benefits. Irrespective of which, uncertainty results in households preferring to save a little extra rather than consume. This could also be one explanation to why saving in many central European countries has remained at a comparatively high level. It is therefore pleasing that steps have now been taken in the three largest euro area economies to reform their pension systems. Even if these reforms are insufficient to secure the government finances in the long term, they are important stepping stones towards healthier economic growth. Tax and benefit systems a key question for the labour supply Income tax and benefit systems are also important for long-term potential growth in a country, particularly in countries with a high tax burden. It is indeed not possible to establish with certainty that a high tax burden in itself would constitute a limitation to growth in the long term.

21.03.2019  Closing remarks Event on the “Impact of the new law on real estate credit”/PWC Margarita Delgado Deputy Governor  Good afternoon, I would like to thank PWC for kindly inviting me to speak at the close of today’s event on the new real estate credit law. I shall try to speak about the most innovative features of the new law from the supervisor’s standpoint, not dwelling too long on the details of the legal changes introduced, as I am sure that they have been widely discussed over the course of the morning. Specifically, I shall focus on the three features of the new law that strike me as particularly important from a supervisory viewpoint: (i) the emphasis given to customer protection, (ii) the need to ensure legal certainty for the mortgage market to function properly and (iii) the growing importance of credit conditions. I shall also refer to the potential short and mediumterm consequences of this law for access to owner-occupied housing, and shall conclude with some thoughts on how the new macroprudential tools may shape the way we supervise certain banking businesses, notably real estate lending. Introduction  As we know only too well, access to home ownership is an issue of great concern to Spanish society. Worldwide, Spain has traditionally been among the countries with the highest owner-occupancy rates. Although this rate has declined from the peak reached in 2002, it is still higher than in other European countries.
Once you look beneath the apparently benign surface of the economy as a whole in recent years, you find very substantial differences in particular between many internationally-exposed sectors of the economy including particularly many manufacturing businesses - which have recently been having a really tough time, and other businesses largely serving our domestic market which have been doing pretty well. Let me assure you that the MPC is only too well aware of the problem. We receive regular monthly written reports from the Bank's 12 regional agencies all around the country on the state of the economy as seen through the eyes of their 8000 or so business contacts. That includes reports from John Bartlett our Agent here in Birmingham and Chris Brown, our Agent for the East Midlands based  BIS Review 23/2002  3  in Nottingham, both of whom will be known to many of you. And about half the Agencies by rotation attend our monthly pre-MPC meeting in London to brief us face to face. Beyond that each individual MPC member makes regular visits to businesses located all over the country to see and hear for themselves. All of this plays a vital role in informing our interpretation of the bare economic and financial statistics. It's not that we do not know what's happening at the micro-economic level, the question is what can we - what should we - do about it in setting monetary policy?

And this left a more distinctive and clearly defined role for monetary policy as the primary instrument for maintaining broad balance consistently over time between aggregate demand and underlying supply. All this has become the accepted wisdom just about everywhere. Since 1992 in this country the explicit objective of monetary policy has been to achieve stability defined in terms of a target for retail price inflation. And since 1997 the Bank of England - through the Monetary Policy Committee - has been delegated responsibility for setting short-term interest rates with the consistent aim of hitting the Government's symmetrical 2½% inflation target (on a precisely defined measure of retail price inflation - RPIX). Now the reason we've been set that task is not - as some people imagine - because either we or the Government think that consistently low inflation is the be all and end all of economic life. It is because we learned from our earlier experience that consistently low inflation is a necessary (though not in itself a sufficient) condition for the sustained growth of output of the economy as a whole, for high levels of employment, and for rising living standards, which are more fundamentally the things that we are all seeking to achieve. "Stability is a necessary condition for sustainable growth" has become the universal central-banking credo. So our objective - and the reasons for it - could not be clearer. But meeting that objective is not as straightforward as it may sound.
Petar Goshev: Some lessons from the crisis Opening address by Mr Petar Goshev, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Group of Banking Supervisors from Central and Eastern Europe, Ohrid, 15 June 2010. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Participants, It is an honor for me to share these moments with you exchanging thoughts about, today, the most important questions in the domain of financial intermediation. It is my special pleasure that my address will open the 23rd Annual Conference of the Group of Banking Supervisors from Central and Eastern Europe. There is no doubt that the key words for every supervisory body are liquidity and solvency, as quantities and qualities which are permanently testing the resilience of the banking system in its functioning. Therefore, the standards for liquidity and solvency are constantly being checked from two key aspects: (1) whether, amid various adverse shocks, they are set to maintain satisfactory resilience of the banking system and (2) whether the points of calibration of these key categories at the same time enable efficient, rational financial intermediation. The financial crisis that began in August 2007 clearly shocked the world with its sharpness and, now we can say, its length. Liquidity vanished, many institutions turned insolvent, financial intermediation as the key link in the economic reproduction chain in a lot of places in the world, especially in the developed countries, at certain moments, almost entirely collapsed.

Strong economic activity We can look back on several years of strong economic growth. This has occurred in an environment where price and wage increases have remained comparatively low even though the economic upswing is now in its seventh year, with annual GDP growth averaging around 3%. In recent years, annual demand growth has been in the region of 3 to 4%. A common, though not entirely certain, estimate is that in the long run the Swedish economy can sustain an annual growth rate of 2 to 2.5%. So the economy has been expanding faster than the supply side can cope with in the longer run. This is liable to result in problems with bottlenecks. That in turn can generate growing tensions and accelerating rates of price and wage increases. In the worst case, the result could be a recession, with falling output and rising unemployment. It goes without saying that that must not happen. The Riksbank is required by the Riksdag (Sweden’s parliament) to “maintain price stability”, which involves ensuring that the rate of price increases is kept stable around the 2% target. If we can manage this and take timely measures that prevent imbalances from arising, economic growth will normally follow the long-term trend. As the economy has been expanding above its sustainable rate, the spotlight falls on the amount of unutilised resources. When resource utilisation is liable to generate upward pressure on prices, the economy must wind down from the strong upward trend to a stable rate that is more sustainable.
Additionally, coastal erosion will directly impact tourism in places such as Kota Kinabalu and manufacturing in industrial zones such as Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu and Mersing. If this trend continues, our mangroves would completely sink by 2040 and industrial zones will be affected by 2060. Our ports, the lifeblood of international trade linkages, will also struggle to cope with rising sea levels. A recent study estimates that pre-emptively adapting Port Klang and Tanjung Pelepas for climatic conditions expected in 2070 will cost nearly RM3 billion. Naturally, this cost would be far greater if not planned for in advance. The effects of climate change are real. They are already upon us; and make no mistake, they will intensify. For this reason, financial institutions can no longer be passive about climate change and its effects. There is a clear economic case for building resilience to climate change: it directly affects our balance sheets, and can pose a broader risk to financial stability from significant and prolonged climate-related events. So far, I have explained the direct, physical risk posed by climate change to the economy and financial industry. However, it is not only the climate that is changing. The changing behaviours of economic agents also give rise to significant transitioning risks. As the world becomes increasingly concerned with reducing the global carbon footprint, governments, businesses and consumers are pushing for a transition to a more sustainable, greener economy.

On that note, I look forward to the engaging sessions ahead. Thank you. 5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
At the same time, the interest rate on a 5-year mortgage fell from just over 11 to around 5 per cent. This led to interest expenditure for home-owners declining substantially and pushing down CPI inflation. With the aid of the CPIX measure the Riksbank could show that the low inflation was largely the result of its own earlier interest rate cuts. Demanding that the interest rate should be cut further because inflation was so low, as some people did, was thus unreasonable. It would mean that monetary policy was “chasing its own tail”, as it was expressed then. Strict two-year rule and the CPIX The CPIX measure was particularly important during the period when the Riksbank communicated its policy with the aid of a simple policy rule. This rule meant that if the forecast for inflation deviated from the target one to two years ahead, given an unchanged repo rate, the interest rate would be changed. From the point of view of communication the rule worked well for a long time. But the focus on the inflation forecast exactly two years ahead which this in practice led to was not without problems. The CPI forecast often deviated from the inflation target two years ahead, not least because of the direct effects on household interest expenditure of our own policy. But as the effects were expected to subside just beyond the two-year horizon, there was no reason to change the interest rate.

In my view, developments in forecasting over the last 15 years have played a decisive role in that shift. BIS Review 40/2006  1  Simultaneously, the ever-changing world map in terms of monetary policy regimes has also modified the role of forecasting at central banks. In the past, most countries had pegged exchange rates against the major currencies. Indeed, in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s one could hardly imagine a macroeconomic stabilisation programme without an exchange rate anchor and, of course, under such a system, the role of forecasting is rather small. However, since the early 1990s the number of countries with floating exchange rates has increased dramatically, reflecting numerous currency crises and a growing consensus on the undesirability of conventional currency pegs. Moreover, the inflation targeting regime has gained much more weight among the group of countries with floating rates. Inflation targeting, or following Svensson “inflation forecast targeting”, has placed the forecasting process at the heart of monetary policy decision-making. Under inflation targeting, the forecasting process centres on future price developments. This does not necessarily mean, though, that central bankers are obsessed with inflation. In fact, inflation targeting requires us to assess all the available information, including real economic developments, monetary analysis and the external balance of the economy, in a systematic and complex way. It is hence more demanding from the point of view of consistency than the alternative monetary strategies. Of course, the latter require a consistent system for analysis and forecasting.
We are therefore participating in a project called ‘Financial Sector Information Sharing and Analysis Centre’ (FS-ISAC), which was launched in 2020 under the direction of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). Together with the Swiss financial market infrastructure provider, SIX Group Ltd., the SNB is developing a new Secure Swiss Finance Network (SSFN). The aim of this project is to increase the security and resilience of network connections to the SIC system and to other financial market infrastructures. The new network is based on the SCION protocol developed at ETH Zurich. 13 If used by internet service providers, this protocol could prevent malicious or accidental re-routing of data and significantly reduce the threat of so-called distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks). 14  Concluding remarks The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major crisis and challenge for all of us. Many people have died or lost their jobs, and many have suffered financial hardship. Central banks have taken decisive action – initially to prevent a spiralling financial crisis, and later to support the economy. In Switzerland, timely and effective collaboration between different actors became a hallmark of the crisis response. The crisis has reaffirmed central banks’ role as effective crisis managers. It has also demonstrated how important it is for central banks to act swiftly and have flexible and effective policy tools at hand. However, the pandemic’s implications for central banking extend far beyond short-term crisis management. In a sense, the crisis has pushed businesses, financial market participants and central banks forward into the future.

Ardo Hansson: Working together for the good of the EU and Estonia Opening speech by Mr Ardo Hansson, Governor of the Bank of Estonia (Eesti Pank), to the Ragnar Nurkse Lecture for the 95th Anniversary of Eesti Pank, Tallinn, 4 November 2014. *  *  *  Professor Balcerowicz, President of the Riigikogu, Chair of the Supervisory Board of Eesti Pank, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for being here today to mark the 95th anniversary of Eesti Pank and to honour Ragnar Nurkse, the world's best-known economist from Estonia to date. Eesti Pank was founded when the Republic of Estonia was only a year old and Ragnar Nurkse was a model eleven-year-old pupil at the Tallinn Cathedral School. In the words of Juhan Kukk, the Minister of Finance of the time, founding Eesti Pank as the issuer of the national currency and tying the currency to gold showed the same great “bravery and belief in national and economic independence” as engaging in the War of Independence did. Ragnar Nurkse started his studies in the University of Tartu, but he soon moved to continue them in the School of Economics of the University of Edinburgh and later in Vienna. He was recognised in his home country for his work, as is shown by the worried letter that Jüri Jaakson, Governor of Eesti Pank at the time, sent him in spring 1938. Nurkse was working in Geneva at the time for the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations.