samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Stakeholders have rated MAS favourably in most areas. For example, MAS' role in supervising financial institutions and bringing about a stable financial system in Singapore received positive feedback. I am heartened by this. More importantly, the industry also noted areas for improvement. Stakeholders, for instance, felt that MAS officers could be more attuned to commercial reality when formulating policies and decisions. MAS could improve the timeliness of its decision-making. MAS has taken note of the feedback and will work to improve its performance in these areas. 32. MAS' regular dialogue and consultation with the industry has worked well. We will now take this a step further by involving the industry at the early stages of policy formulation. This will give industry players the opportunity to shape policies. MAS will also be more open to suggestions of alternatives that achieve the same objectives. But for this new approach to produce results, both MAS and the industry must work together to build a high level of trust between them. Leveraging and building on our reputation 33. Looking ahead, we must continue to build and deepen relationships with the industry and our foreign counterparts. 34. To showcase Asia to the international community, the centrepiece for next year is the 2006 IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings. In partnership with the private sector and relevant agencies, we are organising a host of seminars and events. Collectively, they are known as Singapore 2006 or S2006. S2006 is intended to create intellectual buzz and profile the dynamism and optimism in Asia. 35.

Singapore can offer a platform for Indian firms to build up their global exposure and branding. India is also a promising investment destination for Singapore firms. Under CECA, our domestic banks are allowed to open up to 15 branches in India, and they are in the process of preparing for expansion into this market. To deepen the linkage, MAS will allow Indian banks that meet our prudential standards to expand their presence in Singapore. We have approved the entry of two Indian banks which do not yet have a presence in Singapore. 18. The Japan-Singapore Economic Agreement for a New Age Partnership (JSEPA) has brought a new era of closer economic cooperation. Investments by Japan and Singapore in each other s markets have increased. Japanese companies which are looking to diversify some of their business operations into Southeast Asia can use Singapore as the gateway. Singapore-based companies can take advantage of not just the JSEPA but bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) Singapore has signed with other countries to expand into the region and beyond. When I was in Tokyo, I suggested that the JSEPA should be reviewed to see where it could be further broadened and deepened. The Japanese leaders were receptive. 19. The Middle East is another promising region. Middle Eastern investors are looking for suitable investment destinations and products both in their own countries and outside. Singapore has a good brand name in the Middle East and awareness about us is increasing. There are many opportunities for our businesses there. 20.
However, it would, in my view, be unwise to bet on further upward structural shifts in the level of sustainability. The high level of debt to income made the UK vulnerable to shocks as we saw in the post crisis recession. There was a major correction following the crisis that has improved sustainability. We are now back to early 2000s levels of debt to income and income gearing. Household balance sheets, however, remain large by historic standards. The position is sensitive to the unwinding, were it to occur, of some of the forces that pushed rates down over the past 40 years. And of course we remain vulnerable to the resumption of the rates of credit growth,  12  The pre-crisis Okun’s Law relationship between output growth and unemployment would have suggested that the unemployment rate would rise to around 12% given the change in output, rather than peaking at around 8½%. 13  Jorda et al (2015) find that credit expansions associated with housing bubbles are more likely to end in a severe recession than expansions not associated with build ups in credit. Mian et al (2015) find that a rise in the household debt to GDP ratio predicts lower output growth and higher unemployment over the medium-run. Crowe et al (2011) find that more than two thirds of the 46 systemic banking crises (for which house price data are available) were preceded by housing boom-bust cycles. These effects are typically not present in equity bubbles (Aikman et al 2015).

So between the mid-1990s and the financial crisis, the UK experienced a very powerful financial cycle – a long build-up of credit to the private sector followed by a sharp correction that has reversed some but not most of the preceding credit growth. There were of course other important elements such as lending overseas and between banks, and some would argue lending to governments. But I want today to focus on credit to the UK private sector, particularly household credit. I want to look at what lay behind the upswing of that cycle, the marked rise of credit to GDP since 1997. This is of more than academic interest. We are back to early 2000s levels of credit  1  See Schularick and Taylor (2012). BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  and debt in the economy. We are now emerging from the post crisis period of credit contraction; in the UK credit slowly began to grow again around 2012. It is now growing at almost the same rate as the economy. So now is a good time to ask: what lay behind the very rapid expansion of credit from the mid1990s to the crisis? Should we expect – or want – credit growth to return to its pre-crisis path, growing more than twice as fast as GDP? This is an important question for the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England as it assesses the risks to the stability of the UK financial system – where we are in the so-called “financial cycle”?
Ajith Nivard Cabraal: The role of productivity improvement in achieving economic prosperity Keynote address by Mr Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Annual General Meeting 2007/08 of the International Chamber of Commerce Sri Lanka, Colombo, 17 September 2008. *  *  *  Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Invitees, Ladies and Gentlemen, I consider it a unique honour to be invited to deliver the Key Note Address at this Annual General Meeting of International Chamber of Commerce Sri Lanka (ICC Sri Lanka). I also consider it a great privilege to share my thoughts and views on a very timely topic, “The Role of Productivity Improvement in achieving Economic Prosperity” since productivity improvement is essential from both a micro and macro perspective. Therefore, at the outset, I wish to thank the ICC Sri Lanka for inviting me to deliver the keynote address on a vital theme at this important forum and giving me an opportunity to plant a few seeds in your distinguished minds so that such seeds may be nurtured by you in your future endeavours positioning the country at a higher level in the global environment. As we all agree, as individuals, our main objective is to experience a better life and we think, act and react aiming to achieve this. At the same time, the main objective of economic management is to enhance standard of living of the people.

William C Dudley: Brief remarks about the centennial “The Fed at 100” Exhibit Introductory remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Museum of American Finance, New York City, 25 September 2013. *  *  *  Thank you all for being here to commemorate the opening of the centennial exhibit for the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the Museum of American Finance, just a few blocks from the New York Fed’s landmark head office at 33 Liberty Street. I would like to say thank you to our friends at the Museum for their work and interest in the Fed and for supporting us in organizing this event. Before making some brief remarks about the centennial, I would also like to acknowledge some of the people in attendance tonight. We have two former New York Fed presidents here this evening: Jerry Corrigan and Bill McDonough. I met Jerry, the seventh president of the Bank, when I was still wet behind the ears. I was just out of graduate school at the Board of Governors in Washington, but Jerry was already a force to be reckoned with and a part of Paul Volcker’s inner circle. Jerry’s tenure as president had many memorable moments, including the October 1987 stock market “break”.
Mr Noyer discusses “the euro from A to Z”  Speech delivered by Mr Christian Noyer, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, at the European Union Centre, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Atlanta on 14 January 2000. *  *  *  It gives me great pleasure to speak to such a (young) audience about what is, after all, the world’s youngest and newest currency. As indicated by the title of my speech, I do not intend to enter into complex economic and political considerations concerning the pros and cons of the introduction of the euro under the specific economic and political conditions prevailing in Europe. Rather, I should like to provide you with a concise overview, from A to Z, of the main elements of the new institutional and operational framework under which monetary policy is being conducted in Europe following the introduction of the euro. Nonetheless, I do hope to be able to enhance your understanding of the euro, both in the broader context of European integration and in terms of the practical functioning and implications of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in Europe. In this context, you will see that there are some similarities between the institutional framework and conduct of monetary policy in the United States and in Europe. At the same time, there are also substantial differences, particularly with regard to the political and economic framework in which monetary policy has to operate on your side and our side of the Atlantic.

In the November MPR forecasts, the MPC shortened the window for the conditioning assumption on market expectations of Bank Rate13 (Chart 8). This gave a path for expected Bank rate which still peaked at 5.25% and which, together with all the other assumptions and judgements, resulted in a forecast for a more prolonged recession and forecast inflation declining to well below the 2% target by the end of the second year of the forecast and to zero by the end of the third year. In response the MPC took the unusual collective step of communicating that we thought the assumption for Bank rate on which the forecasts were conditioned was too high. Responding to increased uncertainty I’ve set out some of the key sources of uncertainty over the last year and how the MPC adapted our forecast assumptions and judgements in response. Now I want to bring together in one place some personal observations on how the MPC has developed its approach to the forecast and to setting and communicating monetary policy, and how that has framed my thinking. 13  The Office of Budget Responsibility used a similar approach for their forecasts. Bank of England  Page 12  In a speech I gave back in July 2021, I set out the hope that as the influence of the pandemic waned, the MPC would be able to rely more on its forecasts to navigate a path for setting policy to meet the inflation target. Things haven’t turned out that way.
At the recent Brookings-Yale conference looking back 10 years after the crisis, both former Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and Vice Chair Kohn expressed the view that too much weight was given to the predictions of the Fed's workhorse model FRB/US.6 Some of you might observe that model uncertainty is a well-developed field, and certainly staff of the Federal Reserve Board and the Reserve Banks all appreciate the importance of using a diverse set of models with different transmission mechanisms, estimation approaches, and solution methods. Further, the Great Recession has generated considerable interest in approaches that allow for nonlinear reactions and fat tails, as Marco Del Negro will explore this afternoon. While I am incredibly sympathetic to the idea that more sophisticated modeling can improve judgment and decision-making—especially as I spent much of my career working on such technical issues—this approach has limits. If one had to summarize the message of the Superforecasting book in one line, it would be the well-known quip, "Forecasting is hard, especially about the future. "7 To illustrate some of the learnings from the book, I invite you to consider a standard problem: What is the probability the U.S. economy will be in a recession over some period of time? This is similar to the focus on binary outcomes in the IARPA tournaments. One simple, wisdom-of-the-crowd-based approach to this question would be to poll you all right now given a specific time frame. Rather than disturb your lunch, we can instead consider using the wisdom of the market.

For example, by December 2008 nearly all our respondents were sure the U.S. economy was in a recession; thus, the 70 percent probability of being in a recession in six months can be interpreted as a 30 percent probability of an expansion in June 2009. The NBER subsequently declared July 2009 as the turning point into an expansion. Another approach to predicting recessions, which is a form of the wisdom of the crowd, is to use financial market asset prices. The well-known argument is that because large amounts of money are on the line, this different form of aggregation of diverse views will tend to be more accurate. Of course, asset prices also include compensation for risk, and much of modern asset price theory is focused on how fluctuations in this compensation drive much of the asset market volatility we observe. In the technical language of modern asset price theory, the probabilities from our surveys are physical ones, whereas those that use asset prices without adjustment for risk aversion are risk neutral probabilities. The classic variable to use here is the term spread, the difference between a long-term interest rate and short-term interest rate. The seminal paper showing the power of the term spread to predict recessions, measured as the 10-year Treasury rate less the three-month rate is by Arturo Estrella and Rick Mishkin.
This has now begun to appear at the retail level in prices of goods that rely on computer chips – computers themselves (obviously) but also audio-visual goods and new cars (Chart 13 plots their average inflation rates  8  In late March, a large container ship (the Ever Given, a quarter of a mile long) was buffeted by strong winds and ended up wedged across the width of the canal. It took six days to dislodge the vessel and re-open the canal. A useful summary of the problems in shipping supply in general can be found here: “Global shipping container shortage: the story so far”, Ship Technology, 29 April 2021. 10  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  10  in the US and UK). The resulting problems and delays in car production have had knock-on effects on prices of second-hand vehicles, especially in the US. Chart 13: Prices of goods that use computer chips have risen sharply in the US and UK  Sources: ONS, BEA and Bank calculations. Chart based on Goldman Sachs (2021, see footnote 6). 12m inflation rates for semiconductor-intensive spending categories: audio-visual goods, photographic/optical equipment, computers, household appliances and new cars. Excludes new cars before 2011; earlier data rescaled for comparability. Wholesale goods-price inflation likely to soften in time For how long might this continue?

That in turn will largely determine how successfully we can achieve an orderly unwinding of the present imbalances. This wider international context is, inevitably, having a profound – and continuing – effect on the pattern of interest rates and exchange rates, and on economic developments, both within the Eurozone and here in the United Kingdom, to an extent that is still perhaps not fully appreciated. A year ago, when the historic decision to go ahead with a broadly-based euro was taken in Brussels, the prospect was for a steady pick-up in overall demand and output across the Eurozone. It was a helpful environment for the introduction of the new currency. And the constituent currencies of the euro strengthened in the second half of last year on the back of that. The introduction of the euro at the beginning of this year was a technical triumph – within the Eurozone, but also notably here in the City, which has clearly established itself from the outset as a vital contributor to the development of broad and liquid euro-denominated wholesale financial markets. 1  BIS Review 68/1999  But the growing impact of the global economic setback last autumn was to dampen external demand and business confidence in the Eurozone – as it did elsewhere – apparently affecting some of the participating countries more than others.
It is important to focus on the nature of capital flows not the nationality of investors concerned. Hence the resolution of crises involves more than simply restructuring liabilities to foreign banks or overseas investors. The problems created by the volatility of short-term debt flows require a structural solution. 3. Purist solutions  How can we design an appropriate infrastructure for the international capital market to prevent, or at least limit the frequency of, crises? To return to our transport analogy, there is clearly a case for eliminating blind spots on the road or lengthening the runway. But this is not enough. We also need to think about how the emergency services should respond to a crash. The purist is led naturally to consider solutions of two opposite kinds. One, which maintains open and free capital movements, is to create an international lender of last resort (ILOLR). The second, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is to reinstate permanent capital controls. Consider first the merits of an ILOLR. The obvious institution to play that role would be the IMF, and its First Deputy Managing Director, Stanley Fischer, provided a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of an ILOLR earlier this year.4 Although not new, the concept of an ILOLR has, in polite official circles, become the facility that dare not speak its name. The principle of a lender of last resort was described by Thornton and Bagehot in the nineteenth century as a willingness to lend freely against good collateral at a penal rate.

The IMF may lend large amounts, create moral hazard in doing so, and still not be able to ward off the threat of financial crises. And faced with a run on their currency or banking system, countries may be forced to take unilateral action to suspend payments. So what to do? 4. The middle way  Given that neither purist approach is on the agenda, the international community has been trying to take some practical steps forward. The aim is to reduce the frequency and severity of financial crises. Some might describe this as muddling through. I prefer to call it the “middle way”. The difference is that the middle way is based on the principle that if the emergency services will be slow to arrive then whichever form of transport you care to think of, borrowing countries should drive slowly. How to encourage and enforce careful driving has been the subject of innumerable international meetings. Initially, the discussion took place in the G10, which, as you know, comprises eleven countries. Then last year the discussion was taken up by the G22. By the spring of this year that group had become the G33. Can you complete the sequence by guessing which international forum will take the lead next year? Suffice it to say that at the original Bretton Woods conference there were forty-four countries and it took place fifty-five years ago. In terms of practical steps forward, it is useful to distinguish between the prevention and resolution of crises.
Bank Negara Malaysia's approach to the financial regulation and supervision has similarly evolved to achieve a more robust regime that emphasises three key dimensions: first, creating a strong risk management culture that overlays the operations of banking institutions; second, facilitating market-led adjustments that will allow the industry to evolve in response to market and technological; and third, ensuring mutually consistent prudential policies across the financial sector. Underpinning this approach has been a more pronounced shift towards principle-based regulations. Increasingly, regulations have focused less on prescriptive rules, and more on establishing broad parameters for sound financial and business practices that leave substantial flexibility for banks to apply the principles in the manner most appropriate to their specific circumstances. Of importance, has been the creation of appropriate incentives within the system to counteract potential market distortions that could undermine financial stability. The differentiated regulatory framework under which stronger banking institutions would have substantially greater operating flexibility and a lower level of supervisory intervention, for example, provides a powerful competitive incentive for the adoption of sound risk management practices. 2  BIS Review 130/2007  While enhanced bank regulatory and supervisory functions have had a direct and significant impact on improved risk management by banking institutions, the primary responsibility for sound institutional risk management will continue to rest with the boards and senior management of banks. It is the boards, and not supervisors, that are principally responsible for the performance of banks and for their financial strength.

2  BIS Review 71/2004  On 1 May 2004 ten more countries joined the EU - all of them committed to join monetary union one day. The framework for stability already plays the role of an anchor for guiding convergence as shown e.g. in the Convergence Reports of the ECB and the European Commission. The new member states see the euro as the centre of gravity. This makes it all the more important that the basic rules of the game underpinning the existing framework for lasting stability in Europe are not put at risk. No doubt the institutional framework for EMU is at a critical juncture. At the same time one must not forget the fact that the first (almost) six years of the euro have been a resounding success. Notwithstanding severe exogenous shocks the stability of the currency has been preserved, inflation expectations have remained under control and the ECB has earned a degree of credibility which is outstanding for a new institution. Also the role played by the fiscal framework should not be underrated. The consolidation of public finances achieved during the latter half of the 1990s in many European countries had been unthinkable only a few years previously. These achievements must not be thrown away but need to be re-enforced to build a strong and stable future for Europe. BIS Review 71/2004  3