samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In 2015, the last year for which full information is available, the external sector posted a positive balance of 2.4% of GDP, a figure that might improve in 2016, despite the lower growth recorded in 2016 in world trade. The competitive gains have spurred firms’ investment and hiring decisions, which have also been boosted by the decline in borrowing costs since mid-2012, to which both the efforts to clean up and restructure our banking system and the ECB’s monetary policy have contributed. Job creation, observable since the onset of this expansionary phase, has been conducive to a pick-up in household confidence and income levels which, in turn, has driven the recovery in consumption spending. As a result, private domestic demand has become the main engine of the recovery, underpinned also by certain transitory factors, such as lower oil prices and the marginally expansionary stance of budgetary policy in the two-year period spanning 2015 and 2016. The fallout from the crisis and the challenges outstanding Yet it should be stressed that, after more than three years of growth, some of the main scars of the crisis remain present. The high unemployment and public debt levels and the heavy dependence on external financing are areas of vulnerability for our economy that should not be underestimated. For the euro area as a whole, the current environment remains one of moderate and fragile growth. In the current circumstances, the sustained recovery in activity, investment and employment in the euro area requires that other economic policies should complement monetary policy measures.

I particularly mentioned the following as impediments to real estate sector development: 1. Lack of long term finance  2. High interest rates necessitated by among other things high inflation levels in Zambia  3. Poor credit culture among our people. 4. Lack of a more active secondary financial market  The picture was not promising for the real estate sector and the only positive economic variable I remember mentioning as helping the real estate sector was the exchange rate of the Kwacha that has been stable against major currencies since July 2003 when the Bank of Zambia introduced the broadbased inter-bank foreign exchange system (IFES). Distinguished guests, today I feel honoured to tell you that most of the issues I raised a few months ago as impending real estate sector development are now being addressed. First, the exchange rate of the Kwacha against major international currencies has continued to improve drastically. Second, the issue of lack of long-term finance, an issue a few months ago has been resolved today with the announcement by Barclays Bank to offer home loans. Third, the issue of high interest rates necessitated by among other things high inflation levels in Zambia. As at end December 2005, annual inflation was at 15.9% and is expected to go down further. Fourth, the issue of poor credit culture among our people.
His “Of the Balance of Trade”, published 34 years before Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”, was arguably the first example of modern economic reasoning. In it he railed against the “numberless bars, obstructions, and imposts, which all nations of Europe, and none more than England, have put upon trade” which “deprive neighbouring nations of that free communication and exchange which the Author of the world has intended, by giving them soils, climates, and geniuses, so different from each other 2.” What an elegant way to talk about the gains from international trade! The benefits of free trade are now well established. Similarly, economic theory provides compelling arguments for the potential advantages of integrated global capital markets based on the efficient allocation of resources. But, in practice, cross-border capital flows can be fickle and flighty, with destructive effects on the real economy. It is fair to say that the case for the free movement of capital took something of a knock following the string of crises since the early 1990s in Latin America, East Asia, Russia and most recently in Europe. As a result, a variety of means to insure against sharp changes in capital flows have developed at domestic, regional and international levels which are collectively referred to as the “global financial safety net”.

According to BIS data, global turnover in commodity derivatives (measured in number of contracts) grew from 420 million to 489 million in the first quarter of 2008. On a year-on-year basis, turnover grew 52%, led by agricultural and energy products. BIS Review 90/2008  1  Others have pointed the finger at speculators for the historically high commodity prices although the extent of this has not been well established. There are concerns over speculative activities giving rise to a disconnect between the physical and futures markets. In the US where commodities are actively traded, there are claims that speculators’ interest in crude oil now account for about 70% of all trading in West Texas intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange ("NYMEX"), compared with 37% in 2000. On the other hand, some have attempted to make a distinction between speculative trading (which at the core, means taking positions based on one’s view of the market) and market manipulation (or collusive trading that interferes with the free play of demand and supply, and has an illicit element). They argue that speculators play a vital role in providing liquidity and take the risk that hedgers want to avoid. Without speculation, consumers would likely pay more for energy and other commodities. Whatever the causes, whether physical demand and supply or speculation, the world now has to grapple with higher commodity prices. What are the implications and effects of the commodities boom? Clearly the hike in oil prices, for instance has crimped the real incomes of households.
14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  14

The SME financing guide book being launched today is initiated by the Institute of Bankers Malaysia to provide detailed guidance to assist SMEs in their applications for financing from financial institutions. It also provides information on the factors that are taken into consideration by financial institutions in approving the applications. In addition, it elaborates on the responsibility of borrowers, and the redress mechanisms that are available. Irrespective of sectors, SMEs should adopt best practices in financial management to ensure their business will remain sustainable. Managing costs will also enhance the performance and competitiveness of the business in both domestic and global markets. SMEs should therefore actively draw on the wide range of products and services including advisory services offered for every stage of its business cycle, whether it is a start-up, growing or a matured business. The expertise, extensive network and the broad range of services and products which are in place should be leveraged upon by the SMEs. Recognising the importance of SMEs in contributing to the socioeconomic development of the country, the Government has introduced various programmes to assist SMEs through its Ministries and agencies. The infrastructure to support access to SME financing has also vastly improved compared to a decade ago. In 2012, a total of RM217.2 billion in financing has been disbursed to SMEs through the banking system, compared to only RM87.1 billion in 2003. This year, 155 SME development programmes with an allocation of RM18.4 billion have been developed and which is being channeled through government agencies and the private sector.
In my remarks, I intend to address three aspects of globalisation and their potential impact on central bank policies: •  First, I will discuss to what extent globalisation may affect the conduct and effectiveness of monetary policy in controlling inflation and influencing domestic economic activity. Or: does globalisation alter the job of a central bank, and if so, how? •  Second, I will explore the impact of globalisation on the functioning of financial markets, which is of course a particularly pertinent issue during the ongoing financial market turmoil, and its potential implications for financial stability. Or: did we sow the wind of financial globalisation, only to reap the whirlwind of market turbulence? •  Third, I will briefly seek to shed some light on links between monetary policy and financial stability, and how globalisation may affect this interrelation. Or: did past central bank policies worldwide play a part in building up imbalances in global financial markets whose correction and unwinding we are witnessing at present? II. Globalisation and monetary policy  In recent years, it has been argued that globalisation has had – or is likely to have – significant implications for the conduct and effectiveness of monetary policy in controlling inflation and influencing domestic economic activity.

First, in a financially integrated world it has been argued that it is global monetary liquidity rather than domestic liquidity which affects domestic interest rates and domestic economic activity, mainly – though not exclusively – through its effects on liquidity premia. Second, it has been claimed that the level of longer-term domestic real interest rates is likely to be determined by global savings and investment rather than its national components. These influences can be expected to be more pronounced for smaller economies. Therefore, a smaller country which cannot affect the global supply of liquidity to any significant degree could then lose effective control of inflation. This reasoning, however, is dubious, and not supported by theory or confirmed by empirical evidence. For example, in a two-country new Keynesian model, it has been shown that, provided exchange rates are flexible, global monetary factors can affect the domestic price level only through their potential short-term effects on global output. 1 Interestingly, the sign of the spill-over effect is the opposite of what would be expected from the global liquidity hypothesis. A comparatively loose foreign monetary policy induces a depreciation of the foreign currency and has a negative impact on domestic demand and prices in the home country. The main conclusion of rigorous theoretical analysis is that monetary policy can affect domestic demand even in a fully financially integrated world and even in a small country, as long as exchange rates are flexible.
China’s economic growth has stabilized and the U.S. has avoided much of the drastic fiscal adjustments that were legally programmed for early 2013. This time around, we have revised the global growth outlook slightly upward and external financial conditions have improved thanks to very expansionary monetary policies in the main advanced economies. In contrast, the Eurozone remains in recession with still fragile financial and fiscal conditions, as illustrated by the recent events in Cyprus. World commodity prices remain high, although copper has had a relapse. Chile continues to display a dynamic economy and limited inflation. GDP increased 5.6% in 2012, while domestic expenditure rose 7.1%, thus increasing the current account deficit to 3.5% of GDP (figure 1). In this regard, it is worth noting that in recent years the dynamism of domestic demand has been driven by investment, especially in mining. As shown in a box inside our Report, the current level of mining investment is the highest of the past four decades. Most recently, the implementation of these projects has had a number of direct and indirect effects on domestic demand, other sectors’ activity, the labor market, imports of capital goods and the current account deficit. In the medium term, as these projects mature and the full expansion of the capital stock is completed, the level of imports will be reduced, output and exports will rise, and the growth rate of consumption will stabilize together with personal income. The way the current account deficit is being financed is also important to underscore.

Chile)  1.8 1.4 -0.6 9.3 7.9 4.2 4.5  2.3 -0.5 1.9 7.7 5.6 3.5 2.8  2.2 -0.6 2.0 7.8 4.9 3.8 2.8  1.9 -0.3 0.5 8.0 6.6 4.3 3.3  1.9 -0.4 1.1 8.1 6.3 4.3 3.3  2.3 1.2 0.9 8.2 6.4 4.7 3.7  2.5 1.3 1.3 8.2 6.4 4.7 3.7  LME copper price $ Brent oil price $  400 111  361 112  361 112  (levels) 340 350 105 108  350 100  340 101  Terms of trade  -0.6  -5.0  -4.1  1.3  -1,6  (annual change, percent) -0,8  -0.4  (e) Estimate. (f) Forecast. Sources: Central Bank of Chile based on a sample of investment banks, Consensus Forecasts, IMF and statistics bureaus of respective countries.
Basel II’s success in promoting improvements in risk management, and thereby in promoting financial stability, depends on the support of a broad range of other mechanisms and measures in the banking and supervisory structure. I’d like to turn now to the second part of my remarks and offer some views on the elements that comprise a strong foundation, not just for Basel II, but also for safety and soundness more broadly. Basel II draws heavily on the well-known and well-tested structure of the 1988 Accord. It retains its definition of capital and its notion that capital requirements should reflect the risk of an asset. The Standardised Approach to credit risk in Basel II represents a modest revision of the existing Accord. And in some jurisdictions and for some banking organisations - especially smaller banks that engage in more traditional, lower-risk businesses - the 1988 Accord may remain a relevant standard. So supervisors need not abandon the 1988 Accord in the near future. However, we have found that as banks engage in more advanced activities, the simplicity of the 1988 Accord quickly becomes a liability. Because it is a static rule, it is falling behind the pace of innovation and advances in technology, telecommunications, and risk measurement and management practices. Basel II provides banks and supervisors with a remedy, one that represents a more flexible and forward-looking approach to capital supervision. In that light, the question I hear from many supervisors is what else can they do to prepare for a future move toward Basel II?

Our workshops this afternoon will consider how to plan our transitions to Basel II, to prepare for the adoption of advanced approaches to risk management and the implementation of Pillar 2, and to strengthen cooperation between home and host supervisors. With regard to this last topic of cooperation, I believe that our safety and soundness goals can be achieved more easily when supervisors adopt more consistent approaches. In particular, Basel II will have the greatest impact if supervisors work in concert rather than in a vacuum. This makes it critical for the Basel Committee to build its ties and to encourage cooperation with other supervisors. Indeed, as I suggested earlier, many of the improvements to the Basel II proposals resulted from discussions with other supervisors and central banks. The quality of our dialogue illustrates the very good state of relations between all banking supervisors today. This event, for example, represents one  4  BIS Review 52/2004  of the most important opportunities for an exchange of views among Committee members and other supervisors. But what begins here must translate into other avenues for communication on both multilateral and bilateral levels. In this regard, the Core Principles Liaison Group, or CPLG, serves as the main forum for exchanges between Basel Committee members and other supervisors. This working group includes representatives from Committee member countries, 16 non-G10 supervisors, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Earlier this year, I chaired a very productive special session with this group.
This brings me to my second point – given a set of robust reference rates that meet IOSCO standards, the choice among these reference rates should be left to market participants who can best identify the specific rate that is most appropriate for a specific business need. Third, the Federal Reserve is committed to working with market participants of all kinds – dealers, end users, legal and accounting experts – to help develop robust reference rates that meet the needs of all types of market participants. In addition to these specific efforts around improving and finding alternative benchmarks, the New York Fed is sponsoring other efforts related to the reform of market practices and benchmark rates. The Foreign Exchange Committee (FXC) and Treasury Market Practices Group (TMPG), for example, are two groups of senior market practitioners sponsored by the New York Fed that are working within their markets to identify best practices for trading and behavior related to benchmark rates. Both groups also have published broader sets of best practices for the foreign exchange markets, and for Treasury, agency debt and agency MBS markets. I would ask all market participants to ensure that these and other best practices guide the behavior that we should expect from participants in financial markets. This will not be easy, but I believe restoring confidence in reference rates is achievable and will greatly enhance the robustness and resilience of our financial system.

William C Dudley: Restoring confidence in reference rates Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions, New York University Stern School of Business, New York City, 2 October 2014. *  *  *  Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.1 In my remarks today, I will focus on the development and use of reference rates for financial market contracts. This is a story of both spectacular success, and at the same time, spectacular failure. To borrow from Charles Dickens:2 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.…” While Dickens was writing about events leading up to a political crisis, his words also are apt with respect to our recent financial crisis. Over a period of just a few decades, reference rates grew greatly in terms of their role and importance in financial markets. For example, the use of one of the best known reference rates – the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR – has soared, so that it is now referenced by approximately $ trillion dollars of financial contracts. Reference rates have become a ubiquitous but largely hidden fiber in the fabric of financial markets.
Heng Swee Keat: A more challenging global and domestic economic environment Opening remarks by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Annual Report 2007/2008 Press Conference, Singapore, 24 July 2008. *  *  *  1. There is heightened uncertainty in the global economy and financial markets. The US subprime mortgage crisis has led to financial turbulence that hit many American and European financial institutions, forcing them to recapitalize and tighten lending standards. These stresses in financial markets have been a drag on economic activity in the industrialized countries through various channels, including the adjustment in the housing market and wider credit spreads. 2. The pace of US economic growth is slowing, constrained by the ongoing credit crisis, the unprecedented fall in the housing markets across the country, and rising commodity prices. In Europe and Japan, business expectations and consumer confidence continue to weaken. In Asia, growth has held up relatively well, helped in part by the robust expansion in China and India so far. Nonetheless, rising inflation will impact the real earnings of households and corporates in the region, with a concomitant pullback in spending. Overall, global growth is expected to fall to 2.9% this year from 3.8% in 2007. At the same time, inflation has emerged as a significant risk factor. Slower growth, together with rising inflationary pressures, presents challenges for the global economy. 3. In Singapore, economic activity is moderating.

But they found it harder to adjust to the post-crisis ‘Basel 3’ liquidity rules, which gave centre stage to the very instruments they were prohibited from holding, including government bonds, such as UK gilts and US Treasuries, and remunerated central bank reserves accounts. To meet this challenge, the Basel liquidity rules give national supervisors discretion to treat sukuk as High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA), subject to haircuts or other conditions. The consequent increase in demand for sukuk from banks was one factor boosting issuance in recent years. But the proportion of sukuk classed as eligible for regulatory buffers remains relatively modest compared to demand. As a result, while sukuk can provide a reliable medium-term store of value, the relative scarcity of HQLA-eligible stock can give rise to uncertain price movements, especially in stressed markets, reducing the value that is readily realisable, and making it harder for banks to increase their holdings quickly when required. All of this means that Islamic banks can face a somewhat uneven playing field relative to conventional banks when it comes to liquidity management. Unable to use liquid gilts or interestbearing reserves accounts at the Bank of England to meet short-term outgoings, they have tended to hold inefficiently high stocks of cash at zero return, or higher-yielding but somewhat less liquid sukuk. The design and launch of the Bank of England’s Alternative Liquidity Facility That’s where our new Alternative Liquidity Facility (or ‘ALF’) should make a real difference.