samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Their many initiatives include “Women of the Year” programmes to recognise female employees for outstanding success, as well as their Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) which provides a supportive platform for sharing and engagement among Barclays employees worldwide. 24. Amongst us, there are many women leaders who have blazed the trail in the industry. The moderator for today’s panel discussion, Deborah Ho, has had an illustrious career with financial institutions in Asia and New York and is an IBF Fellow. Deborah serves on the committees of Barclays’ Global Investment Bank Diversity Council and Women’s Initiative Network. She is also Barclays’ representative on BoardAgender. 25. The list goes on and thank you each and every one of you, for inspiring in your own way and for being a role model. Closing remarks 26. It is critical for us to diversify our workforce, especially since it has been shown over and over again that the best performing organisations are those who tap on all of their employees’ talents, both men and women alike. In fact, according to another McKinsey report, gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their non-diverse counterparts. 2 27. We must do more in our own capacity to promote and encourage talent development in the financial sector, being an inspiration in our own way. Not simply for the benefit of employers, but to allow every individual an equal opportunity to pursue their goals and dreams, and strive for their best.

Jean-Pierre Roth: Recent Swiss experience in monetary policy strategy Summary of a speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at a seminar on monetary theory and policy, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, 28 November 2007. The complete speech can be found in French on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  One continually recurring element in the history of the Swiss National Bank has been the application of a clear set of rules that we refer to nowadays as ′strategy′. The SNB′s monetary policy strategy consists of three elements: a definition of price stability, an inflation forecast and a fluctuation range assigned to a short-term interest rate. Experiences with this strategy since its introduction in the year 2000 – judged in terms of both price stability and cyclical developments in the economy – have demonstrated its value. Nevertheless, certain aspects of the strategy have been questioned by academics and by central bankers. These include inflation forecasting under the assumption of a fixed Libor, the choice of the reference interest rate, the role of monetary aggregates and exchange rates in the SNB′s models, and the decision not to publish the minutes of Governing Board meetings. However, these deliberately selected elements in fact serve to reinforce the legitimacy of the SNB′s strategy. BIS Review 139/2007  1
Also, while we have continued to see domestic consolidation of financial intermediaries, merger and acquisition activity across borders has not been as high as we might have expected, as the European Commission has pointed out. There are exceptions, of course - a notable one being on our doorstep, with Banco Santander’s acquisition of Abbey in the UK. But what is the interest of central banks in all this? Should we worry about the lack of progress? Should we actively promote greater financial integration? My earlier quote from the Delors report would seem to indicate that the answer should be yes. Indeed, from the perspective of EMU it is very clear that greater integration is desirable. Why is this? Because in general terms, the higher the degree of financial integration in EMU, the more homogeneously monetary policy decisions will be transmitted across the Member Countries. BIS Review 118/2006  1  The integration of money markets is an important achievement in this respect. It is at this level of the financial system that central bank liquidity is distributed and that monetary policy decisions are transmitted to short-term interest rates. By the same token, the lack of integration in retail markets is an important concern. This is because the European financial structure is mainly bank-based. Therefore, retail banking plays a central role in the transmission of the single monetary policy impulses in EMU to the interest rates which actually influence the expenditure decisions of households and firms.

Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: Financial integration and stability in Europe Opening remarks by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the Conference on "Financial Integration and Stability in Europe", organised by the Bank of Spain, the European Central Bank and the Center for Financial Studies, Madrid, 30 November 2006. *  *  *  Good morning ladies and gentleman. First of all, allow me to welcome you. We are really delighted to host this conference at the Banco de España in Madrid. Some of you are perhaps too young to remember, but it was here in Madrid, in 1989, that the European Council decided to embark on the first stage of Economic and Monetary Union, as envisaged in the Delors Report which was the catalyst for the EMU process. I would like to start my intervention today with a quote from the Delors Report; a quote that refers to financial integration. Simplifying, it said the following: The objective of a single financial area, in which all monetary and financial instruments circulate freely, and banking, securities and insurance services are offered uniformly throughout the area, would be fully implemented through the approval and enforcement of the necessary Community directives. You can appreciate the appealing simplicity of its definition of an integrated financial market: one where all monetary and financial instruments circulate freely, and where banking, securities and insurance services are offered uniformly.
This is true not only here in Singapore but even larger economies like Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia are debating the merits and demerits of the issue. In this environment, huge universal banks like Citigroup, which offer a wide range of financial products on a global scale, may not be the only viable model. Specialist players still have opportunities to thrive, for example in investment banking, but only if they distinguish themselves through depth of expertise and distributional reach. They need to be specialists, and not just marginal players picking up the crumbs. Even the enlarged new Deutsche Bank has decided to consolidate and specialise, hiving off the management of its retail business segment. Smaller players may also survive as niche players, either with superior knowledge of particular markets or by leveraging on the distribution networks of larger players. Secondly, in pursuit of shareholder value, institutions are cutting costs to the bone. Financial institutions are increasingly farming out routine back office processing, in order to derive economies of scale and to focus on their core competencies. They are outsourcing things like mortgage processing and credit card billings to specialists who handle these activities in bulk, using highly automated and streamlined processes. The region This trend towards consolidation means that in a geographical region institutions will increasingly prefer to centralise their activities in one single centre, especially for treasury, debt issuance, and capital market operations.

As I said, shocks of this type can raise the general price level and lead, as in these cases, to a transitory increase in the rate of inflation. But even if one disregards these price increases, inflation has risen. As we discussed in a number of Inflation Reports last year, this probably has a number of interacting explanations. One is that resource utilisation in the Swedish economy has probably been somewhat higher than envisaged earlier. This in turn no doubt explains why wage increases, particularly in domestic sectors, have been higher than expected. As this has been accompanied by weak productivity growth, mainly it seems for cyclical reasons, it has led to upward pressure on prices. A general contraction of profit shares in the economy as a whole has presumably helped to modify price increases in recent years. But this has also left firms with less room to “absorb” further additions to costs and weak underlying productivity growth. All this naturally raises questions about potential growth resource utilisation, inflationary pressure, competition in various markets and the workings of the economy. Resource utilisation higher than expected Ever since inflation expectations closed onto the target some time after the mid 1990s, a very important consideration for inflation forecasts and thereby for the formation of monetary policy has been resource utilisation. This indicator concerns the relationship between actual demand and what the economy is capable of producing in the longer run without price and wage increases accelerating.
As a result, the Committee has engaged in an exhaustive – and sometimes exhausting – public dialogue with bankers, supervisors, and other observers on Basel II’s structure and merits. That dialogue was critical to improving the quality of the new framework, and I would like to express my gratitude to all who took great pains to share their views and concerns. You provided us with the perspective of other markets and countries. You shared detailed comments on the proposals. You encouraged your banks to participate in our consultations. The improvements that the Committee made to Basel II would have been impossible without your contributions. Indeed, it was during those public discussions that policymakers in emerging market countries raised three sensitive questions. I would like to turn now to address those questions and help explain my belief that Basel II represents an opportunity for banks and supervisors in many countries. 1. Will Basel II harm the international flow of capital? The first key question in the discussion about the new framework and emerging markets is whether Basel II will harm the flow of capital across borders and especially to emerging markets. In this context, some observers suggest that the new capital framework’s heightened sensitivity to risk may reduce the flow of foreign investment in developing economies, since exposures to those economies might typically be considered of higher risk. As I will explain, I believe that Basel II will not have a material effect on the flow of capital.

SMEs’ contribution to the U.S.A’s GDP is more than 50 percent. The insignificant contribution of SMEs to the Kingdom’s GDP may be due to the Oil and Governmental sector which represent the major impetus of economic activity. Dear Brothers and Sisters, SMEs are facing clear challenges in gaining the necessary funding for meeting their expansion needs due to various reasons including poor management, and lack of adequate guarantees and, subsequently, the difficulty of obtaining the necessary funding. In order to overcome this problem in the Kingdom, the Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with Saudi banks, established a guarantee program (Kafalah) for financing SMEs. The program, with a capital of Rls 200 million, is managed by Saudi Industrial Development Fund to cover a proportion of the risk of the financing entity in case of the failure of the guaranteed activity in repaying the finance or part thereof. The program also aims at encouraging banks to finance SMEs that have the constituents for success, but at the same time, they cannot present the necessary guarantees or accounting records to prove their eligibility for funding. The program has recorded good performance since its inception in 2006 until 1-Oct-2010, as the number of guarantees approved by the Ministry of Finance during that period reached 1,668 with a total value of Rls 644 million, while loans granted by banks under the umbrella of the program amounted to Rls 1.6 billion, benefiting about 1,113 SMEs.
Le respect de l’objectif à moyen terme de “ finances publiques proches de l’équilibre ou en excédent ” — il signifie que nul ne doit céder à la tentation du déficit budgétaire individuel — est essentiel si l’Union veut pouvoir faire face collectivement à des périodes de difficultés économiques et si chaque pays veut pouvoir surmonter des phases de détérioration de la conjoncture qui n’affecteraient que lui. C’est l’attachement de l’ensemble des gouvernements européens au Pacte de stabilité et de croissance qui a permis à la BCE et aux banques centrales nationales de décider récemment de ramener les taux d’intérêt à 3 % — une baisse des taux qui ne peut manquer de soutenir la croissance. 5  BIS Review 22/1999  - En troisième lieu, tous les pays européens doivent résolument s’engager à entreprendre des réformes structurelles. L’Europe continentale connaît un chômage élevé, même si celui-ci a enregistré une légère décrue dans la plupart des économies concernées. Selon le FMI et l’OCDE, ce chômage est, à concurrence de près 80 %, de nature structurelle, c’est-à-dire qu’il est créé par le poids de nos propres règles et règlements. Le Conseil de la politique monétaire de la Banque de France partage cette analyse. Certains observateurs extérieurs reprochaient à l’Europe, tout récemment encore, de se focaliser sur l’euro au lieu de se consacrer à la tâche, plus urgente à leurs yeux, de mettre en œuvre les réformes structurelles indispensables à une création plus dynamique d’emplois.

Il est important que le dialogue entre tous les États européens se poursuive, même si le passage à l’euro modifiera l’environnement économique traditionnel de l’Union européenne ; c’est la raison pour laquelle le groupe de l’Euro 11, composé des ministres des Finances de la zone euro, a été constitué et s’est déjà réuni plusieurs fois. Le dialogue entre toutes les parties concernées doit prendre en compte l’indépendance totale de la BCE et l’objectif de la stabilité des prix qui, en vertu du Traité, doit guider la politique monétaire de la zone euro. En particulier, la coordination entre les 15 pays permettra à ceux qui n’ont pas encore rejoint l’Union monétaire de converger vers la zone euro. Le nouveau mécanisme de change qui va lier à l’euro certaines des monnaies concernées (c’est le cas de la drachme grecque et de la couronne danoise er depuis le 1 janvier 1999) apportera sa contribution à ce processus. En favorisant la stabilité des taux de change, le nouveau MCE permettra le bon fonctionnement du marché unique et aidera les pays “ out ” à se qualifier pour la monnaie unique. b) L’Union monétaire aura aussi des relations étroites avec des pays extérieurs à l’Union européenne. 7  BIS Review 22/1999  Premièrement, l’Union monétaire et l’Union européenne constituent un pôle attrayant pour nos voisins de l’Europe centrale. Les résultats atteints par certains d’entre eux au cours de ces dernières années témoignent de progrès remarquables.
Bank of England  Page 4  As a result, real income for the non-North Sea economy as a whole – how much our collective output is actually worth, in consumption terms – has fallen by over 5% since the end of 2019 (Chart 3). Chart 3: Real income has therefore fallen steeply relative to output  Real national income excluding North Sea relative to GVA; 2019 = 100 102  102  101  101  100  100 99  99  98 98  97  97  96  96  95  95 1997  2000  2003  2006  2009  2013  2016  2019  94 2022  Real national income excluding North Sea calculated as (Nominal GVA – North Sea profits) / Consumption deflator. Sources: ONS and Bank calculations. This may not be completely unprecedented but it’s pretty unusual. As you can see from the earlier bars in Chart 2, the post-war trend has been the opposite: compared with that of aggregate output, the average price of goods – and therefore of UK imports in aggregate – has tended to decline1. At times this has added significantly to real income growth. During the “noughties”, for example, the integration of China into the global trading system depressed global goods prices markedly. This wasn’t such a great thing if you were a manufacturer in the west, competing with this new source of production. Net buyers of goods, on the other hand, were made better off.

It fell sharply during the first half of this year (relative to income) and is likely to have fallen further since then (the dot at the end of Chart 9 is an estimate of the position at the end of Q3, based on recent moves in asset prices). All this suggests that, if household spending has been unusually independent of income since the pandemic, that is less likely to be the case from now on. The correlation with income is likely to be re-established. And it therefore mattered quite a lot, for the MPC’s projections in August, that households were set to experience further steep rises in their energy bills. Given the path of wholesale gas prices implied by financial markets at the time, OFGEM’s price cap was set to rise (in the central forecast) by over 3% of household income by next spring. Households’ real disposable income was projected to decline by 2½%, with consumer spending down by over 1%. This reduced inflationary pressure in the medium term, helping to pull inflation below target towards the end of the three-year  Bank of England  Page 17  forecast period. (I say “helping” because other things mattered too, not least the further rise in Bank Rate, to a peak of around 3%, then priced into financial markets.) It therefore mattered too that the new government then launched its Energy Price Guarantee, forestalling the rise in energy bills.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  2013/14  94 92 90  London South West South East Wales North West Scotland Eastern West Midlands Northern Ireland Yorkshire 1 East Midlands North East 0  10  20  30  40  Sources: Living Costs & Food Survey, Expenditure & Food Survey, National Food Survey. * Disposable income is measured after benefits and direct taxes are paid, consistent with the Effects of Taxes & Benefits publication. 1 Yorkshire and the Humber  21  Chart 26 – Changes in total income by housing tenure  Chart 27 – Changes in total net wealth by housing tenure  Household net equivilised income £ 1600 Mean change 2006/08 to 12/14  1400  Median change 2006/08 to 12/14  1000  Household wealth £  1200  800  Mean change 2006/08 to 12/14  200000  Median change 2006/08 to 12/14  150000 100000  600  50000  400 200 Own outright  Mortgagor owner-occupier  0  Rent  250000  Own outright  Mortgagor owneroccupier  Rent  0  Sources: Wealth and Asset Survey, ONS. Sources: Wealth and Asset Survey, ONS. Chart 28- Personal well-being  Chart 29 – Young adults living with parents  Average score out of 10 7.6 UK average well-being index  2011/12  2012/13  2013/14  22  Per cent  25  7.5  23  7.4  20  7.3  18  7.2 2014/15  Sources: Annual Population Survey, ONS, and Bank calculations.

Furthermore, there is a risk of increases in indirect taxes and administered prices that may be greater than currently assumed, owing to the need for fiscal consolidation in the coming years. Finally, upside risks may come from stronger than expected domestic price pressures in the context of increasing capacity utilisation in the euro area. Turning to the monetary analysis, the annual growth rate of M3 was 2.0% in April 2011, after 2.3% in March. Looking through the recent volatility in broad money growth, M3 growth has continued to edge up over recent months. The annual growth rate of loans to the private sector strengthened slightly to 2.6% in April, after 2.5% in March. Overall, the underlying pace of monetary expansion is gradually recovering. At the same time, monetary liquidity accumulated prior to the period of financial market tensions remains ample, with the potential to accommodate price pressures in the euro area. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Looking at M3 components, the annual growth rate of M1 decreased in April, while that of other short-term deposits increased. The development partly reflects the gradual increase in the remuneration of these deposits over recent months. At the same time, the steep yield curve implies a dampening impact on overall M3 growth, as it reduces the attractiveness of monetary assets compared with more highly remunerated longer-term instruments outside M3. However, available information suggests that this impact may be waning.
And are the potential vulnerabilities of the networks they help to create properly understood and contained? Threats can emanate from many areas: and you can see we could keep armies of people active scanning the horizon in real-time. We have all heard about the butterfly’s wing-beat in Bali causing a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. And we all know that there are lots of butterflies! So we need to have some way of distinguishing between those threats which are of real significance and danger and those which are less pressing or more remote. What we do is to subject each of the potential threats that we can identify to regular scrutiny. So we prioritise the areas where we see real problems emerging, or weaknesses which make us think that the infrastructure could buckle under shocks. But it is not sufficient just to be aware of the threats; we need to take action to mitigate them. Our second objective is, therefore, to do what we can to strengthen the financial infrastructure. And we design deliverables - work programmes and projects - to address important emerging dangers. Each deliverable will imply a response of some type. Let me give you some recent examples of work we’ve been involved with. On the domestic front, we gave just completed a programme to dematerialise Money Market Instruments. These are now integrated into the main CREST settlement system, enhancing market infrastructure and thereby reducing potential settlement risks. The settlement of transactions in these instruments can now occur with Delivery-Versus-Payment.

Others are more of a surprise, such as LTCM. What is certain is that financial crises can be very costly. For sovereign debt crises they can run to a loss of 15-25% of GDP. For Chile in the early 1980’s they were closer to 40%. So the art of minimising the emergence of crises, and mitigating their effects when they do nevertheless occur, are matters of public importance. For us in London the challenge is particularly real. Our focus must clearly be on the stability of the UK financial system. But markets have globalised; and they have also become more complex. With London a pre-eminent international financial centre, contagion from just about any significant financial crisis anywhere in the world has the potential to threaten financial stability here. In a broad sense, I like to think of financial stability in terms of maintaining confidence in the financial system. Threats to that stability can come from shocks of one sort or another. These can spread through contagion, so that liquidity or the honouring of contracts become questioned. And symptoms of financial instability can include volatile and unpredictable changes in prices. Preventing this from happening is the real challenge. So how do we fulfil our responsibility for the “overall stability of the financial system as a whole”? The Bank’s role is set out in the MoU. How do we approach the tasks of reducing the threat of crises and of coping with them if they actually occur?