samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
I would like to present a hypothetical fact situation to you which I think demonstrates some of the thorny legal and supervisory issues that could be raised by the existence of offshore banking entities doing business over the Internet with individuals in our 14  See Panavision Int’l, L.P. v. Toeppen, 938 F. Supp. 616, (C.D. Cal. 1996) ; Bensusan Restaurant Corp. v. King, 937 F. Supp. 295 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) ; Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Chuckleberry Publishing, Inc., 939 F. Supp. 1032 (S.D.N.Y 1996). 15 See CompuServe, Inc. v. Patterson, 89 F.3d 1257 (6th Cir. 1996) ; Edias Software Int’l, LLC v. Basis Int’l Corp., 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18279 (D. Ariz. 1996). 16 See Maritz, Inc. v. Cybergold, Inc., 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14978 (E.D. Mo. 1996) ; Inset Systems, Inc. v. Instruction Set, Inc., 937 F. Supp. 161 (D. Conn. 1996). BIS Review 17/1997  -8-  jurisdictions. I travel to the island of Atlantis, where I obtain a Class Z banking charter. I am permitted under this charter to engage in the business of banking every place in the world, except with residents of Atlantis. As you have probably suspected, Atlantis is founded on the principle of free and open markets, unfettered by supervision and regulation of banks with Class Z charters. Atlantis also provides for strict adherence of the principles of banking secrecy. My bank is named The Internet International Bank (“IIB”). The IIB offers a full spectrum of banking services to Atlantis nonresidents.

These spillovers have had tremendous implications on emerging market central banks through macroeconomic and financial instability, financial and foreign exchange market volatility, and more importantly, the ability and autonomy of central banks in the region to conduct monetary policy. So much attention has been focused on the advanced economies – the growth recovery, policy trajectory and political uncertainty. Not enough has been discussed on the countries at the receiving end of these uncertainties, and the difficult circumstances under which emerging market central banks have had to operate in recent years. This will be the focus of my remarks today. I intend to describe a few reasons on why it has been a real challenge for emerging market central banks to conduct monetary policy in recent years than in the period prior to the global financial crisis. I will then discuss the policy thinking and tools from the perspective of an open economy when facing the challenges that emanate from global policy-spillovers. Lastly, I will share my view on the importance of having utmost autonomy in policy-making and suggest what we and the global community can possibly do to improve independence in policy decisions. Global developments since the crisis have added extra layers of complexity in policymaking For most emerging economies, structural changes in the economy over the past two decades such as diversification of sources of growth, wider set of policy tools and deeper domestic financial markets have all contributed to greater independence in the formulation of monetary policy.
Ivan Iskrov: Central banks and the overhaul of banking regulation Welcome address by Mr Ivan Iskrov, Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, at the international conference “Central Banks and the Overhaul of Banking Regulation”, on the occasion of the 135th Anniversary of the Bulgarian National Bank, Sofia, 6 June 2014. *  *  *  Dear guests of the conference, Ladies and gentlemen, It is my privilege and honour to open today this international conference, dedicated to the commemoration of the 135th Anniversary of the BNB. The central bank of Bulgaria is one of the oldest in the world, 13th by order of establishment. First of all, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all of you, and especially to our international guests, some of whom visit our country for the first time. You will meet here not only experts with whom you could exchange ideas and know-how, but also friends. We are a very hospitable nation and I am sure that during your stay here you will have a valuable professional experience with plenty of knowledge-sharing, brainstorming and networking opportunities. You will also have a chance to catch a glimpse of the great history, culture, customs and natural beauty of our country. The topic of today’s conference – “Central Banks and the Overhaul of Banking Regulation” – is of significant importance to our central banking community. The recent deep reforms in banking regulation around the world have brought new responsibilities and new challenges for our institutions.

François Villeroy de Galhau: Europe at a crossroads – how to improve economic governance and growth performance of the Eurozone? Presentation by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the German Institute for Economic Research – DIW Berlin, Berlin, 8 June 2016. *  *  *  I am delighted by the opportunity, kindly offered by DIW, to share some remarks on Europe here in Berlin. As you may know, I have strong ties with Germany. In particular, I completely share the German culture about the importance of responsibility and long-term vision. At this juncture we probably all agree on two things – and my focus today will be that these two things are closely intertwined: •  Monetary policy cannot be the only game in town. •  Although Monetary Union is a success, Economic Union remains to be built. I want to pay tribute to Helmut Schmidt, who said in October 2011: “There was a failure to set the economic rules of the game for the currency union. A powerful authority with responsibility for fiscal and economic policy was not set up.” 1 I will first argue that monetary policy has been doing its fair share (I). I will then discuss the need for a “full coordination” of national economic policies in the Euro area, and discuss what concrete progress can be made (II). Finally, turning to private risk-sharing in the Eurozone, I will focus on the importance of building an efficient Financing and Investment Union (III).
Benoît Cœuré: Ensuring an adequate loss-absorbing capacity of central counterparties Special invited lecture by Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago 2015 Symposium on Central Clearing, Chicago, 10 April 2015. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen1 This Symposium organised by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is a major event for discussions on key themes regarding central clearing, and it is a privilege for me to deliver this lecture in front of such a distinguished audience. I would like to make some comments on a topic which has been steadily going up the central clearing agenda, namely the need to increase the loss-absorbing capacity of central counterparties (CCPs) beyond their current levels. Because of their growing systemic importance, CCPs need to be exceptionally robust, and that means being able to cope with even extreme losses. And to achieve this, it may well be necessary to increase their existing loss-absorbing capacity. But what is less clear at the moment is whether this can be done by having CCPs observe the existing, tough international standards, which have been introduced only relatively recently. Or whether there is a need for new requirements that are more demanding or more specific. And if so, how can we best do that in a way that preserves the benefits of central clearing, provides the right incentives to CCPs and to their clearing members, and strengthens the financial system as a whole?

Furthermore, in order to represent any meaningful part of the default waterfall, “skin in the game” would need to increase dramatically, thus completely changing the size of CCP balance sheets and their business models. This could even defeat the purpose of mandatory central clearing by pushing CCPs to dramatically increase the cost of clearing, or to compromise on their risk management in order to retain profitability. In sum, it seems reasonable that an increase in prefunded resources, should it become necessary, should be mainly borne by clearing members. Strengthening CCP recovery capabilities via specific recovery tools. An alternative conclusion to our current discussions could be that cover 2 is an appropriate standard for ensuring CCP resilience in a pre-recovery phase, but that more reassurances are needed to ensure CCPs can adequately cope with a recovery situation if they face tail losses. Let me stress that, here too, it is too early to state whether and, if so, what additional guidance regarding recovery capacities will be needed. However, let us think about the ways in which authorities could improve CCP recovery tools if the need did arise.13 In a recovery situation, a significant amount of additional funding could come from ex post cash calls on non-defaulting clearing members, also referred to as “default fund top-ups” or “emergency assessments”. This could provide CCPs with ample resources to avoid a complete depletion of their capital, and would share the funding burden across the whole clearing membership.
With the expanded scope of activities in Islamic finance, the Islamic bond market or Sukuk market has fast become an important avenue for fund raising and investment activities. The Sukuk market has registered a remarkable growth, increasing at an average annual rate of 40 percent with a current size of more than USD82 billion. The vast potential in Sukuk market in the international financial system indeed represents the crest of a new wave of innovation in Islamic finance. This is evidenced by the active participation of a great number of global players such as investment banks, Islamic banks and securities firms in the issuance of Sukuk. The Sukuk market brings with it great benefits to both issuer and investors. For issuers that include government agencies, multinational corporations and multinational development institutions, Sukuk plays a multi-faceted role in meeting different funding requirements ranging from large infrastructure and developmental projects to capital and business expansion. This is particularly important for emerging market economies. The Middle East and Asia currently represent the two fastest growing regions in the global economy. These regions are aggressive in their privatisation efforts and in the implementation of infrastructure and developmental projects. Asia alone will be spending an estimated USD1 trillion on infrastructure over the next five years, while infrastructure requirements in the Middle East are estimated to be USD700 billion over the same period. 3 While in Malaysia, the National Economic Regional Corridor plan requires an estimated USD192 billion (RM620 billion) of investment.

Although the upward pressure on commodity prices has taken a time-out with the slowdown in world growth, in a year or two it may very well be a problem that central banks will once again need to manage. At the same time, it is worth pointing out that this need not necessarily be a big problem. As I have observed, we now know a lot more about how monetary policy should be conducted than we did when I first arrived at the Riksbank in 1976 – in between the two oil crises. The problem of rising commodity prices can be managed within the prevailing framework for monetary policy. Essentially, it is a question of preventing what happened during the 1970s, namely that the inflationary impulses that the oil price shocks entailed were allowed to become entrenched and to spread to wages and other prices. But it is also important that the policy is not so tight that there are overly negative effects on production and employment. Of course, this is not an easy balancing act. But I can assure you that such deliberations lie behind every individual interest rate decision taken by the Executive Board. …the debate on monetary policy and house prices,... Another question that has arisen during my time as member of the Executive Board, and which is also fairly controversial, is how monetary policy should react when house prices and household indebtedness increase rapidly, which was the case in Sweden and many other countries until quite recently.
If oil prices rise further or remain at the current high level for a long period, petroleum investment may again amplify the cyclical upturn to a greater extent than projected. Monetary policy and the outlook for the Norwegian economy The analyses in Inflation Report 2/05 are based on a baseline scenario where the key rate until 2007 follows forward interest rates, and then rises somewhat faster. Forward rates on 24 June indicated expectations that the key rate would increase to approximately 2¼ per cent towards the end of 2005 and to 2¾ per cent at the end of 2006. The krone exchange rate is assumed to shadow the forward exchange rate, which remains broadly unchanged over the next three years. Capacity utilisation in the Norwegian economy is expected to increase this year and next and exceed its normal level. There are prospects that inflation will gradually pick up and be close to 2½ per cent at the three-year horizon. Monetary policy that gradually becomes less expansionary will stabilise the economy over time, thereby curbing inflation and preventing it from overshooting the target. New information since the publication of the last Inflation Report does not provide grounds for changing the assessment of developments in the real economy. Nor has there been any substantial change in the inflation outlook. Monetary policy cannot fine-tune economic developments, but it can seek to hamper the most significant effects of disturbances to the economy.

Thomas Jordan: Prospects for the Swiss economy in 2009 Summary of a speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the erfa-Gruppe, Weinfelden, 15 January 2009. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  Following a long, strong and broad-based growth phase, the world economy moved into a major recession in mid-2008. About a year after the beginning of the unprecedented financial market crisis, there was a radical turnaround in the global economic outlook. The European and Asian economies were not disconnected from the US, as had been hoped. The Swiss economy leans heavily on its export and financial sectors and faces a difficult year. A recession appears unavoidable in 2009. Consequently, the skilful deployment of monetary and fiscal policies as well as optimal conduct on the part of business practitioners in Switzerland are particularly important. Monetary policy can be changed quickly and its impact is relatively rapid through its influence on interest rates and the exchange rate. The SNB has reacted resolutely to the deterioration in the economic situation and has reduced interest rates to almost zero. If necessary, monetary policy can be rendered even more expansionary through a series of alternative instruments. In the case of fiscal policy, the focus is on effective automatic stabilisers – first and foremost, allowing the occurrence of temporary budget deficits, together with unemployment benefits and compensation for short-time working.
Bank deposits – commercial bank money – therefore provide a single location for both the store of value and means of exchange functions of money. Payments can be and are still made in central bank money, but increasingly less so. Bank accounts are connected to a range of payment systems which provide the infrastructure to carry out the exchange of commercial bank money. These payment systems are also subject to public interest regulation focused on robustness, safety, and fair competition between them. Viewed like this, an observer might say that this set of arrangements looks efficient. I would say that this has become increasingly the case in recent years as the options for making domestic payments have increased, particularly with the innovation of Faster Payments, in which the UK has been a leader. But that does not mean we should rest on the laurels and proclaim the end of innovation. New forms of digital money represent an important source of innovation, so we must evaluate whether and how they can meet our public interest objectives. A key point here is that rather than use commercial bank money as the basis for transactions, providers of digital money would create and use their own money or ‘coin’. And, they could be issued by companies, including large technology platforms, with the capacity to scale up and grow rapidly. These are often known as stablecoins. They are distinct from cryptoassets such as Bitcoin, which have no backing and thus no anchor to provide stability of value.

16  17  18  19  20  Figure 10 Business expectations (IMCE) (1) (original index)  80  80  Investment expectations (2)  70  70 Present situation  60  60  50  50  40  40  30  30  Employment expectations (3)  20  20  10  10 10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  (1) Value above (below) 50 shows optimism (pessimism). (2) Simple average between expected investments in manufacturing and trade. (3) Simple average of expected employment in manufacturing, trade and construction. Source: Icare/Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.
To be clear, though, we are not opposed to use of longevity reinsurance, including to non-UK counterparties, provided risks are properly managed. We set out our expectations in a Director’s letter more than a year ago. It asked insurers to pre-notify the PRA of new longevity risk transfer and hedging arrangements, including the insurer’s proposed approach to risk management. We consulted on the content of the letter and 3  published Supervisory Statement 18/16 on ‘Solvency II: longevity risk transfers’ . This allowed us to track activity and has been a source of useful information to supervisors. Our supervisory approach has not changed since. Through a programme of in-depth supervisory reviews, we are gaining assurance on insurers’ risk management. We will then review our expectation to be notified ahead of transactions. With insurers transferring more longevity risk and the associated returns, the profitability of writing annuities depends increasingly on the mix of assets chosen to back them. Yields on government bonds are low and spreads on corporate bonds narrow. Insurers are therefore searching for yield in less liquid, direct investments. These include equity release mortgages, commercial property and infrastructure financing. Based on supervisory information, around 25% of annuities are backed by such direct investments currently. But insurers have plans for that proportion to increase to 40% by 2020. These assets can be a good match for long-term annuity liabilities. Moreover, increasing investment in real assets may have wider economic benefits. However, they often lack observable market prices and external credit ratings.

Today, support for the single currency stands at record high levels.15 To be successful, a digital euro would also have to enjoy strong support from the public. It would be a digital symbol of progress and integration in Europe. And it would support the international role of the euro. Issuing a digital euro would be relevant for almost everything the ECB does. And it would affect our society as a whole. This is why we are seeking, through the public consultation we are launching today, an intense and open dialogue on our recent report with citizens and other stakeholders. Together with European institutions and authorities, in primis the European Parliament, we will 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  discuss the framework that would be necessary to introduce a digital euro. As co-legislators and representatives of European citizens, you will have a fundamental role to play in the process. I therefore very much look forward to our first exchange today. 1 ECB (2020), Report on a digital euro, Frankfurt am Main. 2 “Sometime in the first millennium BC, coinage was invented probably in Asia Minor, and it rapidly spread  throughout in the Mediterranean area….Wherever Greeks settled coinage followed. In the span of hardly a century the innovation had become established around the Aegean area, Sicily, southern Italy, southern France, Spain…. We know that by the end of the sixth century BC most of the city-states in the Greek world had their own coins…”.
Two colleagues at the Bank, Fergus Cumming and Al Firrell, have recently used a database on all mortgages granted in the UK since 2005 to explore house-moving patterns.42 The results are preliminary, but let me share some of the early findings to demonstrate what might be feasible. Chart 19 plots the frequency of house moves at different distances in 2018. The modal distance of a house move is less than 10km. This is twice as likely as the second most popular distance – 10-20km. In other words, a gravity (distance) model of house moves fits the data, with around one-third of all house moves within 50km. Most house moves are local. Most, but by no means all. The median move is a little below 100km, the mean 130km. There is a longer tail of long-distance house moves than I would have predicted. 42  Although this may sound simple, it involves a complex matching algorithm to identify housing chains, similar to Chakraborty, Gimpelewicz and Uluc (2017). 31  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  31  Chart 19: Distribution of house moves by distance (mortgage-to-mortgage movers in 2018)  Sources: Product Sales Database and Bank calculations. Part of the explanation lies in regional and demographic differences. People outside London and the  South-East – for example, in Scotland – are much more likely to move greater distances (Chart 20). Older people (over 46) are more likely to move larger distances than younger people (under 33) (Chart 21).

Companies’ management information systems can, and are, being used to track flows of workers, goods and services. And administrative data can, and are, being used to track people, money and goods. These micro-level data that could, with time, be pieced together to provide a macro – or micro-to-macro – model of the economy. Or that, at least, is the promise. Managing the Economy  If we can map and model the economy at a high resolution how, if at all, might this affect how economic policy is set? Can analysis of this granular type help when thinking about appropriate forms of policy intervention? Might it help in defining what might be a sensible geographic area for an economic strategy? And might it even help in defining what that economic strategy might be? 34  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  34  There is already a deep and rich literature on these topics. One strand looks at optimal currency areas.43 Another looks at optimal fiscal areas.44 And a third looks at optimal political or policy areas.45 This literature identifies a rich range of factors important for determining the optimal spatial dimension of policy. From that long list, let me highlight three factors which are commonly found to play a crucial role:  (a)  Heterogeneity and Specialisation  Other things equal, the greater are the differences in the economic characteristics of an area, the stronger is the case for recognising these differences in the setting of economic policy.