samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Bill Dudley’s recent proposal for certain staff to be paid partly in “performance bonds” is worthy of investigation as a potentially elegant solution.21 Senior manager accountability and new compensation structures will help to rebuild trust in financial institutions. In a diverse financial system, trust must also be rebuilt in markets. That is why in the UK in June, Chancellor George Osborne and I launched the Fair and Effective Markets Review.22 Far from seeking to constrain markets, the Review is seeking to restore true and competitive markets with open access to all and competitive prices. Behaviours that aim to undercut market mechanisms, such as collusion, the misuse of confidential information, or the manipulation of market prices and benchmarks, must be stamped out. The Review has already recommended that further market benchmarks be brought within the scope of UK regulation, alongside a criminal charge for manipulation of such benchmarks. In that respect it complements the FSB work to reform and strengthen benchmarks internationally.23 The Review is now consulting widely before reporting next June. It is asking questions about deficiencies in two major areas: market structure and conduct. The Review is examining where structures exist that encourage excessive concentration, raise potential conflicts of interest or expose benchmarks to the potential for manipulation. And it is considering where voluntary codes of conduct seem inadequate, poorly understood or simply provide individuals with justification to judge their actions by the exact letter of the code rather than by more generally accepted norms.

Prasarn Trairatvorakul: The rise of Asia – finding the right balance for policy Address by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) seminar on “Outlook for the Global Economy and Financial Markets 2011”, Bangkok, 8 February 2011. *  *  *  Distinguished Speakers and Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my honor and pleasure to address today’s distinguished audience on the outlook of and the main challenges facing the global and Thai economies. Rather than giving you data and projections, which are readily available, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my observations on the economic future of Asia and Thailand. While economic recovery in the West will likely be constrained by crisis legacies, the rapid bounce-back in Asia and its fast rising role in the world economy have made many believe that Asia is on the continued rise, to the extent that Asia is entering a golden age. Nevertheless, there are questions whether Asia can manage the risks associated with continued growth, particularly inflationary pressure and the impact of volatile capital flows. In line with this introduction, my presentation today will focus on four related topics. First I would like to pose a question whether Asia is truly approaching a golden age. Secondly, to sustain the rise of Asia, I would like to highlight the need for Asian economies to build capacities, as well as strengthen innovation and productivity.
The primary objective of our monetary policy, moreover, is not to influence the level of economic activity. It is to maintain price stability, which we pursue through the operation of a fixed exchange rate. We, therefore, use our monetary policy tools in the first instance to provide support for the currency. Now your question echoes the view of those who argue that if only we were to delay adopting the euro, the government would be able to spend more and run a higher budget deficit because it would not have to meet the deficit criterion this year, and thereby help the economy grow faster. It sounds very attractive, but would it work? First, the argument is based on the premise that increased government spending produces jobs and growth. In a small, open economy, things are not that simple. If more money is spent on infrastructure projects, there will be increased imports of raw materials and other inputs; and of the money that remains in Malta in the form of wages, a high proportion will also be spent on imports. These leakages will diminish the benefit to the economy from the multiplier effect of the increased spending. Thus, for example, our calculations suggest that had the government invested Lm18.5 million more in 2005, keeping the deficit at the 2004 level, the GDP would have been around Lm14.5 million higher last year. Against this benefit, moreover, one would have to set off the costs.

Michael C Bonello: The challenges faced by the Maltese economy ahead of euro adoption and their implications for monetary policy Interview with Mr Michael C Bonello, Governor of the Central Bank of Malta, by The Times, 2 March 2006. *  *  *  1. It has been reported that Malta needs a real growth rate of 4 per cent per annum if it is to reach the EU average per capita GDP in 20 years. Growth, in fact, only averaged about 0.5 per cent in real terms in the five years to 2005. Are you preoccupied? More important than expressing concern is the need to understand the reasons for this slow growth. Since the turn of the century the economy has faced challenges of both external and domestic origin, and the recent period of weakness reflects the size of the task ahead. The slowdown began in 2001 with external shocks to the key sectors of tourism and semi-conductors. Since then the relatively slow growth in Malta’s main trading partners has been compounded by the competitive pressures unleashed by globalization and by our integration in the single European market, all of which has forced an acceleration in the pace of restructuring of the manufacturing sector. At the same time that we were opening up our markets, low-cost producers were undercutting our competitiveness, particularly in labour intensive sectors. These, along with the sharply higher price of imported oil since last year, are among the factors that have contributed to the slow down.
Within this network, systemically important banks provide essential services for other banks. For example, they play a key role in system-wide liquidity provision and adjustment between banks. Normally, this takes the form of short-term interbank lending. If a key player in this network gets into difficulty, this interbank market can seize up, causing problems for other, otherwise sound banks, too. c) The result is false incentives and high risks for society as a whole  A systemically important bank can expect to be bailed out because the cost of failure for the real economy would be extremely high. In other words: the bank benefits from an implicit state guarantee. The consequence of this are far-reaching, as it provides significant false incentives for a bank’s shareholders, management and creditors. On the one hand, shareholders and management of a ‘too big to fail’ bank benefit from unjustifiably low capital borrowing costs, compared to other banks. The state guarantee is tantamount to a subsidy worth billions. 2 It allows shareholders and managements to take on more debt and greater risk. 3 On the other hand, the state guarantee means that creditors have less incentive to make sure that the bank does not take on excessive risk. If all goes well, they will benefit from virtually risk-free interest income. If, however, things do go wrong, the state will have to intervene and the creditors will not be held liable for any losses that may arise.

The historically very low interest rates could create expectations of unrealistically low interest rates in future too and lead to households taking excessively large loans. Low inflation and amortisation-free loans will also lead to households being indebted for a long period of time. Households that have financed an expensive home through loans may therefore become very sensitive to corrections in house prices for a long period to come. How have we taken these risks into account so far? It may be useful to compare our decision in June 2005 with our decision at the beginning of 2006. In June 2005 we had been concerned for a long time over the future effects of increases in house prices and debts in Sweden, but when we saw that the national accounts data showed that growth in demand was not as broad and strong as we believed, consideration to growth and inflation 1-2 years ahead outweighed this and we cut the repo rate. At the beginning of 2006, however, it was clear that growth was broader and stronger than we had earlier believed and that inflation would thereby gradually rise towards the target. Concern over the future effects of exaggerated increases in house prices and debts then contributed to the arguments in favour of an interest rate increase outweighing those against and we raised the repo rate. The strong growth in the housing and credit markets was also taken into consideration in the most recent monetary policy decision, which can be seen in press release 2006-06-20.
Major banks and insurers are accelerating their digital transformation and ramping up hiring in application development, data science, and artificial intelligence. Example: OCBC Bank recently announced that it plans to hire 1,500 technology staff over the next 3 years, with the majority of those positions to be based in Singapore. Bank of America has based one of its two overseas global cyber security centres in Singapore. The bank currently has more than 800 headcounts in Singapore focusing on technology. Another example is Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, which set up its first overseas innovation centre in Singapore. Likewise, global insurers like SCOR have established innovation labs in Singapore. Local insurers have invested heavily in technology too. Singapore has made a name for itself as providing one of the world’s most conducive environments for financial innovation. We are now home to over 50 global and regional innovation labs and more than 1,400 FinTech firms. Last year, we saw record high FinTech investments of $ billion last year, up from $ billion in 2020 [2] . Leading players at the forefront of digital asset innovation have anchored their operations in Singapore. JP Morgan has partnered DBS Bank and Temasek to establish Partior, which is a multi-currency, cross-border settlement platform, leveraging blockchain technology. R3, a global distributed ledger technology provider with roots as a banking consortium, has grown its innovation hub in Singapore to become the regional headquarters for Asia.

MAS has been working closely with financial institutions, institutes of higher learning, and other government agencies to expand our local talent pipeline and build a strong Singaporean Core. Let me clarify that a Singaporean Core strategy is not a “Singaporeans only” strategy. A “Singaporeans only” approach will be fatal for Singapore as a global financial centre as there are simply not enough locals to meet the fast-expanding specialist needs of financial institutions. Rather, promoting a strong Singaporean Core is about building good skills and capabilities in our local workforce and ensuring fair hiring opportunities. It is about helping to equip them to do well in their jobs and advance in their careers. MAS estimates that more than 3,000 Singapore Citizens held senior roles in the financial sector in 2020, a remarkable increase of more than 80% compared to 2016. The need for a strong local talent pipeline is something that the CEOs of global financial institutions in Singapore fully understand and agree with. A strong Singaporean Core gives ballast to their operations here and resilience in their staff capacity. It provides local and regional networks and a keen sense of customers and markets. Over the years, MAS has put in place several schemes to help develop entry level, professional, specialist and leadership talent for the financial sector. And we can do more. Let me highlight three areas of local talent that MAS is stepping up efforts in: polytechnic graduates; mid-career professionals from other sectors; and overseas Singaporeans working in finance and in technology. First, polytechnic graduates.
They have again been at the centre of public debate in recent months, partly as a result of the performance of the euro area economies over the past few quarters, and partly as a result of uncertainties and concerns deriving from the ratification process for the Constitutional Treaty. In this context, doubts have even been raised about the sustainability of the single currency. There are four key questions that should be addressed regarding this matter: •  Are growth and inflation divergences a real problem in a monetary union? •  And, if so, how serious is the problem for the euro area? •  Are these divergences likely to get worse or likely to be self-correcting? •  What can be done to reduce these divergences and at the same time foster higher growth for the euro area as a whole? It is worth recalling that growth and inflation divergences between member countries are a natural, inevitable phenomenon in any large monetary union, as evidenced by the experience of a long-established one, the United States. And, in general, they may reflect both structural and conjunctural factors that affect differently the monetary union’s countries or regions. Differences in economic structures and/or in market adjustment mechanisms across member countries imply that common or global shocks and common policies will have different effects on their economies. Moreover, growth and inflation differentials may also reflect the impact of asymmetric shocks, fiscal policies and diverging productivity and wage developments.

The third pertains to the role of the euro in fostering reforms in product, labour and financial markets. The implications of the integration of goods, services and financial markets for trade The first topic – the effects of market integration on trade – is particularly interesting, as it raises a number of issues which sometimes seem to lead to puzzling results. First, the conclusions about what we should expect as the trade effects of deeper integration are, in part, ambiguous – think, for example, of the effects of specialisation. Increased competition achieved by deregulation and the completion of the single market, as well as cross-border price transparency due to the single currency, may foster higher sectoral or industry-specific specialisation. Greater sectoral specialisation, as well as increased financial integration, should lead to increases in trade flows within the euro area. At the  BIS Review 46/2005  1  same time, however, if increased integration were to lead to more similar economic structures and business cycles, this could weaken trade flows within the euro area. But even if the expected effects of integration are not as ambiguous, appearing instead to be rather straightforward, the evidence available thus far seems not to fully conform with the expectations. Take, for example, the significant progress that has been made in the 1990s regarding product market reforms, which had positive effects on the integration and the degree of competition in goods and services markets in the euro area.
Encik Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour: Shaping the future starts now Speech by Mr Encik Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the launch of the Financial Management for Retirement Module "Shaping the future starts now", Kuala Lumpur, 7 April 2017. * * *  Importance of financial literacy There is a growing concern on the low financial literacy level of Malaysians as measured by financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Based on the Financial Capability and Inclusion Demand Side Survey conducted by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2015, the main observations on the state of financial literacy of Malaysians can be described by: a. First – the majority of Malaysians have inadequate knowledge on financial matters to enable them to make informed financial decisions, particularly among the vulnerable groups; b. Second – a significant majority of Malaysians display short-sighted tendencies and are inclined to ‘live for the moment’ – that is to only focus on instant gratification at the expense of long-term financial planning; c. Third – more than 75% of Malaysians find it difficult to even raise RM1,000 to meet emergency needs; d. Fourth – only a quarter of Malaysians have any form of investment; and e. Fifth – most Malaysians indicated that they will face financial pressure should there be a loss of income. Therefore, building the financial capability and literacy of Malaysians is certainly a priority for the nation.

For example, with regard to retirement – one-in-three Malaysians are very worried about their retirement. Despite the worries, Malaysians adopt a passive strategy for their retirement planning – such as relying mainly on the government or statutory bodies such as KWSP to fund their retirement needs. As mentioned earlier, many of KWSP’s contributors have insufficient funds for their retirement. This brings us to another question – what are their fall back plans? Apparently, nothing concrete. The top three plans indicated in the survey are: a. First – to rely on passive savings, which may not be sustainable; b. Second – to rely on children or family members; and 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  c. Third – to always continue working. Most financial decisions are influenced greatly by a person’s behaviour and attitude. Notably, this will require behavioural change from within, which can be harder to initiate but not impossible to achieve. When equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills – an individual would acquire a positive attitude and be able to make financial decisions – rationally and responsibly, for his wellbeing in the short and long-term. The positive behavioural change includes prudent use of money and credit; not easily influenced by emotions; actively seeking of information for financial product comparison; as well as making adequate provisions for old age.
You may recall that just a year ago the main problem faced by emerging economies was how to deal with inflationary pressures, given the narrowing of domestic capacity gaps and the rise in prices of commodities in international markets. This happened at the same time as the two-speed recovery process I just mentioned was accompanied by an interest rate differential that redirected capital flows towards emerging markets, exerting strong pressures to appreciate our currencies. Our concern then was the pace at which we would lower impulse to our economies, taking care that it did not intensify pressures on the exchange rate and cause new imbalances. Only six months later our major concern had changed dramatically. The intensification of financial tensions in the developed economies drastically changed our perception of the future of the global economy. Financial markets drastically picked up this change of mood  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  and very quickly we saw, among other developments, drops in stock prices, hikes in risk premiums, and reductions in the prices of commodities. The tough discussions held in the United States on fiscal issues, together with the weakness of its economic data towards mid-year, fueled these negative perceptions. Overall, emerging economies dramatically changed their perceptions and communication as to the future of monetary policy.

6 I would also like to mention that the deposit guarantee, which is managed by the Swedish National Debt Office,  is also important in avoiding bank runs. 7 See, for instance, Söderberg (2018). 4 [35]  One can say that the Riksbank functions as the hub of the Swedish financial system. We can also note that the financial system that has grown up around the world is based on countries or currency areas having state money and state control over the payment system. Quite simply, state institutions are needed to guarantee that the requirements in these points are met. 8  Payment markets are changing – motives for an e-krona Almost all economic activity is linked to some form of payment, so without functioning payment systems the economy would grind to a halt. It is therefore important that the central banks adapt to the technical innovations that are now rapidly changing the payment market. There must be transactional efficiency in Swedish and by that I mean that they should be cheap and easy to use for both domestic and international payments. This is also what households, quite rightly, expect in today’s digital society. By keeping apace with technological developments, we ensure that the safety net I mentioned earlier, which preserves the value of money and ensures it is easy and cheap to use, remains in place.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  roubles, and instead the BNB was obliged to pay out to the Soviet armed forces passing through our country “the amounts they needed at their request” and those amounts were to be accounted for as a debt of the country.3 We do hope such times would never again return in Bulgaria. Bolshevik enthusiasm and decisions made under street pressure are the most dangerous approach when it comes to public policies regarding the monetary regime, banking supervision or financial stability. Today, once again we are called to stand up for the professionalism and independence of the central bank – with responsibility and concrete actions. The public interest requires that the reputation of the central bank be respected and its institutional independence and continuity in its work be safeguarded. The strength of institutions in a country is a pre-condition for stability and economic growth, while the weakness of institutions is the first sign of forthcoming economic or financial failure of a country. It is not a coincidence that in the countries which usually serve us as an example of democracy and prosperity, the strong public institutions by rule outlive the individuals and the political parties too. Dear Colleagues, Finally, please allow me to convey the best wishes on behalf of the BNB Governing Council and me for success of the banks run by you and for professional and personal achievements of all of you in the coming year of 2015. Happy Banker’s Day, dear colleagues! Thank you for your attention!

It was in a determined effort to avoid them, having already cut interest rates as far as they could, that central banks then turned to alternative, “unconventional” monetary policies. For the most part this meant QE. Asset purchases are designed to keep a lid on forward rates, thereby supporting demand and activity. In the academic literature, however, many economists argued for an alternative – and potentially more powerful – option, namely a committed form of forward guidance. The economist Michael Woodford has been one prominent advocate[8]. Remember that the name of the game, when faced with this risk, and having run out of room to cut the policy rate any further, is to lower forward real interest rates. In this respect, a credible declaration that you will keep the actual policy rate low, even in the event of a future increase in inflation, does two things. It keeps nominal forward rates low. It also raises expected inflation. In the normal course of events the central bank would tighten policy as inflation rises, choking it off before it turns into a persistent overshoot. If you tell people you’re not going to do this then – as long as they believe you – this will push up inflation expectations and further depress the real rate of interest. In many simple economic models expected real interest rates have almost as big an effect on spending as the current real rate.