samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The Bank of Albania deems that the country’s current stage of development creates great possibilities in this regard. The experience of the newly acceded countries has indicated that the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement and the following negotiations have been associated by high FDI inflows. However, we can not assume that this phenomenon will be automatically present even in Albania. Therefore, the Bank of Albania deems that further deepening of structural reforms is necessary and that this process should be followed by improvements in the business climate and by enhancement of the degree of law enforcement. The last but not the least, I would like to point out that the degree of economic activity coverage with statistics is still low. The monetary policy that we are following is an as much dynamic as visionary process. Besides the existence of efficient markets, it also needs to be supplied with new and methodologically accurate statistics. Besides our constant efforts and good understanding with INSTAT, we find it necessary to appeal for a greater attention of the whole society and of respective institutions in particular, to increasing statistical information and further consolidating the existing one. It is just the time that all the monitoring, licensing and decision-making institutions, including also the numerous nongovernmental organisations, must feel a great responsibility in this regard. It is just the moment that they develop indirect measuring and estimating approaches for many demographic, economic, social and financial indicators.

Notwithstanding the positive effects of investment expansion, the domestic demand growth exercises pressure on the overall price rise. In absence of any obvious inflationary pressures on the demand side, it is estimated that the Albanian economy is making use of free capacities without raising the costs and final prices of goods and services. Also, it should be highlighted that part of this domestic demand has been met by rise of imports and trade deficit, thus mitigating the pressure on consumer prices. Supply factors Import prices The Albanian economy is a relatively open economy and therefore, import prices constitute an important element of the country’s inflation. Generally speaking, the economic conditions of trade partner countries of Albania have been favourable during this year, easing the control on supply side pressures and enabling the observance of inflation target. Oil prices Consumer prices during 2006 were influenced by a stressful situation in the interbank oil price market. The impact of this factor, as concerns the intensity of operation in inflation rate, was not uniform, being higher during the first nine months of the year and recording a decline during the last quarter. Exchange rate During 2006 exchange rate developments have dampened inflationary pressures of the supply side. The national currency has been appreciated against the American dollar and has maintained unchanged its position vis-à-vis the euro. The lek’s appreciating tendencies, though weakened in the recent months, have led to the decline of import price in domestic currency.
It’s perhaps informative to contrast this kind of program with one that has historically been the main mechanism by which the supply of affordable housing has increased. The program I have in mind here isn’t a housing program, but, in my view, it has extremely important effects on the housing market. I’m talking about intra-urban transportation, which can serve to dramatically increase the locations available for development, and thus promote the availability of affordable housing.13 I believe that safe, reliable, affordable and efficient transportation to job locations should be a crucial element in an effective housing policy. Such a program indisputably increases the supply of sites available for development, which is a key way to get the benefits of lower prices to a broader set of families. Indeed, it is clear that cities’ ability to grow and attract new residents requires them to either increase density – essentially meaning taller buildings – or to expand outwards by increasing transportation access. Access to affordable credit is yet another pillar of a policy program that promotes housing affordability. We at the Federal Reserve have long worked to ensure that credit flows equitably and that financial services are available to all U.S. citizens. The Fed’s research on these subjects ranges from the pioneering study of redlining by a team of Boston Fed economists, to a very recent New York Fed study on “banking deserts” that appeared in our Liberty Street Economics blog just last month, as well as ongoing community credit work.

When a full accounting of the special liquidity facilities is complete, it seems likely that the facilities will have generated substantial incremental earnings that the Federal Reserve will remit to the Treasury. Although these incremental earnings were not the objective of these facilities, they are a pleasant outcome relative to the alternative. As the crisis has abated, our attention has shifted to what we need to do to prevent another crisis in the future. We need to take the necessary steps to build a strong and resilient financial system. In my opinion, three broad sets of actions are needed: •  Effective macroprudential supervision. By this, I mean conducting supervision not just vertically institution by institution, but also horizontally across institutions and markets. We need to better understand how the system operates as a whole and how problems in one area can affect financial stability elsewhere. This means both how the overall system affects individual firms and how the activities of a single firm or market affects the entire financial system. •  Make financial institutions and market infrastructures more robust to withstand shocks and become less prone to failure. •  Change the system so that no financial firm is “too big to fail.”  Macroprudential supervision is essential for two reasons. First, it addresses the problem of gaps in the regulatory regime and the regulatory arbitrage that such gaps can encourage. Second, macroprudential supervision is needed because the financial system is interconnected. Siloed regulatory oversight is not sufficient.
Mario Draghi: Strengthening the foundations of the euro area and maintaining price stability Speech by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the Wirtschaftstag 2012 “Kapitalismus in der Krise? Die Zukunft der Marktwirtschaft” der Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken, organised by Genossenschaftsverband e.V., Frankfurt am Main, 7 November 2012. *  *  *  Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, Es ist mir eine große Freude, heute hier bei Ihnen zu sein. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you today. Small- and medium-sized enterprises – and the banks that finance them – are the backbone of the German economy. Your continued success is vitally important – not only for Germany, but also as a key driver of growth and employment in the euro area as a whole. For this reason, you are a very important constituency for the European Central Bank (ECB). We pay close attention to your experiences and your views of the future. For example, through surveys that we conduct twice a year, we are able to gather valuable information on the access to finance of smaller companies in the euro area. The most recent survey was released only last Friday and relates to the period from April to September 2012. It contains information from about 7,000 small and medium-size firms throughout the euro area, of which around 1,000 are from Germany. The findings are encouraging for firms in Germany. Banks remain willing to provide them with loans.

In this regard, we are naturally supporting efforts by the French Treasury and insurers to improve the prudential treatment of long-term equity investments already during the 2018 review. On a topical note, I would add that it is crucial for supervisors to apply all prudential requirements with equal rigour. The string of failures by insurers doing business on the French market under the FPS, particularly in construction insurance, is a reminder of the importance of this. The ACPR is obviously working hard to deal with this crisis, which is affecting tens of thousands of French policyholders. But the requisite convergence of supervisory practices also needs to become a reality very soon. I know that Gabriel Bernardino and EIOPA are making this a priority. Finally, let me be clear: it is unreasonable to apply the new IFRS17 accounting framework right now, given the current state of the discussions. Aside from the complexities of creating a European governance framework for these standards, there is also an obvious issue of timing, and fortunately, the IASB appears to be reopening discussions on this. Implementing IFRS17, which will be costly and complex, will follow on from implementation of Solvency 2, a process that has kept insurers very busy. Beyond the question of timetabling, there are major substantive issues. We want an agreement on identifying groups of loss-making contracts. As it stands, the draft is unworkable. We also want to see completion of the discussions on the treatment of reinsurance contracts held.
With an equity cushion, even if the household were to experience a job loss during a future housing downturn, they would be able to sell their home, pay off the mortgage and avoid any damage to their credit. Homeowners’ desire to finance consumption by borrowing against housing equity might also be diminished by their desire to retain their ability to move easily. The decline in home prices during 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  the bust eliminated many households’ home equity, which is traditionally the source of down payments for households that wish to move and remain homeowners. This mobility might be associated with a change of labor markets or an upgrade of your home or residential location. It is possible that households have saved their newly recovered equity in order to rebuild the capacity to make future down payments and therefore restore this option to move. It is certainly the case that mobility has declined since the housing bust, a fact consistent with this hypothesis. Many homeowners also took advantage of the Federal Reserve’s accommodative monetary policy stance to refinance into very low fixed-rate mortgages. As mortgage rates rise, there is a higher financial cost to extracting housing equity through a cash-out refinancing. The pace of cash-out refinancing has indeed been very low even as housing equity has risen, consistent with this hypothesis. But, owners have other ways of tapping equity, like taking out a second mortgage or a home equity line of credit (HELOC).

It shows a high correlation, with rises in equity prices inducing reallocations into equities. This suggests a potentially significantly pro-cyclical swing in portfolio behaviour. For example, a 10% rise in the S&P on average increases the equity portfolio share by over one percentage point – or around $ billion given the scale of US life insurers’ balance sheets. 6 If done quickly, this could be a potent procyclical amplifier. Similar patterns are evident among life insurers in other countries. A second piece of indirect evidence comes from the behaviour of regulators. There have been several incidences over recent years of regulators loosening regulatory constraints to forestall concerns about pro-cyclical behaviour in a downswing. For example, UK regulators loosened regulatory constraints on insurance companies in the early 2000s following the bursting of the dotcom bubble. This was due to fears of selling pressure on equities being amplified as insurance companies de-risked their portfolios as they neared regulatory constraints. Pension fund regulators have taken similarly-motivated actions recently due to depressed real yields boosting the market value of liabilities. A third piece of evidence comes from analysing the impact of ICPF asset allocation decisions on asset prices. In particular, at the Bank we have analysed the impact of purchases of longterm UK indexed-linked debt by UK ICPFs since the early 1990s (Zinna (2014)). Over this period, the combination of accounting and regulatory rules led to large cumulative purchases of long-term government debt by ICPFs. At the same time, long-term real yields fell from around 4% to around –1%.
Overall, the transmission of our suite of measures to the financial system has been very effective. This is in no small part due to the strong complementarities between instruments, which ensure that all segments of the yield curve are influenced, thereby easing financial conditions more broadly (see Chart 7). Let me give two examples to illustrate the role played by complementarities in our policy design. First, the negative interest rate policy has supported the portfolio rebalancing channel of the APP 10 11 / 19  BIS central bankers' speeches  by encouraging banks to lend to the broad economy instead of holding onto liquidity. 10At the same time, the extra liquidity from the APP has dampened volatility at the short end of the curve. Second, the APP and its reinvestments have supported our enhanced forward guidance via the signalling channel.11 Asset purchases provide a strong signal that policy rates will remain low for an extended period of time. This effect is reinforced by the sequencing of our instruments, which is embedded in the structure of our forward guidance. At the same time, our forward guidance on rates reinforces the APP and reinvestments, since it anchors the short end of the risk-free curve and thereby ensures that the stimulus from the APP and the reinvestments is not offset. The improved financing conditions have made a considerable contribution to the macroeconomic performance of the euro area.

They need to analyse information such as financial objectives and risk tolerance, to design holistic solutions to help consumers achieve their financial goals. Job Specialisation - Technology Jobs in Financial Sector  Let me now turn to job specialisation – technology jobs in finance. Technology has become central to how financial services are produced, distributed, and consumed. The Singapore financial sector has harnessed technology across a wide range of functions – from risk management, business analytics to customer service. We are now among the most tech-enabled financial centres in the world, supported by a vibrant FinTech ecosystem and strong foundational digital infrastructures. Singaporeans have benefitted significantly from digital financial services. We can: see our financial data across financial institutions and government agencies in one single portal to enable comprehensive financial planning; trade securities and buy insurance on the go; and pay for almost anything with just a mobile phone. Can we imagine what life would have been like during last year’s “circuit breaker” lockdown if we did not have PayNow or FAST? Many of these digital finance services would not have been possible without the strong technology workforce in the financial sector. Take for example SGFinDex, which provides a 360-degree view of our personal finances through a mobile application (app). The front-end of the app is simple and intuitive, a delight to use. Many of us have seen it.
The banks must answer the question of how, in the long term, they can successfully provide their services – that is how a well-functioning market economy works. Allow me, nevertheless, to present a few fundamental considerations. In my view, the key to a successful future for the Swiss banks is that they focus consistently on high-quality services which offer customers measurable added value. Investment in the quality of staff and the product range is essential, especially in wealth management. This includes promoting a company culture with a focus on generating sustainable profits. In addition, robust and wellfunctioning risk controls are essential. All of this is necessary, if the banks are to regain the confidence they have lost and demonstrate their integrity. Moreover, politicians and the authorities can, and should, make a contribution to ensuring that the Swiss banking centre can look forward to a successful future. At the same time it  9  One indicator of the ongoing structural transformation is the fact that the number of banks in Switzerland has been declining continually for years. Between 2002 and 2012, over 50 institutions, or about one-seventh, disappeared. Cf. Swiss National Bank 2013a. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  must be clear that industrial policies per se – such as setting targets relating to the size or even the range of services to be provided by banks – should be avoided. We simply cannot know what impact current or future developments will have on the demand for financial services.

But, as with the interest rate markets, there are still important barriers to a complete integration in the stock market. Barriers to further development of the euro market Despite the positive development in trade in securities in the euro area, developments in these markets in Europe are still in general behind developments in the USA. The difference between Europe and the USA is mainly because the USA is one country, while Europe consists of many. However, another explanation for the difference usually given is that Europe's credit markets are dominated by banks, unlike those in the USA. This is mainly because the US legislation, in the form of the Glass-Steagall Act from 1933 and various anti trust laws, has effectively prevented the banks from taking on an overly dominant role. Instead, the securities markets in the USA have played a more important role, and it is apparent that Europe is heading towards an Americanisation in this respect. But as I said, there still remain a number of barriers of varying degrees of difficulty. I will give a few brief examples, using the treasuries market. There are 12 issuers of treasury papers in the euro area, and thereby 12 primary markets with slightly varying credit risk. The countries differ with regard to everything from legal traditions, issue procedures and counterpart systems to market infrastructure and conventions. It is easy to see that these differences mean that the secondary market for euro-denominated treasuries is not uniform. Another problem is which country's papers should form the benchmark.
And my observation here is that we would be advised to give more thought to the underlying issues, risks, and mitigants which could be ingredients in liquidity problems. What are the drivers? What may cause liquidity to be withdrawn? To what extent could uncertainties, referred to a few moments ago, impact liquidity in  BIS Review 14/2003  3  unpredictable ways? What machinery/measures can best be devised to ensure that liquidity will continue to be available in times of stress? And, in the face of attempts to improve the resilience and efficiency of market infrastructure (for example, clearing and settlement), how will changing practices and perceptions affect the drivers of liquidity? This is, I feel, an area where standards and principles could be further developed which engender both the best practice understandings of the private participants on the one hand, and the interface with public policy imperatives on the other. Conclusion Basel II has been steered to this point of take-off for the hugely critical area of capital adequacy. I would identify four challenges for the next stage. First, to achieve the successful implementation of Basel II by banks and regulators across the globe. Second, to ensure that mechanisms exist to update it in the light of evolving best practice. Third, to give thought to whether analogous agreements would be appropriate in securities and insurance.

This gets to the complexity versus disclosure debate in the search for a better way forward in that arena; and should improve the ability of accounts to reflect changes in the underlying business. All of this is really to say that pillar three needs to be seen in a broader context. In today's 'derivatised' world, the utilisation of derivatives and complex forms of contract, often with modelled valuation bases, is just about omnipresent. This is not a value judgment - it is a fact. I think we have to accept that any set of accounts, however drawn up, is likely to be considerably deficient, taken just as numbers, in terms of outlining the economic realities of risks within the balance sheet. And disclosure itself is arguably inadequate at present in relation to both off- as well as on-balance sheet activity. However much it may be a matter of regret, and despite best intentions, the transparency of today's accounts has become less and the opacity greater than was the case in former days, thereby giving a less than complete or reliable view of overall risks. This is not just a question of SPVs; what is and what is not on the balance sheet; nor even whether historic or fair value accounting techniques are used. The fact that accounting standards setters are only too well aware of this, and grappling with the considerable issues involved, is very much to be applauded. For this is a fundamentally difficult area.
It is therefore, critical that improvements are made in the quality of real estate sector data to enhance analysis and policy response to developments in this sector. There is no doubt that the rate of inflation is still too high in Zambia compared to some of our neighbours, like Tanzania, Botswana, and Mozambique. However, I wish to assure you that lower rates of inflation are within reach given Government commitment to fiscal discipline and macroeconomic stability. It is a well established that high inflation (that is, above ten percent) is a cost to economic activities. This happens through: 1. Increased investment costs. High and persistent inflation adversely affects savings mobilization in the economy because savers would opt to hedge against inflation. Ultimately, this leads to a reduction in the availability of loanable funds and investments. In addition, high inflation is normally associated with high interest rates and high interest rates inhibit borrowing for investment purposes, thereby slowing down economic growth and the development process;  2. Rising prices erode the public and investors’ confidence in the economy and contribute to rapid exchange rate depreciation. This leads to currency substitution or dollarisation, which in turn, reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy;  3. Rising prices also undermine the country’s external competitiveness, which may lead to a decline in export earnings, thus, worsening the balance of payments position of the country; and  4. Rising prices entrench poverty through the erosion of peoples’ incomes, particularly those on fixed incomes.

The Fund now has holdings in almost 8000 companies and owns approximately 0.77 per cent of global equity markets. In the long run, and even though many companies have now folded, investing in companies may perhaps be at least as safe as extending loans. Thank you for your attention. BIS Review 42/2009  7  8  BIS Review 42/2009  BIS Review 42/2009  9  10  BIS Review 42/2009  BIS Review 42/2009  11  12  BIS Review 42/2009  BIS Review 42/2009  13  14  BIS Review 42/2009  BIS Review 42/2009  15  16  BIS Review 42/2009  BIS Review 42/2009  17  18  BIS Review 42/2009  BIS Review 42/2009  19