samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It is a key part of the present international monetary agenda, and as the debate crystallises into policy consensus, it will become an important element in the environment in which you take your decisions on investment in the emerging markets. I have no doubt that massive capital flows to the emerging markets will be a continuing feature of the financial landscape - it is in the long-term interests of the recipient  BIS Review 49/1998  -5-  countries, the investing community, and the world economy that they should. The task is to try to introduce greater stability into the process. BIS Review 49/1998

I will though:   update on progress towards a global Insurance Capital Standard;    talk about the fledgling UK market for Insurance-Linked Securities and our own new insurers unit;    reiterate the messages on underwriting and reserving in wholesale insurance and reinsurance markets from Anna Sweeney’s Dear CEO letter earlier this year;    discuss capital management, building on a Supervisory Statement we published in May;    share some data we collect on the sensitivity of the capital surpluses of UK life insurers to various market movements and    encourage greater consistency in disclosure of such sensitivities by insurers as well as of the drivers of changes in their capital positions over time. Update on progress towards an International Capital Standard  The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) began work on an international capital 1  standard (ICS) for Internationally-Active Insurance Groups in 2014. A third consultation paper on ICS version 2.0 will close on 30 October. I encourage UK insurance groups to take part in this consultation and in the final round of field testing next year. The Standard will then be finalised ahead of a five-year monitoring period starting in 2020. During this period Internationally-Active Insurance Groups will report a reference ICS confidentially to their group-wide supervisors, including for discussion in regulatory colleges. But it will not be the basis of their regulatory capital requirements. Calculation of the reference ICS and the additional reporting is not meant to be burdensome.
However, obtaining capital in the international market is a laborious and long-term work that requires a systematic build-up of confidence. Every new lender must become acquainted with the borrower’s name and history and eventually request a limit in his board. This takes time and the process is not simplified by a common currency. With regard to building up the international investment base, the Swedish housing credit institutions have perhaps had slightly different approaches and priorities. Having a well-established network of contacts among the European investors is surely not a bad idea the day that the euro becomes our own currency. It is interesting to note the rapid increase in Swedish corporate bonds issued in euro during the autumn. The supply of government bonds has decreased which has led investors to look for other alternatives, but they have clearly become increasingly interested in assuming additional risk in exchange for some additional interest rate percentage points in the return. Eriksson, Volvo and now most recently Birka Energi are making company presentations at places in Europe where few investors have previously shown interest. And Birka can hardly be said to be a familiar name in the market outside Sweden. This development should also include opportunities for the housing loan institutions.

Natasha Ahmetaj: Launching of the new Albanian banknote serie Address by Ms Natasha Ahmetaj, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the launching of the new Albanian banknote serie, Pristina, 12 September 2019. * * * Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Today, we have invited you all to the premises of the Bank of Albania – also known as the “homeplace of money”, both figuratively and in the physical sense (as we are standing above the old treasury room) - to celebrate the two dimensions of the currency: a means of exchange and an authentic work of art. At the very beginning, our process of banknote production started with a design contest. This process is still in place today. Designs had to meet three criteria: be a genuine and unpublished work; have a national character; employ a set of techniques that serves security needs, namely, the use of fine and complicated lines which are extremely difficult to replicate. These three criteria are applicable to our banknotes. From the very beginning, banknotes have been designed not only as a means of exchange, but also as a part of national identity. That is why, in examining banknotes, numismatists are able to discern different eras, the extent of a nation’s freedom, or even aspects of social interdependence. Often, especially in dictatorial systems, banknote design manifests a government’s influence on markets. A lack of these influences is a dimension of social freedom. Time has proven that nothing has changed the educational and national mission of the banknote.
Key lessons of the analysis include that: 1.  flexibility is needed in both design and calibration of macroprudential tools;  2.  no single tool can combat all property risks;  3.  tools need to be appropriate to domestic circumstances; and  4.  domestic policies are more effective for both domestic and EU financial stability if their spillovers are managed. The ESRB has built a framework to assess and manage such spillovers, which should be agreed soon and be operationalised early next year. Its central feature is reciprocity – eliminating regulatory arbitrage to give domestic policy greater traction. It will be member led, but, importantly, backed by ESRB recommendations. Compliance will be on an “act or explain” basis but the presumption will be that many exposure-based measures (e.g. LTV, LTI and maturity) will be reciprocated. This is significant. The ESRB has been notified of macroprudential actions 69 times this year, and 173 times since the introduction of the CRR/CRD in 2014. Although many notices are procedural, they show the direction of travel. More countries are using macroprudential tools, creating an increasing need for a “clearing house” that is both comprehensive and timely. The ESRB will also evaluate the ways national macroprudential authorities might apply countercyclical capital buffers against financial exposures from countries outside the EEA – a tool given to the ESRB under Union law. That will further bolster collective resilience against the global financial cycle and spillovers from outside the Union.

To reap the benefits of financial innovation and reduce its risks, we need robust and resilient financial systems and infrastructures. In this respect, concentrating systemic risks in central clearing counterparties for the most important markets (such as interbank and derivatives markets) may bring us a long way towards reducing them, provided these CCPs are properly regulated. In this respect, I think that locating these infrastructures in the same area as that of the currency they deal in and allowing them access to central bank money are key factors. A last option which is currently gaining some international momentum concerns the possible taxation of financial institutions and activities. In principle, this idea seems quite appealing. However, the diversity of objectives that may be given to such a tax shows that the policy  BIS Review 57/2010  3  debate must be clarified. In a financial crisis prevention perspective, it is aimed at changing incentives and at forcing financial intermediaries to internalize the risks that their activities generate for the whole system. In a crisis management perspective, it should enable governments to recoup the costs of financial bailouts in a systemic crisis. My main concerns regarding this issue are twofold. My first point concerns the articulation with regulation. The added value of a tax over prudential regulation still remains to be demonstrated for countries, such as France, that have taken advantage of an effective regulatory and supervisory framework and in which public interventions in the financial sector have entailed no net costs to the government.
The idea then appears to be that a broader target range would mean the Riksbank did not feel as forced to bring inflation up to 2 per cent, which in turn would mean that monetary policy would not need to be as expansionary and that rising debt could be dampened. As I have just described, however, the policy the Riksbank is pursuing today is due to the fact that the period in which inflation has remained below target has gradually become longer, and long term inflation expectations have fallen. The Riksbank wants to avoid that expectations become permanently stuck at a level that is too low. A relevant question is therefore whether a tolerance band would influence expectations in the economy in a desirable way. If the Riksbank reintroduced the band tomorrow, would long-term inflation expectations suddenly increase and adjust to 2 per cent? It is hard to see why that would be the case. If the repo rate were to be raised as a result of the band being reintroduced, as the idea appears to be, then the result could instead very well be that both inflation and inflation expectations would fall further. After five years without a tolerance band, new arguments could arise in favour of having a tolerance band as a part of the normal monetary policy communication, or older arguments could once again become relevant.

The Riksdag (2014), Finansutskottet utser toppnamn för att utvärdera Riksbankens penningpolitik. [The Committee on Finance nominates prominent persons to evaluate the Riksbank’s monetary policy] (In Swedish), Press Release, June 17. Rosengren, Eric S. (2015), Changing Economic Relationships: Implications for Monetary Policy and Simple Monetary Policy Rules. Speech on 16 April. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Schück, Johan (2015), 2 procents inflation är ett orealistiskt mål. [2 per cent inflation is an unrealistic target] (In Swedish), Column, Dagens Nyheter, 8 May. Stein, Jeremy C. (2013), Overheating in Credit Markets: Origins, Measurement and Policy Responses. Speech on 7 February. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Sydsvenskan (2015), Sikta lägre Ingves. [Aim lower, Ingves] (In Swedish), Editorial, 4 September. Williams, John (2009), Heeding Daedalus: Optimal Inflation and the Zero Lower Bound. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no.2, s. 1–37. Winsth, Annika and Isaksson, Torbjörn (2015), Låg inflation gynnar Sverige. [Low inflation benefits Sweden] (In Swedish), Debate article, Dagens Industri, 2 February. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches
If the fluctuations occur around a steeply rising yield, as they did in the end of the 1970s and during the 1990s, the problems may not be particularly great. Even bad advice can be forgiven when things are going well. But the time comes when stock-market yields fall back to a more “normal” trend and the fluctuations in share prices are then of greater importance for investors. It follows that in future households will need qualified assistance and support in order to arrive at the best and safest ways of investing their assets. As I said earlier, this is a task for the financial system’s institutions: banks, security companies and so on. Performing in the stock market is not all that easy when yields are more normal. If inexperienced people are enticed into buying shares for money they will soon need for other purposes, the results can be tragic. Similarly, the consequences may be fatal if a stock-market collapse erodes pension capital just when it is most needed for retirement. In order to illustrate the challenges and risks associated with share investment, let me now very briefly summarise some of the established theories. Not even professional financial agents find it particularly easy to perform successfully in the stock market. There are plenty of situations when steeply falling share prices make the ordinary share investor feel nervous and uncertain. What, then, should an ordinary household do to avoid running into trouble?

But all this is already available. It can, of course, be said that if only everyone becomes better at obtaining knowledge, information and critical assessments, it is possible that more households than at present can actually come closer than before to the stock market’s return. Unwarranted euphoria can be avoided and share prices can be more stable. At the same time it can be said that the problems go deeper than that and have to do with how the financial system functions today. It is certainly true that in recent decades, financial deregulations, new financial products, improved data and telecommunications and the development of financial theory have led to an outstanding and rather fantastic growth and transformation of the financial system in many parts of the world. Even so, to a growing extent households face what are sometimes very difficult risk-management decisions that were not called for or even possible earlier. Many people still lack the requisite knowledge for this and it may be asked whether people in general can be expected to have such knowledge in the future. Everyone cannot be a specialist in risk management and financial theory. As I have indicated, one reason why households face a more difficult situation than before is, of course, the substantially greater exposure to the stock market that stems from disintermediation. But this tendency has been accentuated by the new pension system. It is now up to the individual to decide how a part of her/his pension capital is to be invested.
In Sweden, economic policy has charged the economy with a good deal of stimuli that can help to generate a broader increase in demand now that the stocks cycle is beginning to have a favourable effect and the prospects for the international economy are brightening. As a result of lower taxes and increased transfers, for example, most things suggest that household purchasing power is rising comparatively strongly this year. Seen over a complete economic cycle, the Riksbank’s instrumental rate is comparatively low. Considering the rate of inflation and the signs that activity is picking up, the real repo rate (the repo rate less the rate of inflation) can be said to be low. Then there is the weak exchange rate, which has subdued effects of the international slowdown and is now helping to stimulate the export-oriented sector. All this amounts to not inconsiderable stimuli to general demand in the Swedish economy, stimuli that look like materialising successively. How heavily should we tread on the accelerator? If inflation, even disregarding the temporary effects, is above the target initially, activity is entering an upward phase and economic policy’s impact on the economy is expansionary, then monetary policy ought to contribute to a somewhat lighter foot on the accelerator. But if most of the unduly high inflation stems from transient increases in the price level and if an economic upturn is not yet assured, it may then indeed be advisable to somewhat defer an upward adjustment of the instrumental rate.

Urban Bäckström: Sweden’s economy and monetary policy Speech by Mr Urban Bäckström, Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, at Skanes Provinsbank, Helsingborg, 7 March 2002. *  *  *  First a word of thanks for the invitation to Helsingborg to discuss matters to do with the Swedish economy and the Riksbank’s monetary policy. For me it is particularly interesting to come here since I lived and worked for some years in Helsingborg in the 1980s. As the published minutes show, at the Riksbank’s latest monetary policy meeting on 7 February the Executive Board concluded that some shift has occurred in the risk spectrum and there is now an overall tendency towards an upside risk for inflation one to two years ahead. The Board also made the overall assessment that the time for an interest rate increase is probably not far off if economic statistics continue to confirm an upturn and if inflation remains high. In what I have to say here today I shall be starting from this appraisal, which I will place in its context and then to some extent try to look ahead. Inflation prospects determine the repo rate When the Riksbank sets the repo rate, the focal point is an analysis of future inflation in Sweden. This analysis is based in turn on three factors in particular: total resource utilisation, the path of the exchange rate and people’s inflation expectations. Inflationary pressure normally varies with the demand situation and with changes in resource utilisation.
It is encouraging to hear that the Institute has had a successful year and that you are working on new initiatives to promote even higher professional standards. This is most welcome, as education and professional development are fundamental to the sustainability of our financial sector and its continued success. Your strategic partnerships with the University of Malta and overseas professional bodies such as the European Banking & Financial Services Training Association (EBTN), the London Institute of Banking and Finance, and the Global Association of Risk Professionals  Page 1 of 8  (GARP) - whose representatives are with us tonight - reflects the Institute’s excellent reputation. That a Committee member of IFS-Malta has been elected to the highest decision making body of a European association for a third consecutive term confirms the Institute’s integrity and professionalism. The Central Bank has always worked closely with IFS and will continue to support its activities. This year, we also cooperated with the IFS during the European Money Week to promote financial literacy to underprivileged youths and participated in the successful IFS Malta Annual Seminar on pension reform. I look forward to even more cooperation in the future. Mr President, well done and thank you for taking a proactive stance towards raising the standards of financial services education. I wish you and your Committee every success in your future endeavours. Malta’s recent economic performance: Against a backdrop of weak growth in Europe as a whole, economic activity in Malta remains robust.

This has been further exacerbated by the low value addition of the agriculture sector in the economy. While the contribution of the crop sector amounts only to 14 percent of GDP, the individual contribution by the sub-crops has been negligible with tea contributing 1 percent, rubber 0.4 percent, coconut 1 percent and paddy 3 percent. Hence, even if the output of agriculture is doubled, it would not make a significant contribution to country’s wealth creation. If agriculture has its limited capacity for an accelerated growth, why not concentrate on industry? This may be a pertinent issue to be addressed at this stage. Certainly, unlike the agriculture, which is faced with the limitation of land, industry does not have any capacity or demand limitations. The nonavailability of raw materials or essential inputs or even the domestic demand for the output does no longer inhibit industrial growth. With globalization of trade and services and the advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), the previous bottlenecks for industrial growth have been efficiently sorted out. In today’s context, industrial outputs do not belong to a particular nation or country. They are jointly held products to which many nations or countries would have contributed.
One difficult question recently has concerned the rapid increases in house prices. These have risen at an annual rate of around ten per cent in recent years (Figure 8). Households have been taking on new loans at almost an equally rapid rate. There are several reasonable explanations as to why house prices have been rising so much for some time. For instance, there have been relatively few new homes built over the past decade. The high productivity growth may also have meant that households expect a more favourable development in income in the long term, compared with before and therefore take on more debts and buy homes. Furthermore, the credit markets are not as regulated as they were before. Together with the expansive monetary policy, this has contributed to high credit volumes in the economy. However, one cannot rule out the possibility that there are also exaggerated elements in this development and that expectations have become unrealistic as to how house prices will develop in future. One contributing factor could be that the interest rate in this economic cycle has been cut to a historically low level and this has led to exaggerated optimism regarding interest rates. Bond rates have also fallen to historically low levels both in Sweden and in many other countries. This could have further fuelled the optimism regarding interest rates. Of course, it is not easy to know whether these are important mechanisms or what can be considered a reasonable interest rate level in the long term.

These forecasts are, of course, uncertain and developments in recent years in particular have shown that events occur from time to time that are difficult to predict. It is therefore necessary to assume that inflation will during certain periods deviate from the target and sometimes deviate substantially. The important thing in the long term is not the temporary fluctuations in inflation, but that expectations are anchored around the inflation target. The inflation target can then fulfil its important function as nominal target when prices and wages are set and investment decisions are made. And in this respect we appear to have succeeded well (Figure 7). Let me in this context also briefly mention how we make our forecasts. Previously we made forecasts on the basis that the repo rate - our policy rate - would remain constant during the forecast period. If inflation was expected to be lower than two per cent, this was a signal that the interest rate needed to be cut, and if it was expected to be higher, the rate needed to be raised. However, the assumption that the repo rate would remain entirely unchanged over a long period of time is fairly unrealistic. Many times – for instance when everyone is expecting a long period of interest rate increases or interest rate cuts – this assumption of a constant repo rate makes it difficult for us to make reasonable forecasts. Now our forecasts are instead based on an assumption that the repo rate will develop in line with market expectations.