samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
On the other hand, it can also be interpreted as evidence that the fiscal burden is relatively low, which would be conducive to economic expansion. It is, however, probable that the moderate tax ratio does not reflect low fiscal pressure as much as the use of inappropriate mechanisms which yield insufficient revenues. One reason for this is that direct taxation is rather progressive, which creates a disincentive for work, or at least for work in the formal economy. At the same time, it is common knowledge that tax evasion is still widespread. These  4  BIS Review 67/2004  phenomena may well be compounded by distortions inherent in the system, among them the charging of a minimum national insurance contribution on part-time work. All of this suggests that the taxation system should be further refined in order to enhance the degree of compliance and to shift the tax burden away from productive activities. Conclusion On this same occasion five years ago my analysis of the country’s economic condition led me to conclude that the status quo was not sustainable. I expressed the view that the time had therefore come for us as a nation, not as followers of narrow sectoral interests, to revisit the choices made in the past and to establish new priorities commensurate with the prevailing economic realities, with the limited resources available to us and with our core values. The situation we face today compels me to reiterate this appeal with greater conviction. For we have clearly not done enough.

This year, as explained in Malta’s Convergence Programme 2004-2007, the general government deficit is expected to fall to just above 5% of GDP, which is still, however, one of the highest ratios in the EU. The persistence of the fiscal deficit has resulted in a rapid accumulation of government debt, which as a percentage of GDP trebled between 1990 and last year to around 70%. There is clearly no alternative to the fiscal consolidation envisaged in the Convergence Programme because, if the deficit is left unchecked at this year’s level, the debt to GDP ratio would exceed 80% by 2010. The fact that this heavy burden of debt has been accumulated to a large extent to finance recurrent spending rather than to build up income-generating assets is a matter of some concern. 1  2  Except where otherwise specified, fiscal data refer to the Consolidated Fund. BIS Review 67/2004  A further undesirable consequence of this behaviour is an increasingly unmanageable debt-servicing burden. This year the Government is spending Lm1 out of every Lm8 of tax revenue merely to service its debt. Put differently, the fiscal deficit would be just one-tenth of its actual level were it not for debt-servicing costs, which now amount to around 95% of expenditure on health and 90% of that on education. This is not a healthy state of affairs. Not only does interest on the debt increase the fiscal deficit, but it also crowds out those expenditures which should be receiving priority.
Moreover, in real terms, according to third quarter’s data, net exports deficit narrowed and contributed positively to aggregate demand. Annualised contraction of net exports deficit is assessed to be resulting from imports of goods and services decline by about 4.2% in real terms and exports upsurge by about 8.6%. Monetary indicators were in line with developments in the economy’s real sector. Our analysis and assessments suggest that higher monetary supply is in accordance with economic agents’ demand for real money, while monetary inflationary pressures in the economy are contained. Growth of M3 aggregate was slower in the second half of 2011, influenced by lower money creation in foreign currencies. During July–October, annual average growth of monetary assets in the economy was 10.4%. Contribution of private sector’s demand for loans remained unchanged. At the end of November, its annualised growth was 10.9%. Crediting remains under the influence of low demand for loans and more prudent lending policies by banks. Economic agents’ behaviour continues to be conditioned by uncertainty for the future, which, in turn, conditions spending and investments in the economy. On the other hand, credit supply is tight, as lending standards performance shows. Financial markets during the second half of 2011 were calm and reflected relatively downward premiums on liquidity risk and inflation. Successive key rate cuts were swiftly reflected in the interbank market. In the primary market, government security yields dropped, reflecting the key interest rate cut as well as the low demand of the public sector for loans.

The risk that the figures that are now emerging might herald a sharp correction in the imbalances that built up in the Chinese economy during the lengthy period of strong growth is having a negative impact on world trade, oil prices and the stock markets and foreign exchange markets. It is also very probably having an effect on the timing of the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its key policy rates. A more positive development, however, is the approval and start-up of the Third Bailout Programme for Greece, which has mitigated another key source of uncertainty for both the European and the Spanish economy. In the euro area, GDP rose by 0.4% in Q2. This is lower than the Q1 figure (0.5%) and it is also lower than most forecasts of public and private sector analysts. Along the same lines, on 3 September the European Central Bank (ECB) revised down slightly its growth projections for the euro area, for both 2015 and 2016, to 1.4% and 1.7%, respectively. These figures continue, in any event, to be more positive than those expected at the end of last year. The inflation projections were also revised down, to 0.1% for 2015 and 1.1% for 2016. Inflation is, therefore, expected to continue to rise, in 2017 also, but at a slower pace, remaining still some distance from the price stability target of 2%. On 3 September the ECB reiterated that it was willing and able, if need be, to adopt a more expansionary monetary policy stance.
The major global banks have raised $ billion of new equity over the past few years and are on course as a group to meet the Basel III standards more than four years in advance of the deadline. In the UK, all major banks and building societies now have in place credible plans to achieve the Bank of England’s thresholds for capital and leverage. To finish the job, international regulators need to agree over the next year new rules for capital to be held in banks’ trading books, a simple leverage ratio and a guideline which governs the stability of banks’ funding. Alongside these efforts to increase resilience, our focus is on solving the problem of banks that are too big to fail. Systemic resilience depends on being able to resolve failing banks in a way that does not threaten the entire system. Fairness demands the end of a system that privatises gains but socialises losses. And simple economics dictates that the UK state cannot stand behind a banking system that is already many times the size of the economy. Moreover, without a credible means to resolve failing banks, regulatory Balkanisation will continue as national regulators seek to protect their own interests, threatening the efficient operation of the international financial system and accordingly London’s competitiveness. To avoid these risks, we need to make the resolution of global banks a real option. Successful cross-border resolution requires coordination and cooperation between authorities across multiple jurisdictions.

WGCR round table 14 September 2018  Remarks by François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France  Key notes  Press contact: Mark Deen (mark.deen@banque-france.fr). Page 1 sur 3 Ladies and Gentlemen, Cher Benoît, Cher Jean-Paul, Welcome to Paris, The guidance released by CPMI-IOSCO two years ago was one of the precursors in the field of cyber risks. Since then, the level of cyber-threats has obviously increased. According to different public reports, the number of cyber-attacks (700 million in 2017) has increased by over 100% in two years. This is why cyber security will be one of the priorities of the G7’s French Presidency next year. I would like to share with you three considerations and put forward three concrete measures so that these principles do not remain at the conceptual level but actually lead to tangible actions. ** I. Three considerations, or three S’s: Silos / Security of Systems / Speed 1) The first is of a general nature. Considering that “security is a block”, we need to explore how to break the silo within the financial sector, which does not take account of the multiplicity of its stakeholders: the CPMI-IOSCO principles rightly emphasise the need to take into account interconnections, meaning the link between FMIs, between FMIs and their service providers and suppliers. Nowadays, we should also take into account, alongside regulated and supervised participants, the existence of Fintechs, as well as “big techs”.
And LIFFE do not need me to argue their case for them. I see from the programme that they are sponsoring the coffee and the tea at this conference. As a regulator it will of course be quite impossible for me to accept such lavish and unreasonable hospitality, but the rest of you are welcome to do so. For the moment, LIFFE has a dominant position in short-term interest rate futures and is the leading contender to capitalise on that position, whether or not the UK elects to join EMU in the first wave. It has already amended its contract specifications and from March 1999 onwards these contracts will settle against the three-month interest rate for euros, a move which has been widely welcomed in the industry. The new euro bond market is likely to support a range of futures contracts, as I have said, and it is not impossible that more than one identical contract will continue to exist post-EMU, due to arbitrage opportunities, as happens now between the LIFFE’s and the DTB’s Bund contract. That will be an interesting competitive arena to watch. As far as OTC derivatives are concerned, there is little reason why London should lose its pre-eminent position as a result of EMU. OTC markets by definition have no centralised trading platform and their location will depend on, for example, the regulatory environment, the availability of staff of sufficient quality and in sufficient numbers and the other success factors I described earlier.

Warning notes have been sounded, of course, about the need to avoid a lumbering, slow-moving bureaucracy, and the need to ensure that regulation is appropriate for the type of market. I understand those points and, particularly as far as you are concerned, the need to distinguish between professional wholesale markets and the retail sector. There are some interesting developments in that direction in the US at present, which we shall certainly look carefully at as we decide our own new structures. But, overall, I sense that we begin the task with some goodwill in the marketplace. I was particularly interested to see the summary of the views of members of your Association on regulation in the Price Waterhouse report published late last year. That is a helpful document which we will take into account. I was struck by the importance you attached to a clear but flexible regulatory environment, which scored highly as a success factor as far as the London market was concerned. And I took the strong point made about the need for cost control, on the one hand, and to provide a framework which facilitates innovation. When it came to structure, your views were divided. But I was encouraged that the option of an enlarged SIB incorporating the SROs was the one which received the strongest favourable response. There was also quite a bit of support for taking banking supervision out of the Bank of England.
The Basel Standards do not include intangible assets in bank capital, which would include software assets in the UK. We have not identified any evidence to support the notion that software assets have value in stress. On that basis, including them in bank capital would give a false picture of a bank’s loss absorbing capacity. We are therefore intending to consult on plans to amend this on-shored EU rule in order to maintain the previous requirements of excluding software assets from bank capital. This is in line with global standards and will enhance the safety and soundness of UK firms. The insurance case rests on a different argument. Solvency 2 is an all embracing rulebook covering both general/non life and life insurance. In practice, it probably works better for the non life world, because the risks and activities are more common across different national markets. Non life insurance is a broad and diverse sector, but each GI product occurs in different national markets in a more similar form. But, I have never been convinced that the EU had a commonality of forms of life insurance across its national markets. They are in some cases at least quite distinct markets and products. Certainly that is the case in the UK, where annuity business is a quite specific activity. Some specific elements of Solvency 2 have not proved to work for that market as well as hoped, 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  so it is right that we should review it.

Out of the financial crisis came the importance of the global Financial Stability Board with a mandate to promote international financial stability underpinned by strong regulation, supervisory and other financial sector policies, reinforcing thereby the importance of G20 nations. The FSB works closely with, and is supported by, the four standard setting bodies of the international financial system – the Basel Committee for banks, IOSCO for markets, the IAIS for insurance, and the CPMI for payment and markets infrastructure. And, just to underline the importance we see in these bodies, it is with pride that I can say that the Bank of England chairs two of the four – Jon Cunliffe for CPMI and Victoria Saporta for IAIS. These bodies are where the critical standards for governing the financial system get hammered out, where safe openness is put into practice. They are very clearly global in reach, necessarily so. They are not regional, they are global. We cannot participate in these bodies, and they cannot function as they do, unless we are all prepared to enter into the process and listen to and accept ideas from others. It requires us to give up some control over our standards and rules, because the alternative of a narrow domestic control is illusory – it would jeopardise achieving the very things we want, safe open markets, and likewise open economies. Above all, these bodies enable us to build the trust that enable our financial systems to stay open.
To promote growth in our local communities, we publish extensive data and analysis on the local economy. We provide outreach initiatives, such as our workshops on access to global markets to help small businesses learn about loan programs and sources of credit enhancements. We also run an annual video festival for college students in the Second District. In this program student teams produce videos aimed to help young adults make  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  sound personal financial decisions. A panel of advertising and video professionals selects winning video productions for screening in local movie theaters. As you know, even states as wealthy as Connecticut have large pockets of poverty. So, we target some of our work specifically to low- and moderate-income groups. We have worked hard to help neighborhoods that face high foreclosure rates. This work is important obviously because foreclosures are a terrible event for those who lose their homes. But beyond that, this work is important because high levels of foreclosures affect neighbors’ home values, the local tax base and economic vitality more broadly. We have provided housing counselors and community groups with the latest information on mortgage conditions via mortgage briefs, roundtables, presentations and an interactive web tool that shows very local monthly delinquency and foreclosure conditions. This past fall we hosted a conference on distressed residential real estate to share new expert analysis with senior policymakers and practitioners from across the nation.

Under this scenario, at the time that asset purchases came to an end, the unemployment rate likely would be near 7 percent and the economy’s momentum strengthening, supporting further robust job gains in the future. As I noted last week in our regional press briefing, a few points deserve emphasis. First, the FOMC’s policy depends on the progress we make towards our objectives. This means that the policy – including the pace of asset purchases – depends on the outlook rather than the calendar. The scenario I outlined above is only that – one possible outcome. Economic circumstances could diverge significantly from the FOMC’s expectations. If labor market conditions and the economy’s growth momentum were to be less favorable than in the FOMC’s outlook – and this is what has happened in recent years – I would expect that the asset purchases would continue at a higher pace for longer. Second, even if this scenario were to occur and the pace of purchases were reduced, it would still be the case that as long as the FOMC continues its asset purchases it is adding monetary policy accommodation, not tightening monetary policy. As the FOMC adds to its stock of securities, this should continue to put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, making monetary policy more accommodative. Third, the Federal Reserve is likely to keep most of these assets on its balance sheet for a long time.
The recent period of low inflation may appear surprising from a cyclical perspective given that we have seen positive economic growth over the past four years, supporting a steady and gradual absorption of economic slack. This has raised the question of 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  which factors, cyclical or structural, may have played a role in the growth-inflation relationship. A comprehensive analysis by the Eurosystem has concluded that adverse cyclical factors have played a crucial role in explaining low underlying inflation. These notably consisted of dampened economic activity and high unemployment in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis, and subsequently subdued foreign demand and low oil prices.2 Yet, these factors are of a temporary nature and should not affect inflation over a medium-term horizon, even though they might impact on the speed of adjustment in inflation. Moreover, given the uncertainty surrounding the measurement of economic slack, the true amount may be larger than estimated, which could slow down the emergence of price pressures. This is particularly visible in the labour market, where wage growth has remained subdued despite strong employment gains. Nonetheless, these factors should wane as the economic expansion continues and unemployment further declines. In fact, wage growth in the euro area has already picked up recently and the labour market is expected to improve further.

5  1  An additional element has been exchange rate targeting which was based on an external anchor. Effectively, this represents an intermediate objective if domestic credibility of the central bank may be weak. 2  See Greenspan (2002), Blinder (2005), Mishkin (2007) and Bean, Paustian, Penalver, and Taylor (2010), “Monetary Policy after the Fall”, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Annual Conference, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, August. 3  See the discussion in Christiano, Ilut, Motto, and Rostagno (2010) on “Monetary policy and Stock Market Booms.”  4  See “A Monetary Policy Strategy in Good and Bad Times: Lessons from the Recent Past” Fahr, Motto, Rostagno, Smets and Tristani, ECB Working Paper Series No. 1336, May 2011. 5  See the evidence in Fischer, Lenza, Pill and Reichlin (2008): “Money and monetary policy – the ECB experience 1999–2006” and Trichet (2008): “Risk and the Macro-economy”, Keynote address at the conference “The ECB and its watchers X”. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that nobody – including central bankers – has expected a crisis of the dimension that we have been experiencing since five years. 6 The overall favourable macroeconomic constellation from the Great Moderation, with low volatility and robust growth, has certainly induced some benign neglect – also on the policy side.
The Central Bank pursues and will continue to pursue its monetary policy objectives with determination within the context of its historical mission and responsibility, as stated in the legal framework and the guidelines that were determined in 2001. In this framework, inflation targets are determined jointly with the government; while the choice of the monetary policy tools and their implementation principles are determined by the Central Bank. In other words, the Central Bank was provided with the instrumental independence by its law. The instrumental independence enables the Central Bank to design and implement its monetary policies with a medium term perspective. Distinguished Guests, Following the establishment of the institutional and legal framework of the monetary policy in accordance with the modern central banking principles, significant steps were taken in the fight against inflation. Thus, a rapid disinflation process was experienced and all of the inflation targets were attained for four consecutive years due to the macroeconomic policies, especially the fiscal policy that were implemented consistently with the inflation targets. The inflation rate of 7.7 percent realized at the end of 2005 was the lowest figure, which was recorded in the last thirty-five years. However, price stability could not have been achieved yet despite all these favorable developments and achievements. Our fight against inflation still continues. It should not be forgotten that this is a long and challenging process as confirmed by the inflation figures of 2006.

With its long history and impressive membership, ACI has developed very much into an icon of professionalism in finance, contributing to "market development through education, market practices, technical advice and networking events for the financial practitioners of the world". The Association therefore has a very important role to play and faces in the coming years much greater challenge than before in promoting and upholding professional and ethical standards in finance. One interesting, perhaps even perplexing, aspect of the current financial turmoil is that emerging markets, particularly those in Asia, have only been lightly affected, so far. One reason is that financial innovation, in the form of credit risk transfer through securitisation by the "originate and distribute" model, has not caught on in Asia to the same extent as in the United States. Indeed, economies in different stages of financial sector development face different issues, notwithstanding the clear trend of globalisation in finance. Correspondingly, in promoting and upholding professionalism in finance, there may be a need for different emphases and approaches, having regard to the different development stages that individual regions and economies are undergoing. But it is also important that these different emphases and approaches should be developed within the framework of global standards. I therefore wholeheartedly support regional outreach initiatives of international standard setting bodies such as the ACI. Asia, of course, is region of rising importance in the global context, particularly in terms of finance.