samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Along with the downturn that followed in the wake of the financial crisis, the Irish bank bailout quadrupled Ireland’s sovereign debt. 3 The interest on the debt is borne by all, rich and poor alike, regardless of who had benefited from the pre-crisis economic boom. The banking crisis and the government debt led to a deep economic downturn in Ireland. It is only now that Ireland has returned to its pre-crisis level of prosperity. But the economic and social consequences would probably have been even more serious if the banks had not been kept afloat. The Irish bank bailout illustrates a number of classic questions: Was it right for the government to risk its citizens’ money to rescue the banks? Did the Irish authorities actually have a choice? When things went wrong, was it right to protect creditors as the Irish authorities ultimately did? How has this affected the future risk taking of the banks’ owners and creditors? The answer to the question of whether banks should be rescued is about economics and incentives. But the problems banks create and how these problems are solved are also a matter of morals and ethics – law and justice. Norway has also been faced with these problems. Why are banks bailed out? In 1923, a little more than 90 years ago, there was a banking crisis in Norway. One of the banks in serious difficulty was Andresens og Bergens Kreditbank, or Foreningsbanken, as it  1  IMF Country Report No. 15/20.

Jon Nicolaisen: Should banks be bailed out? Speech by Mr Jon Nicolaisen, Deputy Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, 14 April 2015. *  *  *  Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. On Sunday, 29 September 2008, two weeks after the bankruptcy of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers, the Irish government faced a dilemma: On the following morning, Monday, 30 September, the debt of a number of Irish banks was falling due, and many of these banks could not meet their obligations. Unable to issue new debt in the market, they were in danger of failing. If the banks were to close, economic activity in Ireland would be crippled. The authorities had to act. It was not a matter of a trifling amount. At the time, the debt of Irish-owned banks was over two times Ireland’s GDP. 1 Over half of the banks’ debt had been funded in the market. That evening, the Irish government decided to guarantee most of the debt of Irish-owned banks for two years. The government and the Irish people thereby assumed a considerable risk. Eventually, the losses at Irish banks also proved to be enormous. Since then, the Irish authorities have made capital injections into banks equivalent to around 40 percent of GDP to keep the banks running. 2 This is money the Irish government has had to borrow.
Since the summer of last year we have cut our policy rates into negative territory, launched a credit easing package and begun purchasing private and public sector securities under the asset purchase programme (APP). A large body of evidence has accrued in that time that our instruments are powerful. And that evidence has allowed us to refine further our understanding of the amount of stimulus required to bring inflation back to 2% without undue delay. For example, since we launched our credit easing package in June 2014, composite lending rates for firms have declined by more than 80 basis points for the euro area as a whole, and by between 110-140 basis points in stressed economies. That is a formidable pass-through. ECB staff estimates suggest that we would have needed to reduce the standard policy rates by around 100 basis points in June 2014 to achieve a similar effect on bank lending rates. Improving financing conditions have also fed into improving macroeconomic conditions. According to Eurosystem staff assessments, our measures will add almost 1% to GDP between 2015 and 2017. And we are seeing an effect even on smaller firms that are typically harder for monetary policy to reach. In our most recent survey on smaller firms in the euro area, for instance, we saw for the first time since 2009 that the net percentage of small firms registering an improvement in business activity has turned positive, for all size sub-groups. Crucially, our measures are also gradually feeding through into inflation.

In this connection, we also believe that it is crucial that banks should review and revamp their incentive systems so as to avoid rewarding staff on the basis of sales volume and commission earned, which would  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  nurture a tendency to push financial products to customers to meet business targets without giving sufficient regard to the interests of the customers. This change in the incentive system to reduce mis-selling is taking place in the more advanced markets, and Hong Kong must not lag behind if we wish to continue to pride ourselves as one of the leading international financial centres. In terms of helping the customers to become smarter and more responsible, we need to enhance the financial literacy of our citizens. Surely there is plenty of scope to include financial literacy education in our school and university curriculum. In addition, the HKMA, in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Consumer Council as well as the Investor Education Centre set up by the SFC, is going to launch a new public education programme that seeks to help bank customers become “Smart and Responsible”. The first of a series of programmes will be rolled out in the next few months. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure all of you are frequent users of banking services.
Instead, the proper way to act is to strengthen the financial system and macroeconomic policies, in order to minimize their probability of occurrence and their consequences, and to set up a proper crisis-management strategy once they hit. As in the case of natural disasters, or accidents, the fact that crises will continue to happen does not mean that we must allow no regulation of economic activities (such as building codes, or driving standards). Countries with better building codes are better at facing earthquakes. In the case of financial crises, it is reasonable to improve regulatory mechanisms, particularly to allow financial innovation while keeping vulnerability at bay. Meanwhile, it is necessary to continue devoting efforts to the detection of early alerts, although unambiguous indicators are impossible to find. But there are symptoms of fragility, very common in emerging economies. High and persistent current-account deficits, misaligned exchange rates, currency mismatches in the financial and corporate sectors, excessive increases in the prices of assets and credit, all signal a potential problem, although they do not necessarily result in a crisis. Therefore, a look at the indicators is not enough; it is important to put them together to detect fragilities. This is precisely what we try to do in our financial stability reports, which allow us to gain an overall vision of vulnerabilities, although, once again, it does not provide a final verdict. Final remarks The world has gone through the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

The initial shock on the global economy did not differ much from the one that hit in the 1930s. There were many similarities between the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Worth noting are the initial fall in manufacturing output and trade, the collapse of stock prices and credit, and the increase in bond spreads (see Eichengreen and O’Rourke, 2010). These remarkable similarities in the first months of the crisis were alarming. The questioning of the profession was also worrisome. However, the subsequent evolution of the global economy was quite different from that of the Great Depression, and it was certainly the result of good macroeconomic management. There was a failure in crisis prevention, but the policy response has been good so far. More remarkable has been the response of emerging market economies. In particular, Latin America, a region that historically magnified the global cycle, this time will perform better than the world economy’s average. The world has still many macroeconomic problems to solve before we can declare victory. Indeed the same policies that averted a collapse require careful review to avoid planting the seeds for the next crisis. 3  On this issue, Rancière et al. (2008) find that “countries that have experienced occasional financial crises have on average grown faster than countries with stable financial systems”. 4  BIS Review 84/2010  First, there is a need to think seriously about moral hazard. It is true that during the crisis this was a second order problem.
The bill includes henceforth provisions on blockchains, tokens, ICOs and providers of crypto-asset services. However, adaptation of local national regimes should fit into a larger regulatory framework to be adopted at global level. There is indeed a need for overall consistency to prevent regulatory arbitrage under the “same activities, same risks, same rules” principle, and also to address risks that fall outside existing frameworks, including risks for fair competition and for transmission of monetary policy. Indeed, in July 2019, G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors agreed that possible stablecoins initiatives must meet the highest regulatory standards, be subject to prudent supervision and oversight and that possible regulatory gaps should, as a matter of priority, be assessed and addressed. Accordingly, at global level, several groups are working on a global regulatory and supervisory approach towards crypto-assets and a G7 working group is finalizing a report investigating specifically the impact of global stable coins, which should be published shortly. 3- But adapting the regulatory framework might not be enough. To preserve the advantages of  multiple issuers of settlement assets in providing innovative, efficient and safe means of payment, central banks as issuers of the reference settlement asset may contribute further in revisiting and improving the conditions under which they make available that settlement asset. In that perspective, a possibility regularly mentioned is that central banks issue their money in digital form, the so-called concept of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Kate Barker, ‘Monetary Policy in the UK – The Framework and current issues’ delivered at the National Association of Business Economics Policy Conference, Washington DC, March 2005, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin Q2 2005, pp 276-282. Rachel Lomax ‘The MPC comes of age’, a speech delivered at De Montford University, February 2007, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin Q1 2007, pp 106-111. Charlie Bean ‘Inflation Targeting: the UK experience’, speech at the Annual Congress of the German Economic Association, October 2003, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin Q4 2003, pp 479-494. BIS Review 96/2008  3  quite different in kind from the fan charts we publish in the UK, showing the band of uncertainty around central projections for output growth and inflation. Our ‘fans’ are not, as is sometimes suggested, a way of encompassing the central view of each of the nine individual members; they reflect collective discussion and agreement. Mutual engagement would not be needed if we were in the business of publishing nine individual fan charts. Frequently, we do indicate in the Inflation Report that different members assign different weights to the various risks around the central projection. And to be clear, individual members are not constrained to be part of the collective forecast; if our differences were sufficiently material, we could make that clear quantitatively in the Inflation Report. But, if at any point, all nine members did so, the centrifugal elements of our individualistic system could, it seems to me, lead to genuine cacophony.
Caleb M Fundanga: Catering for the un-banked population in Zambia Speech by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the official opening of Stanbic Bank Limited’s Mazabuka branch, Mazabuka Town, 10 October 2006. *  *  *  •  The incoming Member of Parliament for Mazabuka, Honourable Gary Nkombo,  •  The Regional Managing Director of Stanbic Africa, Mr. Clive Tasker  •  The Town Clerk, Mr. Chingangu  •  The District Commissioner, Mr. Chinda  •  Traditional leaders here present; Chief Mwanachingwala, Chief Mwenda, Chief Hanjalika, Chief Nalwama, Chief Monze  •  The Chairman of Stanbic Bank (Zambia) and all Board members present  •  The Managing Director of Zambia Sugar Plc, and Managing Director of Stanbic Bank (Zambia) Ltd  •  Stanbic Bank Management and staff present  •  Distinguished invited guests, ladies and gentlemen  It is an honour and privilege to be invited to officiate at this important occasion. Today I join the Bank’s Board Chairman in thanking the people of Mazabuka for the effort and support that has been extended in establishing this Stanbic Branch, which I believe is the first in Southern Province. Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen, I have keenly followed the progress and growth of Stanbic Bank in the last few years and I must say that as Governor of the Central Bank, it has been very gratifying to witness the progressive strategies of a privately owned commercial bank.

Let me expand a little on these vulnerabilities: Repeated downward revisions to the economic outlook and accommodative monetary policy actions on both sides of the Atlantic have put downward pressure on global bond yields across the whole maturity spectrum. For the first time in history, large parts of the yield curve for many euro area sovereign bonds, in particular those issued by governments with high credit ratings, have entered negative territory. It is often said that low or negative interest rates inflate asset prices as investors search for yield and take on more credit and duration risk. Equity and corporate bond prices, for instance, have appreciated across the globe over the past decade as yields have followed a path of long-term decline. Abrupt corrections, especially in equity markets and markets for lower-rated bonds remain a risk, particularly in the face of high economic and political uncertainty. Low funding costs can encourage firms to increase their leverage, which might intensify vulnerabilities in the event of an economic downturn. This risk has increased as the economic outlook has worsened and the share of triple-B ratings has grown. Concerning the second vulnerability, in several countries debt in the public and/or nonfinancial private sectors is lingering at levels that are high by historical and international standards. This leaves public and private finances exposed to the risk of a sudden change in market sentiment or deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. Third, parts of the banking sector continue to exhibit weak performance.
Prasarn Trairatvorakul: Financial inclusion and financial literacy in Asia Opening remarks by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the OECD/Thailand Seminar on “Financial Inclusion and Financial Literacy in Asia”, Bangkok, 16 December 2014. *  *  *  Mr. André Laboul, Chair of the OECD International Network on Financial Education, Distinguished Guests, Honorable Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning, I would like to start by welcoming you all to Bangkok. It is a great honor for the Bank of Thailand to co-host the OECD Seminar on Financial Inclusion and Financial Literacy in Asia with our partner, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand. And, it is my great pleasure to deliver the keynote speech at this very important event. Many of you might question why the Central Bank Governor is here at this forum on financial inclusion and financial literacy, as the Governor should be more worried about the slowdown of growth in major economic sectors or macro-economic policies aimed at stimulating Thailand’s GDP at this very challenging period in our country. The reason I am here today is that financial inclusion and financial literacy are the pre-requisites for solid development of the national economy and a sound financial system. Ladies and Gentlemen, the ultimate goal of the Bank of Thailand, as well as of other central banks, is to ensure sustainable economic growth which will enhance the well-being of our people.

Broader access: The Bank wishes to promote membership of RTGS and has made steps towards this by extending direct access to RTGS accounts for non-bank Payment Service Providers (PSPs). We will also continue to focus on streamlining the onboarding and testing regimes for direct members. Wider interoperability: We will promote ways in which users can reroute payments especially if outages occur. This will reduce the risk of downtime and help to keep the economy moving. Implementation of the ISO 20022 Common Credit Message (CCM) across CHAPS, Bacs and FPS will aide in this. Improved user functionality: The new system will be designed to better support the needs of users, for example enhanced liquidity management. And we will also look to extend opening hours. Strengthened end-to-end risk management: A more robust system with greater oversight and governance from the Bank of England has been introduced since the operation of CHAPS was brought in-house in November 2017. The Bank now has responsibility for system-wide risk management, including relationships with participants, and clearer lines of responsibility and integrated governance will help to reduce further the risks in the High-Value Payment System (HVPS).
11  13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  13  Global developments, Brexit and UK monetary policy Now consider the implications of global developments for the outlook for UK inflation and growth Unlike many other jurisdictions, inflation in the UK is currently at the MPC’s 2% target, the labour market remains tight with wages and unit labour costs growing at target-consistent rates, and inflation expectations of UK households and businesses remain well-anchored. The UK outlook also continues to be shaped by Brexit. Until the turn of the year, the UK economy had been growing around its trend rate. As the MPC had anticipated, this year increased Brexit uncertainty is causing volatility in the UK data. Output increased by 0.5% in the first quarter of this year, boosted by an important contribution from companies bringing forward production to build stocks ahead of the potential 29th March cliff edge. Growth in the second quarter will be considerably weaker, in part due to the absence of that stock building effect and Brexit-related, temporary shutdowns by several major car manufacturers. 12 Recent data also raise the possibility that the negative spillovers to the UK from a weaker world economy are increasing and the drag from Brexit uncertainties on underlying growth here could be intensifying. The latest surveys point to no growth in UK output. Looking across the first half of the year, in my view, underlying growth in the UK is currently running below its potential, and is heavily reliant on the resilience of household spending.

14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  14  Over the past two months, markets have placed a growing weight on the possibility of No Deal, with the betting odds doubling to almost one in three (Chart 11).13 Financial market participants have marked down UK-focused equity prices, sterling and their expectations for MPC policy accordingly.14 Chart 11: Perceived probability of No Deal Brexit up again Meaningful Vote 2  Cross-party talks collapse  PM requests extension of Art. 50  7 Labour MPs resign 3 Tory MPs resign  Withdrawal Agreement voted down  Per cent 40  Theresa May announces resignation  35 30  Further extension of Art. 50 requested EC confirm flexible extension  25 20 15 10 5 0  18 Jan. 19  15 Feb. 19  15 Mar. 19  12 Apr. 19  10 May. 19  07 Jun. 19  Sources: Betfair odds that the UK leaves the EU in 2019 without a Withdrawal Agreement in place and Bank calculations. While the MPC would do what it could to support the economy in the event of No Deal, I would underscore the MPC’s caution that the response of monetary policy to Brexit will not be automatic. As the MPC has repeatedly emphasised, the appropriate monetary response to Brexit will depend on the balance of its effects on demand, supply and the exchange rate.
I wanted to ask you, do you think the removal of the Dodd-Frank Act would be productive for the economy? And if so, why? President Dudley: So removal of the Dodd-Frank Act be productive for the economy? I’m going to give you a little bit more nuanced answer. I don’t think it’s a question of either the Dodd-Frank Act or no Dodd-Frank Act. I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to the world we were in 2006, 2007, because that financial system led to the worst financial crisis that we’ve had since the Great Depression, and as you know the economy suffered greatly. The unemployment rate climbed over 10%. So clearly, we don’t want to go back to that. But at the same time, is the Dodd-Frank Act as it exists today perfect? I doubt it. What I tell people is we really want to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What we want is a system where we have banks with adequate capital, adequate liquidity – number one – so the probability of a large bank failing is a lot lower today than it was back in 2006 and 2007. Number two, we want a system where if a large bank were to get into difficulty, we have the ability to resolve it in a way that it doesn’t threaten to take down the rest of the financial system.

I said, “Tim, that’s a great job. I really like you, I’d love to work with you, but what do I do the 39 other hours of the week besides advise you?” And then a couple of weeks or months later, I can’t remember exactly how long it was, he called up again and said, “Well, how would you like to come to the New York Fed and run the Markets Group?” Markets Group at the time had about 230 employees. They executed monetary policy for the 14 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I wasn’t sure I was going to have any time to talk to Tim Geithner in that role. And so I said yes immediately. Dr. Olajide Oladipo: You have a question? Are you a student? Audience Member: Yes, I am. Dr. Olajide Oladipo: Thank you. Audience Member: I am a student. Thank you so much for taking the time and speaking to us. My question was, being from a younger generation, I’m definitely interested in investing, but what would be your biggest piece of advice. Especially for us, the younger generation, with a limited budget, what would you – how should we go about it? President Dudley: Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for investing advice before now. It’s probably not appropriate for the Federal Reserve to give out investing advice. I think the first thing is you want to get knowledgeable.