samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In recent years, much of the (meagre) productivity growth seen in the euro area has come through labour shedding rather than from strong value added growth. And if those displaced don’t have the right skills to find another job, structural unemployment is likely to increase further, or they will be forced to consider low productivity sectors, and then aggregate productivity growth will stagnate once more. Neither scenario is desirable or sustainable. So our aim must be to achieve high productivity growth at full employment. But how can that be achieved? Essentially, there are two channels towards higher productivity growth, and to combine productivity growth with full employment we need to employ both. The first is within-firm productivity growth, which is about investing in or adopting new technology. There’s quite some debate, led by scholars like Robert Gordon, as to whether the great waves of technological innovation are now behind us. 11 But whether or not that’s the case, I don’t see it as a barrier to productivity growth in the euro area. In fact, we still have a long way to go to capitalise on the last wave of innovation – the ICT revolution – which many firms have not yet incorporated into their business models. Indeed, a large part of the difference in productivity performance between the US and the euro area can be attributed to the fact that US firms have invested more in ICT capital, and crucially, in the human and organisational capital necessary to full reap the benefits of it.

Data and news that transcends boundaries in real time are important for not only investors and financial institutions but also for researchers and scholars in Islamic finance. It will contribute towards enhancing competitiveness, product innovation and strengthen the international financial inter-linkages. As we enter this new decade, the challenge for the world is to sustain the economic recovery. While there continues to be many problems still to be addressed in the developed world, most emerging economies have continued to do well. In Malaysia, our economy recorded a strong growth of 7.2% in 2010 driven by strong domestic demand and our stronger economic and financial linkages with other emerging economies. An important part of this recovery is the strong recovery in private investment as capacity utilisation increases and as the dynamic nature of our economy presents new investment opportunities in new growth areas. For the Islamic finance industry, the year 2011 is set to be an exciting period. The global sukuk issuance in the year 2010 surpassed that of the previous year by more than 20 per cent. Against this positive growth, renewed confidence of investors and issuers is evident. In 2011, the sukuk issuance is projected to surpass the level recorded in 2007 when it sustained the highest level of issuances. The year 2010 also saw Malaysia’s evolution as a multi-currency sukuk origination platform with four foreign currency sukuk issuances amounting to about USD3 billlion.
Monetary policy’s role is to ensure low and stable inflation. Experience shows that we cannot reduce unemployment over time by simply accepting somewhat higher inflation. In many countries, including Norway, confidence that inflation will be held at bay has increased because interest rate setting has been delegated to the central bank. We are now in a period where petroleum wealth is being invested in foreign financial assets via the Government Petroleum Fund. The government is to gradually phase in petroleum revenues into the domestic economy by using approximately the expected real return on the Fund. The fiscal rule was established in 2001. Growth in public spending started to accelerate in 1997 from its low level in the mid-1990s. Spending growth has also been fairly strong in recent years, but perhaps somewhat slower than earlier. The fiscal rule for the budget implies that the government can use 4 per cent of the Fund over time. This year, a little more than 6 per cent is being used. The deviation partly reflects an unexpected shortfall in tax revenues in recent years. The government budget deficit is the difference between total revenues and total spending. They each account for about half of total GDP in Norway. Even small deviations from spending and revenue projections can have a major impact on the deficit. Exchange rate changes will also lead to fluctuations in the value of the Petroleum Fund.

Jarle Bergo: The economic outlook Address by Mr Jarle Bergo, Deputy Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), to invited foreign embassy representatives, Norges Bank, Oslo, 31 March 2005. The address is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 16 March and on previous speeches. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The references and the Charts in pdf-format  can also be found on the website of the Norges Bank. *  *  *  Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to attend this event. It provides me with an opportunity to present Norges Bank’s view of the economic outlook. This year marks the centennial of the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. Historically, an important part of nation-building has been the establishment of a monetary system and a central bank. In Norway, the stage was set for the introduction of a national currency in autumn 1814. With the prospect of a union with Sweden, a clause was included in the Constitution saying that Norway would maintain its own bank and its own monetary system. The monetary unit was the specie daler. In 1875, the Storting (Norwegian parliament) decided to join the currency union that Denmark and Sweden had established two years earlier. The specie daler was then replaced by the krone.
As Chart 1 shows, UK GDP grew by 2.5% in the year following the trough of output in the third quarter of 2009, compared with 2.0% growth following the trough in the early 1980s and a rise of just 0.5% in GDP in 1991/92.3 Manufacturing industry has performed particularly strongly, benefiting from the global recovery and a competitive pound, and the recent annual growth of manufacturing output has been the strongest recorded since 1994. 2  Initial estimates of GDP growth made in the 1980s and 1990s were even more volatile, with quarterly GDP changes fluctuating from –1.8% to +2.3% in the first three years of the 1980s recovery and from –0.8% to +1.2% in the early phase of the 1990s recovery. 3  Growth was stronger in the first year of sustained recovery in the second half of 1992 and the first half of 1993, but this was later in the cycle (ie longer after the cyclical peak) than the other periods shown in Chart 1. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Chart 1 – Early recoveries compared Annual percentage growth in the four quarters after cycle trough 5.0 1980s (81Q1-82Q1)  4.5  1990s (91Q3-92Q3) 4.0  Current (09Q3-10Q3)  3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 GDP  Manufacturing  Services  Source: ONS  However, confidence in the progress of the recovery has been affected by the most recent GDP release which showed a fall in output in the final quarter of last year.

Tukiya Kankasa-Mabula: Technological developments in Zambia and the surrounding region Official opening speech by Dr Tukiya Kankasa-Mabula, Deputy Governor – Administration, Bank of Zambia, at the SADC Central Banks IT Forum 2008 Annual Conference, Livingstone, 3-7 March 2008. *  *  *  Protocol • The Chairman of the SADC ICT Forum, Mr Paulo Maculuve • The ICT Directors from the SADC Central Banks • Mrs. Esselina Macome (Dr), General Manager and Board Member, Banco de Moçambique • The ICT members of staff from SADC Central Banks represented here • Other members of staff from SADC Central Bank represented here • Representatives of Hardware and Software Suppliers • Members of the Press • Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen On behalf of the Bank of Zambia Governor, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you all to the “SADC Central Banks IT forum 2008 Annual conference”. To our colleagues from outside Zambia, I wish to extend a special welcome to you to Zambia, and in particular to Livingstone, our tourist capital especially at this time of the year. Like the rest of Zambia, Livingstone is a city of tranquility with an easy-going African charm. Apart from the famous Victoria Falls, other tourist spots include the Mukuni Cultural Village a well stocked curio market, among the many other attractions. I therefore urge you to find time or indeed stay an extra day or more to sample this special menu that Livingstone can offer.
In addition, efforts to enhance transparency have not progressed as well as I myself and many market participants had hoped. 8 There have of course been some positive developments, such as the development by BZW of Property Investment Certificates, the growing importance of data produced by the Investment Property Databank, and the development by RICS of new valuation standards in the revised Red Book. Some of the trade associations, such as the IPF and the Association of Property Bankers, have also developed well and have begun to play a very important role. I believe the Bank of England’s Property Forum, set up in 1993 to bring all sides of the industry together, has also made a positive contribution. But these developments cannot obscure the fact that, on the whole, this period has been one of disappointment. Property’s poor performance in the past few years has undoubtedly caused some to consider very carefully whether or not they wish to remain in property. The Present 9 Are we turning a corner? The commercial property market is important to the UK economy in many ways. Property and related activities such as construction make a significant contribution to GDP. The availability of property of the right standards at the right price is very important to UK competitiveness. This puts some onus on landlords to provide what is wanted. It is equally important that the planning authorities should continue to provide a consistent and flexible planning framework in which developers and landlords can operate and earn a satisfactory return.

If our monetary policy impulses are not transmitted uniformly to all of the area’s countries because of the bank-sovereign link, it undermines the very foundation of Europe’s monetary union; remember that three quarters of the financing of the euro area’s economy consists of bank loans. By breaking this link, a banking union would restore the federal dimension of monetary policy. Today the first pillar of the banking union is being constructed: the Single Supervisory Mechanism. We are currently working on legal issues, on identifying systemically important banks within the euro area, on the supervisory model, on the future data reporting and, of course, on the asset quality review that will be undertaken before we take on the responsibility of supervision. The governance structure we have adopted will guarantee that, while the Governing Council will keep the decision power, there will be no conflict of interest between monetary policy and banking supervision. On the contrary, more consistent supervision across the euro area should allow for the early detection of potential risks and imbalances and, ultimately, improve the transmission of monetary policy. This is a fundamental first step and its rapid implementation will be a major success for the euro area. But, alone, it cannot achieve the objectives of a banking union. That is why we must rapidly construct its two other pillars: a supranational bank resolution authority and a unified deposit insurance system.
There is therefore a common feature of banking and insurance in terms of continuity of access to critical financial services. The PRA has the general objective of ensuring the safety and soundness of the firms under its regulation. Safety and soundness is defined in terms of the resilience of the financial system, which in itself is closely linked to the access of users to critical financial services on a continuous basis. But for insurance we have a second objective, namely the protection of policyholders. Why do we have a second objective for insurance? For me, the reason is that continuity of insurance protection – of risk transfer and long-term savings products – requires a greater assurance that the policyholder has access to their contract – in other words, it is quite contract specific, and in some cases those contracts are long-term in nature. For banks, depositors want continuity of access to funds, but they have less need of access to the exact contract – deposits can be moved. Put another way, most of the underlying risks to banks arise from their assets, whereas for insurers they arise from liabilities and assets. So, we need somewhat different objectives for prudential supervision. The traditional model of supervision has been quite industry specific. The FSA regime introduced in 1997 created a single authority, but within the FSA the framework of rules  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  applied to insurance supervision was unique to the industry.

The Institute & Faculty of Actuaries has been at the heart of the insurance industry for over 150 years, and the changes to regulation, the industry and the world around us mean your contribution is more essential than ever. Having the right people putting the right ideas to work has never been more important. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7
Koh Yong Guan: Risk management development in Singapore Opening address by Mr Koh Yong Guan, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the first MAS Risk Conference, Singapore, 31 January 2002. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen  Introduction It is my pleasure to address the first MAS Risk Conference. I will cover two areas : •  First, the changing financial landscape and the challenges they pose for risk management; and  •  Second, the introduction of three risk management initiatives. Changing Financial Landscape and Challenges Over the last few years, there has been a fundamental change in the volatility of financial markets. The frequency and the contagion effects of crises affecting financial markets have also risen. The volatility of financial markets has increased. The lowering of regulatory barriers to capital flows has integrated global financial markets. This has increased the correlation and the transmission of volatility from one financial market to the next. As a result, the diversification benefits derived from investing in several markets have dissipated, leaving market participants exposed to greater financial risks than before. The emergence of complex derivative instruments has increased market liquidity, but also financial risk for those who are not well acquainted with the use of these instruments. While these new instruments have allowed market participants to transfer their credit risks and enhanced the efficient pricing of such risks, the use of derivatives for speculative purposes can result in large losses.

The Basle Capital Accord of 1988 was a landmark document for the banking industry. It helped increase the capital held by internationally active banks, and created a more level playing field for banks under different jurisdictions. However, there were some weaknesses in the Accord. The most important of these was the practice of assigning the same risk weight to all counterparties in each class, irrespective of the differences in their credit-worthiness. These issues led regulators to propose a more risk sensitive framework. The proposed new Capital Accord will have a great influence on the risk management practices of banks. The new Accord, however, poses challenges to Asian banks and regulators alike. Banks will have to develop more sophisticated risk management capability while regulators will need to build up technical knowledge as well as supervisory resources to validate banks’ risk management systems. As financial markets progress towards greater transparency, the market disciplinary mechanism will reward banks that manage their risks effectively, and penalise those that do not. Good risk management practice is thus even more essential for banks to maintain their competitiveness over the long run. The frequency of shocks has increased. In the past 10 years there has been an average of one shock every year starting from the Gulf War in 1991 to the Latin American crisis of the early nineties and so on down to the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997, the Russian Bond Default Crisis in ’98 and most recently last month, Argentina’s default. The causes of these stress events are wide-ranging.
And in some countries, the process of catching-up in real incomes has been slower than expected at the start of transition. For acceding countries as a whole, per capita income today is less than half of the average of the EU. Given the low starting point for most countries, increasing prosperity and living standards will be a major policy objective for quite some time. In view of that strategic objective, one has to underline that prudent macroeconomic policies are key to support and facilitate progress towards higher GDP-per-capita levels. Accession to the EU is expected to have positive effects on the countries' prospects for convergence. The full integration into the internal market will increase growth prospects and thus foster the catching-up process, mainly through trade and investment (FDI), together with lower interest rates. New Member States will have to implement and enforce the “acquis communautaire” of the European Union, which they have adopted in the course of recent years (excluding, for the time being, those areas where transitional arrangements apply). The EU has also been preparing intensively to make enlargement work. Within the realm of central banking, the Eurosystem has been engaged since 1999 in a constructive and ever more intensive dialogue with the central banks of the new Member States. Already since the signing of the EU Accession Treaty in 2003, the Governors of the national central banks of acceding countries have been taking part as observers in the General Council of the ECB.

Both new and current Member States alike will be able to enjoy the mutual benefits of a wider Union, in particular from the expanded internal market, as the cases of past enlargements showed. Trade integration has already reached a high level in the acceding countries, where 67% of the total exports and 60% of total import stems from the EU. Both the current and new Member States have prepared intensively for enlargement. Let me first focus on the situation in the new Member States and then in the present Union members. I will concentrate on the ultimate objective of enlargement from the monetary standpoint, namely the future adoption of the euro by the new EU Member States. The acceding countries have made remarkable progress in recent years. They significantly advanced macroeconomic stabilisation and structural reforms. Moreover, the former centrally planned economies have been able to establish functioning market economies. Overall, the progress they have made so far is encouraging. There remain, however, great challenges. The key ones are to advance real convergence while safeguarding and, where necessary, enhancing macroeconomic and financial stability. Locking in inflation at low levels, preserving the soundness of the financial sector, correcting of unsustainable external imbalances in a few cases and renewing efforts towards fiscal consolidation are all of the utmost importance. Moreover, the gap in per capita income between the  BIS Review 23/2004  1  current and most of the new Member States remains large.
2.3  The challenge for the EU institutions: enforcing economic union  The weakness of European economic union in the context of monetary union contributed to the development of the current crisis and, if we are to emerge from it stronger, real improvement is required in this area. European governments have fully understood this issue and have made concrete and significant progress towards a more integrated economic union. On the one hand, Europe has considerably enhanced its fiscal discipline framework. The legislative package (the so-called “Six Pack”) entered into force in December and considerably reinforces the Stability and Growth Pact: the surveillance powers of the European Commission over national budgets have been enhanced, sanctions have become quasi-automatic, the criteria for public debt and public spending are being more closely scrutinised and a new framework for the surveillance of macroeconomic imbalances and competitiveness developments has been put in place. In addition, 25 European Heads of State or government signed the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance which establishes a comprehensive new “fiscal compact”. It includes in particular a requirement for national budgets to be in balance or in surplus, a criterion that will be met if the annual structural government deficit does not exceed 0.5% of GDP. This rule must be incorporated into the Member States’ national legal systems, preferably at the constitutional level. On the other hand, Europe has equipped itself with an instrument to combat crises.

  The money markets are in much better shape as well: EURIBOR-OIS spreads have narrowed substantially, signalling a lowering of risk premia; the US money market funds seem to be re-opening access for euro area banks.   Tensions on sovereign debt markets have also eased: 10-year Italian bond rates have shed around 200bps since early December; Spanish rates have also decreased significantly in spite of recent renewed tensions.   Although at a low level, overall economic activity is stabilizing, as is bank lending. All these elements indicate a trend reversal. How has this come about? All of the players have proved their commitment and ability to restore stability. National authorities, especially in the most troubled countries, have taken far-reaching measures both to consolidate their public finances and to enhance long-term growth. The new Greek program has been launched. At the European level, a strong new fiscal compact has been agreed upon, as well as the rapid implementation of a powerful financial stability instrument. Banks are meeting their new capital requirements in an orderly way. And – I saved the best till last! – the Eurosystem has taken measures that have been absolutely decisive for this whole process to take place. Unquestionably, the steps already taken by the euro area to exit the crisis have been numerous and important. But recent market developments have reminded us that there is still a tremendous need for further demonstration of the determination of all the players in the European crisis to rise to the challenges facing us.