samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Having said that, I am fully aware of the possibility that the negative interest rates on excess liquidity holdings may affect the profitability of bank intermediation in the long run (since they are primarily funded by their clients’ deposits). I hence strongly advocated the introduction of the two-tier system in 2019, which aims to exempt part of credit institutions' excess liquidity holdings from the cost of the negative deposit facility rate. This has been a success in limiting the negative side effects on bank intermediation of low-for-long interest rates, thereby preserving the transmission of monetary policy. The exemption volume is determined as a multiple of banks' minimum reserve requirements, which is currently set at six. When the two-tier system was introduced, in October 2019, total excess liquidity was just above € trillion. As a result of the ECB response to the Covid pandemic, this has now jumped to € trillion, an amount well above the level of reserves necessary to steer market rates towards the deposit facility rate. This FREL - floor required excess liquidity - is currently estimated at about € trillion. Consequently, I would support a more rule-based approach to set the level of the multiplier, as a function of the change in excess liquidity net of both necessary (FREL) and borrowed reserves (TLTROs). Much more than subsidising liquidity provision beyond exceptional circumstances, a well calibrated tiering system belongs to the normal tools of monetary policy as shown by other jurisdictions. Let me conclude.

Individuals and businesses must be able to digitally access all their relevant data and make them available to third party service providers who can then serve these individuals and business in a holistic manner. This could be for purposes of financial planning, trade financing, credit scoring, etc. where data aggregation is important for more customised and comprehensive solutioning. When these foundational digital infrastructures come together, they will have the power to deliver truly end-to-end digital transactions. Take for example, cross-border digital payments. With the four foundational digital infrastructures working in concert, we can effectively tackle the big pain points in know-your-customer checks, sanctions screening, and exchange of documents, to enable cheaper, faster and secure payments. Singapore has implemented these four foundational digital infrastructures. Singaporeans can use their national digital identity – SingPass Mobile – to transact digitally with both the government and the private sector Using SingPass Mobile, Singaporeans can make available relevant verified information to allow banks to onboard them without the need for paper documentation or physical presence. Singapore’s retail payments infrastructure – FAST and PayNow – has made digital payments interoperable. Singaporeans can now move money to one another’s bank accounts in real-time and at zero cost, with just three clicks on their mobile phones, regardless of which bank app they use. The Singapore Financial Data Exchange – SGFinDex – is a pioneering data exchange platform, the first of its kind in the world.
Growth in number of hours worked 1981–2001 Per cent  3  3  Trend  2  2  Actual  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2  -2  -3  -3  -4  -4  -5  -5 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Fig. 7. Population growth in age group 20–64, 1969–2050, forecast from 2002 1,2  Per cent  1,2  1,0  1,0  0,8  0,8  0,6  0,6  0,4  0,4  0,2  0,2  0,0  0,0  -0,2  -0,2  -0,4 -0,4 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 Source: Statistics Sweden  BIS Review 16/2003  9  Fig. 8. Number of employed and average working hours, adjusted for sick leave Per cent 2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  -1 -2  -2 Employed  -3  -3  Average working hours  -4  -4  -5  -5  -6  -6 88  89  90  91  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99  00  01  02  Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank  Fig. 9.

those caused by fluctuations in economic activity. This applies both to the development of productivity and the labour supply. At the same time, distinguishing between processes that are lasting and those of a temporary nature is one of the most important aspects with regard to the discussion of a country's capacity for long-term growth. Let us then study the determining factors one by one. Signs of a better growth in productivity My third slide shows the development of labour productivity, measured as GDP per hour worked, together with an estimated trend (Figure 3). We see that productivity growth varies strongly, but also that it shows a tendency to increase over time, particularly during the 1990s. This is a marked difference compared with developments in the 1970s, when the trend was instead a downward one. During the 1980s the actual productivity growth levelled out at a low level and was often around 1 per cent or below - with the exception of a few individual years. During the 1990s, on the other hand, there was a rapid increase and productivity growth stabilised at a level above 2 per cent. We don't know exactly what was the driving force behind this development. But allow me nevertheless to indicate some factors that may have played an important role. The economic crisis at the beginning of the 1990s probably played a not so insignificant role in raising productivity growth during the first half of the 1990s.
•  As one of you put it recently, the adjectives used by bankers to describe the MAS are “no-nonsense”, “business-friendly”, “pragmatic”. •  You will be forgiven to think that we are sometimes schizophrenic. •  In my meetings with foreign bank CEOs, I have sometimes, in the same breath, said we would like to see an improvement in the bank’s risk management and internal controls and then asked what we could do to encourage the bank to expand its operations in Singapore – safely of course! Let me explain why we are both “no-nonsense” and “business-friendly”. The financial services sector is one of the key pillars of the Singapore economy. •  It accounts for about 13% of GDP and has strong positive demand spillovers on the rest of the economy. •  The sector employs about 200,000 people, 84% of them are Singapore citizens and PRs. –  It creates good jobs. –  The median wage for Singaporeans in financial services is $ compared to the national median of $  Financial services will become even more important in the future economy. •  The sector grew by an average of 8.6% p.a. during the last five years (2011–2015), two times faster than the overall economy at 4.0%.

Ravi Menon: Singapore’s financial centre – resilience, dynamism, trust Speech by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, to the Foreign Correspondents Association of Singapore, Singapore, 6 September 2016. *  *  *  Good afternoon. I accepted your invitation to speak not without some trepidation. •  The Foreign Correspondents Association in any country makes for a formidable audience. •  But I figured that if you were going to write about Singapore’s financial sector or economy, it might as well be with at least some residue at the back of your minds of what MAS has to say. •  In any case, having partaken of your generous luncheon meal, it is too late to escape now. Before I go any further, some disclosures: •  If you came for this luncheon expecting to hear about 1MDB, I am sorry I will not be mentioning that word or anything associated with it for the rest of my remarks. •  I am also sorry I have no juicy announcements to make. For central bankers and regulators, no news is generally good news. •  So, if you want to slip away quietly, now would be a good time to do so. I will pretend I did not notice. This afternoon, I want to share my thoughts with you on how the MAS sees the financial sector. Many of you, especially from abroad, are sometimes intrigued by MAS’ role as both regulator and developer of the financial sector.
The second issue is how independence should a Central Bank be? I believe that a Central Bank should be independent within the government because it is the Minister of Finance who has to be accountable to the parliament on issues relating to macro economic, fiscal, monetary and financial system matters. I agree absolutely with Governor Paul Acquah that monetary and fiscal policies must be harmonized in order to achieve macro stability, meaning that a Minister of Finance and a Governor of a Central Bank must work hand in hand to achieve a proper policy mix of fiscal and monetary policies so that sustainable growth can be achieved. BIS Review 53/2002  3  Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that I have taken enough of your time already. Therefore, I would like to conclude that a Central Bank can be considered as having its independence when it can perform its duty of achieving and maintaining price stability without any political or governmental interference, and with honesty and integrity while working hand in hand with the Ministry of Finance to achieve a balanced fiscal and monetary policies mix that lead to macro stability and sustainable growth. Inflation targeting approach is an effective mean to achieve Central Bank independence because it encompasses 4 very important ingredients: operational independence, responsibility, transparency and accountability. Other means can be just as effective if they have these 4 required ingredients.

But economist David Miles makes a 5  reasonable argument that this ratio might continue to increase and I am not going to make any predictions . I will though make a couple of observations. First, simple projections suggest that equity release mortgage 6  books could face difficulties in scenarios of flat, as well as falling, nominal house prices . Second, UK experience is that although house prices do diverge across regions, they tend to move in the same direction. So insurers might not be able to diversify away the risk to any significant extent. Third, the experiences of, for example, the Japanese property market between 1990 and 2010 and the Italian property market between 2007 and 2017 show that it is possible for house prices in an advanced economy to fall over a period of decades (Chart 6). The Matching Adjustment The other major influence on insurers’ asset allocation since the introduction of Solvency II is the Matching Adjustment. The rationale for the Matching Adjustment is that annuity writers are buy-and-hold investors with locked-in funding. Provided they match the cash flows of their assets to those of their liabilities, they should rarely need to sell assets prior to maturity. They are not therefore exposed to changes in the market price of credit risk in the same way as other investors. The Matching Adjustment allows them to benefit from this advantage in two ways.
Mark Carney: The turn of the year Text of the Peston Lecture by Mr Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, at the Queen Mary University of London, London, 19 January 2016. *  *  *  I am grateful to Ben Nelson and Iain de Weymarn for assistance in preparing these remarks, and to James Cloyne, James Talbot and Matthew Waldron for background research. It is a pleasure to be at Queen Mary University of London to give the 2016 Peston Lecture. Fifty years ago Lord Peston was invited to take up a Chair in Economics at Queen Mary and to found the forerunner of today’s School of Economics and Finance. Anniversaries provide the opportunity to look back and plan ahead. When doing so, it is sometimes helpful to recall Shimon Peres’ definition of a young person as someone whose future ambitions exceed their past accomplishments. So while Queen Mary can take justified pride in its long-standing commitment to community engagement and widening local participation, what is most striking are your plans for the future, including to push forward translational research in population-scale genomics, with the potential to bring health benefits to people across the UK and beyond. Queen Mary is clearly a young institution. The turn of the year is also a time for reflection and planning. The beginning of 2016 in the UK is significant in that it marks a turning of a page in banking regulation and a turn in financial conditions.

Ultimately, the total volume of assets transferred amounted to USD 38.7 billion, where the purchase price was roughly USD 1 billion below the book value of the assets at UBS at the end of September 2008. In addition, a substantial portion of the amount transferred includes liabilities in the form of derivatives which currently do not need to be financed by the SNB. The initial financing of the StabFund was therefore considerably lower than the purchase price. It comprised the SNB’s loan to the StabFund totalling USD 26.6 billion and UBS’s equity contribution in the value of USD 3.9 billion. The fund’s portfolio contains several thousand positions. Table 1 gives an overview of the portfolio and the different investment segments. The portfolio management concept is based on a long-term risk/return assessment. For assets where the cash flow is expected to exceed the current market price, we are mainly pursuing a hold-to-maturity strategy. For assets where this is not the case, we will sell if the opportunity arises. The objective of our portfolio management is to repay the SNB’s loan in full if at all possible. Market developments to date have impacted strongly on the StabFund’s assets. As it stands, most of the assets do not have to be entered in the balance sheet at market value. Rather, they only have to be written down if the balance sheet value is no longer considered sustainable based on the results of an impairment test.
By slicing and dicing the data in different ways, it is possible to assess how different segments, sectors and regions of the UK have performed during the recovery. That means looking at aggregate metrics of economic health, such as income, employment and wealth. But a different lens is provided by looking at these metrics on a disaggregated basis and at non-standard measures of societal well-being. Taken together, these disaggregated data tell a rather more nuanced story about the UK’s recovery: a recovery which for most has been slow and low, for many partial and patchy and for some invisible and incomplete. This uneven economic surface helps reconcile the macro data and the micro stories from my regional visits – the “recovery puzzle”. It also has implications for what happens next to the economy in the light of the referendum, including monetary policy, on which I will conclude. Why it matters Before turning to the data, it is worth spending a moment on why this matters. Why look at the distributional pattern of activity when monitoring the economy as a whole and when setting monetary policy? This might seem like a strange question. Surely the fortunes of different sectors and segments of society are important? Yet, at least viewed from one angle, the distribution of gains and losses across the economy and across society ought not to much matter, at least when it comes to setting monetary policy. Here is why. The tools available to monetary policymakers, like the Bank of England, are small in number.

The language of “recovery” simply did not fit their facts. On subsequent regional visits, including this one in Wales, talking to companies, community groups and charities, I have encountered the same conundrum. For many, the economic recovery is visible and tangible – in sales, in jobs, in investment. But for others it is barely visible and for some non-existent. How to reconcile the macro data with these micro accounts? Were these stories outliers? Or was I neglecting an important missing ingredient in the UK’s economic fortunes? Put differently, whose recovery were we actually talking about? These questions have a particular resonance here in Port Talbot. Prior to the crisis, unemployment in the local area was similar to the Welsh and UK average at around 5%. But the region was hit hard by the recession, with unemployment peaking at 13% in 2014. Despite recent falls, it remains at 9% – well above its pre-crisis peak and levels in Wales and the UK. Today, over one in five households have no-one in work. Recent uncertainty about the future of the local steelworks, and the jobs of the 4,000 workers there, has further complicated the picture. Here in Port Talbot, the language of “recovery” may also fail to fit the facts. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Against that background, I want today to take a look at the performance of the UK economy over recent years.
While the double digit growth is commendable, the takaful industry is still small i.e. constituting 6.3% in terms of assets of the insurance industry. The success of takaful in the future rests on the ability of the industry to collectively position itself strategically to meet the needs of the economy and the ability to be competitive and innovative. Global takaful strategies Let me now turn to t he strategies for the global takaful industry moving forward, which essentially is the theme of the Convention. The key strategy is to amplify a simple, but yet a powerful concept, which is the core concept of takaful itself, that is, collaboration. That is in consonance with the Quranic verse from Surah Aali-Imran verse 103's quote: "And hold fast, all together, by the rope which God (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves and remember with gratitude God's favour on you…" end of quote. Allow me to expound a few angles on this new collaborative framework. 2  BIS Review 95/2007  The first area is talent development A key challenge confronting the industry at present is the shortage of talent. Rapid development of the takaful industry in recent years demands adequate supply of competent human capital to drive innovation, to sustain competition and to raise the performance of the takaful industry to greater heights.

It is also encouraging to note that rating agencies have come forward to formulate rating methodology and review for takaful operators. Third area relates to the need for joint effort to shape prudential rules for takaful. For the formulation of prudential standards, the setting up of the IFSB remained one of the landmark developments in this decade. Established in 2002, the IFSB's core role is to promote prudent, transparent and robust development of the Islamic financial services industry through the promulgation of international prudential standards that are consistent with the principles of Shariah. The IFSB provides the platform for cooperation among the regulators through meetings, conference and the setting-up of working groups that give  BIS Review 95/2007  3  opportunity for the regulators to discuss and exchange information on issues confronting Islamic finance. For takaful industry, two developments are relevant that are: i.  the issuance of Issues Paper jointly by IFSB and IAIS on the applicability of IAIS core principles to takaful, and  ii. the formation of a working group to formulate corporate governance standard for takaful industry. In view that the formulation of the IFSB standards involves consultation with IFSB members, I would like to call more takaful operators to be members of the IFSB so as to provide the opportunity for the players to be part of the official consultation procedure for IFSB and to make comments on draft IFSB standards.
With a price level target, high inflation today must be followed by low inflation tomorrow. This is not the case with an inflation target. One advantage of a price level target is that it may reduce the uncertainty surrounding the price level ahead. But the view has been that a price level target results in wider fluctuations in output and employment and less stable inflation. Recent literature challenges this view.5 As far as we know, there are no concrete plans in any country to shift to a price target. A third characteristic of inflation targeting is that the central bank alone sets the interest rate - the central bank has instrument independence. One exception must nevertheless be mentioned here. In the UK, the authority to set interest rates was not transferred from the Ministry of the Exchequer to the Bank of England until 1997, five years after an inflation target had been set. In some countries, legislation allows the authorities to review the decisions under very special conditions. This has not had any practical significance. A fourth characteristic is that central banks in inflation-targeting countries are transparent. This provides broad insight into the basis for interest rate decisions. Transparency makes monetary policy more predictable. Inflation targeting provides an explicit and understandable framework for clarifying and stating the reasons for the trade-offs in interest rate setting. Central banks practice transparency in different ways.

Also, one of the lessons from the crisis was the need for higher financial literacy and awareness of financial risks, which among other things, required better tailored communication of statistics to different interest groups in society. Thus, in fact pandemics occurred in the midstream of our strivings to address the flaws in statistics revealed during the GFC. At the very beginning of the crisis, the official statistical process was threatened by a basic risk of disruption, so preserving continuity of statistics production was vital. Last year the World Bank conveyed a survey among National Statistical Offices to assess the initial impact of the health crisis on their functionality1. The key findings can be pinned down to several conclusions: 1) around 65% of the offices were fully or partially closed, and face to face data collection was stopped; 2) the ability to collect essential statistics and to meet international data reporting requirements was impacted, particularly in low income countries; 3) approximately two out of three national statistical offices altered their calendar of publication and data dissemination; and very importantly 4) many offices were adapting  1/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  and responding to new data needs by changing collection modes, using alternative data sources, adding Covid related questions, as well as reducing content and samples of Surveys. These challenges have been equally relevant for central banks, being one of the pillars of the statistical production systems.