samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Recently, signs of weakness have been observed in the US, but a favourable international environment in 2007 can be expected in view of the unchanged vitality of the Asian economy and the recovery of growth in Europe. In addition to the favourable impetus from the global economy, our exports also benefited from special conditions on the foreign exchange market. The introduction of the euro resulted in a stabilisation of the European monetary scene, and the Swiss franc was sheltered from the speculative disruptions that we have experienced in the past. Nowadays our currency is far less volatile that in the 1990s, and this is certainly beneficial for foreign trade. Moreover, although the dollar has lost ground over recent years, the euro has regained a level comparable to that of 1999. Since Swiss inflation was distinctly lower than that of our main trading partners, the real exchange rate index weighted by our exports to 24 countries has declined by almost 10% over the five last years. The competitive position of our exporters has improved accordingly. Nevertheless, it would be precipitate to think that the Swiss franc was likely to continue weakening. In many respects, the current situation is paradoxical in view of the fact that currencies from countries where inflation is lowest – the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen – have lost ground to currencies from countries with a less favourable price outlook.

This was the best result since 2000. While enjoying the benefits of healthy demand in both foreign and domestic markets, it was also able to take advantage of the increased flexibility of local production attributable to the fact that the labour market had been opened up to nationals of neighbouring countries – without threatening domestic employment. In the course of the past twelve months, almost 60,000 new jobs have been created – a figure unmatched since 2001 – while the number of jobless has dropped by 22,000. Restructuring efforts on the part of the corporates, advances in productivity and the increased flexibility in the employment market have created an environment that allows more vigorous growth. Thus, the difficult path of reform and of opening up has yielded its first successes. It is advisable that we continue following this path in order to ensure a sustained and durable increase in our productive potential. This will help us to place our social security institutions on a sound financial basis again and confront the challenges posed by the aging of our population. Continuing the normalisation of monetary policy Within this context of an improved economic situation, the SNB last year continued the policy of gradually normalising the interest rates that it has been pursuing since June 2004.
Research done here at the New York Fed documents this for the nation and New York.1 The preponderance of transformational “new job” creation may have reflected the fact that the recessions of 1990–91 and 2001 were relatively shallow. In addition, employers may be more likely to use recessions as an opportunity to make their operations more efficient. For example, employers are less likely to use temporary layoffs when they reduce staff during downturns and more likely to use temporary service agencies or outsource part of their operations when they need to expand. So far, the current recession does not follow the pattern of the last two downturns. In New York and New Jersey as well as the nation, job creation during the recovery has been fairly evenly balanced between new jobs and old jobs – instead of heavily weighted toward new jobs as in the past two recessions. If this pattern holds, the recovery process could have a higher share of unemployed workers returning to jobs similar to those they left during the downturn. That could be promising for the adjustment process when the recovery gathers strength. There is some variation within the region, though, and the areas with a higher preponderance of new jobs are undergoing more rapid transformations that could position them well for growth going forward. As a result, these areas could face a particularly strong need to retrain and educate their workers.

William C Dudley: Job creation in the region Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Quarterly Regional Economic Press Briefing, New York, 12 August 2011. *  *  *  Good morning and welcome once again to the New York Fed’s Quarterly Regional Economic Press Briefing. I am pleased to have this opportunity to talk with the journalists covering our region – and through you, to the people in our District. This morning I will focus on regional economic conditions, with particular attention to job creation trends in the Second Federal Reserve District, which covers New York State; northern New Jersey; Fairfield County, Connecticut; Puerto Rico; and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Following my remarks, my colleagues will provide more details. As always, what I have to say reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or the Federal Reserve System. National economic conditions The statement issued by the FOMC earlier this week presents a sober assessment of the state of the U.S. economy. Economic growth so far in 2011 has been quite a bit slower than we expected earlier in the year. While jobs growth picked up early in the year, in the last few months conditions in the labor market have deteriorated again and the unemployment rate edged up. Household spending has flattened out, and the housing sector is depressed.
Society expects higher standards, and the PRA supports the FCA in upholding these standards as part of the global effort to restore trust between financial institutions, regulators and – most importantly – the public. Three things strike me as important as part of this effort and I pick these three because they are close to my role and that of the PRA and the wider Bank of England. First, the Fair and Effective Markets Review under my colleague Minouche Shafik, with Martin and Charles Roxburgh, is vitally important to establish the better standards that society reasonably expects. Second, we need better international coordination among authorities to enable conduct risks to be dealt with effectively, but also in ways that do not threaten safety and soundness. That is a high priority. And third, to support credit and borrowing in the economy, and thus growth, we must all work to ensure that people feel confident to use banks and thus overcome the legacy of mistrust from revealed misconduct. The fourth issue on which I want to comment concerns incentives. These lie at the heart of good pro-active supervision, getting the incentives right. Unfortunately, we see areas where that has not happened. I want to cover two of those. The first is remuneration. Once again there is a lot being said on this subject. My view has not changed.

The people of this country are actually willing to put aside some of their earnings into safe and viable investments. However, safety and viability is only assured with professional investment management which can be offered by people like yourselves. Ladies and Gentlemen, in March 2008, the Lusaka Stock Exchange in partnership with the Bank of Zambia and the Bond Exchange of South Africa conducted a training and consultative workshop to enhance the Zambian bond market. Among the outcomes of this workshop was that one of the modes of collecting funds from the so called “small investors” in the economy is through Collective Investment Schemes. Collective investment schemes can be beneficial to small investors who may not have enough money to carry out a diversification and proper allocation of their assets. Small investor can benefit from diversification techniques usually available only to wealthy investors. With these few benefits in mind, I wish to earnestly appeal to you and other collective investment scheme providers that as you go about doing your business think innovatively about ways you can capture Zambia’s many small investors. Think about how you can provide them with an opportunity to invest in a broad range of assets at affordable cost. I have little doubt in my mind that as you take up this challenge, you will be able to create financial stability by being a good investment manager to this segment of investors.
Encik Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid: The ASEAN insurance industry - current state Keynote address by Mr Encik Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the 21st ASEAN Insurance Regulators’ Meeting, 44th ASEAN Insurance Council and 3rd ASEAN Insurance Summit, Kuala Lumpur, 28 November 2018. * * * Bank Negara Malaysia is honoured to host the 21st ASEAN Insurance Regulators’ Meeting and the 44th ASEAN Insurance Council Meeting again after eleven years. It is also our privilege to be part of the 3rd ASEAN Insurance Summit. I trust that the exchange of ideas and knowledge during these events will further strengthen the long tradition of close cooperation among ASEAN insurance regulators and industry players, interventions, and initiatives to build resiliency and liquidity for our market. Introduction Since its formation in 1967, ASEAN has achieved significant strides in advancing regional economic and financial cooperation and integration. This has contributed to sustained social development and stability that we see in the region over the last five decades. Economic improvement has seen member states grow at an average rate of over 5.3% and expanded over 100-fold, supported by significant intra-regional trade. In 2017, the ten-member states recorded a combined gross domestic product of close to USD3 trillion. Together, the regional bloc is currently the sixth-largest economy in the world and by 2020 is forecasted to become the fifthlargest economy after the United States of America, China, Japan and Germany.

As regulators, we have to be cognisant of these risks. It remains an ongoing challenge to balance policy trade-offs and to preserve the best interest of the general public at large. Second, foreign insurers also tend to mainly target the more profitable market segments. Using their international brand recognition, they are able to capture these markets easily. Such segments include the higher net worth individuals, and large and multinational corporates. The insurance needs of the lower income segment and small and medium enterprises are then left underserved. Third, many of the global players operating in ASEAN today continues to operate as foreign players and act as conduits to their head offices. Invested capital could be hedged back to their home countries. Annual profits and fees received are repatriated. This in turn has resulted in, among others, persistent outflow of funds to the home countries. This practice has continued to put pressure on the host country’s balance of payments. Foreign players should do more to invest in the host country and truly make the host country their home country as well. On another front, efforts should concurrently be directed towards strengthening the underwriting and retention capacity of the regional insurance and reinsurance markets. What about the domestic players? Having benefitted from the partnership with their foreign counterparts, domestic and home-grown insurers in ASEAN also need to do more to serve the protection and financial needs in their countries and the region.
Moreover, the problems with complex risk management are exacerbated in that perhaps the most important component available to an individual is human capital, with all the forms of risk connected with its management and yield. In addition, households encounter complicated decisions in other aspects of life, of which some have to do with insurance products. As I just said, the financial system has already changed spectacularly and become increasingly sophisticated. But it will not stop there. It may therefore be asked whether banks and other financial institutions will become increasingly consumer oriented in the future, instead of the current focus on products. One advocate of such a development is Robert Merton, a Harvard professor who predicts that financial institutions will split into one group that produces business services and another that is 16 close to consumers and mainly distributes financial services. Banks today often perform both these functions. Merton considers that in such a new consumer-oriented financial system, help is needed to construct well though-out, tailor-made plans for the life cycle that allow for all the potential risks. One type of risk that needs to be considered is stock market fluctuations. Central matters here are, of course, investment horizons, how buying and selling is arranged and the degree of diversification across companies and geographical regions. Another parameter is, as indicated, the life cycle; the possibility of saving for the long run is restricted by how much capital is likely to be needed in the nearer future.

Over 60% of respondents thought that the balance of MPC communication was “about right”, although around 20% felt that too much commentary was devoted to the central view of prospects rather than to the balance of risks. Given the emphasis which the MPC places on the fan chart as a means of conveying information about forecasts, it is striking that there is a demand for even more information about the risks surrounding the central projection rather than the central projection itself. There is, perhaps, a lesson here in the need to redress the balance of discussion in the Inflation Report towards the risks and away from the central projection. The view of respondents – largely City economists – in this respect seems to me entirely rational, but in marked contrast to the pressure on us from the press. Some of the words of respondents to the survey convey the flavour of their views. Several commented on the benefits of more information about the range of views on the Committee. For example, “MPC members could do more speeches, interviews and meetings to explain their individual views on the macroeconomic outlook”. And “the key difficulty in framing the communications is that they are clearly meant to convey the views of a group of people rather than one individual.
The job the FPC has been given in the aftermath is to avoid another avoidable disaster. And real progress has been made. Through new capital requirements the banking system now has the resilience to absorb even a repeat of the 2008 recession, without causing serious economic damage. And with the help of this work, we can stay agile as debt evolves so we can ensure the resilience of the system keeps pace with the underlying vulnerability in the economy. That’s not to say we will be slaves to any particular approach. No single model can capture everything. The point is that we have a benchmark for our assessment, ensuring continuity and discipline in our approach. To that benchmark, we can apply judgements. 12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  12  A pocket of risk In that regard, we’re watching closely what’s happening in corporate debt. Although, as we’ve seen, the aggregate picture looks fairly benign, a more concerning development hides underneath. We have just been through a period of rapid growth of one type of corporate lending: leveraged lending.

This working group will draw up proposals and the associated legal adjustments for implementing the recommendations in the Federal Council’s ‘too big to fail’ evaluation report. Alongside these regulatory initiatives, the SNB still considers it necessary that the big banks increase transparency with regard to RWA. FINMA has now called on these banks to disclose the differences between calculations using the model-based and standardised approaches. Such enhanced transparency is necessary to restore the credibility of modelbased RWA and to strengthen market discipline. The SNB continues to hold the view that risk-weighted capital requirements – including a floor for model-based RWA – and leverage ratio requirements should complement each other. Risk-weighted requirements should guide economic decisions at the margin, while the leverage ratio should serve as a backstop. Yet, until the measures to resolve the RWA problem take effect, it is prudent to give a greater weighting to the leverage ratio when assessing the big banks’ resilience. Indeed, analysts increasingly pay attention to the leverage ratio when assessing and comparing banks. Domestically focused commercial banks Increased mortgage exposure, capital situation stable I would now like to turn to the domestically focused commercial banks. In 2014, these banks further increased their exposure to the Swiss mortgage and residential real estate markets. While the share of new loans with high loan-to-income ratios – a measure of affordability risk – remained persistently high, mortgage lending growth and the share of new mortgage loans with a high loan-to-value ratio decreased. Hence, the increase in exposure was lower than in previous years.
Whereas the value of the UK  5  Foreign reserves held by EME central banks as a whole are about 60% (close to $ trillion) higher than needed for conventional precautionary reasons to cover short-term external debt. 6  Morgan Stanley, "Sovereign Wealth Funds and Bond and Equity Prices", 31 May 2007. 7  That said, the assets held by sovereign wealth funds are highly concentrated, with around 70% of total assets held by the five largest funds. So the largest sovereign wealth funds could have an impact on some markets especially smaller ones such as other EMEs. 8  Also, a number of central banks from countries with large current account deficits have been willing throughout the current liquidity crisis to lend to international banks, including UK ones, at longer, three-to-twelve month, maturities. BIS Review 31/2008  3  market for public debt securities is only 3.3% of the global market, UK equities account for 7½% of the value of global equities. The rapid growth in sovereign wealth funds is also a fillip for London as a leading international financial centre. SWFs and transparency The main doubts concern their objectives and how far their investments will be driven only by financial returns. Public sector owners might have other objectives including national political interests, such as, accessing military technology, controlling strategic resources or markets, and influencing public opinion. 9 There are often complaints that sovereign wealth funds lack transparency. Decoded, this is a request for reassurance about their investment policies.

In particular, interest rates on safe assets fell since the build up in foreign assets were invested mainly in government bonds. 14 That both discouraged saving and boosted asset prices. In order to maintain their traditional returns, the private sector sought higher yielding strategies and were too ready to  11  IMF (2007) ‘Exchange rates and the adjustment of external imbalances’ IMF WEO April, Chapter 3. 12  Bernanke, B (2007) "Global Imbalances: Recent Developments and Prospects", speech delivered for the Bundesbank Lecture, Berlin, and Bernanke, B (2005) "The Global Savings Glut and the U.S. Current Account Deficit", speech delivered for the Sandridge Lecture at the Virginia Association of Economists. 13  A fall in desired investment (investment ‘strike’) in some countries also contributed to the decline in global real interest rates. For example, investment-GDP ratios fell sharply in the Newly Industrialised Countries in the wake of the east Asian crisis a decade ago. 14  For example FE Warnock and VC Warnock (2006) (‘International Capital Flows and US interest rates’, NBER Working Paper, 12560) estimate that foreign official flows reduced US 10-year Treasury nominal yields by about 100 basis points lower than otherwise in the year to June 2005. BIS Review 31/2008  5  believe that these could be attained through new products without running bigger risks. We are now dealing with the consequences of that mistake.
Given the inflation target, we will be mindful of the effects of higher interest rates on the krone exchange rate when inflation is low. Nonetheless, the interest rate path published in Monetary Policy Report 1/07 was higher than in Inflation Report 3/06. The reason for this is that the prospect of stronger-than-expected growth in both Norway and among our trading partners pointed to a higher interest rate path. On balance, this had a greater impact on the interest rate path than a stronger krone. Over time, however, the nominal exchange rate is not the main force. The most important influence on competitiveness in Norwegian business and industry and the purchasing power of the Norwegian krone is changes in the real exchange rate. The real exchange rate can be measured in a number of ways, for example by consumer prices or labour costs in Norway relative to our trading partners measured in a common currency. The real exchange rate has fluctuated widely over time and has deviated over longer periods considerably from the average level since 1970. The real exchange rate has nonetheless shown a tendency to revert to this level. Over time, the exchange rate acts as a buffer in the global economy. When economic activity is high in one country, an appreciation of the country’s exchange rate will have a dampening effect. Conversely, when there is a need to stimulate the economy, a weaker exchange rate will boost growth.

China has a high rate of savings, healthy external position, an inherent competitive mass manufacturing advantage and a large educated workforce to sustain its long-term potential economic growth. Importantly, the narrative of the global future of China cannot be explained in isolation – it is part of a broader account of the growing importance and greater integration of Asia, and the stronger interlinkages with other emerging economies in the global economic landscape. China and the region are becoming more than just global exporters. The increased efforts are seen in the steps to develop more extensive investment and financial linkages in the region as well as the rest of the world through key strategic initiatives such as the One Belt One Road initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank. Reflecting its expanding role in the global economy and the international financial BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  system, the renminbi will assume greater strategic importance in facilitating the development of these new investment and financial linkages, including meeting the greater demand for infrastructure spending. This is also reinforced by the transition of Asia from a global producer to a global consumer thus becoming an important driver of growth in the world economy. The rise of the renminbi is often associated with expectations of rapid capital account liberalisation. In this regard, the historical experience of the major currencies over the recent fifty years holds important lessons for the renminbi.