samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In short, I must stress that it is, in this respect, essential to define, in accordance with social preferences, the replacement rates that the pensions system should seek to ensure, so as to subsequently adjust the level of revenue accordingly and thus ensure the BANCO DE ESPAÑA  13	 TESTIMONY BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE BANCO DE ESPAÑA BEFORE PARLIAMENT IN RELATION TO THE DRAFT STATE AND SOCIAL SECURITY BUDGET FOR 2019  HIGH PUBLIC DEBT  CHART 12 PUBLIC DEBT AND GDP GROWTH (a)  NET IIP. SECTORAL BREAKDOWN % of GDP  6  0  5 Real GDP growth  20  -20 -40 -60 -80  4 3 2 1  -100 08  09  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  BANCO DE ESPAÑA  GENERAL GOVERNMENT  PRIVATE SECTOR  TOTAL  17  0  18 Q3  0  25  50  75  100  125  Debt-to-GDP ratio  SOURCES: Eurostat, OECD and Banco de España. a Regression with average values for the EU and OECD countries in the 1995-2015 period.

The overall impression in the press is that central banks have injected vast amounts of liquidity into the banking system in order to face up to the crisis. This is not true to reality. In volume terms, the amount of liquidity allocated by the Eurosystem has posted slow growth since the summer of 2007. On the other hand, during the crisis, some central banks, such as the Fed and the Bank of England, have had to make adjustments to their operational framework, while others, like the ECB, have been able to rely on their existing framework, up until very recently. This has resulted in a remarkable convergence of central banks’ operational frameworks and fields of intervention around four main areas: -  a lengthening of maturities for central bank lending: these maturities have been increased from a few weeks to a few months. In the case of the Eurosystem, a major share of refinancing operations have a maturity of three months, and, recently, a six-month facility has been introduced;  -  a widening of the range of eligible collateral, i.e. the securities used as collateral.
Periodically, the FOMC publishes participants’ projections for several key economic variables. Our latest forecasts were made in early November. Our outlook then was for real GDP growth to be around 1.75 percent in 2011 and then rise to 2.75 percent in 2012. Though an improvement, this 2012 pace is not far above most analysts’ views of the potential rate of output growth for the economy. Thus, such growth rates are not strong enough to make much of a dent in the unemployment rate and other measures of resource slack. Indeed, the FOMC’s latest forecasts are for the unemployment rate to remain above 8.5 percent through 2012 and to fall only to about 8 percent in 2013. As I just noted, the somewhat firmer tone of recent economic data suggest some welcome traction, but the data are not strong enough, or uniform enough, to assert that momentum for growth is building. The headwinds that we face are still substantial. Moreover, the problems in Europe now loom larger. Careful analysis suggests that the direct impact of slower European growth on U.S. net exports likely would be small. However, there  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  is a risk that substantial financial disruptions in Europe could impinge on the cost and availability of credit in the U.S. or induce a new wave of cautious behavior by households and businesses.

This is not a trivial matter. Most countries have inadequate information on the composition of their external liabilities, especially those of the private sector. Nevertheless, monitoring and managing the exposures of the public and financial sectors are important to avoid a build up of potential vulnerabilities. In this respect, the IMF can play a helpful supportive role by providing assessments of vulnerability as part of the Article IV process, the new joint IMF/World Bank financial sector assessment programmes and debt management guidelines, and technical assistance on the data requirements implied by the need to monitor national balance sheets. 2. Second, limitations on official finance mean that countries should think carefully about the provision of self-insurance against a liquidity crisis. A simple, but often expensive, way to do this is to build up large foreign currency reserves, a strategy taken to heart by a number of emerging markets, including China and also Korea following its crisis. A potentially superior alternative is the creation of contingent credit facilities with both official and private sector creditors. So far, even at the high spreads on emerging market debt, these facilities have not proved attractive, and the CCL facility created by the IMF has lain dormant. The next few years will be a test of the value of such facilities. 3. Third, experience has shown the value of borrowing countries establishing good relationships with creditors well before any possibility of difficulty in repayment arises.
In the euro area, the renewed intensification of financial market turbulence is leading to very high interest rates in some countries, to potentially damaging volatility, and to very low trading volumes in some government bond markets that at times cease to function appropriately. The tensions to some extent resemble those of May 2010, but in some respects they are more broad-based than what we saw at that time. It is clear that sovereign debt challenges in individual euro area countries – no matter their size – can undermine the stability of the euro area as a whole. In view of these developments, the authorities in the euro area have taken a multi-pronged approach to address the concerns about sovereign risk and its impact on the financial sector. Regarding fiscal support for crisis countries, euro area governments announced on 21 July a second support package for Greece and the introduction of additional flexibility for the European Financial Stability Facility and the future European Stability Mechanism. In this respect, the full and timely implementation of the 21 July agreement between heads of state or government is crucial. A renewed commitment by all euro area governments to the agreed fiscal targets is of course equally essential. The ECB has also stepped up its responses, reflecting its full commitment to ensuring a continuing smooth functioning of the key euro area market segments, a necessary prerequisite to achieve price stability in the euro area.

Caleb M Fundanga: Zambia’s Financial Sector Development Plan Welcome remarks by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, at the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP) Phase II Consultative Meeting, Lusaka, 20 October 2009. * • • • • • •  *  *  The Honourable Minister of Finance and National Planning; The FSDP Steering Committee Chairman & Secretary to the Treasury; Co-operating partners; Chief Executive Officers and Representatives from Banks and Non Bank Financial Institutions; Distinguished Invited Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Bank of Zambia, to welcome you all to the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP) Phase II Stakeholders’ Consultative Meeting. Honourable Minister, this very important forum is a demonstration of the recognition, by Government and various stakeholders, of the strategic importance of the financial sector to the country’s development and poverty reduction efforts. Distinguished invited guests, there are a number of strategies currently being implemented by both the private and public sectors to make the financial sector more inclusive, thereby increasing the benefits for the average citizen to participate in the formal economy. The Financial Sector Development Plan is one such Government initiative. The FSDP was aimed at realising the vision of a financial system that is sound, stable and market-based and one that supports efficient resource mobilisation necessary for economic diversification and sustainable growth. Ladies and Gentlemen, various countries have established specific programmes to strengthen their financial sectors.
These have a number of attractive features. It is built on sound economic principles of forward-looking optimising agents, which is useful for carrying out academic though experiments. Unfortunately, such models also have some big drawbacks. First, having introduced uncertainty into the picture by making agents forward looking, they then assume the problem away. Risk doesn’t matter: agents are assumed to make decisions today based on the path they believe the economy will take in the future, not the full range of possible paths it might take. And those beliefs about the future are based on absolute faith in the ability of the policymaker to stabilise inflation and the economy over the medium term. BIS Review 21/2009  7  They therefore beg some important questions for policy makers – how do we sustain and build confidence in our policy and what happens if it falters? Second these models generally assume that the path of the economy is one of equilibrium disturbed by a sequence of more or less random shocks to which it responds in short order to return to the equilibrium path. For economists using these models a critical question is always what shocks have led to the starting position i.e. how far from equilibrium are we and for what reason. Those starting assumptions will then condition the path back to trend growth and target inflation over the medium term. In truth, these “shocks” reflect not only events and surprises in the real world but the limitations of the model itself.

Three recent developments are especially encouraging in that regard. First, liquidity concerns have eased significantly following the European Central Bank’s (ECB) long-term refinancing operations in December and February. Through this program, the ECB provides three-year loans to European banks at low rates, accepting a wide array of collateral in return. Hundreds of banks accessed the program in each operation, and the ECB lent nearly € trillion in total. As a result, the cost of funding throughout Europe has  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  declined since the program began, the euro has stabilized, and the sovereign bond market has improved. Changes in the ECB’s collateral rules and reserve requirements have also had a positive impact. Second, earlier this month, the Greek government worked with European leaders and its largest creditors to restructure the bulk of its € billion of outstanding privately-held bonds. This not only reduced Greece’s total indebtedness, it helped calm persistent worries that a disorderly Greek default could become the trigger for a global economic crisis. Shortly after the debt restructuring, the EU approved a € billion aid package for Greece. Together, these measures will provide key support to Greek leaders as they pursue the difficult fiscal reforms that are essential over the long term. Third, leaders in most euro area countries have approved a new treaty designed to increase fiscal coordination. The new rules already appear to be making a difference. Both Spain and Italy recently completed 2012 budgets that move their deficits closer to EU targets.
Pablo Hernández de Cos: Evidence-based policies - from theory to practice Address by Mr Pablo Hernández de Cos, Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, at the presentation of the collaboration agreement between the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI) and the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Madrid, 18 January 2022. * * * Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, General Secretary of Inclusion and Social Welfare Objectives and Policies, director of CEMFI, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Allow me to begin this short address by saying how pleased I am with the signing of this collaboration agreement between CEMFI and the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. In recent months I have had the opportunity to publicly emphasise the importance of the evaluation of public policies and of incorporating the results of these evaluations into decisionmaking by public authorities,1 in the belief that, in a democratic society, evaluations should play a political as well as a technical role. In the political sphere, evaluating the design and effects of public policies should foster transparency regarding policy-makers’ actions and their outcomes. This facilitates accountability and democratic oversight by Parliament and citizens. It also fulfils a technical function, strengthening the decision-making process by providing it with valuable information to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency.

One priority has been to take account of the e-banking developments I have already mentioned. A particular landmark was the guideline on virtual banks which we issued in May of this year. I will not go into the details of this except to say that it was first drafted when the dot.com frenzy was at its peak, and I believe that the cautionary notes that we uttered have stood the test of time. In particular, our guideline stressed that virtual banks must have substance rather than being a concept, and that  BIS Review 93/2000  2  virtual banks are subject to the same risks as conventional banks and should be subject to the same prudential criteria. Essentially, we were warning of the need not to be blinded by the technology. We also warned against over-aggressive pricing and of the need to strike an appropriate balance between acquisition of market share and earning a reasonable return. As with other new banks that we authorise, we would normally expect a virtual bank to be making a profit by the end of its third year. This was criticised in some quarters as being unrealistic and not in keeping with the internet business model. However, as events have turned out, it was that model that was unrealistic rather than our guideline. Under our current rules, it is not possible to establish from scratch a new locally incorporated virtual, or indeed conventional, bank in Hong Kong.
Panetta, F. (2021), ““Hic sunt leones” – open research questions on the international dimension of central bank digital currencies”, speech at the ECB-CEBRA conference on international aspects of digital currencies and fintech, Frankfurt am Main, 19 October. 10. Panetta, F. (2022), “For a few cryptos more: the Wild West of crypto finance”, speech at Columbia University, New York, 25 April. See also Hermans, L. et al. (2022), “Decrypting financial stability risks in crypto-asset markets”, Financial Stability Review, ECB, May. 11. In particular, it would be important for stablecoins with an algorithm-based stabilisation mechanism to be treated as crypto-assets other than e-money tokens (EMTs) and asset-referenced tokens (ARTs), and they should not be used for payment purposes. Given that some algorithmic stablecoins have failed in the past (including the recent collapse of TerraUSD), algorithm-based stabilisation mechanisms without a reserve have proven to be conceptually flawed and have performed no better than bitcoin in terms of stability. This means that algorithmic stablecoins without an issuer and a  reserve should be treated in the same way as crypto-assets other than EMTs and ARTs. Moreover, as crypto-assets are not of sufficient quality to back up the value and maintain the stability of ARTs/EMTs, the reserve assets of ARTs/EMTs should not include any crypto-assets – ARTs, EMTs or crypto-assets other than ARTs/EMTs.

For example, we are investigating a waterfall functionality which would allow users to receive payments in digital euro above the holding limit by linking a digital euro account to a commercial bank account. The waterfall approach is a way of managing end users’ retail CBDC holdings via the automated conversion of retail CBDC in excess of a holding threshold into a bank deposit held in a linked commercial bank account chosen by the end user. See the digital euro glossary. Holding limits could also be differentiated by type of user, to account for the payment needs of citizens typically on the payer side and businesses that will mainly be on the receiving end of digital euro payments. 20. Panetta, F. (2022), “More than an intellectual game: exploring the monetary policy and financial  stability implications of central bank digital currencies”, speech at the IESE Business School Banking Initiative Conference on Technology and Finance, Frankfurt am Main, 8 April. 21. Broad engagement with market stakeholders will ensure that a digital euro meets users’ needs. A relevant set of initiatives have been put in place, including market contact groups, surveys and calls for expression of interest on the technical design features of a digital euro. ECB experts are also exchanging views on a digital euro with representatives from European civil society organisations and academia. See the ECB’s statement on stakeholder engagement.
Most significant has been the development of the Islamic financial markets, the increase in the range of the financial products and services, the increasing significance of the international dimension of Islamic finance, the development of the international Islamic financial architecture, and the enhanced international inter-linkages that has been brought about by these developments. Transformation of the Islamic financial landscape As recent as five years ago, the development of Islamic finance was regarded as an infant industry striving to prove its viability and competitiveness. At that time, the growth of Islamic finance was organic and largely concentrated in countries where the Muslim population was significant. In these five years, Islamic finance has recorded dramatic growth and has a presence in more than 75 countries both in Muslim and non-Muslim dominated communities. There are also a growing number of the international financial centres that are beginning to offer Islamic financial products and services such as in London, Singapore and Hong Kong. The number of Islamic banking institutions worldwide including conventional banks that are offering Islamic banking services have doubled to more than 300. The total Islamic financial assets under their management is now estimated to exceed one trillion US dollars, about fivefold its magnitude five years ago. Islamic finance is now among the fastest growing financial segments in the international financial system with an estimated average annual growth of between 15 to 20 percent.

Plus the already mentioned fact that November’s consumer goods imports showed a rebound and that, while still pessimistic, consumer expectations have shown some increase in recent months, especially for durables. About investment, in the near future we see no significant projects, low activity in housing construction and still bad business expectations. Nevertheless, this component is expected to post positive growth in 2017, as assumed in September, after contracting for three years in a row (figure 11). Thus, the baseline scenario estimates that, as a percentage of GDP, gross fixed capital formation will continue to drop in both real and nominal terms, to 22.9% and 21.7% of GDP, respectively (22.6 and 21.8% in September). As for the external scenario, a current account deficit is expected with no major changes between 2016 and 2017, very close to September estimates: 1.7% and 1.9% of GDP, respectively. However, as this figure contemplates an improvement in the terms of trade, at trend prices the current account deficit is bigger than was implicit in the last Report, by about half a percentage point in 2017. Our current account forecast assumes that Chilean exports volume will grow about 2% in 2017, after a fairly flat 2015 and a down-sloping 2015. By sectors, we expect increased volumes of both mining and non-mining shipments (table 1). In this scenario, annual inflation will decline further, to less than 3% during most of 2017, and remain stable through the rest of the projection horizon.
And the trigger for conversion from debt into equity could be at a margin of comfort away from true catastrophe; say, a percentage point or so above the minimum regulatory capital ratio. Of course, this would entail a structural shift over time in investment portfolios. But the system might be able to manage that adjustment. After all, it managed the all together less desirable adjustment to the development of the existing hybrid capital markets. But demand for contingent capital is, inevitably, uncertain at this stage. As are the terms on which it will be provided. We welcome the growing private sector focus on this. 4  King Mervyn A. (2009), “Speech by Mervyn King, Governor” to Scottish Business Organisations, Edinburgh, October 2009. See also Tucker P M W (2009a), “Remarks by Paul Tucker”, Panel session at the Turner Review Conference, London, March 2009 (pp. 5) and Tucker P M W (2009b), “The repertoire of official sector interventions in the financial system: last resort lending, market-making, and capital”, Bank of Japan’s 2009 International Conference, Tokyo, May 2009 (pp. 19). In the academic community, the idea was aired in “An Expedited Resolution Mechanism for Distressed Financial Firms: Regulatory Hybrid Securities”, Squam Lake Working Group on Financial Regulation, April 2009, Council on Foreign Relations. Dudley, William C. (2009) “Remarks by William Dudley” at the Institute of International Bankers Membership Luncheon, New York City, October 2009.

The first is the entanglements and conflicts that can exist between home and host insolvency and resolution laws. There is, for example, a first-order difference between, on the one hand, countries whose regime effectively permits a de facto ring-fencing of locally domiciled assets for local depositors and, on the other hand, those that treat liquidation as a joined-up, global exercise, with all unencumbered assets shared pro rata across senior unsecured creditors. These issues are not new. They were highlighted nearly twenty years ago by the closure of BCCI’s operations around the world. 8 Subsequently, in Europe, insolvency law for banks was improved through the Credit Institutions Reorganisation and Winding-Up Directive. There is a single-entity insolvency regime for any bank incorporated in the EEA, applying to the parent bank and also to all its branches throughout the EEA. We also have, in the Settlement Finality Directive, a sound legal basis for the integrity of wholesale payments transfers in the event of a default, without which the effects of failure could be truly devastating. And in the Financial Collateral Directive, we have an assurance that national insolvency or reorganisation measures cannot be applied to prevent or delay counterparties of a failed institution from exercising their rights to close out, net and/or enforce their security interests  6  Financial Services Authority Turner Review Conference Discussion Paper, “A regulatory response to the global banking crisis: systemically important banks and assessing the cumulative impact”, FSA DP 09/4. 7  King Mervyn A.