samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Thirdly, as concerns over the security of corporate and government bonds grew, the premia investors have had to pay against bond defaults have increased very significantly. The perceived decrease in the creditworthiness of key European companies and Western European sovereign bonds was highlighted by the very sharp rise of several benchmark credit default swap (CDS) indices for these markets.1 The foreign exchange market has been of particular concern to the SNB, as the Swiss franc’s safe haven properties and the growing dearth of alternative “safe” assets led to massive movements in our currency, which required the SNB to act. In early August, the real effective exchange rate of the Swiss franc peaked at an estimated level of almost 40% above its post-1990 long-term average.2 The extent of this deviation was very rare, in historic terms, as the previous high point, at the end of 1995, was only 12% above the same long-term average. Since the introduction of the euro in 1999, the volatility of the EUR/CHF exchange rate has averaged approximately 5%.3 In August it rose to almost 30%. As chart 1 shows, three of the largest ever daily negative movements in the EUR/CHF exchange rate also occurred in this period. Since the introduction of the minimum exchange  1  The Markit iTraxx Europe Index, for example, which is composed of 125 investment grade entities from six sectors (auto, consumer, energy, financial, industrial and TMT), more than doubled between July and September.

There are clear needs for developing other channels of financial intermediation in the longer term, in order to promote diversification and ensure financial stability and sustainable growth. However while the capital markets on the Mainland are still in their nascent stage and face some difficulties in development, the banking system will remain the most important channel of financial intermediation in the foreseeable future. Thus, those engaged in the banking sector will continue, for a long period of time, to play an important role in ensuring the effective intermediation of funds. Given the rapidly changing macroeconomic environment, the banking sector professionals face a difficult task in achieving this mission. The changes involved in this broad picture include supervisory policies for the banking sector, relationship between the regulatory authority and banks, and governance arrangements of individual banks. In line with the government’s reform and open policies and under the supervision of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Mainland banks have become increasingly commercialized. Banking professionals have progressed from their former mode of following the authorities’ policy instructions to a more active role in assessment of loan applications before making credit decisions. This is not an easy change. It involves both time and considerable adjustment in the thinking. Besides, good tools are a must for a good job: bank employees have to increase their knowledge of the banking business in a market economy and enhance their professional standards.
Whether such innovations have led to more efficient markets for end-users to invest and to manage their risks are still subject to some debate. Regulators worldwide also have been keeping abreast with innovative developments to understand newer forms of risks and market linkages, as well as to embrace the opportunities that these may bring. I will highlight a few examples that will be relevant to the world of exchanges. 43. I think we can expect innovations in distributed ledger technology that will be applied to the “plumbing” of financial markets, areas which we hitherto tend to take for granted. A distributed system should in theory improve resilience as it theoretically removes the risk of a single point of failure. If the clearing and settlement of equity trades can be reduced from the existing standard of 2–3 days to as little as 10 minutes, this will further reduce settlement risk. Some have said that the near instant settlement of transactions can transform the financial system and free up billions of dollars’ worth of collateral that is locked up during the trade settlement period. 44. Technology can also lead to “commoditisation” of certain financial intermediation functions. Just 15 years ago, the cost of brokerage for retail investors was as much as 1%. But now our retail investors are able to access global markets at significantly lower brokerage costs. There will be no let up on cost pressure.

As a statutory regulator, MAS will remain primarily responsible for the supervision of intermediaries who are our licensees in areas of capital and reserves, business conduct, antimoney laundering & counter terrorist financing (AML/CFT) and operational resilience. These are areas which have been stipulated in our regulations and notices, and are statutory obligations to be complied with. Starting from this year, MAS will no longer require exchanges to inspect their members in these areas as long as the entities are licensed by MAS. In other words, MAS will effectively be the “lead regulator” in these areas. 27. The need to form a separate SRO at this juncture for the purpose of member supervision is in our view, not compelling. It is unlikely to be an efficient model given the size of our market. In fact, it may require greater coordination since there will be more parties involved, namely MAS, the exchanges and yet another SRO. 28. The exchanges will remain responsible for areas affecting their respective market operations such as those relating to the priority of orders on a trading floor or risk management rules on margin requirements. In other words, these are business rules which members have to comply with, and may differ from exchange to exchange. Exchanges will need to supervise their members for compliance, in accordance with the risks these members pose to the markets or clearing houses, and undertake disciplinary proceedings for members who breach their rules. 29.
Investments – all portfolio investments - are spread between equities and fixed income instruments, as well as across countries. Approximately 29 per cent of the fund is invested directly in the US stock market and in dollar-denominated bonds. The size of the fund has increased rapidly over the last few years, and will reach approximately 90 per cent of GDP by the end of this decade, according to estimates from the Ministry of Finance. This implies further investments of considerable amounts, also in the US market. While the US economy has always been an important trading partner, our investments abroad and the globalisation of the financial system will further increase our interest in the US economy in the years ahead. The links, already important, will expand further. 6  BIS Review 70/2002

Mary will say a lot more about this in her keynote address, so let me highlight briefly some of what MAS has been doing on this front. MAS has conducted a stocktake of culture and conduct practices across selected financial institutions. Our supervisors had extensive one-on-one conversations with not just the management of these financial institutions but staff across the ranks. These conversations allowed our supervisors to gain insights on the staff’s perceptions of culture and their level of risk awareness. They helped us develop a keener sense of: whether the tone-from-the-top echoed from the bottom; and whether the organisational values plastered on the walls of the board room were practised on the ground. What have we found? Culture and conduct practices are uneven in the industry. Many financial institutions still struggle to articulate the conduct risks they face. Many are only starting to develop tools and indicators to obtain a holistic, cross-functional view of the culture within their organisation. What’s next? MAS with the banks have set up a steering group to identify emerging trends in conduct and behaviour as well as share best practices in “getting the culture right”. MAS has also set up a small behavioural sciences unit to build up our capabilities in this 4/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  area and support our supervisors with methodologies to get a better understanding of culture and conduct issues in the institutions they supervise. Let me conclude. Financial institutions have restored their capital, but not public trust.
8  BIS Review 106/2009  Figure 8  2008  2007  2006  2005  2004  2003  1987  2002  0 2001  -4 2000  0,5 1999  -2 1998  1  1997  0  1996  1,5  1995  2  1994  2  1993  4  1992  2,5  1991  6  1990  3  1989  8  1988  3,5  % GDP  10  $  Copper price and fiscal balances  Copper price  Actual balance  Structural balance Sources: Bloomberg; Budgets Bureau, Ministry of Finance. Figure 9  120  4  110  3,5  2,5  90  2  80  $  3  100  1,5  Real exchange rate  2009  2007  2005  2003  2001  1999  1997  1995  1993  0,5 1991  60 1989  1 1987  70  1985  index, 1986=100  Real exchange rate and copper price  Copper price  Sources: Central Bank of Chile; Bloomberg. BIS Review 106/2009  9  References Acemoglu, D., S. Johnson, and J. Robinson (2003), “An African Success Story: Botswana,” in In Search of Prosperity: Analytical Narrative on Economic Growth, D. Rodrik, Princeton University Press. Arezki, R. and F. van der Ploeg (2007) “Can the Natural Resource Curse be Turned into a Blessing?

10  BIS Review 106/2009
We believe that expectations play an important role when prices and wages are set. Expectations concerning future inflation and economic stability have considerable impact, not least in the foreign exchange market. Inflation expectations also influence wage demands and have an effect when companies adjust their prices. It may be difficult to form an opinion about how expectations are generated. Confidence in the inflation target may provide an anchor. Past inflation rates may also influence what we think inflation will be in the future. There is thus an interaction between inflation expectations and inflation. If there is confidence in monetary policy, expected inflation will be equal to or close to the inflation target. This contributes to stabilising inflation around the target. The expectations channel thus amplifies the effects of monetary policy. We therefore place considerable emphasis on ensuring that households, companies, the social partners and financial market participants are confident that inflation will remain low and stable. To the question of how high prices are expected to rise, companies, the social partners and others answer that they expect a rise of 2½ per cent over time. Financial market participants also expect future inflation to be 2½ per cent. This is reflected in developments in long-term bond yields. This indicates that monetary policy has underpinned confidence that future inflation will be 2½ per cent. Consumer price developments There were wide fluctuations in the Norwegian economy in the 1970s and 1980s. Economic developments were marked by high and variable inflation.

European Central Bank: Press conference – introductory statement Introductory statement by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank and Mr Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, 5 August 2010. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice-President and I are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. We will now report on the outcome of today’s meeting. Based on its regular economic and monetary analyses, the Governing Council views the current key ECB interest rates as appropriate. It therefore decided to leave them unchanged. Considering all the new information which has become available since our meeting on 8 July 2010, we continue to expect price developments to remain moderate over the policy-relevant medium-term horizon, benefiting from low domestic price pressures. The available economic data and survey-based indicators suggest a strengthening in economic activity in the second quarter of 2010, and the available data for the third quarter are better than expected. Looking further ahead, and taking into account a number of temporary factors, we continue to expect the euro area economy to grow at a moderate and still uneven pace, in an environment of uncertainty. Our monetary analysis confirms that inflationary pressures over the medium term remain contained, as suggested by weak money and credit growth. Overall, we expect price stability to be maintained over the medium term, thereby supporting the purchasing power of euro area households.
When a longer period is used for the comparison (e.g. the last ten or fifteen years) the conclusions are the same. In this context, some economies have implemented foreign exchange measures, including interventions to mitigate the appreciation of their currencies. While these actions may be desirable in certain situations – Chile has actually used them in the past and they are part of its policy toolkit – implementing them requires a careful evaluation of both the benefits and costs to the country. These measures are appropriate to correct an over-reaction in the value of the currency against its medium- and long-term fundamentals or as a way to build an international reserve position, providing greater safety in the event of a sharp contraction of external financing. These benefits are difficult to quantify objectively, but it is reasonable to think that the lower the availability of reserves or the further away the real exchange rate is from its long-term trend, the greater the benefits. At the same time, we must always bear the costs associated with these interventions in mind. First, there is the direct financial cost, because the reserves are invested in highly liquid and safe instruments, but whose interest rates are lower than that of the local instruments financing their acquisition. This generates a significant cost that eats into the  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Central Bank’s net worth. Moreover, it is important to preserve the flexibility of the exchange rate in the Chilean economy because it facilitates accommodating external shocks.

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In particular, public investment should be boosted, especially in infrastructure, an area in which various countries that have fiscal space have built up a considerable investment deficit in the past. Those countries could improve their potential growth, given the positive correlation between this type of public expenditure and productivity (at least when investment projects are efficiently selected, designed and implemented) and, at the same time, support the recovery in the euro area as a whole in the short term. All in all, the coordination of fiscal policies should be reinforced, to encourage the countries that have fiscal space to use it, while those that have higher debt levels continue with their fiscal consolidation. In the medium term, as indicated in the Five Presidents’ Report of June 2015, a fiscal capacity for the euro area as a whole needs to be developed, to prevent overburdening monetary policy at times, such as now, of major economic difficulties. In the absence of more ambitious mechanisms, it would be advisable to reinforce the instruments already available, such as the European Investment Plan (the so-called Juncker Plan). Redirecting unused structural funds towards that Plan could help to launch projects that are unable to find funding in the present uncertain environment and to trigger productive investment, which continues to show signs of weakness in the euro area as a whole.

This is further supported by the key content of the sessions covering the critical issues to be deliberated by the stakeholders involved in AML/CFT. II. Emerging trends and risks of money laundering and terrorism financing  It is a permanent battle to put in place a robust AML/CFT regime that could effectively deter and detect serious offence by removing the economic incentives attached to the crime. There will be continuous and sustained attempts to out-maneuver the AML/CFT system. For this, let me share some thoughts with you on the second theme of this speech, which is on the emerging trends of money laundering and terrorism financing in this region. Today, while the purpose and criminal intent remains unchanged, i.e., to disguise illegal proceeds as legitimate assets, the launderers are now using more complex structures and sophisticated methods to launder money and circumvent the preventive measures that has been put in place. Allow me to share four examples as follows: 1. It is observed that instead of the simple structuring of transactions (or smurfing), recent cases have highlighted the increasing use of third parties to layer the proceeds of crime to distance them from its origins. The setting up of front shops and complex trust accounts using nominees are some of the common tools increasingly being used by the perpetrators;  2. As reflected in the FATF Strategic Surveillance Survey 2008, there is also an increasing trend of criminals leveraging on technology advancements to further their activities.
The downgrade reflects the sharper-than-expected decline in inflation in car prices and accommodation costs in the first five months of the year. The announced increases in the supply of rental units and Certificates of Entitlement (COEs) should help secure a moderating inflation profile in these components in the year ahead. The relatively benign inflation outlook is of course premised on no new shocks to global supply and no reversal in domestic wage momentum. MAS' monetary policy has been proactive and progressive, positioning the economy well in light of shifts in the balance of risks between growth and inflation. Being proactive in tightening monetary policy has allowed us to keep pace with an accelerating inflation momentum. We began tightening monetary policy in October 2021 when core inflation averaged just 1.1% in the preceding quarter. We did not foresee the war in Ukraine or the surge in global food and energy prices but we assessed that inflation was beginning to climb in the aftermath of the pandemic and sought to position monetary policy more appropriately. Starting early has allowed us to take a pause – as we did in April 2023 – to monitor how the Singapore economy evolves and assess whether the disinflation trend continues. 3/16  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  Our progressive tightening of monetary policy has helped to arrest the momentum of price increases and facilitated a gradual decline in inflation.

Productivity growth usually slows down when economic activity slows down, but in recent years productivity growth has been unusually low. It is also unusual that productivity growth falls as long as eight quarters in a row, as it has now. It is difficult to find a simple explanation for the low productivity growth in recent years. The National Institute of Economic Research has studied the composition effects, to put it simply, if the composition of industries with different rates of productivity has changed, and it finds no great effect on productivity. 13 Another possible explanation could be that the recent increase in employment has meant that new groups with a lower productivity than others have entered the labour market. For instance, it can take time to train new employees. It may also be the case that companies have prepared for coming retirements by employing additional staff so there are currently two to a job in some cases. When productivity slows down, unit labour costs increase, and this puts further pressure on companies to raise prices. There is thus risk of higher inflation. We are currently facing a situation where it is difficult to predict how companies will adjust to high unit labour costs. It is always difficult to dismiss staff, but indicators such as job vacancies, redundancies, companies’ employment plans, etc. point towards an adjustment having begun. At the same time, a general decline in demand makes it difficult for companies to pass on cost increases to consumers.
The disparity between our two countries in terms of bank accounts accessibility is largely a reflection of the fact that in Italy you cannot get your salary if you do not provide with your bank account number. The anti-cash program initiated by the Bank of Albania clearly indicates that in order to lower the cash economy, we have to abolish the option of cash payments, including here salaries of the private sector, payments of utilities, etc. Our bank is fully committed to support this process at all levels, being these regulatory or technical. Of course, this comes at some cost, which in case of remittances is going from zero rates that informal or cash channels offer to some positive commissions required by formal channels. I understand the concerns raised by some analysts that legislation on exchange rate control or anti-money laundering could increase transfer rates further and push people to go underground. This calls for a revision of regulation that does not penalize the volume of remittances. As I mentioned earlier, the formalization of the economy is a major component of improving business environment in Albania. Therefore, “forcing” individuals to get into formal channels while comes at a short term cost of some positive rates most probably will have the long term benefit of signaling the serious intentions that we are moving on the right directions to both emigrants and foreign investors. For recipient families, accessibility to financial institutions plays a more important role due to large percentage of receipts delivered straight to the recipient’s door.

For commercial banks, their ability to market additional value-added services, such as savings products, loans or other types of credit to remittance recipients, will require the achievement of a critical mass of customer acquisition, as well as a higher technology delivery mechanism, to bring down the average cost of the investment required to serve that client. Micro credit programs and qualitative improvements of banking infrastructure, concerted with introduction of new financial instruments will also help to attract more remittances. Promoting microfinance organizations as participants in remittances market, could offer certain advantages to the microfinance sector, to the government and to remittance recipients. The costs of this expansion would primarily fall to the regulatory and supervisory authorities. We already took an important step in bringing these institutions under the Bank of Albania supervision which we expect to improve their status in the market by enhancing the confidence of operating with them. Microfinance institutions are already providing small amount loans to the low income class. Their existing programs allow them to leverage their network and geographic reach to assist remittance senders and receivers in gaining access to low cost financial services, as well as access micro-saving and investment products. The third area of our efforts is to channel the workers’ remittances toward country’s development needs. The formalization is a necessary step but does not ensure the role of remittances as a developing instrument.