samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Models including more realistic characterisations of oil or gas markets offer conceptually similar responses, as in for instance, Nakov, A., and A. Pescatori “Monetary Policy Trade-Offs with a Dominant Oil Producer”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 42: 1-32, 2010. 3  persistent inflation such expectations can become highly sensitive to deviations of realised inflation from their own forecast.8 Thus, an adequate monetary policy conduct should take into account the risk of de-anchoring by moving the interest rate more aggressively than in the absence of such a risk.9 The optimal monetary policy then involves a strong response to movements in agents’ long-run inflation expectation. This strong response ensures that whenever the public is surprised by inflation in the wake of recent events, and expectations start to de-anchor, the central bank does not allow them to drift above the medium-term anchor persistently. In sum, the medium-term orientation of our inflation target recognises both the imperfect control of inflation by monetary policy in the short run, owing to the variable transmission lags to the economy and inflation, and the fact that certain kinds of shocks may create a temporary trade-off between inflation and economic activity, as in the case of cost-push shocks. The medium-term orientation provides the policy flexibility to assess the origin of shocks and look through temporary shocks that may dissipate of their own accord. By following this medium-term orientation, the ECB avoids unnecessary volatility in activity and employment. Importantly, the medium-term orientation does not imply that central banks should ignore short-run inflation developments.

Philipp Hildebrand: Current state of the Swiss financial system and lessons learnt Introductory remarks by Mr Philipp Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the end-of-year media news conference, Zurich, 11 December 2008. *  *  *  When we published our report on financial stability six months ago, I talked to you about the most important lessons that the SNB had learned from the financial crisis. Today, after a brief assessment of the current state of the financial system, I would like to tell you about progress in the follow-up from these lessons. The focus here is on capital and liquidity regulation. Finally, I will speak briefly about a more cheerful topic that is unrelated to the financial crisis – the launching of a new series of Swiss banknotes. The economic environment has sharply deteriorated ... As you have already heard from Mr Roth, the economic environment has sharply deteriorated. The three big economic blocs – Europe, Japan and the US – are in recession, and growth in the emerging economies has slowed markedly. For Switzerland, we also expect a period of negative growth. The situation on the US real estate market has not yet stabilised. Futures on the Case-Shiller index indicate a further drop in prices of around 15% until 2010. Thereafter, the contracts suggest that prices will stabilise. Falling prices can also be observed in some European countries, in particular in the English and the Irish real estate markets.
Once deposit interest rates began to vary with market rates, the demands for M1 and M2 - the primary guides to monetary policy - became unstable. So, by the early 1980s, the Fed had de-emphasized M1. And by the mid-1980s, M2 had met the same fate. In the 1990s, we continued to establish annual ranges for these aggregates, as we were required to do by law, but they played almost no role in our deliberations. The legal requirement to set ranges expired this year, and in late June we decided to stop setting ranges. This step was taken with some reluctance, because using interest rates as the main policy tool does pose well-known dangers. But in the absence of reliable monetary aggregates, the Fed has operated reasonably well in an environment of significant ongoing financial deregulation and sizable financial shocks. Let me give you some examples. In terms of deregulation, barriers to interstate banking were eliminated, and recently a new financial modernization law allowed depositories to expand into activities like insurance and investment banking. In terms of shocks, we dealt first with the so-called credit crunch in the late 1980s - which was due in part to the collapse of many savings and loans - then with the turmoil set off by the Asian currency crisis in 1997-98, and finally with the unexpected runup in equity values in the second half of 1990s.

Since then, the Fed has been able to accommodate ongoing deregulation and respond to shocks in the financial sector by focusing on adjustments in the federal funds rate. More recently, the challenges for the Fed have been on the real side of the economy - and here I’m referring especially to a technology shock. While a technology shock that boosts productivity is a wonderful thing, it also has created uncertainty about the proper course for policy. As I understand it, productivity growth rates have not yet begun to accelerate in Europe. However, it would seem to be only a matter of time before the ECB will face the challenge of responding to a comparable technology shock. In any event, I’d say that our recent experience makes a good case study in conducting monetary policy in the face of great uncertainty - an issue of importance to any central bank. Let me start with a brief look at the history of our experience with financial change. In the late 1970s, the buildup of US inflation pushed nominal interest rates up against the legal interest rate ceilings on most bank deposits. As a result, the market began to circumvent the ceilings by creating new instruments, and pressure began to mount to remove them altogether. In 1980, the Monetary Control Act did just that by phasing out the ceilings. Importantly for monetary policy, the act also permitted banks to pay interest on some checking accounts.
Issuers must take it upon themselves to make full and prompt disclosure of material information. It is not just a matter of meeting the requirements of the law and SGX's rules. It is increasingly in the interests of companies to go beyond the minimum in disclosure standards, as investors become more discerning to the quality of information available to them. A number of studies have shown that the markets have attached an increased premium in recent years to companies which demonstrate sound corporate governance and who are more forthcoming and open with information on their businesses. The so-called 'corporate governance dividend', previously not easily discerned in Asian markets in particular, is now fully visible. •  Market intermediaries play an important supporting role. Investment banks, accountants, lawyers and other professionals who advise issuers have a duty to provide high standards of professional advice, and to exercise thorough due diligence to ensure that issuers comply with laws and rules, as well as adopt high standards of disclosure. Brokers and investment advisers likewise, have a duty to provide their investing clients with objective advice that is in their clients' best interests. •  Finally, it is for investors themselves to take advantage of higher standards of disclosure in making their decisions. Investors and the media also contribute to effective market discipline by calling for more and better quality information from listed companies. Institutional investors such as fund managers play an important role in this regard.

In most cases, counterfeit notes managed to pass through because the victims were too busy and casual to check their currency notes properly. This is indeed unfortunate and certainly avoidable if we are a bit more vigilant and aware of some security features found in our currency. Our currency notes are designed to protect against any forms of counterfeiting from the most basic to the most sophisticated. However, even the best security features and technology that are available will not help unless members of the public are adequately educated on the basic security characteristics of our currency notes. The security features in our currency notes utilise the latest technology and have stood the test of time. For example, “Intaglio” or raised printing effect, one of the most well-known security element found in almost every currency in the world, have never been featured on any counterfeits generated by colour printers. If only the general public is aware and able to identify of this particular security feature, they should be able to detect ninety nine percent of counterfeits in Malaysia and the world over. Intaglio by no means is the only security feature. There are many more watermark, electrotype numeral, see-through register mark, windowed colour shifting security threads with texts, hologram stripe, gold patch, to name a few, are among the basic security features that we should know on our currency notes. All this features can be easily be verified or authenticated using the “FLTC” method, that is to Feel, Look, Tilt and Check without using sophisticated devices.
Christian Noyer: Building on Euro area achievements to prepare for enlargement Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, at the 2007 Annual Conference on Macroeconomic and Economic Policy Issues, Bank of Latvia, Riga, 10 October 2007. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure and honour for me to address this conference hosted by the Latvijas Banka. Having just passed the European Union 50th anniversary, it is an appropriate time to reflect upon the essence and future of this extraordinary endeavour. Never before, in the whole history of mankind, have democratic nations pursued and reached, through peaceful cooperation, such a close degree of interdependence, involving, in many crucial areas, deliberate pooling of sovereignty. Of course, the process has not been without difficulties and tensions, many of which are still apparent and acute. Of course, numerous challenges remain. But, for the first time in more than a thousand years, Europe is at peace and prosperous, with democratic regimes everywhere. This is, by historical standards, an exceptional achievement. The whole process of European integration was based on a strong intuition: by sharing the instruments and policies underpinning economic prosperity, European nations would create an irreversible situation of interdependence and solidarity where conflicts and wars of the past would become impossible. The creation of the Euro area is the natural consequence of this original intuition. It results both from a political vision and an economic and financial necessity.

It is not MAS’ role to front all investor education – this is where industry bodies and consumer groups come in. However, MAS will need to act as a catalyst to increase the focus on investor education in the financial sector. MAS can set out clear directions for industry, do more to explain its own market conduct regulation to investors and consumers, work with industry and other partners to co-ordinate current education efforts and, where relevant, co-fund with industry new investor education initiatives. Focusing and targeting our development efforts Fifth, we need to focus and target our development efforts. Despite the adverse environment, there are still opportunities for Singapore. The Financial Services Working Group (FSWG) set up at the beginning of the year has identified three promising areas: wealth management, universal processing centres and an Asia Risk Exchange. In identifying wealth management, the Working Group has reaffirmed a key thrust of our developmental efforts. It has gone on to single out alternative assets, such as private equity and hedge funds, as areas for development. Universal processing centres and the Asia Risk Exchange will be two new fields for Singapore, where Singapore’s efficiency, technology and infrastructure will be important strengths. For universal processing centres we need to consolidate global transactional flows into Singapore. The Asia Risk Exchange will combine Singapore’s existing insurance and capital market expertise into a new physical vehicle for the transfer of large and sophisticated risks.
Over the last few months we have completed significant changes in a number of important areas: we decided to calibrate regulatory capital to unexpected losses only; we have made significant improvements to the provisions relating to securitisation, credit risk mitigation and operational risk; we have clarified Pillar 2 and the calibration process; we have specified the treatment of revolving retail exposures, and we continue to make progress in preparations for the implementation of the Accord. Having reached consensus on the framework, the Basel II process is entering a new stage. Member authorities will now focus on transforming the text of the framework, which will be published at the end of June, into national rules. This will require national supervisors to conduct rule-making and adoption processes relevant to their jurisdictions, something that is well under way in many countries. In addition, the Committee agreed on the timetable for the implementation of the Accord in member countries. This is the second important development of last week’s meeting in my view. The Committee confirmed that the new framework will be implemented by year-end 2006 for those banks adopting the standardised and foundation approaches to risk. With regard to the most sophisticated approaches to risk measurement and management, the Committee considered the needs of national supervisors and of the industry and decided to provide an additional year.

The MA incentivises insurers to seek out assets which have the highest return relative to the regulatory benchmark used to estimate future losses – these may or may not be productive or indeed UK assets. To give just one example, one of the most MA-generative assets our team has come across so far is a 100-year bond issued by a Latin American country, which surely has nothing to do with the government’s investment objectives for the UK. It’s simply an asset that happens to pay a high return relative to the rating it has managed to secure. Indeed, looking at insurers’ assets six years into the regime it is notable that the MA currently tilts incentives towards assets like ground rents – and that infrastructure fares relatively less well (see Chart A). Now to help support the right kind of investment, we propose important changes to speed up approval processes and widen the range of assets in which insurers can invest – I think there is broad support for those changes, and this may prove to be the part of the reform package which does most to promote investment through time. For example, we would like to allow a less constrained approach for assets which are expected to have future stable cashflows but which include some flexibility on the timings of those cashflows, such as investments with an initial construction phase. We think this will encourage industry to invest at an earlier stage in infrastructure projects.
The Riksbank works actively in various international forums such as the EU/ECB, the BIS and the IMF to be able to detect at an early stage weaknesses that could lead to financial crises and to meet threats to stability. We support in various ways the endeavours to strengthen and harmonise international regulations and supervision work in different countries. Concluding remarks The economic downturn in all three Baltic countries is a deep one. There are some indications that the recession may have bottomed out or is at least close to it. The trade and current account balances have improved, which is mainly due to domestic constraint, but to some extent also to improvements in exports. The pressure on the currencies has declined. It is easier for the countries’ governments to fund their budget deficits. Although those deficits are still high, they appear to be held in check, at least temporarily, through drastic fiscal stabilisation measures. The IMF’s and the EU’s loan programmes for Latvia are still in operation. With regard to Estonia, efforts are being focused on clarifying the conditions for a  BIS Review 11/2010  5  possible adoption of the euro as early as the turn of the year. All three countries have recently succeeded in acquiring loans on the international markets. But at the same time as we note these positive signs, we must be aware of the continued crises in the economies, with high and rising unemployment, and a heavy fall in GDP, consumption and investment.

Thomas Jordan: Monetary policy in times of crisis. Why central banks talk to one another Summary of a speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Energie-Apéro Etavis, Zurich, 14 May 2012. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website  *  *  *  Mandates differ from one central bank to another. So, too, do the economic structures and business cycles of different central bank territories. These factors speak in favour of an autonomous monetary policy for each currency area. This monetary policy autonomy has proved its value for Switzerland – also in the latest crisis. Nevertheless, central banks do work with one another in a number of different ways. They exchange knowledge on a continual basis, thereby helping to improve the foundations upon which their own monetary policy decisions are made. Central banks are also able to access foreign currencies by concluding swap agreements, allowing them to better counteract liquidity shortages on the international money market in times of crisis. Finally, joint measures can have a strong psychological impact since they signal to financial markets and economic agents that the central banks are speaking with a single voice. Autonomy and cooperation are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary. In a crisis, good cooperation supports and reinforces the effects of autonomous monetary policy measures.
François Villeroy de Galhau: Europe at a crossroads – how to achieve efficient economic governance in the euro area? Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, recorded for the event at Bruegel, Brussels, 22 March 2016. *  *  *  Summary There is a growing perception of the need to rethink the economic governance of the euro area. Compelling ideas have been put forward to that effect; yet their implementation is tricky, especially in the present climate of Euroscepticism. Shifting from ideas to action has become urgent if monetary policy is not to remain the only game in town. Clearly, the single monetary policy cannot be a substitute for the coordination of national economic policies or the lack of reforms. To be sure, the debate over EMU reform is politically loaded; but for euro area citizens the poor coordination of national policies involves a high cost in terms of growth, of several points of GDP. The economic case therefore needs to be made: this discussion is not about “more Brussels”, it is about more growth and jobs in Europe. In addition, it is not a choice between domestic reforms or European coordination; we need both. Between complete integration – of the monetary-policy type – and monitored national policies, as currently conducted, the missing link is “full coordination” of fiscal and structural policies. This is clearly shown in a matrix crossing these three degrees of integration and the four policy dimensions (monetary, financial, fiscal and structural).

BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  A. House prices deflated by the consumer price index. Index 2000=100. Sources: Association of Norwegian Real Estate Agents, ECON Pöyry, Finn.no, Association of Real Estate Agency Firms and Statistics Norway. B. Corporate credit, mainland Norway (C3)/mainland GDP. Index 2000=100. Source: Statistics Norway. C. Market funding and other debt excluding deposits in Norwegian-owned banks and covered bond mortgage companies. As a percentage of total assets. Source: Norges Bank. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  10  BIS central bankers’ speeches
The IMF has managed to set-up a template for core and encouraged indicators, and to dramatically increase the number of countries that report FSIs to the Fund. Probably in some of the countries, this was a push-up mechanism to rethink the quality and the availability of the indicators. As for our own experience, we do compile and publish the entire core and most of the encouraged indicators, apart from those that relate to real estate market, distributional aspects of the loans (geographic) and data pertaining to more complex financial instrument, nonexistent in our economy. A special attention should be put on the real estate market, which proved to be one of the triggers for the crisis in some of the countries and missing aspect in the vulnerability analysis. Though comprehensive official data is not published, still the scrutiny of the real estate market, the deviation of the compiled real estate price indices  BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  from the equilibria, the prudential screening of the collateralized loans within the central bank is done on a permanent basis. Yet, a more comprehensive data and statistics in this area, both on housing and commercial property segments, is a challenge for the forthcoming period. One of the important financial stability considerations was the inclusion and monitoring of the system – wide macro prudential risk, meaning inclusion of all the regulated financial institutions, as well as the shadow – unregulated ones.

3  AAOIFI is Accounting & Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions  4  International Organisation of Securities Commissions  5  International Association of Insurance Supervisors  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  •  Between our two countries, we are seeing Malaysian banks collaborating with Singapore corporates and financial players to structure $ denominated corporate sukuk programmes. And Singapore-listed companies are venturing out to tap the Ringgit sukuk market in Malaysia. These are trends that we are keen to encourage. To repeat therefore, I am optimistic that we can realise the significant growth potential for Islamic finance in the next 10–15 years. Managing the challenge of capital flows in the post-crisis era Let me move on now to say a few things about the challenges that many in the emerging world face in managing capital flows, particularly in the face of the extremely low interest rates being set in the advanced economies (AEs). We are in an unprecedented situation. Interest rates are expected to stay extremely low in the US and much of the advanced world for a few years, reflecting decisions by their central banks to keep monetary conditions highly accommodative until their economies resume normal growth. There is debate among economists on how effective these activist monetary policies, such as the US Fed’s QE3 strategy, will be in reviving entrepreneurial spirits and private investments. If the strategy succeeds and the US economy recovers, it will be a plus for Asia as well.