samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This concerns the extent to which the authorities should be involved in the development of the financial infrastructure. I am sure you are aware of the huge amount of public money spent in all jurisdictions in the development of the physical infrastructure, building highways, bridges and airports to take people and goods from one place to another safely and efficiently, thus facilitating the conduct of economic activities for the benefit of all. Authorities, however, seem to devote only disproportionately small amounts of resources to the development of the financial infrastructure to move money and financial instruments from one entity to another safely and efficiently for the purpose of enhancing financial efficiency that promotes economic prosperity. To some extent, the development of the financial infrastructure can be left to the market, with SWIFT being a sterling example of private sector initiative in this area. But many of the important elements of the financial infrastructure are public goods, the provision of which, in a form that serves the public interest best, may not be financially viable for the private sector. Furthermore, the conflict I mentioned earlier often comes in, affecting the willingness or the enthusiasm of the financial intermediaries to develop and use a financial infrastructure that promotes financial efficiency.

On top of this, there were of course the market excitement, or interestingly the lack of it, surrounding the reversion of sovereignty; the inevitable bursting of the housing bubble that did not, I repeat not, lead to a collapse of the financial system; the construction of our multi-currency and multi-dimensional financial infrastructure that made RTGS DVP and PVP possible for anybody wanting to manage risks more properly here in this time zone; and the emergence, more recently, of the RMB offshore market here that is also serving as a laboratory for testing financial liberalisation on the Mainland, a development that is of increasing importance to global finance. But it is still a great pleasure, after all these years, to welcome SIBOS back to Hong Kong. I understand that the objectives of SIBOS this year are “learning lessons from the past, exploring the post-crisis landscape and paving the way for future innovation”. These are indeed important objectives, having regard to the current state of global finance. Indeed, for the past couple of years they have been occupying much of the time of the financial authorities and the industry.
It’s useful that governments look into that and look at the various tools that could be effective and which could correspond to the various goals that they want to pursue, including making sure that the policies followed by member states receiving EFSF support are aimed at restoring a sound fiscal and the appropriate competitiveness. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Jean-Pierre Roth: No frontiers in monetary policy – from the fight to avoid internationalisation of the currency to the internationalisation of monetary policy Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Swiss Institute of International Studies, Zurich, 6 May 2009. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  In view of the challenges with which it has been faced, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) demonstrated its adaptability time and again. Over the past thirty years, for instance, it abandoned its endeavours to prevent the use of the Swiss franc as an international currency. Moreover, it has gradually incorporated international elements into its monetary policy strategy and its monetary policy instruments. The goal when making these adjustments was always to improve the effectiveness of monetary policy in order to protect the country from any inflationary trend. In managing the current crisis, both the internationalised monetary policy strategy and the internationalised policy instruments have served the SNB well thus far. BIS Review 552009  1
But, given the extent of the loss of confidence in the Asian case, organising private financial support meant in practice persuading existing creditors that their assets would be better protected if they were prepared to leave them in place, especially if other major private creditors agreed to do the same, and if official support were made available in parallel. But in this case, too, difficult judgements have to be made. There is a danger that, if private creditors have in effect to be coerced into staying put, they will immediately cut their positions elsewhere, while they still could, thereby adding to the international contagion. In fact, in the critically important case - because of its size - of Korea, the promise of massive official support failed to restore market confidence. And when it became apparent that the official bilateral financing was in practice available only as the very last resort we - again with the central banks as the immediate intermediaries - had to turn to the commercial bank lenders in the major creditor countries and persuade them to extend the maturity of their loans. Like most U-turns, it was a dangerous moment. But the banks’ constructive response went a long way to stabilising the immediate situation in relation to Korea - and thereby to the region as a whole. The creditor banks are also now in negotiation with Indonesia’s bank and commercial non-bank debtors.

Mr. George gives a central banker’s response to the Asian crisis Speech by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. E.A.J. George, at the Foreign and Colonial Emerging Markets Conference, in London, on 28/5/98. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I’m delighted to participate in this Emerging Markets Conference, sharing the platform with such distinguished company. I am particularly pleased to be joined in this session by Guillermo Ortiz - my colleague from the Bank of Mexico. The particular examination question which you set me is: “How did an OECD central banker respond to the Asian crisis?”. I have to confess that it’s a somewhat embarrassing question. If I’m brutally honest I have to acknowledge that I didn’t see it coming; I played a modest role in helping to contain its immediate impact on global financial stability; and I’m still struggling to understand its implications, in terms both of its economic after-effects, and of the lessons we must all learn to reduce the risks in the future. I would only plead in mitigation, your honour, that I was by no means alone in all of that; and I beg leave to join in my defence all my central banking colleagues, governments and Finance Ministry officials, in Asia and elsewhere, the international financial institutions, and the world’s financial markets. The storm last year in Asia struck essentially the ASEAN four - Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia - spreading subsequently to South Korea and intermittently battering Hong Kong and elsewhere.
It must be right in the longer term that lenders should get back to fundamentals of creditworthiness and apply conventional lending standards; indeed this is one of the themes of this speech. Implicit parental guarantees have enabled companies such as GITIC to borrow more than they should have done and the lending has not been sensibly used. However, the adjustment process cannot happen overnight. The transparency is not there in many Chinese companies; and even if it was there, it would not in many cases support the present levels of borrowing if the companies were looked at on a stand-alone basis. The banks will therefore need to be patient and allow borrowers sufficient time to manage their debts down to more sustainable levels. The banks will also need to cooperate in assisting distressed Mainland BIS Review 53/1999  4  companies to work out their problems over time and to restructure their debts. The other side of the coin is that the companies and their shareholders must be prepared to be open and transparent with their creditors. Dealing with the financial problems of companies in general has become a major preoccupation of banks in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the region. There is still not much new lending going on - in Hong Kong domestic lending has fallen for ten months in a row. The main priority for many banks is therefore to limit the damage from loans already on the balance sheet.

To be successful in this objective requires a number of factors to be in place at both the individual bank and sector levels. In individual banks, there must be an effective system of credit monitoring and loan classification to detect problem loans at an early stage and to enable corrective action to be taken as soon as possible. As I have already indicated, the shift from relationship banking and the unwillingness of borrowers to supply sufficient information have been hindering factors in Hong Kong in enabling banks to pick up early warning signals. Once problems have been detected, it may be sufficient in the early stages to leave the handling of these with the account officers. But when the problems are too deeprooted, there will usually be advantage in transferring problem loans to a dedicated loan recovery unit where specialist expertise attention can be devoted either to restructure the loans or to take recovery action and liquidate any collateral. This is the theory, but it is easier said that done to find loan recovery specialists when many bankers in the region have not experienced a prolonged period of economic decline. Outside experts, for example from the accounting firms, can help to fill some of the gap. But it is also essential that the banks build up their own resources and provide more training to their own staff on how to deal with problem loans.
In the middle of next year, we are introducing a cap on the total mortgage cost — for people to see the fair value of a loan including all tied options. We believe it is essential that the total loan cost, viewed broadly, stops banks from circumventing our restrictions through creative options that add to the total loan cost. That would involve legislative changes, and we need your support there. The subject of debt burden and consumer loans will remain our focus, but I would now like to proceed to comment on the rollout of financial technologies. You will agree that our financial sector is quite advanced technologically, offering many services, digital services and online payments that are still unavailable in other countries. We are committed to ongoing support of innovations in the financial sector, and continue our dialogue on potential areas of development. We report good progress with payments for goods and services in the Faster Payments System. Some time ago, the system only applied to money transfers. Now, people can pay for goods and services via banks’ mobile applications, with a QR code. Companies stand to benefit from the lower costs compared to acquiring. You know how acute that problem has been, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Payments are routine transactions today, and multiple channels should be available to process them. This is essential to cost reduction. The more competitive the market, the better its product offering. Therefore, we will open the payment market to non-financial organisations, too.

We have recently discussed this subject at the Bank Association forum, because we are convinced that consumer rights to clear, appropriate and fair financial products are being violated in this case. At this juncture, protecting financial consumers is top priority. We will only stop tightening our conduct supervision when we signal to the financial industry our satisfaction with interactions between financial institution and consumer being transparent and beneficial to both parties. In that area, we intend to take advantage of the legislative changes that have passed, including in the spring session. A very important law, passed recently at the initiative of senators, specifies financial instrument sales rules, including the right to ban sales and demand the repurchase of non-transparent products that are unprofitable for buyers. Thank you very much for this law. From 1 October, testing will be open to unqualified investors who want to buy complex instruments. As you remember, Ms Speaker, you and I discussed this matter with banks. With your support, that law passed very quickly. We understand that the problem is more than just sales of non-transparent financial products to consumers, but also about additionally imposed services and insurance sold together with standard financial products. That problem remains relevant. To stop the practice, a law was adopted to introduce a so-called end-to-end cooling period. Consumers have two weeks to cancel any tied services and receive a refund after they realise that they were misled or deceived.
I would therefore like to share with you after a brief description of what preceded the economic slowdown we have now entered – my view of what are the core issues for assessing growth and inflation prospects for the near future, both in the USA and in Sweden. The driving forces behind the economic upturn in the USA The very optimistic expectations regarding long-term growth comprised an important driving force behind the sustained rise in the US economy. It was the rapid developments in information technology and the telecom sector in particular that were assumed to have such spread effects to the rest of the economy that production was expected to continue increasing at a more rapid rate than before, even in the long term. Investments therefore rose strongly, particularly in the IT sector. There were also many people who claimed that future fluctuations in the business sector would be less pronounced than before. Efficient stock management and trimmed production processes were assumed to be factors that would reduce the risk of major fluctuations in growth. The USA had taken the step into a “new economy”. And developments on the stock market reflected the belief that “this time it’s really different”. At the same time, the fact that demand could increase so strongly and over such a long period of time without inflation accelerating in the USA was regarded by many as the revenue from breaking earlier economic ties.

In April this year, the ASEAN countries also doubled the size of its regional financing facility, the ASEAN Swap Arrangement (ASA), from $ to $ billion. The ASA is a further initiative to maintain regional economic and financial stability through a mechanism that provides short-term liquidity support to member countries facing temporary balance of payments difficulties. Strengthened strategic partnership as a natural way forward Ladies and Gentlemen, As we advance forward, both the EU and ASEAN through the rebalancing of global growth have the potential to contribute towards alleviating the imbalances in the global landscape. The process of increased inter-linkages between our two regions has already begun. As a pre-cursor to the establishment of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), our regions have embarked on the TransRegional European Union-ASEAN Trade Initiative in 2003. Work is also already underway to expand trade and investment flows through closer ASEAN-EU co-operation in trade, investment and regulatory issues, among others. While barriers between our regions will continue to be lowered under a future FTA, it is also important to maintain coherence between liberalisation and economic stability. New areas in specific sectors of mutual interest that would complement the path to greater growth for both regions need to be explored. This would contribute towards reinforcing the sustainability and effectiveness of the ASEANEU partnership and, thereby, increase the potential to contribute to global economic stability. Allow me to conclude my remarks here. Thank you for your participation in this Euro Conference.
William C Dudley: Higher education - financing, costs and returns Opening remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Conference on “Higher Education Financing and Costs and Returns of Higher Education”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 7 December 2017. * * * Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the New York Fed for today’s conference on the costs and returns of higher education and higher education financing. I am delighted to see such broad interest and attention from the academic community on this topic. The role of education and education financing in today’s labor market and economy has never been more important. It is a topic that I have spoken about frequently during my tenure here at the New York Fed, especially with regard to education’s importance for economic mobility. Understanding educational investment decisions and their macroeconomic implications requires rigorous analysis from top academic researchers like you. Let me briefly discuss some developments that I find particularly significant and worthy of investigation. As always, what I say represents my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System.1 As has been well documented by Raj Chetty and his co-authors, income inequality has increased in recent decades, while economic mobility has stagnated. Meanwhile, absolute mobility appears to have fallen, indicated by the declining share of children who earn more than their parents.

Each party has to play a role: banks, supervisors and politicians. In line with our mandate, we supervisors have done and will continue to do what is necessary. Thank you for your attention. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
Across all of the episodes of market distress in the emerging world over the past two decades, an essential element of heading off or minimizing damage from a crisis has been policymakers showing that they "get the message" about the need for reform, and are prepared to take appropriate measures. §  In this regard, the comparative advantage of the international public sector is in guiding economic and financial policy, and fostering the conditions that will facilitate the restoration or maintenance of voluntary credit and investment flows. IMF support should provide an unambiguous signal of the international community’s confidence in the capacity of crisis-affected countries to take the measures necessary to restore economic health. §  This role is particularly important in unfolding crisis situations, because borrowing country authorities too often are slow to recognize the full dimensions of the policy challenges confronting them, and the private sector is ill-equipped to deal with this. A case-by-case approach by definition is supremely tactical, but it also needs to be strategic in orientation if it is to be successful in the longer run. I would like to highlight several ways in which the case-by-case approach needs to be strategic. G  First off, strategy needs to be informed by a long-run view about the case at hand. The emphasis should not be merely on "working out" the problems at hand, but on "working through" them.

Moreover, both of these are most effective when supported by a dynamic and adaptive policy regime. •  The simple reality is that countries with robust financial systems, strong fiscal accounts, low inflation, credible and coherent monetary and exchange rate policies, moderate external and internal indebtedness, reasonable current accounts, and adequate domestic savings rates are less likely to be buffeted by financial and economic turbulence. Moreover, when shocks do occur, such countries tend to be far more resilient. •  There is also considerable agreement on many of the elements needed to achieve these goals. This agreement has been reflected, in part, in the development and promulgation of globally accepted standards and codes for best practices in areas ranging from transparency in fiscal, monetary, and financial policies, to public debt management, and core principles for bank supervision. Guiding themes across these various standards have included the importance of consistent disclosure practices and of building stability up from the firm and sector level. The latter is accomplished by encouraging sound risk management and stronger balance sheets, and creating efficient systems of market, legal, and regulatory discipline. •  But the learning process continues. For example, in this country, recent experiences have brought to light the need to do more to strengthen corporate accounting and disclosure standards, particularly with regard to guarantees and complex financial arrangements, such as those funded offshore or through special-purpose entities. •  Our ongoing efforts to revise the Basel Capital Accord also reflect a learning process.
Sylvester Eijffinger and Petra Geraats 5 have constructed an index that combines the above five dimensions of transparency into a single metric, and they used it for comparing transparency for nine of the major central banks. Negriz Dincer and Barry Eichengreen 6 have extended this work and applied Eijffinger and Geraats’ index to 100 countries. Measured by this index, they found that in 2005 the three most transparent central banks were the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Riksbank and the Bank of England. Norges Bank was ranked as number 15. The reason why Norges Bank was ranked number 15 and not among the most transparent central banks is, according to Dincer and Eichengreen, the following: 7 1. Norges Bank’s monetary policy models were not public,  2.  the Bank does not publish quarterly economic forecasts, and  3.  we do not publish minutes and voting records from the monetary policy meetings of the Executive Board. As regards the publication of models, Dincer and Eichengreen’s claim is not correct, as we do publish our models (and we did so also in 2005). The lesson I have drawn from this is that central banks should have well designed webpages so that all relevant information is easy to find. Regarding the second reason – that we do not provide forecasts on a quarterly basis – I think this point is overemphasized. We used to publish Monetary Policy Reports (then called Inflation Reports) four times a year until 2001.

Since the “interest rate account” follows from a specific model, the exact decomposition is model-dependent and should thus be interpreted as a model-based illustration rather than a precise description of the Executive Board’s reaction pattern. Notwithstanding this reservation, the “interest rate account” serves several purposes. First, it gives information about the reaction function. Second, it provides a compact summary of the Monetary Policy Report. Third, it is a tool of communicating commitment. Norges Bank aims at influencing expectations in order to stabilize inflation. In this respect, our policy has elements of commitment. The interest rate forecast should reflect economic news and not re-optimisation of monetary policy. With an “interest rate account”, the public is better able to check whether the central bank honours past commitments. Let me turn to the criteria underlying the interest rate forecast and reaction function. Among the few central banks that publish interest rate forecasts, it is common to communicate these in quite general terms. 3 When formulating the criteria, there is a trade-off between being too general, which does not provide very much information, and being too specific, which might overly restrict policymakers’ room for manoeuvre and be less robust to changes in the economic landscape. The Bank has developed a set of criteria for an appropriate interest rate path. The criteria serve both the purpose of communicating the reasoning behind the interest rate path to the public and of providing an agenda for the Board discussion, which makes it easier to decide on a particular path.