samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
As in the past, in this latest episode the structural deficiencies identified are partly linked to a deficit of cohesion among the national economies that can only be remedied through further relinquishing of sovereignty. Perhaps the relative novelty of the recent crisis in the monetary union is that it shows, with particular seriousness, that any delay or lack of resolve in adopting the necessary reforms would not only be harmful to European construction but would generate very pronounced risks to economic and financial stability in Europe and the rest of the world. Admittedly, major reforms to monetary union governance have been made to date. I refer, for instance, to the new requirements made of domestic policies to contain macroeconomic imbalances in several areas, to the surveillance mechanisms established for these requirements and to the setting in place of national crisis-management systems, with centralised financial support arrangements for those countries most affected. However, such progress is not sufficient to ensure the proper functioning of a common monetary area. One of the main manifestations of the shortcomings observed is the continuing market fragmentation within the euro area. This is, namely, the existence of a country-risk component that means that markets assign different valuations to similar financial assets on the basis of the issuer’s nationality. In particular, the perceived risk of financial institutions’ liabilities depends to some extent on their geographical location.

In this framework, it is worthy to note that during the five years of its existence, crucial results have been achieved, most noteworthy the approval of the National Retail Payments Strategy (2018–2023). The insofar findings clearly evidence the low financial inclusion of the Albanian population, not only compared with the European Union, but also with regional countries. All these are reflected in a high use of cash in the Albanian economy. Empirical studies by the Bank of Albania in collaboration with the World Bank Group show that the use of cash in economy, beyond the diminishing effects on the mechanisms of the Bank of Albania used for maintaining price stability and safeguarding financial stability, and supporting economic development, has a real cost from its use as a means of payment, amounting to more than 1% of GDP. Furthermore, the use of cash may be seen as a promoter of informality in economy. Hence, this strategy aims to establish a contemporary and comprehensive retail payments market, supported by safe and efficient infrastructures, as well as by a wide range of payments instruments and services that fulfil the needs of financially capable users across the country. This strategy, compiled with the valuable support of the World Bank Group, is the outcome of a long and analytical study and aims to best address the needs of the domestic market. The realisation of this vision is assessed to be materialised through a set of legal, regulatory and infrastructural developments, which promote technological developments and innovation in the payments market.
Singapore is the gateway to Asia’s bond market 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  7 . Singapore is well-positioned to serve Asia’s growing financing needs. We are a developed pan-Asian asset management centre with more than 600 asset managers and over SGD 2.7 trillion of assets under management, of which 20% is invested in fixed income strategies such as Asian or Emerging market debt. These include global fund managers such as Schroders, PIMCO, BlackRock as well as our local fund managers such as Fullerton and UOB Asset Management. Let me share a few highlights of our bond market: a. Issuances volumes grew at a compound annual growth rate of around 9% over the last five years to reach SGD 186 billion (USD 129 billion) in 2016. b. 60% of corporate bonds issued in Singapore are in foreign currencies including G-3 and Asian currencies, which encompass the RMB. c. 70% of issuers are repeat issuers, returning to tap Singapore’s bond market, after the favourable experience with their maiden issue. Let me zoom in on three pillars of strength:  I. International capital for Asian companies Singapore offers an excellent ecosystem for Asian companies to raise international capital. Asian corporates, including Chinese and Indian companies, looking to regionalise and 8.  globalise are increasingly looking to international bond markets to raise capital and to diversify funding sources. a. Over 50 international and regional banks locate their debt capital markets teams here in Singapore.

Asian bond markets are growing healthily and Asian bonds are an essential component of any balanced and diversified portfolio. Over the last five years, Asian bond 4  issuances grew at a compound annual growth rate of more than 10%. Asian bonds now make up over 30% of the J.P. Morgan Emerging Markets Government Bond Index. Since last year, 2 Asian countries received rating upgrades, notably Indonesia to investment grade1. 5 . Asia is expected to remain the fastest-growing region in the world. The IMF places Emerging Asia at the top of the global growth league table, with average growth rates of 6.3% p.a. from now to 20222, outstripping expected outturns in the developed economies3 as well as all other developing regions. China and India, the two largest Asian markets, are expected to grow by 6% p.a. and 7–8% p.a. respectively, while activity in the ASEAN-5 economies is expected to expand at around 5% p.a.4. 6. The rosy outlook translates to two significant implications for capital markets:  a. On the demand side, relatively favourable demographics, the emergence of a rising middle class and rapid urbanisation will stimulate more savings and investments; b. On the supply side, there is much scope in Asia to improve infrastructure, technology and innovation, the success of which will go a long way toward raising productivity and incomes even further. To finance these important structural needs, Asia’s ability to raise long-term capital for sustainable growth would make cross-border capital market activities even more important.
In our assessment, Norges Bank gave weight to the weakening of the growth outlook for the Norwegian economy and attached importance to countering the risk of a pronounced downturn due to lower oil prices. Last week, Norges Bank presented its latest Monetary Policy Report with updated projections for developments in the Norwegian economy and a new assessment of the orientation of monetary policy. Developments in the Norwegian economy this winter have been broadly in line with expectations. Inflation remains close to 2.5 percent and unemployment has remained stable. So far, the effects of the fall in oil prices on the real economy have been relatively small. However, the outlook for the Norwegian economy has weakened somewhat. Oil prices have continued to fall and activity in the petroleum industry appears to be declining more than previously assumed. Wage growth in 2014 was lower than projected and there are prospects that wage growth will also be lower ahead than projected earlier. This will lead to lower inflation further ahead. At the same time, house prices continue to rise rapidly. This may increase household vulnerability and may trigger or amplify an economic downturn further ahead. The Executive Board decided to keep the key policy rate unchanged at 1.25 percent. If developments in the economy ahead prove to be broadly as projected, there are prospects that the key policy rate will be lowered.

ASB is envisioned to be a premier business school that develops transformative and principled leaders that will contribute to a better future and the advancement of the emerging world. Conclusion Let me conclude my remarks. We are now experiencing a phase of modest growth in the global economy, in an environment that is characterised by heightened uncertainty and volatile financial markets. The Malaysian economy has withstood these challenging times, supported by our strong initial conditions and early and comprehensive policy responses. The intrinsic strength of the economy, reinforced with policies to encourage greater investments that would serve to ensure greater economic sustainability for the future. Finally, active regionalisation is an important strategy for Asia to enhance regional economic prosperity. Malaysia actively participates in the efforts to strengthen linkages within the ASEAN community and to creating opportunities to foster greater economic integration. These efforts will place ASEAN on a path to realising its economic potential and enable the region to collectively prosper. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
The only effective means for conveying confidence to agents, who clearly perceive the effects of the crisis, is through the acknowledgement of the actual impact of the crisis and of the challenges posed, together with a credible commitment to tackle resolutely and forcefully the reforms needed. Before discussing specific measures, and given the difficulty of implementing them, we should question whether the Spanish economy might emerge from this crisis without undertaking reforms. The speed with which the Spanish economy is adjusting might lead us to think that the undoubtedly notable capacity of the Spanish private sector would alone suffice to swiftly reduce the imbalances built up over the past 15 years. Certain indicators, such as the spectacular improvement in inflation and the rapid reduction of the external deficit, might support this “comfortable” or “lazy” view that it would be possible to exit the crisis sidestepping painful reforms. Let me tell you what I think. Structural reforms are necessary and pressing, firstly to cut the cost of the adjustment, and secondly so that recovery is not unnecessarily delayed. The real and financial crisis buffeting the world economy has deprived us of some of the attributes, such as readily available external financing and buoyant external demand, which in other circumstances might have helped us temper the intensity and speed of the adjustment of our domestic demand. It is precisely in the absence of such attributes that certain imbalances are being rapidly reabsorbed.

Evidently, the situation we are in calls for a whole set of thoroughgoing reforms and measures, in step with the scale of the challenges facing the economy. And if the adoption of structural reforms always requires a particular effort on the part of the industries involved in economic, social and political terms in order to achieve the highest degree of consensus possible, such effort is evidently all the more necessary in the current exceptional circumstances. Now on to the last matter I shall address today: the situation of the Spanish financial system. The Spanish financial sector has been affected by the financial crisis since it began, although its effects have undoubtedly heightened since last summer. The current crisis has two characteristics. Firstly, it is an international crisis on a large and widespread scale, affecting different markets, numerous institutions in various countries, a wide variety of assets and the real economy. In a further manifestation of the process of globalisation, the problems generated in very specific geographical markets have ultimately spread to most countries, and it is not very realistic to believe that isolation from the crisis may be an option. Secondly, the crisis is going to cause an across-the-board reduction in the financial and banking business in particular. The excesses seen in financial innovation and in overly expansionary credit policies have caused many of the current problems, whereby there will foreseeably be a back-to-basics movement entailing a clear reduction in total turnover in the financial sector.
In OECD countries, population growth averaged over 1 percent back in the 1950s and 1960s, but it is now running at half a percent per year, and is expected to gradually fall before dipping into negative figures by 2070.1 Slowing birth rates mean fewer consumers and fewer workers. People planning on longer retirements will tend to save more. And while this is undoubtedly good news in many respects, an abundance in the supply of savings also has a big effect on the global economic picture. When it comes to productivity, there has also been a stark step-down in growth. Rapid changes in the kinds of technology we use in our daily lives—robotic vacuum cleaners, self-driving cars, and facial recognition technology in our phones—may make this seem counterintuitive or plain wrong.2 But the data are clear. In OECD economies, growth in labor productivity—the amount produced per worker hour—has averaged a little over 1 percent per year since 2005, about half the pace seen over the prior decade. Falling R-star So what does all this mean for the future? Two things: First, slower population and productivity growth translate directly into slower trend economic growth. Second, an abundance of savings, and a decline in demand for savings resulting from slower trend growth, together lead to lower interest rates. All of these factors combined have contributed to dramatic declines in the longer-term neutral rate of interest, or rstar. While a central bank like the Fed sets short-term interest rates, r-star is a result of longer-term economic factors.

If inflation falls, central banks will have even less room to maneuver when faced with a slowdown.4  A Fresh Approach All this begs the question: what can we do to prepare ourselves and our economies for the next 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  crisis? There’s no single silver bullet that can solve these challenges. But changes to monetary, fiscal, and other economic policies could all help us become more resilient. Starting with monetary policy, central banks should reassess their strategies, goals, and the tools they use to achieve them.5 This might include things like reassessing how we achieve our 2 percent goal. Outside of monetary policy, there are a number of ways fiscal policy can support an economy. One is to strengthen the “automatic stabilizers,” which, in a downturn, reduce taxes without legislation to stimulate growth. Another is to use regulation to enhance financial stability. Finally, fiscal and other economic policies can attack the sources of slow growth and low r-star directly. Demographics are not an area where most economists, or policy makers, want to meddle—and I’m certainly not going to stand here and say people should stop living so long! But there are things we can do to improve long-run growth. These include raising public and private investment in human and physical capital, infrastructure, and science and technology, as well as removing barriers to participation in the labor force and the economy more broadly. It’s impossible to predict the future. But we can deal with the present.
Yet we have ageing populations across the euro area, so if we desire to GDP per capita in a sustainable manner, we have no choice but to face this challenge head on. Thank you for your attention. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches

In this context, the “triangle of vulnerability”, identified in the December 2006 FSR, connecting the state of the credit cycle, credit derivatives and highly leveraged institutions, could have grown in relevance in the recent period. A shock involving any element of this triangle could have implications for the other two. For example, a sharp turn in the credit cycle could mean that credit risk protectionsellers, such as hedge funds, would have to make payments to banks which are protection-buyers, but hedge funds might not be capable of paying. Although many hedge funds have attempted to extend their investor lock-up periods, their positions are typically marked-to-market, implying that their funding remains vulnerable to any losses suffered because it could significantly impact on the willingness of banks to continue to grant credit. At the same time, a turn in the credit cycle could represent a challenging test for the functioning of the credit derivatives markets. Similarly, if widespread problems were to emerge in hedge funds active in credit risk transfer markets, this could spark a downturn in the credit cycle itself, as it could impair the “originate and distribute” business model upon which large banks have become reliant. 6. Overall assessment of the financial stability outlook  Let me now conclude with the overall assessment of the financial stability outlook.
Mojmír Hampl: Examining the resilience of emerging markets Speaking points by Mr Mojmír Hampl, Vice Governor of the Czech National Bank, at the third Annual SSGA-OMFIF Roundtable, London, 10 April 2018. * * * Let me start with a discussion of what it means for an economy to be classified as “emerging”. First of all, it is important to realise that our current taxonomy is to a large extent based on the Marxist tradition of classifying economies according to “stages of development”. Prior to Marx, there was no such taxonomy and really no need for it. Instead, we used to group countries according to different criteria, such as religion, race, or territory. But any discrete classification is arbitrary and artificial, and can sometimes even be confusing. For example, the post-communist countries of Central Europe are typically classified as “developed” by most governmental or international institutions (the IMF, World Bank and EBRD), but as “emerging” by most market institutions (FTSE, MSCI, S&P and J.P. Morgan, among others). What makes the entire issue even more complicated is that having an emerging financial market does not immediately imply being an emerging country, and theoretically vice versa. To put these thoughts into perspective, let me use the classification put forward by J.P. Morgan, according to which both Bangladesh and the Czech Republic rank as emerging economies: in this taxonomy, they are at the same stage of development.

But despite these differences, a common theme arises: emerging markets dependent on the production and export of raw materials (Russia, Brazil and South Africa serve as good examples) are less resilient than countries dependent on vigorous labour force and innovations (exemplified, within BRICS, by China and India). There are also differences in resilience among the “emerging” countries of Central Europe. During the Great Recession, Poland – a big country (by Central European standards), less open and with greater potential for catch-up growth – proved to be the most resilient. The Czech Republic was also quite resilient (it experienced its own banking crisis in the late 1990s, with banks becoming more conservative and risk-averse in consequence). Hungary and Slovenia proved less resilient, and in these countries the government had to intervene in the financial market. In the case of the Czech Republic, the fact that our host financial sector was more resilient to shocks than its home countries was the reason why we never joined the Vienna Initiative. The resilience of emerging economies is now under the spotlight also because we remember the effects of the 2013 taper tantrum. That year, many emerging countries experienced a huge outflow of capital, while at the same time some other countries like the Czech Republic and Poland were effectively trying to discourage foreign short-term capital from coming in. This discouragement was accompanied by interest rate cuts and other forms of monetary easing in general.
Instead, it requires the monetary base, defined in the case of Hong Kong as the amount of Hong Kong dollar bank notes issued and the Hong Kong dollar clearing balance of the banking system held with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), to be fully backed by US dollars at a fixed exchange rate16. In other words, 14 Article 111 of the Basic Law provides, among other things, that “the Hong Kong dollar, as the legal tender in the Hong  Kong Special Administrative Region, shall continue to circulate”. 15 As a matter of fact, in the fourteen and a half years since the Hong Kong dollar’s link was established in October 1983, the  RMB has depreciated by a total 76% against the US dollar. 1616 Insofar as the banknotes are concerned, since the inception of the linked exchange rate system in October 1983, the issue  and redemption of bank notes, through the note issuing banks, are required to be made against US dollars at the fixed exchange rate of $ to $ However, at the time when the linked exchange rate system was introduced, there was no institutional arrangement whereby banks in Hong Kong maintained clearing accounts with the currency board.

For all these reasons, the Bank is supporting the specific recommendation on the use of LEI in payment messages made by the Financial Stability Board in its May 2019 report on LEI implementation.6 In this context, we welcome the report issued by the PMPG on adoption of LEI in payments messages and its recommendations that firms should adapt their business processes to ensure that LEIs are captured whenever a new counterparty or customer record is set up.7 And importantly we are integrating the LEI in the ISO 20022 messages used in CHAPS (the Bank-operated High-Value Payment System). Third, we will consult in 2020 on the appropriate level of access for payments service providers to the Bank’s infrastructure and balance sheet, including necessary safeguards. This is important to ensure that the right balance is struck between access, maintaining financial and monetary stability and protecting public money 6 7  https://www.fsb.org/wp-content/uploads/P280519-2.pdf file:///C:/Users/331016/Downloads/pmpg_lei_paper.pdf 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  3  from undue risks. We will reach out to key firms and the users of payments services in the next couple of months, to understand the needs of market participants and the barriers that still exist to competition and innovation. This dialogue – along with detailed analysis of the potential benefits and impacts for monetary and financial stability - will feed into a consultation paper in 2020. We look forward to learning from the industry and will welcome your engagement in this process.