samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In the course of autumn 2006, salmon prices fell back to the levels before the price upswing, driven partly by somewhat lower demand but also by an increased supply of salmon. The orientation of fiscal and monetary policy The Government uses the central government budget to influence economic developments. Government petroleum revenues are transferred in their entirety to the Government Pension Fund – Global and invested in securities abroad. However, as part of the budget resolution, the Storting decides on an annual transfer from the Fund to cover the government budget deficit, excluding petroleum revenues and capital income earned by the Fund. This annual transfer – direct petroleum revenue spending – has been sharply reduced in recent years, but is expected to increase somewhat next year. Developments reflect a marked increase in the government’s general tax revenues as a result of the current period of strong expansion. This in turn reflects the automatic contribution made by the central government budget to curbing cyclical fluctuations because more money accrues to the state in favourable periods than in adverse periods. If the economy had not been in a period of strong expansion and the economic situation had been more normal, a considerably larger transfer from the Pension Fund to the Treasury would have been necessary in order to balance the budget. This cyclically adjusted transfer is estimated at a good NOK 71 billion this year, and just under NOK 77 billion in 2008, and has increased gradually over time.

It is estimated that the number employed will increase by 3.5 per cent this year, which would be the strongest rise recorded in the post-war period. The number of vacancies per unemployed has never been higher. There is a shortage of qualified labour in many industries. Although unemployment has fallen sharply, wage-earners’ share of corporate value added has been reduced, from around 75 per cent in the late 1980s to 70 per cent at the end of the 1990s, and now stands at below 65 per cent. Solid productivity growth and high prices for export goods and goods supplied to the petroleum sector have contributed to the reduction in  BIS Review 141/2007  1  the wage share over the past few years. The ample supply of labour has probably had a dampening effect on wage growth. Increased globalisation may have provided greater opportunities for Norwegian enterprises to relocate production to other countries if labour costs become too high. This probably places some restraint on wage demands among workers in sectors where enterprises have such opportunities. Historically, a high wage share has tended to be accompanied by low unemployment. Developments in recent years have provided the basis for strong growth in employment while the wage share has fallen. Wage-earners and enterprises have both fared well. Low prices for imported goods have resulted in a subdued rise in consumer prices and a substantial increase in wage-earners’ real wages. High export prices have contributed to holding down the rise in enterprises’ real wages.
But in practice, there is clear evidence that credit or market losses put pressure on the firm, which can push managers into fraud or result in operationally-risky cost cutting. There have certainly been occasions when operational losses have only been revealed because of a market downturn or similar event. As I heard it graphically expressed the other day: “It is only when the tide goes out that you discover who is not wearing a bathing costume”! I am optimistic that, over time, operational risk will become more measurable and that, as was the case for market risk models, a consensus on methods of quantifying it will emerge. The Basel Committee’s framework will certainly have to be flexible in the face of this evolution. However, we should also not lose sight of the fact that the Committee’s announced aim is not just coverage of operational risks, but “other” risks more generally. Episodes of market turmoil over the past couple of years have BIS Review 132/1999  4  demonstrated just how wide is the range of risks that are not currently explicitly covered by regulatory capital; I would include under this heading market liquidity risk, individual bank liquidity risk, correlation risk between credit and market risks, and legal and reputational risk. These types of risk can certainly produce systemic disruptions. My expectation would be that, even with further advances on measuring operational and credit risk, most banks will want to carry a chunk of fairly undefined capital to cover rainy day events.

And finally, with the rapid growth of banking sector M&A, and conglomerisation across businesses, there is undoubtedly more work to be done on the appropriate regulatory framework for mixed-activity firms. In short, I believe there will be many future opportunities like today’s, in which we invite the constructive input of industry participants. 5  BIS Review 132/1999
Paul Tucker: Reflections on operating inflation targeting Speech by Mr Paul Tucker, Executive Director and Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, 25 May 2006. My thanks for comments to Peter Andrews, Alex Brazier, Roger Clews, Spencer Dale, Paul Fisher, David Walton and Anthony Yates. For comments and background work to Damien Lynch, Richard Harrison and Tim Taylor. And for secretarial support to Katherine Bradbrook and Michelle Wright. *  *  *  Next month will be the fourth anniversary of my appointment to the Monetary Policy Committee. It is time to draw together some of my thoughts on operating an inflation-targeting regime. Very much from the perspective of a practitioner, but engaging with some of the academic literature on our mission and, in particular, policy strategy. 1 At the outset, I should make it absolutely clear that these are my own personal views, and do not necessarily represent those of individual colleagues on the MPC or those of the Committee as a whole. Scene setting The UK was not quite the first country to adopt inflation targeting – Canada and New Zealand got there before us. But it has certainly taken off since our conversion, in 1992. It is now the explicit framework of over 20 countries, including more than fifteen in the emerging market world. And the IMF recently reported 2 that another 20 have sought technical assistance on introducing it.

However, there are good reasons to expect that corporate bond and commercial paper issuance in the euro area will gather pace in the future. During the first few months of this year we have already seen a fair amount of activity in this field. For large companies in particular, it makes sense from the point of view of efficiency to have all the methods of financing at their disposal, namely bond and paper financing, bank loans and equity financing. Indeed, since the credit ratings of many large companies are better than the credit ratings of most banks, this should lead to savings on the cost of capital for the corporate sector. The introduction of the euro should provide sufficient depth and liquidity for the corporate debt market that would guarantee competitive pricing. On the demand side, the reduced borrowing of the public sector will leave more room for the private sector to issue debt securities. As you know, the amount of public debt in the euro area is still high, and we trust that governments will keep their commitment to bring it down to more sustainable levels as agreed in the Stability and Growth Pact. In addition, the euro area has to save  BIS Review 63/1999  2  in order to be able to take care of its future pension payments, and a part of these savings is likely to be invested in corporate debt securities.
Climate risks have a number of distinctive elements, which, in combination, require a strategic approach. These include their:   Breadth, as climate risks affect multiple lines of business, sectors and geographies;    Magnitude, as the full impacts of climate risks are large, potentially non-linear and irreversible;    Foreseeable nature;    Dependency on short-term actions given that the size of future impacts will, at least in part, be determined by the actions taken today; and    Uncertain time horizon which may stretch beyond traditional business planning cycles. The nature of these risks means that the biggest challenge in climate risk management is in assessing the resilience of firms’ strategies to transition risks. Markets need information to assess which companies can seize the opportunities in a low carbon economy and which are strategically resilient to the physical and transition risks associated with climate change. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  4  The good news is that half of the companies surveyed by the TCFD are using scenario analysis to assess the resilience of their strategies. Financial firms are at the forefront of these assessments.

It was also recognized that the existing regulatory framework was insufficient to address systemic risks. This has prompted a more integrated approach to the regulation with substantial strengthening of the macro-prudential elements of financial regulation. A major concern on the calibration of the regulatory reforms is its unintended consequences that could materially impair the vital role of the financial sector in the economy. Of concern is that the cumulative impact of the new measures may affect the cost and availability of financing to the wider economy. There needs to be a balance between long run financial stability and its potential increased costs to financial intermediation. This balance needs to combine regulatory and supervisory systems that are more forward looking and responsive to risk; while having in place appropriate incentive structures for financial institutions to prudently manage risks and strengthen conditions for market discipline to take effect. While the Islamic financial system has generally performed well during this global financial crisis, several valuable lessons can be drawn from this crisis in our efforts to strengthen further the Islamic financial infrastructure for a more resilient and stable financial system. In 2009, a Task Force on Islamic Finance and Global Financial Stability was formed by the IDB and the IFSB to undertake an assessment of Islamic finance during the global financial crisis and to identify the further building blocks that are necessary to further strengthen the foundations of the Islamic financial system.
SPEECH DATE:  2021-05-20  SPEAKER:  First Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley  VENUE:  SEB (digitally)  SVERIGES RIKSBANK SE-103 37 Stockholm (Brunkebergstorg 11) Tel +46 8 787 00 00 Fax +46 8 21 05 31 registratorn@riksbank.se www.riksbank.se  Adapting to new conditions – monetary policy freedom with responsibility* 19 March, 2020. It's 6.30 am. I am standing waiting for a connecting bus at Danvikstull, on my way to the Riksbank at Brunkebergstorg. The telephone rings. It turns out to be Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Riksbank. He says that the Federal Reserve is offering dollar loans to us and a number of other central banks. We Executive Board members had already had many conversations both in the office and over the phone during the preceding days. Both in Sweden and abroad, the pandemic quickly led to a fall in economic activity of historical proportions. It was necessary to ensure as soon as possible that the financial system could manage to maintain credit granting at very low interest rates. A financial crisis on top of a health crisis and the rapidly emerging real economic crisis must be avoided. On the previous Thursday, 12 March, the Riksbank had decided to offer up to SEK 500 billion in loans to Swedish banks for onward lending to companies. On 16 March, the Riksbank decided to begin broad asset purchases for up to SEK 300 billion. And what happened with the dollar loans?

Every year we compile an account of monetary policy for the Committee, which in turn then provides its comments in a report or a statement on monetary policy, not just to “grade” us, but to provide feedback in advance of the next report with regard to questions that require further illumination (see Figure 2). Hearings in the Committee are also a part of their scrutiny of the Riksbank. Moreover, larger external evaluations are made around once every five years. 14 With regard to the analysis of monetary policy, the Riksbank chose to begin publishing its own forecasts for the repo rate in 2007. I think that the experiences of all of these measures have been good. 15 International rankings of central bank transparency usually place the Riksbank near the top. 16  12 See, for example, Dincer and Eichengreen (2014). 13 See Bergström (2001). So far three of these have been made: by Francesco Giavazzi and Frederic Mishkin with regard to the period 1995-2005, by Charles Goodhart and Jean-Charles Rochet regarding the period 2005-2010 and by Marvin Goodfriend and Mervyn King regarding the period 2010-2015. A new evaluation by Karnit Flug and Patrick Honohan regarding the period 2015-2020 has recently begun. 15 See Sveriges Riksbank (2017a). 16 See Dincer and Eichengreen (2014). 14  5 [20]  The framework functioned as intended In many ways, the inflation-targeting regime has functioned as intended.
As a consequence, the Basel Committee has come up with a new proposal known as Basel II. This proposal is intended to be more risk sensitive than the 1988 Accord, in order to provide a better alignment and calibration of regulatory capital and capital adequacy with the underlying economic risks that banks face. Categorizing debtors into a fewer risk ‘buckets’ was certainly a progress in 1988, but it open the gap between the regulatory risk measurement of any given transaction and its actual economic risk. This favours high risk loans over the low risk ones, given the 100% risk weight charged, irrespective of the risk profile of firms receiving the loan. Consequently, it adversely affects the accuracy of assessing capital requirements and allocation. The most concerning side-effect has been the distortion of financial decision-making which is, loans and investments made on basis of regulatory constraints rather than genuine economic opportunities. The new Basle II accord tries to improve on these issues by encouraging banks to become more sophisticated in their risk assessment and aligning more rigorously regulatory requirements with internal risk measurement methodologies. It is important to recognize that the application of the New Accord is principally intended for large international banks, which are complex institutions usually operating in developed countries. Therefore, Basel II has often been questioned about its implications and appropriateness for banking in emerging market economies, and it is on this point that I would like to focus my remarks.

Under Basel  BIS Review 81/2005  1  II, standardized approach, it is possible that sovereign debt is assigned a risk weight between 0% to 150%, most likely 100% since it falls under unrated category. This means that banking system in Albania may have to increase capital allocation to comply with the minimum level of the capital adequacy ratio. An important intention of Basel II is to strengthen market discipline by developing a set of information disclosure requirements. In our countries there is plenty of room for improvement in this respect to allow market participants to assess key information on risk exposure, risk assessment process, and hence capital adequacy. This is important since it increases public pressure on banks to have a better performance in assessing and monitoring risk. However, in short run information disclosure might also have some adverse implication, say in Albania. Let me explain myself better on this issue. Public is usually more sensitive to bad news than positive developments. In countries like Albania, reactions between good or bad news are even more asymmetric than in mature market economies. Public in Albania is particularly over-reactive toward grim news on banking sector or on a certain bank while tend to ignore what falls in the positive side. This could be due to both historical factors, e.g. the crisis of financial system in 1997, and culture factors e.g. low level of bank business understanding, e.g. the overreaction of public to the introduction of the Deposit Insurance Law in 2002.
Muhammad Al-Jasser: “Assessment” project of small and medium size enterprises Opening speech by His Excellency Dr Muhammad Al-Jasser, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), at the inauguration ceremony of the “Assessment” project of small and medium size enterprises, Saudi Company for Credit Information (SIMAH), Riyadh, 8 October 2011. *  *  *  Your Excellencies and Dear audience, I am pleased to participate with you in celebrating the launching of the “Assessment” Project of Small and Medium Enterprises. First, I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to the colleagues at the Saudi Company for Credit Information (SIMAH) for the development of this important project, which I hope will be provided with all necessary means of support by all entities concerned for its success. Dear brothers and sisters, The national economy consists of a large and integral variety of public and private institutions that use available human and material resources to produce continuous flows of goods and services to meet the domestic community’s needs and a part of the external demand. Of course, domestic enterprises differ in size based on various criteria, the most important of which are: the number of workers, the amount of capital, sales and others. One of the misconceptions is that large enterprises are the main impetus of economic activity. This belief has arisen from the good news repeatedly published about those institutions in various mass media.

From mid April onwards, the national central banks of the Acceding Countries will participate - as an observer - in meeting of ESCB Committees (in extended composition) and meetings of the General Council. Enlargement involves a number of technical efforts from the side of the ECB and the national central bank, in terms of adaptations to the infrastructure, but also creates a new dimension to economic convergence and monetary stability in the European Union. I am, however, convinced that the Eurosystem will also master this challenge, as it has done before, on occasions, which demanded even more breath-taking efforts. Ladies and gentlemen, I should now like to conclude. Again, my gratitude goes to His Excellency Carlo Ciampi and Governor Antonio Fazio. I am deeply convinced that this meeting of the Governing Council will contribute to the team-sprit of the Eurosystem and hence will be one more step in the direction of a united Europe.
Moreover, our new forecast, which as always takes account of today’s decision, shows that a further tightening of monetary policy cannot be ruled out in the coming quarters. However, the environment continues to be subject to a high degree of uncertainty. Let me now say a few words about the exchange rate. The Swiss franc has appreciated in trade-weighted terms by around 7% since the monetary policy assessment in June. This appreciation helps to tighten monetary conditions and dampen inflationary pressure. In order to set appropriate monetary conditions, we remain willing to be active in the foreign exchange market as necessary. If there were to be an excessive appreciation of the Swiss franc, we would purchase foreign currency. If the Swiss franc were to weaken, however, we would consider selling foreign currency. Period of negative interest rates comes to an end  With today’s decision, an extended period of a negative SNB policy rate comes to an end. Negative interest was introduced at the beginning of 2015 to counter upward pressure on the Swiss franc associated with the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate. Over the past years, negative interest has helped to dampen the appreciation of the Swiss franc and to ensure price stability. At the same time, we were always aware that negative interest can have undesirable sideeffects and presents challenges for many economic agents. On the whole, however, negative interest has proved its worth.

The single most influential act for banks was the introduction of the Second Banking Coordination Directive, which provided a passport for banks to offer services across the European Union. Liberalisation in the EU financial services sector is already very extensive. What we see now is an ongoing adjustment of the regulatory environment implemented in the 1980s and early 1990s. In effect, it allows other driving forces to have a more profound effect on the financial system. One of these factors, which has been facilitated by liberalisation, is the trend towards globalisation. This trend is occurring in most private sectors of the economy. As companies and individuals requiring financial services are becoming more globally oriented, they demand appropriate financial services. Globalisation is expected to increase competition in most areas of financial services, and it may also be able to realise economies of scale and scope. At the same time, globalisation has opened up new markets for banks, particularly in trading, asset management and investment banking activities. Finally, the wealth of individuals has increased, and a larger proportion of the population is making portfolio investments. This is partly a result of the ageing of the population, which has, in itself, increased the average wealth of people. At the same time, it is also due to changes in pension systems in a number of countries from a “pay-as-you-go” to a funded basis. The prospects for the future are for more of such change, as reflected by the recent proposals for pension reforms in Germany and France.