samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Finally, problems on the financial markets resulted in a significant drop in stock market transactions. This had a negative impact on added value in the banking sector. However, the slowdown in production did not spread to all sectors of activity. Growth remained strong in the retail and wholesale business, the hotel and catering trade and the transportation and communication industries. This shows that domestic demand remains – on the whole – robust. With the first few months of 2008 seeing a steady flow of new jobs, the favourable climate on the job market continues to be conducive to private consumption in particular. Further growth in demand and production is likely over the next few quarters, albeit at a more modest pace. High prices for oil products and uncertainty related to the US real estate crisis will undoubtedly continue to hamper economic activity. However, growth in household consumption and equipment investment looks set to continue. The SNB continues to forecast GDP growth of between 1.5% and 2% for 2008. However, this average annual growth rate is boosted by the strong growth achieved in the second half of 2007. It therefore conceals what has been a noticeable slowdown in economic activity, with quarterly rates below potential throughout the rest of the year. Changes in the monetary and financial framework How have monetary conditions evolved since our last assessment in March? They have become somewhat more relaxed. This is mainly attributable to two factors.

More importantly, it is to avert a sharp slowdown in economic activities. Financial liberalisation Bank Negara Malaysia has also remained committed to the objectives of the Financial Sector Master Plan (FSMP) issued in 2001. The recently announced liberalization measures, for example, forms part of the concluding phase of the FSMP which is to liberalise the banking sector by allowing for the increase in operational flexibilities, product offering and, the issuance of new licenses by 2011. But, as capacity and institutional building efforts continue to be pursued, it must be complemented by enhancements in regulatory, supervisory and surveillance framework to preserve the integrity and resilience of the financial system. Clearly this is the distinction which must be made with de-regularisation per se. Islamic banking Islamic banking also remains as one of the key agendas under the FSMP. Also in the recently announced liberalisation measures, we will issue up to two new licenses given the growing demand and the need to give further boost to the MIFC initiative. As we have more than two decades of experience in this area, Bank Negara Malaysia will continue to build on this competitive advantage to ensure Malaysia remains at the forefront of global Islamic banking. It is therefore encouraging to note that Islamic finance has continued to demonstrate its evolution and strong growth as assets have expanded by 22% to RM192 billion in 2008 alone and now accounts for 15.0% of the total assets in the industry.
Not much. In a Capgemini’s survey covering e-government in the European Union 1 and published in June 2006, Poland ranks third from the bottom in the EU, in terms of advancement of online public services. We only managed to outpace Slovakia and Lithuania. Even though we made large progress measuring in per cent in 2005, we are still below EU(10) and EU(28) average. When set against the world findings, Poland ranks somewhere before the fortieth place, outpaced by Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Mexico. Table 1. UN Index of E-Government Readiness, 2005 Pos. Country  Index  1  USA  0.9062  2  Denmark  0.9058  3  Sweden  0.8983  4  United Kingdom  0.8777  5  South Korea  0.8727  6  Australia  0.8679  7  Singapore  0.8503  8  Canada  0.8425  9  Finland  0.8231  10  Norway  0.8228  11  Germany  0.8050  12  Netherlands  0.8021  13  New Zealand  0.7987  14  Japan  0.7801  15  Island  0.7794  19  Estonia  0.7347  27  Hungary  0.6536  29  Czech Republic  0.6396  31  Mexico  0.6061  36  Slovakia  0.5887  37  Cyprus  0.5872  38  Poland  0.5872  39  Spain  0.5847  Source: Global E-Government Readiness Report 2005.

Further regulation in specific areas where Swedish banks are particularly vulnerable may also be necessary. Here I am mainly referring to the Swedish banks’ extensive market funding, particularly from abroad, which I discussed earlier. And which has in many ways enabled the expansion in the banks’ mortgage stocks. There is international work on producing new regulations in this area, too. When the work regarding the technical details for liquidity regulation is complete, we must also decide how and when the regulations should be introduced in Sweden, taking into account the structure of our financial sector. Don’t forget the supply side In talking about the housing market I have mostly talked about the demand side and how we can ensure a balanced development there. This is what much of the general debate has concerned. But I would like to conclude with some words on the supply side, or housing construction, and what role this plays and has played earlier. While this is something that is fairly often discussed in this context, I nevertheless feel it deserves a little more attention. One of the explanations usually put forward for the high housing prices is that relatively little new housing has been built in the past fifteen years or so (Figure 4). The low level of construction is what is usually termed a “fundamental explanation” of the upswing in house prices. And this is probably true.
Finally, I will spend some time discussing particular areas where the market is evolving and where the GFXC is currently soliciting additional input, including on “last look.”  Development of the Code and its principles The Foreign Exchange Working Group (FXWG), led by Guy Debelle of the Reserve Bank of Australia, was established under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Markets Committee in July 2015.2 It was tasked with facilitating the development of a single, global set of principles for the FX market and accompanying tools to promote adherence to those principles. I had the pleasure of leading the work stream to write the Code, while Chris Salmon of the Bank of England led the effort to create tools to promote adherence. The work of the FXWG was supported by the Market Participants Group (MPG), led by David Puth of CLS, which included members from all corners of the FX industry. 1/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  As made clear in the foreword, the Code is not regulation—it is a set of voluntary, global best practices. The development of successful best practices requires active engagement from a diverse spectrum of market participants, which we were fortunate to have throughout this effort. The FX Global Code is intended for all FX market participants engaged in the global wholesale market. This includes sell-side institutions, certain market infrastructures, and buyside institutions as well.

Risk of misleading image and uncertainty about the inflation target This has caused some difficulties, and will likely continue to do so in the future, not least in terms of monetary policy communication. One problem is that the focus on CPI inflation – which in itself is not entirely unnatural – has led to flashy headlines in the media from time to time over the years about Sweden being in a state of deflation. When CPI inflation is negative, this is obviously correct in a purely technical sense, but the story behind the headline often fails to explain that it is to a large extent a result of the Riksbank lowering the interest rate, and that CPIF inflation typically is considerably higher. Foreign commentators in particular have therefore often come to the conclusion that the Swedish economy is in a highly critical situation and that the state of the real economy is deflationist as well, with very weak growth in production and employment. It cannot be ruled out either that this kind of media reporting can, at least to some extent, affect economic sentiment. It is of course unfortunate if this kind of misleading image takes hold simply because the Swedish CPI is calculated in the way it is. A potentially more serious problem is that even if CPIF inflation were reasonably close to 2 per cent, the formal target variable, CPI inflation, could be relatively far from the target for fairly long periods of time.
But this gearing effect isn’t the only reason. Another important consideration is that many investment projects are – at least to some degree – irreversible. Once made, they can’t be easily or costlessly unmade. (Removing an extension to a house might cost as much as building the thing in the first place.) So, if there’s any uncertainty about future returns – if you know that you might come to regret the decision – you have to be extra sure before you actually take the plunge. It’s no longer enough that the expected income from the project covers the initial cost. It has to do so by a potentially wide margin, a margin economists call the 3  “option value of waiting ”. There are lots of decisions in life that have these characteristics. Moving house, taking a new job, even getting married – these are all things than can be delayed but cannot be easily reversed. And it makes 4  intuitive sense that, in the presence of uncertainty, there’s value in keeping one’s options open . How much might that option be worth, when it comes to investment decisions? Quite a bit, it turns out. Based on a simple stylised model, Chart 4 plots the additional hurdle required of irreversible investments against the variability of annual growth in the returns they generate. For individual firms, earnings vary considerably from one year to the next – the standard deviation of annual growth has on average been as much as 40% points (Chart 3).

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EBRD’s involvement in two very important initiatives, namely the Local Currency and Local Capital Market Initiative and the Vienna Initiative, has been essential for Romania and the region. I am closely following the evolution of the EBRD. I believe that it finds itself at a cross-road, as the world has been changing rapidly due to the remarkable achievements of the past century: the IT revolution, artificial intelligence, the technological progress and so on. EBRD, as other financial institutions, ought to adapt itself to this new environment and try to respond wisely and appropriately. In this respect, I think that EBRD has to continue its work in the countries for which the Bank was initially created, as transition gaps still exist. We all need to share our experience with the new countries of operations, adjusting our knowledge to new challenging environments. We need to remain open minded and ready to tackle further challenges in this multidimensional environment. EBRD needsto be ready to share, when and if its help is required. Together with the other institutions of European Union, the European Commission, the EIB Group, as well as the national development agencies of the member states, we all have a duty to help/assist the less fortunate. However, as expansion is a “hot topic” today in the EBRD, should it be considered by the shareholders in the future, it needs to be calibrated with a strong and decisive intervention in the current countries of operations, to remove as much as possible the transition gaps.

This approach should be a consensual approach of the shareholders, a transparent one, where everybody, sponsors and countries of operations agree on the principles and objectives. Ladies and gentlemen, 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  Allow me to conclude by saying that the National Bank of Romania strongly supports the partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. We appreciate the assistance provided and its benefits and positive impact. We will remain your reliable partner, as always. I invite Mr. Eugen Teodorovici, Minister of Finance and Governor to the EBRD to give his keynote speech on “Romanian Government Program and Future Presidency of the European Union Council”. I wish you fruitful and successful discussions. Thank you. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
While this may not change dramatically in the very short term, we cannot preclude a significant share of bank revenues being eroded by new entrants into the financial sector. We are already seeing this in the retail lending and payment segments of the market. FinTech will most likely change our banking landscape as the public at large becomes more predisposed to the use of technology. The intermediation role of banks may totally change, and may no longer be the sole domain of the banking industry. So it is in the banks’ interest that any public disillusionment with banks be addressed preemptively. The role of compliance is very much a part of this conversation. It has to be, since the compliance function exists not only to ensure that rules are followed by banks. It can be used to 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  maintain public trust and to shape the cultural norms and values for an organisation. The compliance function complements enforcement and supervisory actions in upholding the sanctity of rules that safeguard public interests. Bank Negara Malaysia will continue to take strong enforcement actions against institutions with significant lapses in controls that might lead to risks in the financial system. We recognise that compliance is not an easy task. It is not possible to police every minute detail of a bank’s operations. Hence, a key priority should be to foster a culture of compliance within the inherent norms and values of an organisation.

So we therefore need to form a judgement on where the economy is likely to be heading. But to do that, we need to start by figuring out where we are now. The great Danish physicist Niels Bohr is supposed to have observed that “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” But I don’t think he realised just how tough economic forecasting is. Not only is the MPC unsure of the prospects for commodity prices, how the credit crunch will play out and a myriad of other future events, but we don’t even have a precise picture of the current state of the economy. As a result, controlling the economy has been likened to driving along a winding road looking only in the rear-view mirror. Indeed, it’s worse than that as we don’t even have that good a view of where it has been in the past either! It is as if the rear window is also a bit misted up. Our primary signposts are, of course, the official data provided by the Office for National Statistics for the key macroeconomic variables, such as output, spending, employment, prices, wages and so on. However, we do not rely on the official data exclusively, for a number of reasons. First, it takes time for the official data to be collated and published. For instance, the preliminary estimate of GDP growth in Q2 only appears tomorrow, almost a month after the quarter ended.
UBS  Delta  and  Bank  50  TOPIX  200  40 2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  Sources: Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters Datastream and Bank calculations. (a) Denominated in units of local currency. (a) Monthly moving averages of daily bid-ask spreads. (b) iBoxx € Corporates for corporate bonds; S&P 500 for equities; iBoxx € Sovereigns for government bonds; sterling/dollar exchange rate for currencies; gold price for commodities; and euro five-year swaps for interest rate swaps. (c) Data to close of business on 10 June 2011. (d) End of day bid-ask spread until 1 May 2011, average intra-day bid-ask spread thereafter. This recovery in markets has been neither uniform nor smooth. For example, a number of markets were severely disrupted by concerns about the debt sustainability in Greece, Ireland and Portugal in mid 2010, and once again during 2011 (Charts 6 and 7 show these countries’ bond spreads to German Bunds and sovereign CDS premia). And a number of private sector markets, such as the “own label” US residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market and the UK commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market have seen very little, if any, primary issuance since the crisis.5 In part that reflects continued weakness in commercial real estate and (to a lesser extent) residential housing markets. But it is also likely to reflect the combination of a large existing stock of ABS and a diminished investor base as many of the funding mechanisms have been swept away.

Data are presented as fifteen-day end-period moving averages. (b) Chart shows data for a subset of the major UK banks peer group – Barclays, HSBC, LBG and RBS. (c) December 2010 Financial Stability Report. (d) Average of the CDS premia of companies that were part of the iTraxx European non-financial corporates index (series 10) at the beginning of the time series in this chart. But this is no time for complacency. UK bank funding costs, as proxied by their CDS premia, remain elevated – both relative to their historical average, and relative to European non-financial corporations’ CDS premia (Chart 10). And there remain significant risks going forward. Sovereign strains, and their potential impact on the European banking sector in particular, represent the most immediate and material threat to markets generally and to UK financial stability. As a result, the interim FPC have recommended that the major UK banks provide improved and more comprehensive disclosure of their sovereign and banking sector exposures. There is also event risk associated with the forthcoming publication of the EBA stress test results, if the results are markedly different from market expectations. 6  Market intelligence suggests that the major UK banks have raised around £ in private markets in the year-to-date 2011. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The search for yield/assets The significant recovery in many global financial markets reflects, in part, the actions of policymakers around the world.
(f) Ecology  ABMs have been applied to a number of ecological problems involving the interaction of multiple agents with each other and with the environment. In the 1990s, ABMs were applied to population and resource dynamics and migration patterns (Grim (1999)). For example, there is now a large body of work on ABMs of marine organisms (Werner et al (2001)), simulating how these organisms are moved around by ocean currents and how they interact in food webs. Model-derived fish spawning locations have been found to coincide with observed spawning locations of fish (Heath and Gallego (1998)). These models have also been used to simulate the effects of hypothetical interventions, such as the impact of introducing new predatory species to eliminate pests, different techniques for managing fish stocks, or the impact of contamination of marine eco-systems (Madenjian et al (1993)). ABM techniques have been applied to the management of forests, by simulating the establishment, growth, and death of individual trees, taking account of tree-tree interactions as they compete for resources. These models have been used to help forest management and assess the systemic impact of environmental changes, such as widespread deforestation. 13  13  See Liu and Ashton (1995). 18  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  18  Figure 12: Migrating animals  Figure 13: Oceanographic patterns  Source: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (CC-BY-SA-3.0). Wildebeest on Source: Bruno de Giusti (CC-BY-SA-2.5-IT). Fish (image  the Serengeti (image available here). available here).

This Conference on Islamic Banking could not have come at a more opportune time than now, when the financial sector in the country is called upon to widen financial inclusiveness. Banks and Non-Bank Financial Institutions are being encouraged to increase availability of, and access to financial services to the population through the design of new and affordable products. It is through conferences and fora of this nature, among other events, that Bank of Zambia endeavours to disseminate information and share experiences with stakeholders about the importance of developing the financial sector. Ladies and Gentlemen, The last few decades have witnessed a rapid growth in Islamic banking both in terms of size and the number of players. Islamic banking is currently practiced in more than 50 countries worldwide. In some countries only Islamic banking is allowed while in others Islamic banking coexists with conventional banking. Islamic banking is not limited to Islamic countries. In August 2004, for instance, the Islamic Bank of Britain became the first bank licensed by a non-Muslim country to engage in Islamic banking. According to recent industry estimates, Islamic banking is set to grow at an annual rate of 15%. The increased trade between the sub-Saharan region and Islamic nations in the Middle East only reinforces our view that partnerships among the corporate players between the two regions will foster more development.
Neither is it possible to say whether funded pension wealth mitigates the negative effects of expansionary monetary policy and elevated asset prices on wealth distribution. However, it is clear that no such mitigating effect can reasonably exist in most euro countries, as there is no funded pension wealth in these countries. Negative effects alleviated in Sweden The reasoning in this speech is not about three things. First, the introduction of the national supplementary pension system with associated National Pension Funds was controversial at the time.8 However, the National Pension Funds are now with us. Second, opinion is divided as to whether funded pension systems are to be preferred to paying pensions from day-to-day tax revenue. But, as I said, the pension funds are now with us. Third, the global downward trend in real interest rates has made it more difficult to receive return on wealth, especially if investors want to hold safe financial assets like government securities. The assets whose prices have increased are riskier. But this is not what the reasoning in this speech is about. This is what the speech is about: In Sweden, there is a comparatively large share of wealth in collective pension funds that has been built up with the help of mandatory contributions based on the labour income of individuals. This wealth is therefore more evenly distributed than other wealth. When asset prices rise, more people therefore benefit from the increase in wealth than if there had been no collective pension funds.

The interactivity between the  2  BIS Review 132/2008  players and the combination of their respective responsibilities should constitute a virtuous basis for a “sound financing of a sustainable economy”. “Sound financing of a sustainable economy” and “financial stability” are mutually reinforcing concepts. I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity of presenting these considerations, before handing the floor to Ms Kosciusko-Morizet. Minister, please allow me to stress the formidable efforts you have made, both at the national and European level together with President Sarkozy and Mr Borloo, to provide sustainable solutions to the current challenges. You take a long-term view by calling for “a common battle” – these are your own words– in favour of the economy and the environment. This is clearly an “awareness” that we have to share collectively today! BIS Review 132/2008  3