samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Working closely with the Commercial Affairs Department and the Attorney-General’s Chambers, MAS undertook a rigorous probe of these transactions which were part of a large, complex, cross-border money laundering scheme. Last year, I said that the findings on the 1MDB-related transactions that flowed through here had made a dent in our reputation as a clean and trusted financial centre. I believe we have begun the process of restoring that reputation. We have taken tough and unprecedented enforcement actions and sent an unequivocal message that MAS will not tolerate the criminal abuse of Singapore’s financial system. Just last month, we announced the completion of an intensive two-year long review of banks connected to 1MDB-related transactions known to-date. All in, we have closed 2 merchant banks and fined 8 banks nearly $ million – the heaviest aggregate financial penalties to-date. We have also issued prohibition orders (POs) against 4 individuals and served notices of intention to issue POs against 3 others for various regulatory breaches. MAS also issued lifetime bans, for the first time, against 2 of these individuals. MAS’ regulatory actions so far are based on what we know to-date. Thanks to excellent co-operation we have had with overseas jurisdictions, Singapore authorities were able to obtain good intelligence and piece together most of the significant flows from end to end. We have found nothing new in the latest filing by the US Department of Justice that warrants further action by us.

With more risk traded in and through markets, the potential knock-on effects from an erosion of liquidity in some segments or for some institutions have multiplied, and we are currently experiencing how unexpected this process can be. Risks have become “mobile”, if I may put it like that, so mobile that we lose sight of their true location. The third and final set of issues relates to global imbalances. The facilitation of crossborder capital flows may have relaxed financing constraints for borrowers, making it possible to finance ever larger current account deficits. In one sense, the contribution of financial globalisation to disconnecting national savings and national investment is a welcome development, to the extent that it allows for a more efficient global allocation of savings. However the differences in the development of financial markets around the world may also have created, or at least facilitated, global imbalances. The ability of countries to produce sound and liquid financial assets is largely disconnected from their level of economic growth : rising revenues in the emerging world need to “find a home” in sound and liquid financial markets. Finally, in any case, the question of sustainability – the resilience of capital flows to the accumulation of imbalances – remains a pressing one. While capital flows tend to move freely across borders, exchange rate regimes remain very diverse in their degrees of flexibility. This leads to asymmetric adjustments depending on the exchange rate regime, not only between currency areas, but also inside the same region, such as in Asia.
by opposing techno‐utopians and techno‐pessimists, or proponents of “degrowth” to proponents of “green growth”) is not constructive Lastly, given the well‐known limitations of GDP as a measure of well‐being, it is also important to bear in mind that the definition of growth itself is bound to evolve in the future. For instance, as recently stressed by Professor Nicholas Stern and co‐authors in an IMF working paper,17 we should move from a “flow‐ 16  See Keyßer, L.T., Lenzen, M. (2021). 1.5 °C degrowth scenarios suggest the need for new mitigation pathways. Nature Communications 12, 2676. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467‐021‐22884‐9 17 Bhattacharya, A., Ivanyna, M., Oman, W., Stern, N. (2021). Climate Action to Unlock the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century. IMF Working Paper 21/147. 7  centred focus on GDP” to a “stock‐centred focus on a broad definition of capital”; “the conceptual framework used by policymakers must treat planetary boundaries – notably climate overshoot – as a hard constraint”. They also propose to establish an annual carbon budget at the national level which would be binding. In short, if we are to hold a serious discussion about what an ecological transition means for central banks, including the impact it will have on output and other key macroeconomic variables, we need to be able to engage in a responsible and scientific manner on these difficult questions, rather than sweeping them under the rug.

The flow of corporate euro bond and equity issuance has grown significantly, though it is important to keep this in proportion: the stock of issuance outstanding in both cases is still - by some margin - lower than the US. (Domestic debt securities in the euro area, taking governments and corporates together, amount to the equivalent of around $ trillion, compared with some $ trillion in the US. And the equity market capitalisation of companies in the euro area amounts to the equivalent of around $ trillion, compared with some $ trillion in the US.) Since the launch of the euro, the focus of risk assessment in the corporate debt market has shifted from currency risk towards credit and liquidity risk. A growing number of companies in the euro area have been seeking external credit ratings. And an equity culture is beginning to take root in the euro area, despite the volatility in TMT stocks over the past two years. In Europe as a whole, for example, there were over 17,000 M&A transactions with a combined value equivalent to $ trillion last year. The second change concerns the integration of euro trading and settlement. Trading has increased in most euro markets, and dealing spreads have narrowed. Electronic trading and communication  2  BIS Review 11/2001  networks have greatly increased the reach of traditional financial markets, while allowing new providers to enter at relatively low cost.
When an AI tool finds an empirical basis for discriminating by a combination of variables such as gender, ethnicity, religion, and nationality, say for a loan or insurance decision, how much of that empiricism is grounded in reality and how much of it is due to unobserved biases in society that the AI is learning from? And even if such discrimination is backed by empirical unbiased data, is that a socially acceptable outcome? Regulators in many jurisdictions have been engaging the industry as well as the broader society on developing guidance on the responsible and ethical use of AI and data analytics by financial institutions. Defending Against Systemic Cyber Risk The third theme that stands out in the history of financial regulation over the last two decades is cyber security. But it was only after the Global Cyber Crisis of 2023 that cyber risk management has moved to front and centre of the international regulatory agenda. The Global Cyber Crisis laid bare our cyber vulnerabilities. A highly skilled and well-resourced group of hackers used AI-enabled malware to infiltrate banks across the world, subvert detection, and siphon monies. Over a span of just 6 weeks, a total of $ billion was stolen from over 500 banks, leading to loss of public confidence and bank runs in several jurisdictions. Only 8% of the stolen funds has ever been recovered. The failure of Algor Bank at the height of the Global Cyber Crisis demonstrated both the high points and low points in financial regulation.

Few would disagree with the following: The bad behavior that contributed to the Financial Crisis was evidence of a culture that was not strongly ethical. Let me also pose a challenge to those who are skeptical about the benefits of a strong ethical culture: If this is not a suitable method to prevent bad behavior by bankers, what alternative proposal do you advocate? The status quo is not acceptable. As a wise man once said, “Plan beats no plan.” The components of a strong ethical culture So what are the key components of a strong ethical culture? It is said that lawyers love a metaphor, and this lawyer is no exception. I like to think about ethical culture as if it were a package. The culture that we will have is derivative of what we put into the package, and there are clear choices to be made. The contents depend upon the type of organization, the kinds of people, and the nature of the skills needed to conduct the organization’s activities. Time will not permit me to cover this thoroughly, so let me cover a few items with a very broad brush. What goes in For starters, the conduct of the people in any organization will be strongly influenced by incentives. Let me mention the “big three.” Bankers, like lawyers, want to do [1] quality work, [2] with people they like and respect, and [3] receive fair recognition in return.
The Maastricht Treaty impressively illustrates this changed approach with respect to the European area. This new political focus was also a reaction to the disillusionment with regard to the central banks’ ability to generate permanent growth effects. There was fairly widespread agreement that price stability should be the prime monetary policy objective. Second, it was of decisive importance that the currencies of the two leading countries, the US and Germany, achieved a high degree of price stability. Numerous countries gained credibility by pegging their exchange rates to the US dollar and the DM, thus seizing the opportunity to successfully import the stability policies of the Federal Reserve and the Deutsche Bundesbank. Third, the deregulation and globalisation of financial flows have increasingly disciplined the national authorities. These days, an excessively relaxed monetary policy is sanctioned much more severely and much more quickly than in the past by growing inflationary expectations, rising long-term interest rates and a persistent devaluation pressure. Correspondingly smaller are the incentives to run the higher risk of a long-term inflationary problem for reasons of short-term opportunism. On looking ahead, most of these factors promise to remain relevant. Such confidence, however, should not detract from the dangers and risks involved. Fiscal discipline is facing a difficult test phase in a number of countries. It is foreseeable that the combination of demographic trends and non-funded statutory pension claims will lead to intensive discussions on distribution in many places which, in turn, might easily trigger a rise in public indebtedness.

To be realistic, a simple recommendation is all that is in order: those who buy equities bear the price risk themselves. People who, out of greed and carelessness, buy and sell in such a way that they cannot survive a brutal crash have only themselves to blame. They must bear the consequences alone, even if it means their economic ruin. Second, there is also an argument that price stability as the relevant goal of monetary policy should be defined more broadly and measured in such a way as to include the development of important asset  7  BIS Review 35/2000  prices.4 The demand that monetary policy, in its use of the concept of monetary conditions, should not only take account of interest rates and foreign exchange rates but also of equity prices does not go quite as far. On a technical level, such an expansion of the price index would not be a trivial undertaking, but certainly doable. There are some serious economic concerns, however, which are mainly due to the ambivalent nature of equity price fluctuations. Equity prices may rise in anticipation of a pick-up in total demand, which - if anything - would indicate some restrictive monetary policy correction. If the stock market expects business activity to pick up, the central bank will, in assessing the situation, hopefully realise this as well. It is for that purpose not necessary to expand the price index or the monetary conditions index as has been suggested.
In view of this delicate situation and since the problem is a pressing one, the Banco de España, with the Government’s agreement, decided it was necessary to provide additional financing to CCM to preserve its stability. To this end, the Government granted backing to the loan, for a maximum amount of € billion, extended by the Banco de España. I would like to underscore this point. As reiterated by the Second Deputy Prime Minister at the press conference following the meeting of the Council of Ministers last Sunday, I should stress that we forecast that approximately € billion of this amount will be used. Nevertheless, our room for manoeuvre will make managing the payments more flexible, without any constraints in respect of the amounts involved. Developments in CCM’s liquidity in the three days it has been under the control of the Banco de España nominees have proven more positive than expected. Given the response by all the government authorities involved, management cooperation, the reaction of the trade unions and understanding on the part of the general public, there have been no queues or panic at branches and there have clearly been fewer withdrawals of deposits than foreseen. Having briefly outlined CCM’s current position, let me move on to the ultimate aim of the Banco de España’s supervisory decisions. While seemingly obvious, the Supervisor’s aims are to protect depositors’ savings and creditors, to avoid market turmoil and to preserve the stability of the financial system as a whole.

Øystein Olsen: The monetary policy toolkit Speech by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Centre for Monetary Economics (CME) / BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, 8 October 2019. * * * Accompanying charts of the speech. Introduction In the wake of the financial crisis, central banks in many countries have stretched the limits of monetary policy. New, alternative policy instruments were introduced. Interest rates are still negative in many countries. Apart from in the initial hectic months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, resorting to alternative monetary policy tools has not been necessary in Norway. Nor is there anything, in our assessment of the outlook, to suggest it would be appropriate to do so in the future. But there are no guarantees that the economy will not experience pronounced downturns in the future. Were that to occur, it would be wise to have thought through which instruments could function in Norway. Norges Bank has therefore assessed the tools that might be useful in the monetary policy toolkit. To some extent, our assessments can build on the post-crisis experiences of other countries. In some areas that are important for the impact of monetary policy, however, Norway is different from other countries. This could mean that some of the most widely used alternative tools in other countries are not a suitable option for us. I would like to share with you some of our thinking on this subject in my speech today.
Therefore investors may still prefer to avoid being heavily weighted in a country with structural rigidities, or high public debt levels, and will on the contrary overweight their asset allocation in countries with well-designed fiscal and structural policies. In the same vein, this should suggest that the level of connection between stock exchanges in Europe and the US could be time varying, considering that the underlying factors are also driven by policies that are implemented independently. As a matter of fact, and not surprinsingly, correlations of yields between European stock indexes appear to be higher than those between European and US indexes, and these correlations have increased since 1999. These results seem valid even taking into account the increase in correlations due to the increase in absolute 9 volatility levels . 6  RAJAN and ZINGALES – 2002 – Second ECB international banking conference . 7  MORANA, BELTRATTI – 2002 – The effects of the introduction of the euro on the volatility of European stock markets – Journal of Banking and Finance. 8  Source: FEFSI – Fédération Européenne des Fonds et Sociétés d’Investissement – in THE EURO EQUITY MARKET – ECB 2001. 9  Banque de France Research department calculations – . Correlations calculated as monthly averages. The impact of market shocks is neutralized by taking into account changes in long term interest rates.

No matter how good the financial regulations are or how hard the supervisors try, external surveillance can only supplement, but not replace, good internal controls. This means that a suitably designed control system endorsed by the Board of Directors must be put in place to ensure that there are effective checks and balances within the firm to monitor and detect breaches of the approved risk taking parameters and code of conduct in dealing with clients. “Culture” The last “C” is “Culture”. This is a more difficult concept to explain than the first two “Cs”. But I’ll try. Competence basically means having the technical expertise to conduct financial businesses. It can be learned through different channels, such as formal education, in-house programmes or on-the-job training. Control means having a system within a firm that monitors and manages risk-taking or the conduct of its staff. People within the firm are required to behave in a way that is prescribed by their rules. To put it in another way, people behave properly because they have to or else they would face unpleasant consequences if and when they are caught. In contrast, culture refers to a set of internal values shared by a group of people that influence and shape their mindset and behaviour. Culture and values normally define what is proper and what is not. Culture makes people behave in a certain way because they want to behave in that way and not because they have to. Let me use a day-to-day example to illustrate this point.
3  According to Eurostat business statistics data, (SBS_SC_OVW) in 2021 Spanish firms’ productivity (measured as sales over employment) in industry, construction and services, as compared with the average for French, German and Italian firms in the same size group, was 62% for firms with between zero and nine workers, 77% for those with between 10 and 19 workers, 75% for those with between 20 and 49 workers, 87% for those with between 50 and 249 workers, and 79% for those with more than 250 workers. 4  A persistent negative gap can also be seen when looking at investment in intangibles (Banco de España, 2018). A similar diagnosis can be drawn from certain international innovation indicators, such as the European Commission's European Innovation Scoreboard (2022) or the Global Innovation Index (WIPO, 2022). 5  Community Innovation Survey, 2018  6  See the White Paper on Tax Reform (Committee of Experts, 2022) and Almunia and López-Rodríguez (2023), forthcoming. 7  See, for example the assessments of the effectiveness of R&D tax incentives in: the United Kingdom, Guceri and Liu (2019) and Dechezleprêtre, Einiö, Martin, Nguyen and Van Reenen (in press); Canada, Agrawal, Rosell and Simcoe (2020); and the United States, Rao (2016).

Likewise, the Employment Law and the changes in unemployment benefits seek to ensure compatibility between protecting the most vulnerable and providing appropriate incentives for job seekers. Looking ahead, public employment services need to play a more prominent role in job mediation (currently very minor) and their training and vocational integration activities need to be more effective. This requires appropriate professional profiling of the unemployed, rigorous assessment of training and vocational integration programmes and, on the basis of this assessment, sufficient funding for these programmes. Squaring protection for the more vulnerable groups with appropriate incentives on the labour supply-side calls for greater coordination between active and passive policies. The capacity of migration policies to effectively smooth any mismatches arising in the Spanish labour market also needs to be continuously monitored. The fifth factor I wish to refer to is confidence in institutions and their management capacity. Both these types of confidence are currently low in comparison with other European countries.24 The efficiency of public administration may have a key role to play in overturning this perception. For example, efficiency indices for the Spanish judicial system stand below those in comparable countries. In this respect, one of the priorities of the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP) is public administration modernisation. Specifically, the aim is to improve the efficiency of public administration through, among other measures, a digitalisation drive, strengthening the public policy assessment framework and reducing the proportion of public employment that is temporary.
Kerstin af Jochnick: Current monetary policy and the economic situation Speech by Ms Kerstin af Jochnick, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Centre for Business and Policy Studies, Stockholm, 21 August 2015. *  *  *  Accompanying figures can be found at the end of the speech. Economic developments in Sweden look positive and the Riksbank’s expansionary monetary policy is continuing to support the upturn in inflation. I am pleased to note this as I hold an August speech for the fourth year in a row based on the monetary policy decision in July and discuss what has happened during the summer. Although I expect most people here follow events on stock exchanges and other markets around the world even during the summer, I hope that a summary of the most important events may be useful prior to assessing the prospects for the autumn. One can say that Greece has not entirely unexpectedly been in focus during the summer, too. The forecasts in our July Monetary Policy Report were based on the sequence of events not preventing a recovery in the euro area. While some work remains to be done before the new 3-year loan programme is formally in place, my assessment is nevertheless that developments so far are in line with the assumptions we made in July.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  The National Institute of Economic Research’s Economic Tendency Surveys, which summarise companies’ and households’ views of the Swedish economy, rose in July, see Figure 11. This is the third month in a row that the indicator exceeds the historical average and thus points to a somewhat stronger growth than normal in the Swedish economy. Households’ confidence in the economy as a whole slowed down further in July, although the view of their own economy is still more positive than normal. Inflation expectations according to money market participants in Prospera’s survey 1, 2, and 5 years ahead have remained broadly unchanged during the summer. Long-run inflation expectations 5 years ahead remain at around 1.8 per cent. CPIF inflation was measured at 0.6 per cent in June and at 0.9 per cent in July, see Figure 12. The outcome in June was lower than our forecast. It is difficult to point to any individual component that contributed to the forecasting error – goods prices services prices and food prices all increased somewhat slower than expected. The outcome in July, on the other hand, was higher than our forecast. It was in particular the volatile air travel and package holidays that were higher than anticipated, although food and clothing prices were higher than expected. All in all, the outcomes over the summer have been in line with our forecasts.