samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We have several infrastructural challenges ahead of us so we have to make our stock markets, our bond markets and our foreign currency market work as a market and really respond to the challenges of bringing in more participants, broadening its appeal and becoming real instruments of channeling the savings not only of Sri Lankans but also of people living overseas so that institutions and our real businesses can benefit from those flows of financial activity and grow at a stronger pace than they have grown in the past. That is our broad challenge going forward and at the same time ensuring that we do not allow the sort of excesses that creep in, in such situations which cause financial disturbances and panics. So this is going to be the challenge going forward for all of us, to establish that stability and to have a very clear set of rules. Remember that the way financial markets have evolved historically for centuries is on the basis of having “rule-based” systems, where every player in the market, whether it is the regulator or the regulated, abides by a set of rules. And that is the most effective way for any system to function. It cannot be based on the whims and fancies of the regulator, or the government or any single player in the market. There has to be an even playing field, the goalposts have to be stuck very firmly in the same place and the same rules have to apply, just like game football or cricket.

I am not saying that we should only focus on the Northern Province, even the Southern Province. We have a branch in Matara, but I think there is a lot of work to be done. I recently visited areas around Hambanthota, and I find that the potential there really, is still not exploited. There are a few factories here and there, few agricultural projects that we are funding, but we are nowhere near the sort of potential we can achieve particularly since so much infrastructure has been installed in that area and built in recent years. I think that infrastructure is not being used. We have the rather comic situation today where an airport is being used to store paddy because of a mismatch of the needs of that airport to be economical with the needs of the broader economy which has other pressing problems to be achieved. So this is a classic example how we have to put on our thinking caps and come up with solutions for the government. One big advantage that we have is that central bankers have through the decades, manned very important government institutions. Even when I look today, institutions as varied as the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Finance and such like have very senior central bankers working there in some form or another. And even in the legal sector, the Attorney General’s Department is working very closely with us.
The fiscal response had to rely on both national and supra-national policy actions of significant magnitude. In the current high inflation setting, however, the appropriate policy mix requires a tightening of the monetary policy stance and a fiscal stance that, at the aggregate, euro area level, is not at odds with this anti-inflationary stance. This means that government support measures should be temporary, targeted and tailored to preserving incentives to consume less energy. 1  In particular, measures should be gradually rolled back as energy prices fall. Otherwise, we are at risk of driving up medium-term inflationary pressures, which would call for a stronger monetary policy response. In this regard, let me stress that achieving a fiscal stance that is consistent with the smooth operation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) while delivering sustainable public finances is precisely the role of the EU’s fiscal rules framework, or at least its key aspiration. Why do we need fiscal rules? Let me be straightforward in stating upfront that a disciplined fiscal framework that fosters the sustainability of public finances is essential to guaranteeing macroeconomic stability and the proper functioning of the EMU. Under the Maastricht Treaty, the design of the EMU rested on two pillars: a single monetary policy authority and a set of coordinated national fiscal policies, which constituted the EMU’s policy mix. The independent central bank (ECB) targeting price stability was entrusted with monetary policy.

Quite a good progress has been made in fulfilling all these commitments, and yet there is more to be done. The Ministry of Finance regularly publishes information on the progress in the performance and the outstanding tasks. The third group of tasks deals with the legislative programme that must ensure the legal framework for the operation of institutions and businesses within the euro area. Some progress has been made on these tasks too. Several legal acts have already been adopted. Some of the issues that are most complicated from a legal point of view, regarding the BNB for example, such as the judicial protection of the Governing Council members other than the Governor, have been resolved with the amendments to the Law on the BNB passed by the Parliament at the end of last year. However, what still remains to be done is a lot more. And by saying this, I do not mean so much the readiness in terms of drafted legal acts, but rather the procedure for discussing and adopting these acts by the National Assembly. This also applies to the most important laws – the Law on the Euro adoption, and the Law on the BNB. The draft Law on the Euro adoption is about to be finished. The draft Law on the BNB has been finalised, according to the set timeline. It will be approved by the BNB Governing Council at its next meeting that will take place on 13 April, i.e. in about a week from now.
Villy Bergström: Does globalisation have anything to do with the closing down of the ATM? Speech by Mr Villy Bergström, Deputy Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, held before “pappers avd 111” (a local union of the Swedish Paper Workers Union), Grycksbo, 11 February 2002. *  *  *  Globalisation is an unclear concept and I think that the chairman of Pappers avdelning 111, Lars Göran Johansson, who invited me to this meeting, gave me an interesting task when he formulated the heading for my talk. He phrased it as a question; "Does globalisation have anything to do with the closing down of the ATM?" I shall return to what I believe that people in general mean by globalisation and I shall also return to Lars Göran's question at the end, but allow me to begin by saying that Sweden has undergone a globalisation process for more than 100 years, in the sense that our country has been exposed to competition. A large proportion of our total production has been aimed for a long time towards the export market, while we have imported goods and received foreign investment capital. Foreign trade comprised approximately 20 per cent of the Swedish economy from the 1870s until the end of World War II. That is to say, import and export each comprised 20 per cent of the total production here in Sweden. An increase in foreign trade began during the post-war period, and export and import now comprise approximately 40 per cent each of our total production.

Come what may. 13
According to the agreement, the SNB is authorised to exchange currency at the PBC for renminbi up to a maximum amount defined in the quota (slide 6). As in all global capital markets, bonds are traded overthe-counter (OTC), in other words they are traded off-market via local investment banks or the PCB’s bureau in Shanghai. Approximately 90% of all bonds are traded on the interbank bond market, and the remaining 10% are traded on the exchange. The interbank market is regulated by the PBC. Bonds issued by the central government, local governments and quasi-government banks dominate the interbank market, while corporate bonds play a subordinate role. The SNB will only be investing in central government bonds – these make up around one-third of the interbank market – with maturities of up to 50 years. The role of gold in our foreign exchange reserves Let me now turn to an older – but no less topical – component of our currency reserves: gold. Since the foundation of the SNB over 100 years ago, gold has been an important part of our currency reserves, however its function has changed significantly over time. Until 1973, Switzerland was part of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and the value of the Swiss franc was defined in grams of gold. Under this system, currency reserves – and thus also gold holdings – played an important role in monetary policy. The bulk of the SNB’s gold reserves were formed at this time.

While the gold initiative’s third demand – that all of the SNB’s gold holdings should be stored in Switzerland – may be unproblematic in monetary policy terms, this too runs counter to the notion of security. Gold is stored in multiple locations for reasons of risk diversification, in other words to improve security. The lion’s share of the SNB’s gold reserves (approximately 70%) is already stored in Switzerland and an appropriate regional diversification serves to enhance the SNB’s market access. Concluding remarks Please allow me to make a few closing remarks. Managing Switzerland’s substantial foreign exchange reserves in the country’s best interest remains our key investment policy challenge. New markets are playing an important role here. I have discussed the growing significance of Asia and explained the process by which we plan to be able to invest a small fraction of our foreign exchange reserves in China in the near future. Thanks to our branch office in Singapore, we are optimally positioned to monitor developments and manage our investments in the Asia-Pacific region efficiently. Within the scope of its mandate, the SNB needs a certain amount of latitude in order to continue fulfilling its monetary and investment policy objectives, especially given that the Swiss monetary policy landscape is set to remain challenging in the foreseeable future. A BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  “yes” vote for the gold initiative would severely restrict our scope for action. It would therefore make it considerably more difficult for the SNB to conduct successful monetary policy operations in future.
Discovering the secrets of economic growth is in a sense like looking for clues to a hidden treasure. We may each hold some clues but it is not easy to piece all of them together to achieve resilient growth. The title of the movie is also apt, I think, for categorising the growth experience of the 16 countries in my Williams class. Malaysia, which was represented in my class, enjoyed steady economic expansion of around 4% to 5% in real GDP per capita since the mid-1960s. It obviously falls into the "Good" category. I put India in the same category primarily because of its advances in the past 10 years. Others like Egypt, Pakistan and Honduras have stagnated. I would term their performance as "Bad". For all their efforts, their per capita GDP has not gone up much. But they are at least better off than others like Bolivia and Tanzania which have regressed, and are poorer now than they were in 1966. Their record is "Ugly". Why have countries travelled such divergent "Good, Bad and Ugly" growth paths when they had all aspired for the same goal of a better life? In the past, economic theory has focused on the importance  1  The Williams College 16 were: Singapore, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Philippines from Asia; Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania, Uganda from Africa; Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico from Latin America; and Yugoslavia from Europe. BIS Review 86/2006  1  of factor inputs, productivity and technology.

Moving on to the second aspect – the importance of using SARON more actively in financial products and developing a liquid, SARON-based yield curve: To date, Libor has been widely used in financial products, however market participants are now working hard on transitioning to new, SARON-based products. These include derivatives, especially interest rate swaps, which can be used to hedge against changes in interest rates. 1 A SARON-based interest rate swap market was set up back in 2017. Trading activity in this market remains low, however it is expected to pick up once SARON becomes more widely used in cash products (such as loans, mortgages and capital market instruments) and investment products. The SARON1  An interest rate swap allows a contractually agreed, fixed interest rate (e.g. for a period of five years) to be exchanged periodically for a floating interest rate. The floating interest rate portion of the contract is determined by a reference rate. Page 2/3  Berne, 13 June 2019 Andréa M. Maechler  News conference  based yield curve will then be able to take over the role of the current, Libor-based yield curve. Yield curves are important benchmarks for market participants and serve as the basis for pricing medium and long-term financial products. And, finally, the third aspect – how should interest payments be calculated for a period of three months, for example? Libor provided a three-month rate which could, among other things, be directly applied to the calculation of interest payments on money market mortgages.
Another conclusion is that interest-rate policy is not enough to achieve financial stability. The policy rate is an ineffective instrument for influencing financial stability, and policy rates high enough to have a noticeable effect on credit growth and house prices will have a strong negative effect on inflation and resource utilisation, even in sectors that are not experiencing any speculative activity. The use of the policy rate to prevent an unsustainable boom in house prices and credit growth poses major problems for the timely identification of such an unsustainable development, as well as for the assessment of whether policy-rate adjustment would have any noticeable impact on the development, and of whether, in the longer run, the development of inflation and resource utilisation would be better (Bean et al. 2010, Kohn 2008, 2009). Other instruments like supervision and regulation, including appropriate bank resolution regimes, should be the first choice for financial stability. Preventing a financial crisis requires not only improvements in the supervision of financial institutions, but also a greater emphasis on the supervision of the financial system as a whole. As regards the regulatory framework, generally, to the extent that financial instability depends on specific distortions, good regulation should aim to attack these distortions as close to the source as possible. Macro-  3  See Svensson (2003) for a discussion of policy options before and in a liquidity trap. 4  See Assenmacher-Wesche and Gerlach (2009), Bean (2009), Bean et al. (2010), Bernanke (2010), Dokko et al. (2009), IMF (2009).

And my main conclusion for monetary policy is that flexible inflation targeting – applied in the right way and in particular using all the information about financial conditions that is relevant for the forecast of inflation and resource utilisation at any horizon – remains the best-practice monetary policy before, during, and after the financial crisis. A related conclusion is that neither price stability nor interest-rate policy is sufficient to achieve financial stability. A separate financial-stability policy is needed. In particular, monetary policy and financial-stability policy need to be conceptually distinguished, since they have different objectives and different appropriate instruments, even when central banks have responsibility for both 1. So today, I will first briefly summaries my view of the causes of the crisis, and then discuss what the possible lessons are for future monetary policy, and finally I shall emphasise the distinction between monetary policy and financial-stability policy. The financial crisis had little to do with monetary policy As I see it, the financial crisis was caused by factors that had very little to do with monetary policy. The factors were the macro conditions; distorted incentives in financial markets; regulatory and supervisory failures; information problems; and some very specific circumstances, such as the US housing policy to support home ownership for low-income households 2.
This may well be the true answer or reality, but it is rather disappointing if not frustrating that the wide gap between demand and supply has continued to exist. 3. So the natural question for us would be how we can close that gap and bring about a winwin outcome for project proponents and operators on the one hand and financiers or investors on the other. And in this connection, I should say that Hong Kong is uniquely well positioned to play a pivotal role in facilitating and catalysing investment flows to infrastructure projects in the region. We have well-developed capital markets and a deep pool of professional talents, in addition to Hong Kong being a leading centre in arbitration and dispute resolution, all of which are essential building blocks in support of infrastructure investments and their financing. It was against this background that the HKMA set up the Infrastructure Financing Facilitation Office (IFFO) in July 2016. IFFO has the following mission: (a) provide a platform for the key stakeholders to get to know each other and share experiences; (b) enhance the capacity of the investing and recipient countries in infrastructure financing; and (c) facilitate infrastructure investment and financing flows. 4. IFFO now has 90 stakeholders from Hong Kong, Mainland China and overseas joining as Partners. They include project developers or operators, commercial and investment banks, multilateral development financial institutions, asset owners and managers and professional service firms. In the last two years, IFFO has accomplished a lot.

While there are still widespread skepticism and even resentment to the label of financial derivatives or financial engineering, I think it is important for us to be able to differentiate between those structured finance products that are linked to and supportive of the real economy from those that have no useful links to the real economy. Clearly ordinary mortgage-backed securities with proper underwriting standards, not the kind of sub-prime mortgages in the US, are one of this kind of useful financial derivatives. Infrastructure loan backed securities can be another kind of useful structured finance because, if properly organised, they can bring about a win-win outcome for the investors, the recipient countries, the intermediaries and the capital markets. As I said earlier, infrastructure investments are one of the most difficult kind of asset class and to create a structured finance for these investments is not going to be an easy or short process, but as the Chinese saying “千里之行，始於足下” goes, no matter how long the journey is going to take, one has to make a start somehow. So here we are, the HKMC is going to take the first step in pursuing the securitisation of infrastructure loans in order to facilitate a more efficient flow of capital into infrastructure investments. 9. I note that in the afternoon there will be a session focusing on the prospects of structured finance in infrastructure investments. This is highly relevant and timely and I look forward to hearing the perspectives and insights from the experts on this subject.
Accordingly, just as a resolute shortterm fiscal response will help lessen future damage to our economy, we should accept that a greater budgetary impulse at present should be part of a clear strategy to redress public finances. This is particularly necessary in countries, such as Spain, that face this crisis from a vulnerable public finances starting position, owing to high public debt and structural deficit levels. This strategy should rest on a medium-term budgetary consolidation programme which, through a spending and tax structure and capacity review, will help restore health to public finances. It should also be underpinned by a structural reform programme that raises the economy’s growth capacity and, therefore, broadens the tax bases needed to fund the desired level of expenditure. This fiscal consolidation and structural reform strategy should be implemented once this episode and its economic effects are behind us. But its design and communication should not be delayed. In the short run, there is no place for a premature withdrawal of the emergency fiscal measures, since that would increase the risk of more lasting damage to economic growth. However, the necessary counterpart to this fiscal activism is the early announcement of a strategy to reduce fiscal imbalances, with a view to its subsequent implementation, which should perforce be gradual. An early definition of this strategy would significantly benefit the credibility of our economic policy and help boost the expansionary effects of the current fiscal measures.

32  Post-COVID-19 challenges (i) The need to reduce the structural deficit and public debt The legacy of the current crisis will be a very high level of public debt. Both in our country and abroad, managing such high levels of public debt will be a major challenge once the pandemic is over. In the short term, there is no sensible alternative to budgetary expansion. However, once the pandemic and its economic effects are under control, the need to redress general government finances must take centre stage, to prevent public debt crisis episodes like those experienced in several euro area countries following the last financial crisis. Reducing public debt is also necessary if we are to restore fiscal policy leeway in the medium term as a stabilisation mechanism for future crises. This is particularly important in the euro area, where monetary policy is decided by the ECB based on the overall economic situation. Indeed, the current crisis shows the importance of having healthy public finances that enable powerful fiscal action to be taken without generating doubts about future sustainability. This is a lesson we cannot forget when the effects of the crisis fade. The timeframe for reducing the public debt that we will have at the end of this crisis will be determined by the changes in the interest rate at which the debt is financed, GDP growth in real terms, the inflation rate and the pace at which the primary deficit eases.