samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Furthermore, technology has now improved to the extent that we do not really need centralized clearing and settlement systems. I have long supported the concept of Asiaclear as a network of linkages of domestic clearing, settlement and depository systems. 56. Again, we in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority made a start in building this network through establishing bilateral linkages between our clearing system for debt securities called CMU and other systems. Our system is now linked up with Euroclear and Cedel, and we are working on linkages with corresponding systems in Australia, New Zealand and the Mainland of China. Once the matrix of bilateral linkages is filled up, the network of Asiaclear would be formed, like the Internet. There is no need for a centralized system or even a location. There is no centre for that network and so we do not need to get into the politically difficult question of where the network should be headquartered. We have also expressed our interest to other central banks in the region to establish similar linkages of payment systems. Our payment system in Hong Kong is already on the BIS Review 91/1997  - 12 -  real time gross settlement (RTGS) mode. Others are proceeding with building their RTGS systems and as soon as they are ready we are happy again to work on establishing bilateral linkages to facilitate risk management of large value financial transactions across the two monetary systems.

Then there are the more forward-looking arrangements for the development and linkages of elements of the financial infrastructure to facilitate the efficient and safe financial intermediation across monetary systems. 13. Obviously no one point on this wide spectrum of international monetary co-operation can be considered as the ideal situation. Much depends on the needs arising from the circumstances, and the circumstances are changing all the time. But along with financial liberalization and the globalization of financial markets, the trend, to the extent that one can be ascertained, seems clearly to be one of increasing monetary co-operation. As is well known, European monetary co-operation is aiming for monetary integration by 1999, having moved in the past 50 years from BIS Review 91/1997  -3-  information exchange to policy co-ordination. Whether this could be achieved on time or not, and whether monetary integration should necessarily then be considered as the final goal of monetary co-operation in other regions, we shall have to wait and see. But one has to admire the vision of the pioneer thinkers. I understand that the French economist Jacques Rueff actually declared way back in the 1950s that “Europe will be created via a currency or not at all”. 14. By contrast, Asian monetary co-operation is considerably less well structured. There is traditionally some exchange of information, mostly on a bilateral basis, through meetings conducted annually, and largely prior to a game of golf or even on the golf course.
However, it seems reasonable to also use monetary policy in certain situations when major risks build up in the financial system. A necessary condition here, of course, is that the credibility of the inflation target is not affected and that this happens when other policies to safeguard financial stability do not fully succeed in limiting the risks. This is thus an exceptional case; in most situations, the preventive work to safeguard financial stability falls to policy areas other than monetary policy. Monetary policy and fiscal policy are also interdependent. Stable public finances are necessary for price stability and to avoid fiscal dominance, that is, a situation where fiscal policy "dominates" monetary policy in the sense that it is fiscal policy that determines inflation. The risk of this in Sweden is currently small, partly because we have a fiscal policy framework designed to keep government debt at manageable levels. Fiscal policy also affects the Riksbank's ability to achieve the inflation target in the shorter term. If fiscal policy is expansionary when inflation is too low, and contractionary when inflation is too high, it can help the Riksbank achieve the inflation target more easily. There may also be periods when the fiscal policy conducted makes it more difficult to achieve the inflation target. A tight fiscal policy may  2 [30]  have contributed to the Riksbank's problems in bringing up inflation in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The Riksbank's independence is important for maintaining confidence in the inflation target.

Still, given the elevated debt levels of the private sector that hovers around 80% of GDP, increase in real estate prices, which in CESEE reached 15.5% - the highest growth since the GFC, as well as  2/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  expected further tightening of the credit conditions, it is not time for complacency. One of the key lessons learnt from the COVID 19 crisis is the resilience and it must remain the name of the game for the banking sector going forward. In the current context when the interplay between monetary policy and financial stability is more complex, and trade-offs are larger, macro – prudential management plays an important role. A recent BIS paper finds that prudential policy tightening, ahead or during the monetary policy tightening, reduces the likelihood of financial stress and provides more headroom for monetary policy. Following the pandemics, countercyclical or systemic risk capital buffers were actively deployed across the region. Financial regulators in seven countries, including in our case, intervened with the countercyclical capital buffer4, in six countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro) have continued to apply or introduced the systemic risk buffer and in five countries implemented borrower-based measures5, which more directly affect the quality of credit demand and contain risks. Keeping banking sector sound and in good capacity to lend is important in the light of the urgently needed structural reforms in the region.
Notable among other factors that distort the efficient allocation of resources are regulation and the public procurement system.17  13  Anghel and Lacuesta (2020). 14  If this misallocation of resources had been avoided, this period would have seen total factor productivity grow by 10% overall, instead of fall by 8%. Gopinath, Kalemli-Özcan, Karabarbounis and Villegas-Sanchez (2017) and García-Santana, Moral-Benito, Pijoan-Mas and Ramos (2020). 15  Albrizio, González and Khametshin (2023). 16  Gopinath, Kalemli-Özcan, Karabarbounis and Villegas-Sanchez (2017). 17  García-Santana, Moral-Benito, Pijoan-Mas and Ramos (2020). 5  As regards the quantity and quality of regulation, an abundance of increasingly complex rules and regulations that vary from one region or municipality to the next can have a negative impact on both economic agents’ decisions and the ability of governments to guarantee market unity, both domestically and at European level. This limits firms’ ability to grow and expand geographically, while stifling their incentive to innovate and specialise. As an example, I need only mention that, in 2022 alone, central and regional governments approved almost 11,000 new pieces of legislation.18 Some of these regulations may in fact directly influence the size of firms, given that firms are subject to stricter regulation above certain headcount thresholds. Regulatory improvement should be implemented by strengthening two important mechanisms already existing in our legal system. First, the Law on Market Unity establishes mechanisms to protect economic operators that allow them to file complaints.19 After ten years in force, 575 decisions have been issued.

Spain's per capita income today stands 17% below that of the euro area, a gap that is 4 pp narrower than was the case in 1978, but 8 pp wider than in 2005. Behind this persistent negative gap lie two well-known shortcomings in the Spanish economy: low productivity and a low rate of employment, which have moreover historically been negatively correlated. 1  Today, if I may, I will focus on the first of these factors, since productivity is the only failsafe means of improving living standards.1 What's more, our low productivity issues are very closely related to some of the weaknesses of our labour market, which, in turn, condition our ability to converge in terms of the employment rate. Second, it is well worth stressing that the convergence of the Spanish economy should be sustainable over time. With this in mind, it must be acknowledged that some of our economic problems these past few decades have stemmed from a failure to understand the obligations and restrictions that come with forming part of the European integration process and, in particular, of the euro area. This led, for instance, to the build-up of serious financial imbalances after joining the euro, which meant that our economy was particularly hard hit during the global financial crisis. Since the outbreak of that crisis, the Spanish economy has displayed a healthier pattern of growth that has, in fact, partly corrected the imbalances built up over the previous upswing.
Up to that point, growth accounting analysis generally indicates that a country tends to register high economic growth through vast capital accumulation, rapidly rising total factor productivity and continued increases in labor input. Once such a point has been reached, however, growth is likely to decelerate. Nevertheless, it is still possible for a country reaching the Lewisian Turning Point to continue growing, although at a somewhat decelerated pace, through technological advances and cultivation of new markets. In the region, Japan and the NIEs managed to overcome this trap and join the group of highincome countries in the 1970s and the 1990s, respectively – as you can see in the right-hand panel of Chart 4 again. China and some ASEAN countries, including Thailand, have already reached the upper middle-income stage, which means that they have great opportunities to advance further toward high-income status. Moreover, there are many other countries in the region that are still at the lower middle-income stage, but with great potential for continued growth for years to come. The second challenge is the “demographic trap.” A number of economies in the region, particularly those at the high-income stage and, to a lesser extent, at the upper middleincome stage, are experiencing, or about to experience, population aging: the result of longer life expectancies combined with lower fertility rates. From the view point of per-capita income growth, which I believe is an appropriate measure of “living standard,” what really matters is the proportion of the working-age population to the population as a whole.

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We exercise our voting rights at companies’ annual general meetings, and we engage in dialogue with a large number of portfolio companies. Recurrent topics in our dialogue with banks include financing palm oil producers and following up TCFD recommendations. Topics related to climate change have also been an important part of the dialogue with companies that buy and sell meat in Brazil. The third pillar is related to the composition of the GPFG’s investment portfolio. Our management mandate requires parts of the fund to be invested in environment-related mandates. The environment-related mandates were first introduced in 2011. The purpose of the investments does not differ from that of the rest of the GPFG. The environment-related mandates are required to contribute to diversification and to improving the return on the GPFG. Chart: Environment-related mandates The Ministry of Finance is in the process of adjusting the guidelines for these mandates. Investments are to be focused on climate-friendly energy, improving energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, water technology and the management of waste and pollution. The upper limit for the environment-related mandates will be increased from NOK 60 billion to NOK 120 billion, as the mandates will be expanded in 2020 to include unlisted renewable energy infrastructure investments. Primarily, these will be investments in wind and solar power production. In the Bank’s strategy for the management of the GPFG in the period to 2022, our target is an allocation of around one percent of the GPFG towards the end of the three-year period.

The overall risk, including climate risk, has been reduced. The Norwegian economy is also exposed to abrupt changes in operating parameters for oil and gas production through spillovers from offshore activities to the wider economy. We have long known that Norway’s offshore petroleum activities would be gradually reduced. If global climate policy proves to be stricter than currently expected, the decline in offshore activity may occur sooner and more rapidly than previously assumed. This will have consequences for Norway’s industry structure. Even though it is likely that the biggest changes in oil-related industries lie some years ahead, climate risk may also have an effect on the oil sector in the short term. There are perhaps signs of this effect in recent years’ oil stock prices. Chart: Valuation of oil stocks The price-to-book (P/B) ratio is lower for international oil companies than the average P/B ratio in the stock market, and this gap has widened in recent years. There may be several reasons for this, but we know that investors’ climate risk awareness has increased in the same period. Measures to influence industry structure are not within Norges Bank’s remit. However, if the decline in the oil-related sector were to occur abruptly, the spillovers to the wider economy could be considerable. Monetary policy is adjusted to changes in output, employment and inflation and can therefore support overall activity and employment in a period of restructuring. The responsibility for the restructuring itself lies elsewhere, not least with the business sector.
Second, we will work to take full advantage of the new FTAs currently being negotiated to create greater financial flows into Singapore, and to enable our financial institutions to access these markets. In our Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with India, we are exploring closer integration of our financial markets. Both countries stand to benefit if our financial sector players can operate seamlessly between the two markets. While there are many regulatory and other issues to be addressed, we see this as a unique opportunity for both India and Singapore. Empowering consumers to achieve fair dealing Third, we must empower consumers to achieve fair dealing. This will help us to develop a more informed and savvy consumer market, which is necessary to grow a vibrant financial sector. With liberalisation, there are now more channels for savings that entice investors with higher yields, such as bonds, equities, unit trusts, hedge funds, and insurance and annuity products. These products also carry higher risk. Has consumer sophistication risen in line with the complexity of financial products? As consumers seize new investment opportunities, how far should MAS safeguard their interests? MAS no longer practises merit-based regulation of products. It is neither feasible nor desirable for MAS to prescribe what consumers can or cannot invest in, how these products should be priced, or what terms and conditions should govern transactions. This would inhibit business enterprise, restrict consumer choice, and raise compliance costs. MAS cannot intervene in commercial disputes with individual institutions or arbitrate on contractual matters.

When we intervene in the foreign exchange market, we exchange new Swiss francs for foreign currency instead of giving them away. The creation of money in the context of foreign exchange market interventions is thus not ‘debt-free’. Economic order  Another problem is that the Swiss sovereign money initiative is etatist and imposes an unnecessary burden of responsibility on the SNB and disempowers the private sector. This does not fit in with the Swiss concept of the state and runs counter to proven principles of economic order. In order to achieve its aims, the initiative also does not shy away from providing for the possibility of general restrictions in economic freedom. This is clearly set out in the second sentence of the proposed article in the constitution. Adoption of the initiative would impose additional tasks on the SNB. The SNB today has the clear and appropriate mandate to ensure price stability and has a large degree of flexibility in fulfilling it. Under the sovereign money system, the SNB would have to assume tasks which far exceed this mandate. The initiative imposes two additional tasks on the SNB: first, making ‘debt-free’ payments and, second, guaranteeing the supply of credit to the Swiss economy. The latter is problematic because it could lead to a conflict of interest between price stability and credit supply. Above all though, it means that the SNB would have to decide precisely who should receive the loans.
The key point is that even though interest rates had been the marginal tool of monetary policy for several decades, monetary policymakers never forgot that this was only one manifestation of the central bank’s unique ability to create narrow money. And when the effective lower bound was reached, stimulus could continue to be provided by expanding central banks’ balance sheets in new ways. Someone recently said to me that Quantitative Easing (QE) is “like magic,” as if central bankers are sorcerers with the capacity to conjure up economic miracles. I wish. In fact QE works through the more prosaic channels of reducing longer-term interest rates in the  1  2  Bagehot (1873). BIS central bankers’ speeches  economy, and encouraging private sector investment in riskier assets by reducing the supply of long-duration government bonds, a phenomenon we call portfolio rebalancing. But the underlying point that the effect of this new monetary policy tool is less intuitively understood is well taken. That makes effective communication and accountability important to monetary policy and indeed all central bank policies. These points were made very clear by Kevin Warsh’s recent review of transparency and the MPC. As a result, this August the MPC will begin publishing the minutes of its policy meetings and the Inflation Report at the same time as its policy decisions, giving markets and the public a clearer understanding of what underlies the judgements we make.

For the next year, we are more optimistic, and in our projections we expect credit growth of up to 9 percent. In July, the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia made changes in the reserve requirement and also reduced the key interest rate to 3.25 percent, which is the historically lowest level. When do you expect the effects? We made some changes, so that we reduced the reserve requirement ratio for denar deposits and we increased that for the foreign currency deposits. Our goal is to stimulate denar saving at the expense of the saving in foreign currency, which in this way will become more expensive, while saving in denars will become cheaper. Shortly after that, we reduced the key interest rate to 3.25 percent, thus sending a signal to the banks that there is room for greater lending activity. Even that small amount of loans does not go to the companies, but mainly to the citizens. Why is that so and when will it change? In 2009, soon after the outbreak of the global economic crisis, banks here immediately stopped lending to households, while they continued to lend to companies. It allowed banks to clean the loan portfolio of the households, i.e. to eliminate the bad loans in the meantime. Therefore, now they have room to re-start lending to the households, and they are doing it. The process of cleaning the credit portfolios of the companies, however, was left out at that point, so it began more intensively last year, and continued this year.
This year they are expected to increase by almost 5 per cent, almost 80 per cent of which will come from increased transfers and reduced taxes and charges. An increase in income of this size has only occurred on a few occasions over the past decades. During 2003 and 2004 the increase is expected to be almost 3 per cent a year. It is primarily the strong development in disposable income that is expected to contribute to an increase in consumption over the coming years. Consumption of durable goods, such as fridges and TVs is expected to increase in particular. An expected recovery on the stock market (albeit modest) and a slight rise in property prices are other factors that will contribute to an increase in consumption in Sweden. Public consumption in Sweden is also expected to grow, by approximately 1 per cent a year. BIS Review 37/2002  3  As a whole, industrial activity in Sweden is showing several signs of improvement, although the upturn is still proceeding at a fairly slow pace. The recovery is fragmented. Base industries such as forestry and steel are in a period of recovery and the motor vehicle industry is also showing some improvement. The telecommunications product industry, on the other hand, has experienced a continued deterioration in demand. In mid-April Ericsson presented an interim report that painted a very gloomy picture of prospects for the near future and the company warned of redundancies. This development is a source of some concern and uncertainty.

Yet, since 2008, many governments have actively used fiscal policy to combat the effects of the crisis and to refinance the banks. As a result, the debt-to-GDP ratios of G7 countries, for example, have increased by an unweighted average of almost 30 percentage points (slide 3). As a consequence, today, the option of implementing new fiscal stimuli has been virtually ruled out. Monetary policy: in the frontline once again When it comes to economic policy matters, central banks have, therefore, returned to the limelight somewhat by default. In the current crisis, monetary policy has proved more effective than the IS/LM model might suggest. This is essentially because central banks have resorted to using various combinations of conventional and unconventional measures to help provide conditions conducive to economic growth in a context of deflationary risks . Here, the aim has often been to impact long rates directly, given that it was no longer possible to influence short-term rates. Several central banks have therefore purchased assets to put pressure on their longerterm yields (quantitative easing). To the same end, some have extended the maturity of the assets on their balance sheets, while others have purchased private sector assets to contribute to the easing of market conditions (credit easing). Meanwhile, others have conducted foreign exchange interventions to reduce pressure on the export sector and to ease monetary conditions. Many have also made implicit or explicit long-term commitments to foster expectations of future low rates.