samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Yiu-kwan Choi: Launch of the CMU Bond Price Bulletin Remarks by Mr Yiu-kwan Choi, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Signing Ceremony for the Launch of CMU Bond Price Bulletin, Hong Kong, 9 January 2006. *  *  *  It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this signing ceremony for the launch of the CMU Bond Price Bulletin. We are pleased to see the launch of the Bulletin. This, we believe, will be a useful tool to help promote the retail bond market in Hong Kong. As you know, financial infrastructure development has always been a priority item on the HKMA's policy agenda. A robust financial infrastructure is important in maintaining the stability and integrity of the monetary and financial systems and in strengthening Hong Kong's status as an international financial centre. Over the years, we are proud that, with the support of banks and other financial institutions, the HKMA has built a sophisticated financial infrastructure that meets the best international standards. Having said that, we are conscious that there is always scope to further strengthen our financial infrastructure to take account of the latest technology and market developments. It was precisely for this reason that the HKMA conducted a comprehensive review last year on financial infrastructure development in Hong Kong. The launch of the Bulletin is one of the recommendations arising from this review. The objective is to provide retail investors with convenient on-line access to information on bond products and bond prices.

We believe that the launch of the bulletin will help to raise product awareness and improve price transparency, thereby helping to promote the development of the retail bond market in Hong Kong. The bulletin is developed by the Central Moneymarkets Unit of the HKMA. We are delighted to have eight major banks, which are present here today, to be the price providers. Thanks to their support, indicative bid/offer prices of over 200 bonds of different currencies issued by both public and private sector entities will be available on bulletin. Investors may access the bulletin later today for bond information. The website address is https://www.cmu.org.hk. The bulletin also provides direct hyperlinks to the price providers’ websites to facilitate investors to approach the price providers for trading. Relevant transaction charges imposed by individual price providers are also posted on the bulletin. Retail investors can easily gain access to, and conclude trades with, the price providers in a convenient, secure and efficient manner. We are thankful to banks and potential users for their valuable comments during the development of the bulletin. We will monitor the usage and feedback to gauge whether there is scope for future expansion. We would welcome feedback from users and would endeavour to improve the bulletin on a continuous basis. Other banks interested to join as price providers are welcome to approach the HKMA for further information.
Charles Bean: The future of monetary policy Speech by Mr Charles Bean, Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy of the Bank of England, at the London School of Economics, London, 20 May 2014. *  *  *  I left the London School of Economics to become the Bank of England’s Chief Economist and a member of its fledgling Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) almost 14 years ago. The Bank had not long been given the responsibility for determining interest rates but had at the same time relinquished the responsibility for banking supervision. As I approach the end of my tenure, the Bank looks rather different: banking supervision has returned; and a new policy committee – the Financial Policy Committee – has been charged with preserving the stability of the financial system. As I look back, I think it is fair to say that it has been a pretty extraordinary – indeed unique – period to be involved in economic policy. My first seven years were years of plenty: growth was steady; unemployment was low; and inflation never strayed far from target (Chart 1). From time to time, the MPC nudged Bank Rate up or down a quarter point, and the economy obediently stayed on course. To economists, this period of unusual macroeconomic tranquillity is known as the Great Moderation. But the second seven years were years of famine, as the Great Moderation turned into a Great Tribulation: the worst financial crisis for a century; the most prolonged downturn on record; and inflation rising above 5%.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  That explains the interest in deploying additional policy instruments that are better suited to restraining the build-up of dangerous financial imbalances and contributing to the maintenance of financial stability – so-called macroprudential tools. With two targets – price and financial stability – one really wants another instrument, or set of instruments, to complement monetary policy. In the new arrangements established following the crisis, the deployment of such instruments falls to the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee. There are several potential macroprudential tools to deal with such cyclical risks, but they are of broadly two types: those that increase the resilience of the system; and those that work pre-emptively against a build-up of leverage. In addition, measures may be targeted or more general in impact. To give some examples, first consider the Basel III counter-cyclical capital buffer, implemented in the European Union under the Capital Requirements Directive. By forcing banks to hold extra high-quality loss-absorbing capacity during a credit boom that can be released during a subsequent downturn, this primarily improves resilience. But because it raises the marginal cost of bank funds, the counter-cyclical capital buffer should also inhibit the build-up of leverage in the first place. There are several reasons why debt finance is cheaper than equity finance, including the implicit subsidy from being Too Big To Fail, and the advantageous tax treatment of debt.
Our levers are the hard and soft infrastructure that we control:   Our hard infrastructure, such as access to our balance sheet and access to our Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, the heart of the UK payments system.   And our soft infrastructure, such as our rules, regulations and standards. In this spirit, last year at Mansion House I announced that Huw van Steenis would lead a review of the future of the UK financial system, including recommendations for how the Bank could best support innovation while continuing to promote resilience.1 I would like to thank Huw and the Bank of England team, who over the past nine months have met 300 entrepreneurs, investors, consumer groups, charities, business leaders and policymakers across the country and around the world to produce an excellent report. Today, we published Huw’s recommendations and the Bank of England’s response.2 And tonight, I would like to focus on a few of the actions that the Bank will take to enable the new economy; to ensure the resilience of the financial system; and to support the UK’s transition to a carbon-neutral economy. 1  Carney, M (June 2018) ‘New Economy, New Finance, New Bank’ speech given at Mansion House. 2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  2  First, to enable the digital economy The very nature of commerce is changing. Last year, one fifth of all sales in the UK were online.3 Next year, it will be one quarter.

Broader explanation of the reasons for passing this decision is the following: 1)  Negative effects of the world crisis over the world economy continue to grow. The latest IMF projections point out that the world growth will switch towards the negative zone thus in 2009 world’s GDP will drop between -0.5 and -1.0 percent. This will represent the first negative GDP growth rate within last 60 years. The reduction of the world’s GDP below the potential, together with the downward trends of food and energy prices, by themselves not only eliminate the inflationary pressures, but also create deflationary risks, especially in the developed economies. Unfortunately, continuous revisions of the projections of the world‘s growth are further towards deeper recession. In the less developed economies, including ours, the external sector risks appear as most essential, where the large reduction of the external demand as well as the lower inflows and/or larger net foreign capital outflows create serious pressures over the value of national currencies. 2)  Macedonian economy, as we stated, is under a strong influence by the global macroeconomic developments. As almost everywhere in the world in our case as well the inflationary pressures fade and the economic growth decelerates because of the reduced external demand, contracted and more expensive financing sources and increased negative expectations of economic agents. The external sector imposes itself as a main problem of our macroeconomic policy.
There is even an element of “new economy” in the deregulation of the telecommunications and electricity markets. Firstly, it would not have been so easy to implement the deregulation without the aid of the new technology. Secondly, the deregulation might not have had the same impact without, for instance, the information provided on the internet, which helped consumers in making a choice. 7  BIS Review 89/2000  All in all, I can allow myself to make a qualified guess on some areas, without knowing for certain: 1. Productivity, total factor productivity, has risen considerably in Sweden during the latter half of the 1990s. The emergence of information technology has probably been significant in this. 2. The effects will continue to be felt for a number of years, probably beyond the monetary policy horizon, for which reason the Riksbank will continue to monitor the IT phenomenon in future. 3. Deregulation and increased competition play a special role in Sweden, particularly as they have run parallel to IT developments. At the same time, there is reason to point out that the “new economy” does not constitute a guarantee for a stable and positive development in asset prices, either in the USA or Sweden. On the contrary, history shows that rapid technological changes often lead to speculative bubbles.

Productivity during different economic expansions in the US USA: Non-farm productivity growth 5  4,5  annual increase in percent  4  3,5  3  2,5  2  1,5  1  0,5  0  1961-69 first 2 years  1982-90 year 3-4  year 5-6  1991-99 year 7 and thereafter  Source: Federal Reserve, Board of Governors. The background to this scepticism regarding the effects of IT on the rest of the economy lies in the “Solow paradox”. Nobel prizewinner Robert Solow stated in 1987 that “we see computers everywhere but not in the productivity statistics”. This was true until the mid-1990s. 3. Productivity by factor, USA 1980-99 3  average annual increase in percent  2 ,5  2  1 ,5  1  0 ,5  0  C a p ita l d e e p e nin g  La b o u r q ua lity  TF P  Source: Federal Reserve, Board of Governors. Now, however, the effects of computers are beginning to show in the statistics and this paradox could be dismissed. Stephen Oliner and Daniel Sichel at the Federal Reserve in Washington3 have made an in-depth analysis. This is based on the fact that the productivity trend has increased by just over 1 percentage point during the latter part of the 1990s and they conclude that IT actually accounts for most of the growth in productivity. Just under half of the total increase results from investments in IT.
These indications show that businesses are seeing the economic and business merit of Shariah-compliant products and services and that its appeal extend beyond the traditional captive market. However, growth of the magnitude that Islamic finance experienced over the last decade would increasingly become more difficult if the industry does not continue to be nimble and agile in its approach. Innovation is therefore a key priority for Islamic finance players to keep expanding and gain market share. As indicated by the results of the retail consumer banking and insurance survey in the country report, the demand for Islamic banking by survey respondents far exceeds that for its conventional counterpart. This should be an encouragement for Islamic banks to boost its innovativeness in meeting customers’ needs. The Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 is already paving the way for the development of Islamic banking solutions that are differentiated from conventional products by allowing funds to be mobilised either through deposits or investment accounts. This classification brings greater options for the  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  public and reflects an enhanced risk-sharing approach to Islamic banking. It also gives the industry additional options to create creative solutions for its customers. Greater engagement and collaboration between industry and academia would also ensure mutually-reinforcing efforts in driving innovation through the development and implementation of new research findings and breakthroughs.

An example is a structured programme with the opportunities for other countries to have a one-to-one engagement with the countries featured in the reports. In this spirit, IRTI, can explore the opportunity through the Regional Office to jointly collaborate with the International Shari’ah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA), Islamic Banking and Finance Institute Malaysia (IBFIM) and International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF) for greater synergy in international research and training, as well as capacity building. In concluding, I wish to congratulate the IRTI team, that has worked diligently with the Council of Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions (CIBAFI) and Thomson-Reuters in producing this report. It is my hope that there is further continuity in developing such country references that can showcase the offerings of Islamic finance to the global community. With this, more jurisdictions can contribute towards advancing Islamic finance as an alternative financial system that adds diversity and vibrancy to the economy. Thank you. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
Money market rates, which were higher than 8 per cent for a period, are now around 2½ per cent. Bank lending rates have also been reduced markedly. Monetary policy has influenced the level of economic activity through the real interest rate. The real interest rate is equal to the key interest rate plus a risk premium less expected inflation. The anchoring of inflation expectations enables changes in the key rate to have an impact. In some countries, there are prospects that inflation will approach zero. This causes the real interest rate to remain high even though the key rate is reduced. In small countries where confidence in stable inflation is lacking, the authorities have had to increase the key interest rate substantially to prevent an uncontrolled currency depreciation. This amplifies the effects on production. Lower inflation abroad and lower capacity utilisation in the Norwegian economy will have a dampening impact on inflation ahead. There are prospects that inflation will remain below 2.5 per cent for a period. It is therefore appropriate to set the interest rate at a low level so that inflation does not fall too far below the target, and to prevent inflation expectations from losing their anchor. It is also appropriate to set the interest rate at a low level to curb the decline in activity. We have already lowered the interest rate substantially. In the time ahead, we will take a more gradual approach in order to assess the impact of the measures that have already been introduced.

Zdeněk Tůma: EU enlargement and monetary integration Remarks by Mr Zdeněk Tůma, Governor of the Czech National Bank, at the 3rd ECB Central Banking Conference “The New EU Member States: Convergence and Stability”, Frankfurt, 21-22 October 2004. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, It has been only recently since we had become members of the European Union. It is only natural that, once the immediate effects of the enlargement have subsided, policy-makers´ attention should shift towards the next step - monetary integration of the twenty-five current EU member states. The first thing to be considered when discussing European monetary integration is how the different countries will go about adopting the euro. There is no universal strategy that can be used by all new EU member states. The euro may either be adopted rapidly, or after a longer interim period. In the pre-EMU period, the emphasis can be put either on ensuring the low inflation required by the Maastricht Treaty domestically, or on importing it by fixing the exchange rate. The key factors that determine which strategy to adopt are, in my opinion, the size and flexibility of the domestic economy, the current monetary-policy regime and its credibility as well as the state of public finances. Specifically, small countries that have lived with fixed exchange-rate regimes for the last ten years, and have thus developed economies flexible enough to compensate for fixed exchange rates will most likely benefit from faster adoption of the euro.
The home country section of the model is therefore determined by the following equations:  1)  𝑦1 = 𝐸1𝑃𝑆 𝑦2 − 𝜎(𝑖1 − 𝐸1𝑃𝑆 𝜋2 + 𝜔𝑠1 )  IS curve  2)  𝜋1 = 𝜅𝑦1 + 𝐸1𝑃𝑆 𝜋2 + 𝜈𝑠1  Phillips curve  3)  𝑠1 = 𝜓𝑘1  Home bank credit spreads  4)  𝐵1𝐻 = 𝜙0 + 𝜙𝑖 𝑖1 + 𝜙𝑠𝐻 𝑠1 + 𝜉1𝐵  Domestic credit from home banks  5)  𝐵1𝐹 = 𝜙0 + 𝜙𝑖 𝑖1 + 𝜙𝑠𝐹 𝑠1 + 𝜉1𝐵  Domestic credit from foreign banks  6)  𝐵1 = (1 − 𝑓)𝐵1𝐻 + 𝑓𝐵1𝐹  Total domestic real credit growth  7)  𝑘1 = (1 − 𝑓)𝑘1𝐻 + 𝑓𝑘1𝐹  Effective CCyB setting  8)  𝛾1 = (1 + (𝑒𝑥𝑝(ℎ0 + ℎ𝐵 𝐵1 + ℎ𝐵∗ 𝐵1∗ + ℎ𝑘 𝑘1 ))−1 )−1  Crisis probability  An analogous set of equations hold for the foreign country, with * denoting foreign country variables. For simplicity, the results shown in Chart 4 assume that the two countries are completely symmetric, so that all parameters of the model are the same in each country. It shows the effect of a symmetric shock to real credit growth of 5pp per year, or 15pp cumulated over three years (𝜉1𝐵 = 𝜉1𝐵∗ = 0.15). Otherwise, the model is calibrated similarly to the model in appendix 2, which used the benchmark calibration of Aikman et al (forthcoming).

Ravi Menon: Crypto tokens - the good, the bad, and the ugly Speech by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at Money20/20, Singapore, 15 March 2018. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. And to all our foreign guests, welcome to Singapore. This is a conference named after Money. Money has been with us for at least 5000 years. And over the last 300 years or so, we have come to accept Money as being issued by central banks whose mission in life is to safeguard its value. Now, along comes a new phenomenon – crypto money or currency or asset. The past year has seen explosive growth in the trading and use of these crypto assets. We have also seen a rollercoaster ride in their prices. Bitcoin – the most well-known of the crypto currencies or assets – hit a high of nearly $ 000 in December last year. And then lost two-thirds of its value in just over a month. MAS has been watching the crypto space with great interest. Our views are still evolving but let me share with you the current state of our thinking and our evolving regulatory approach. I will use the more generic term “crypto tokens” rather than “crypto currencies” or “crypto assets”. Crypto tokens began life as the medium of exchange within the blockchain ecosystem. But the token has now assumed a life of its own, outside the blockchain. Are crypto tokens money?
In order to achieve an inner market for financial services, the EU is striving to produce as uniform a set of rules as possible for financial companies throughout the Union. Banks can then compete on equal terms and give rise to a common market with the most competitive enterprises. 4  BIS Review 53/2003  The Riksbank supports this admirable ambition. But it is also important to avoid conceivable pitfalls that may hamper this development. One danger is that the rule system becomes excessively detailed, that harmonisation starts from the strictest existing system instead of proceeding from an entirely open discussion. Integration also affects the regular supervision and oversight. The current principle is home-country supervision. In other words, a bank’s legal country of domicile is responsible for the supervision of the bank’s branch offices; a banking subsidiary, on the other hand, is supervised by the country in which the subsidiary is legally domiciled. But it is still the legal country of domicile of the parent bank that is responsible for supervision of the bank group as a whole. This solution ought to work as long as the foreign operations of the banks are fairly modest. But what will happen when the banks’ foreign branches become systemically important? How much responsibility are the home countries willing to take for financial stability in the countries where foreign branches are located?

We recognised that this was not without risks - risks in terms of the build-up of household debt and of an unsustainable rate of increase in house prices, if not an actual bubble - which, if persisted in for too long, or if carried too far, could lead to an uncomfortable retrenchment further ahead. In a virtual world where we could control these things precisely, we could no doubt readily agree that we would like to see stronger growth in other major industrial countries, a stronger euro, more business investment in the UK and more moderate growth of consumer spending and household debt. That would offer a more certain prospect of better balanced, and therefore more sustainable, growth. But we live in the real world! We expected the global economy to begin a sustained recovery in the latter part of last year which would allow us to return to better balanced growth in this country, and so we took the view essentially that for the time being at least unbalanced growth was better than no growth at all. In the event, our economy as a whole did just about keep moving forward through the winter, and the global economy - including manufacturing output - bottomed out around the turn of the year.