samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Far from it: these profits are obtained at the expense of those who either have no opportunity to circumvent the controls or who belong to the majority of people who abide by the law. The cost emerges in an excessively weak króna, elevated inflation, and higher interest rates. This is why it is so important to close the loophole entailed in cross-border transfer of payments on amortised bonds. It is also why the surveillance and investigation of the Bank’s Capital Controls Surveillance Unit and the activities of the Special Prosecutor’s Office are so important. Whether or not the capital controls should exist is, of course, a subject for debate, but while they do exist, not enforcing them to the maximum extent possible would simply be discriminatory. In a broader context, I think it is useful to think of the capital controls as tools that provide short-term benefits related to economic and financial stability but have associated long-term costs due to trade restriction, and these costs grow over time. Untimely and poorly structured removal of the controls could jeopardise economic and financial stability and entail substantial short-term costs. Careful structuring of the liberalisation process will significantly reduce this risk, although it will not eliminate it. The problem is that we know the signs of these effects but not their magnitude.

Conduits and SIVs have no capital of their own, and they depend heavily on the liquidity support and credit enhancement from their sponsor banks, whose terms, and conditions, as I said, may  1  2  Market Liquidity and Short Term credit : The Financial Crisis of August 2007 ; 3 September 2007. BIS Review 128/2007  be variable and uncertain. And yet, they undertook maturity transformation on a significant scale. So those risks which materialized directly translated into liquidity shortage. Conversely, the reason why most hedge funds weathered the shock – at least until now – may be that they managed to strengthen their capital base by imposing strict redemption rules to their investors. Strong capital will not guarantee liquidity in all circumstances. There can be panics and sudden increases in the demand for liquidity. That's the job of Central Banks to help in those circumstances. But a strong capital base in the system – and in all its components – is likely to limit future liquidity shocks. In the period to come, Central Banks, regulators and market participants will debate on the ways and means to restore the securitized model on a robust and sound basis. The implementation of Basel II will bring significant improvements in the measure and management of risks. Had it been into place some years ago, we may have avoided some of the problems we currently face. Other evolutions in the regulatory environment and business practices may prove necessary.
The fact that the bond in this case is linked to STIBOR 3 months is probably due to it being the same frequency as the coupon payments. It would, of course, be impractical to have settlement and coupon payments every day. In this context, backward-looking average rates have roughly the same practical and administrative advantages as forward-looking interbank rates. As the Riksbank is now starting to publish average interest rates and indices for SWESTR, market participants can therefore start using SWESTR instead of STIBOR also at longer maturities. This is, of course, an adjustment for both lenders and borrowers, but the obstacles are hardly insurmountable. In other countries, for example, various adjustments have been introduced which mean that interest payment is delayed for a couple of days. In this way, market participants can see what the final interest was and make the payment a few days later. Market participants need to work together for an orderly transition It is thus clear that there are issues that need to be addressed before a transition to SWESTR can be completed. Since reference rates are used by many participants and in a large number of contracts, it is important that this is done in an orderly manner. It will be a development project running over several years. The Riksbank would like to call on all those concerned to start the transition now. Sweden should not be left behind in the global effort to start using transactionbased reference rates.

2  In the euro area, the old EONIA reference rate still formally exists, but was redefined a few years ago as the new reference rate of € plus a fixed premium. 3  The nine monetary policy counterparties that currently report their SWESTR-relevant transactions on a daily basis are Handelsbanken, Swedbank, SEB, Danske Bank, DnB, Skandiabanken, Länsförsäkringar Bank, SBAB and Nordea. 8 [8]
Therefore, these are important risk factors that should seriously be taken into account. Dear Guests, I would like to draw your attention to credit cards regarding the household indebtedness issue. As it is known, in general, the credit card is a payment instrument that enables its owner to purchase goods and services at member businesses without using cash. Moreover, if credit card users wish to withdraw cash or to delay their credit card payments for a determined period, the relevant amounts spent turn into credit and thus the credit card becomes a credit instrument. Institutions issuing credit cards incur POS (Point of Sale) machine investment and membership to national and international payment systems expenditures, and they are exposed to liquidity risk due to unforeseen cash withdrawals. Consequently, banks tend to determine higher credit card interest rates than those of consumer credits due to their higher risk exposures, namely the higher credit risk because of weak collateral structure and liquidity risk because of unforeseen cash withdrawals. A survey of country practices also reveals that credit card interest rates are determined higher than interest rates set for consumer credits. Therefore, it is in the interest of credit card users to meet their short-term credit needs via consumer credits rather than their credit cards. Moreover, the interest rates applicable to credit card transactions differ significantly from bank to bank.

Jean-Pierre Roth: Prospects for the Swiss franc in the heart of the euro area Summary of a speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Associazione Carlo Cattaneo, Lugano, 9 March 2005. The complete speech can be found in French on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The launch of the euro in January 1999 fundamentally transformed the international monetary order. Switzerland, a small country that strongly depends on exports and capital transactions, suddenly found itself surrounded by a market with almost 300 million people sharing a single currency. What were the monetary consequences of this development, and what are the prospects for the Swiss franc, which is traditionally considered a "success product"? The role of the Swiss franc in commercial and financial transactions has certainly diminished. Although the euro is only rarely used as a means of payment in the Swiss market, billing within the euro area is increasingly taking place in the single currency only – a fact to which Swiss companies have to adjust. In the financial markets, the euro now acts as a counterweight to the dollar. The Swiss franc has thus lost some of its significance as a safe-haven currency and has performed more in line with its fundamentals. The introduction of the euro has, however, not affected our monetary autonomy or the Swiss interest rate advantage. The Swiss National Bank has been able to respond with flexibility and determination to the recent economic slowdown.
The fiscal rule stabilises enterprises’ expectations concerning competitiveness and the krone exchange rate. This can prevent abrupt and pronounced swings in the structure of the economy. If the government authorities disregard the rule, enterprises will lose an important reference. A policy rule can make matters worse if economic agents have drawn up long-term plans on a faulty basis.3 Both short-term and long-term considerations imply that the use of petroleum revenues as a share of the Petroleum Fund should be curbed ahead. The Norwegian economy is growing at a brisk pace. The public sector has invested heavily in the care of the elderly, which should cover the needs of a generation that was born just after World War I. The need for growth in public expenditure will be more moderate in the coming years and marked by the small cohorts of the 1930s and war years, who are now joining the ranks of the elderly. Moreover, the National Insurance Scheme, introduced in 1967, is nearing maturity. In addition, a few years remain before the large post-war cohorts retire and add to the demand for health services. Hence, the conditions are now conducive to returning to the use of 4 per cent of the Petroleum Fund. The current cost level in the Norwegian business sector is adapted to an expansion of the petroleum sector and a steady phasing-in of petroleum revenues into the mainland economy. Costs rose sharply from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s and reached a very high level.

Most recently, the Federal Reserve increased its key rate by 0.25 percentage point, and it has also announced further interest rate hikes. With the prospect of low inflation, Norway has lagged behind other countries in adjusting interest rates to a more normal level. Two years after we started to lower interest rates it would appear that inflation is moving up, albeit slowly. Inflation is low, but the indices are also influenced by temporary and erratic disturbances. It will still take time before we will have seen the full impact of low interest rates. It may appear that growth in the Norwegian economy has become more self-driven. Capacity utilisation is close to normal and rising. After a period, the interest rate can then gradually be raised to a more normal level. Economic policy tasks The various components of economic policy have varying effects. This is why they have different functions: •  Monetary policy steers inflation in the medium and long term and can also contribute to smoothing swings in output and employment. BIS Review 10/2005  5  •  The central government budget – growth in public expenditure – influences the krone and the size of the internationally exposed business sector in the medium term. Government expenditure and revenues must be in balance in the long term. •  Wage formation, the structure of the economy and incentives determine how efficiently we utilise our labour resources and other economic resources.
However, this type of forecast has a relatively good accuracy in the short term (up to one year ahead). 6 The forecast produced by the now-casting is then entered into the large DSGE model and forms a basis for the model’s longer-term forecasts. The international forecast for all quarters is then also made outside of Ramses and entered as input into the model. As all models are simplifications of reality, however, the final analysis must always contain elements of assessment that correct the results from the model. In addition, some markets, for instance, the financial markets, are not entirely reflected in these models. 7 The latter play an important role in the current stage, which is affected substantially by the financial turbulence. General equilibrium models are an important analysis tool as they provide a consistent picture of the economy. They can therefore also be used for policy analysis and to analyse alternative scenarios. 4  F. E. Kydland and E. C. Prescott “Time to build and aggregate fluctuations”, Econometrica 50, 1982, 13451370. 5  O. J. Blanchard, “The state of macro”, NBER working paper series, August 2008. 6  See M. K. Andersson and M. Löf. Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 2007:1. 7  C. E. Tovar. “DSGE models and central banks”. BIS Working Papers No 258. 2008. 2  BIS Review 121/2008  Some facts about economic cycles According to economic theory, fluctuations in growth thus arise as a result of various external shocks affecting the economy.

There are, certainly, things that we can do to reduce the risks - to try to prevent the first climber falling off the rock face, or to avoid kicking the rock that starts the avalanche. A key condition, obviously, is maintaining macro-economic, monetary, stability. That goes without saying. It gives everyone on the mountainside much the best chance of coming down unscathed! We can also turn the new information technology to our advantage, using it to make the linkages between the climbers safer - by reducing the risks in payments and settlements systems. A good deal of our attention on the financial stability side of the Bank is focused in this direction. And we can satisfy ourselves - through micro-prudential supervision and regulation of individual financial businesses - that the climbers are properly trained and equipped, and fully conscious of the risks. This now, of course, becomes the responsibility of the FSA. Intervention But however much we try to prevent accidents, we need to be prepared for them to happen. The Bank’s concern then becomes to ensure that they do not spread to other parts of the financial system. This may involve providing liquidity on penal terms, outside the central bank’s normal money market operations, against high quality assets to a particular institution, that does not want to appear in the market because it is under a cloud. Or it may mean standing between an intermediary and the market place, to facilitate payments or settlements which might not otherwise be completed, which could then cause gridlock.
Some information can in fact be downright misleading. For example, a firm may engage in internal testing and locate a number of Year 2000-related problems in its systems. Of course, it is the process of this testing that will enable the firm to locate and overcome these problems. Thus, disclosing its internal test results in isolation could give a false impression of its readiness. In general, comprehensive self-disclosure in written form, supplemented by a willingness to answer specific questions, is proving to be the most effective way of sharing information. Another issue that often comes up in this context is the question of certification. External parties, whether auditors or examiners, cannot realistically certify Year 2000 compliance. The best that they can do is focus on the effectiveness of the process that the organization has established. Oversight by these third parties should not be seen as a substitute for an organization’s own due diligence, an area in which internal audit departments have traditionally played a leading role. Internal auditors also could be useful in helping firms develop their Year 2000 disclosures. Another concern is the existence of possible legal obstacles that may stand in the way of Year 2000 information sharing. In the United States, several efforts have been made to limit or remove these obstacles, and such efforts may be needed in other countries as well. For example, a ruling was issued by our Justice Department limiting the extent to which Year 2000 information sharing could be viewed as a violation of antitrust laws.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam: The Gallery – promoting Singapore’s central bank role and mission Remarks by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Opening of the MAS Gallery, Singapore, 16 February 2016. *  *  *  ESM Goh Chok Tong Family members of Former Chairmen, Mr Hon Sui Sen and Dr Goh Keng Swee, and of former Managing Director Mr Lim Kim San Former Managing Directors, Mr Michael Wong Pak-Shong, Mr JY Pillay and Mr Lee Ek Tieng Current Board members Members of the MAS management and staff, and especially, MAS Pioneers Thank you to everyone for coming to the opening of our MAS Gallery. The Gallery is aimed at helping the public understand the mission of the MAS, and its role in promoting both growth and stability of the Singapore economy and financial system. The Gallery aims to help the public understand •  how we keep inflation low over the long term through MAS’ policies in managing the exchange rate of the Singapore dollar,  •  how we supervise the financial sector – the banking, insurance and securities industries - to ensure confidence in our financial system,  •  how we promote the development of a vibrant financial centre that serves a good part of Asia and in some respects the rest of the world,  •  how we also seek to ensure that the financial system serves the interests of consumers, and how we try to help Singaporeans manage their finances well.
Interestingly, the main reason cited is improved staff well-being. Among workers the picture is much the same, with surveys suggesting more than a quarter expect to spend more time home-working after the pandemic has abated. My own experience since March has mirrored trends in the wider economy. I am one of the lucky ones who has been able to work from home, as have virtually all other Bank of England staff. I have been back into the office only twice in the past six months. Full-time home-working has, for me, been a radical shift. For the past 30, my working week has been 5-0, office versus home. Nonetheless, like many others, if you asked me how my future working week might look, I think it unlikely I will revert back to the 5-0 model. 2  APSCo (2020). ONS (2020a). 4 Milasi et al (2020), Mongey et al (2020). 3  3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  3  The Effects on Productivity and Output Given these shifts, some of which seem likely to prove durable, what impact might they have had on workers’ and businesses’ economic contribution – that is to say, their productivity (the amount done per hour worked) and their overall output (productivity multiplied by working hours)? In short, how has this shift in working practices affected working capacity of the economy?

The deficits are currently large in all of the vulnerable countries, but while Ireland and Spain have been able to show a balance or surplus during the years prior to the crisis, Italy and Portugal have shown a deficit throughout. (Slide: General government net lending in Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain). A common precondition for the ability of these countries to renew their loans at a manageable cost is the credibility of their fiscal policy consolidation plans. The example of Ireland points to a credible consolidation plan with concrete decisions on large cuts in public expenditure being able to reverse an upward trend in interest rates, while the greatest pressure is currently on Portugal, where the ten-year rate rose last week. (Slide: Government bond rates of Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, compared with those of Germany). The more favourable the conditions for the development of domestic and foreign demand, the greater are the chances that good GDP growth will be able to reduce the problems in public finances. Those countries that have not had large falls in asset prices, including Italy, do not risk suppressed domestic demand in the same way as, for instance, Spain and Ireland, where property prices have fallen substantially. With regard to demand from abroad, the problems are made more severe by wages and prices having grown faster in these countries than in the euro area as a whole since the euro was introduced.
Remarks given during the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit 2019 Mark Carney Governor of the Bank of England  Monday 23 September 2019 Climate Action Summit, UN General Assembly, New York  Sunday 22 September 2019 Insurance, Risk Financing and Development: Driving Public Private Action for Climate Resilience, event hosted by UNDP, German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Insurance Development Forum and InsuResilience Global Partnership, New York  . 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  UN Climate Summit, General Assembly, Monday 23 September Secretary General, your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentleman. A new, sustainable financial system is being built. It is funding the initiatives and innovations of the private sector, it has the potential to amplify the effectiveness of the climate policies of your governments and it could accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy. But the task is large, the window of opportunity is short, and the risks are existential. And like virtually everything else in the response to climate change, the development of this new sustainable finance is not moving fast enough for the world to reach net zero. To bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial decision making, climate disclosure must become comprehensive; climate risk management must be transformed, and sustainable investing must go mainstream. Here’s how. First, on disclosure.

When a faulty motorcycle is brought to a mechanic, he may simply jump to conclusions based on his  2  BIS Review 161/2008  previous knowledge. Instead of subjecting the motorcycle to a thorough scientific inquiry, he may conclude that the fault lies in a certain part or a certain mechanism. To reach this conclusion, he has not gathered the relevant information. The chances are that he may be correct or may not be correct. If he is correct, the repair performed on the basis of the diagnosis made with imperfect information will prove to be a success. But the mechanic in that case has behaved like a speculator and the outcome of speculation may have the chance of being a success or a failure. If it turns out to be a failure, the cost to the owner of the motorcycle would be enormous. In that case, since the correct repair has not been performed, the motorcycle will continue to remain faulty. Hence, a true scientist engaging himself in scientific inquiry should not be a speculator. Instead, he should be a person willing to follow the scientific method to arrive at conclusions. Decisions could be made by a mechanic attending to a faulty motorcycle by resorting to either inductivism or deductivism. The inductive approach requires the mechanic to look for evidence in the real world and come to conclusions. For instance, if we see crows that are black and if we continue to see black crows, we may conclude that all crows are black.