samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
9  The World Is Flat, Penguin Books, 2006  10  For a detailed exposition, see Gurcharan Das, India Unbound, Penguin Books, 2002  11  The personal experience of the author has been that university students normally tend to give priority to paid professional courses over tuition fee-free university courses. In the third and fourth years, only about a one tenth of registered students attend classes, though public money is spent on all of them. BIS Review 4/2007  7  A further benefit which Sri Lanka could gain by promoting a global market based services sector is the possibility of narrowing the current account deficit of the balance of payments through enhanced service income. Historically, Sri Lanka is having an ever ballooning deficit in the merchandise account. With high international oil prices and rising intermediate and investment goods imports, this deficit has risen to a very high and unsustainable level of about 13 percent of GDP by 2006. Countries with such large trade deficits should perforce attempt to generate an equivalent surplus in the services account so as to finance the same. However, the surplus being generated by Sri Lanka in its services account has not been sufficient to fully off-set the trade deficit. As a result, Sri Lanka normally runs a current account deficit of 5-6 percent of GDP which has to be financed through capital flows. This level of a current account deficit, occurring year after year, is not sustainable.

When I went to the UK for my post-graduate studies in mid 1970s, it was only in the case of subjects he had covered that I did not have the so called knowledge gap. Professor Tilakaratna was not only an academic, but also a policy advisor, manager and administrator. In early 1970s, he functioned as an advisor to the Ministry of Plantations Industry and was appointed as Chairman of the newly established Coconut Marketing Board. Unlike other academics who thought that they knew all, he had the modesty and humility to learn from industry. A big magnate in coconut industry recently related to me how he once visited a coconut factory and insisted on learning a to z of everything there. My frequent visits to him either at the Coconut Marketing Board or at his residence were intellectual and academic journeys through all aspects of and issues relating to the coconut industry. We always returned home being much wiser than before. The university authorities too recognized his academic excellence and erudition fairly early. He was elevated, by double promotion, to the post of Professor of Economics and Head of Department at such a young age as 34. Immediately after that, he re-organized the Department of Economics, introduced a Post Graduate Diploma in Applied Social Statistics and strengthened the Department with new staff. I was one of the students who completed this Diploma in its first batch.
A corporate sponsor of a defined-benefit pension scheme is, in effect, providing a guarantee or, broadly, writing a very complex option 4 : one on which the present value of the payoffs is related to, amongst other things, the future growth in earnings of its workforce, their longevity, and the yield on an equivalent-maturity risk-free bond. Apart from the design of the scheme itself and the associated balance of wages and pensions in employee remuneration, the sponsor makes two big choices: the level of contributions it makes to the fund, and the asset allocation of the fund. (It may seem odd to say that the sponsor makes a decision about fund asset allocation, because of course that is formally the responsibility of trustees. But as guarantors, those decisions affect the risk run by sponsors who, in principle, could make adjustments to their own balance sheet if they regarded trustee choices as suboptimal.) Past increases in life expectancy entail higher contributions and, other things being equal, add to the marginal cost of a firm’s labour force. An unavoidable source of uncertainty is future developments in longevity. 1  See footnote 18, Chapter IV ‘Awash with cash: why are corporate savings so high?’, World Economic Outlook, April 2006, page 151. 2  For the household sector, the effect has been that employer contributions more than account for total net savings. 3  A breakdown of contributions into ‘one-off’ and ‘regular’ is available only for self-administered schemes.

And while central banks no longer seek to spring surprises on the market, our community could not rule them out if circumstances were to evolve where the market misperceived the implications of a central bank’s analysis of the outlook. But perhaps the most important point for the pricing of risk in capital markets is the following. To the extent that a structural story of some kind holds true, the consequent reduction in risk premia, and the associated rise in asset prices, would broadly be a one-off – even if drawn out. In other words, it would not be sensible for market participants both to place weight on the argument that risk premia were lower because there was fundamentally less risk, and at the same time to extrapolate ex post returns on assets into the future. Headline returns would be lower than in the hypothesised ‘old world’ when risk premia were higher; and would be a lot lower than during the period when risk premia were falling to a new, lower level (Diagram A). This may not be completely idle speculation in a market environment where, anecdotally, fund managers have been chasing returns. And, of course, to the extent that past returns have in degree been extrapolated into the future, the effect might be an over compression of risk premia. That has to be for you and other market participants to judge.
Chart 24: Changes in effective exchange rate indices and domestic demand surprises Per cent 15  pp 1.5  10  1.0  5  0.5  0  0.0  -5  -0.5  -10 Apr-13  -1.0 Aug-13  Dec-13  UK DD (RHS) US DD (RHS) £ (LHS)  Apr-14  Aug-14 EA DD (RHS) € (LHS) $ (LHS)  Sources: Consensus, FRB, ECB, BoE and Bank calculations. Notes: Domestic demand series show revisions to average domestic demand growth relative to main trading partners. With inflation expectations having adjusted, how might this affect wage and inflation behaviour? Table 1 shows estimates of two estimated Phillips curves, which include the typical wage-determinants, such as productivity, but also include (lagged) measures of inflation expectations for households (at a 2-year horizon) and financial markets (at a 5-year horizon). Both expectations measures are statistically significant in explaining wage growth. Every one percentage point fall in inflation expectations results in a similarly-sized fall in wage growth the next period. With household expectations having fallen 90bp, and financial market expectations by 40bp over the past year, this implies they would be exerting a significant drag on wage growth at present. That is consistent with survey evidence from the Bank’s agents, whose contacts cite falling inflation expectations as the most important factor currently holding back wage settlements.14  14  From the recent Agents’ survey on pay and labour costs (Bank of England (2015a)).

2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  What explains this remarkable pattern of global interest rates? And what implications does it carry for monetary policy, in the UK and internationally? I want to offer some reflections on those two questions. To be clear, these views are personal ones, in my capacity as a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), rather than necessarily representing the collective view of the MPC. The drop  Chart 5: Evolution of the UK forward curve Bank Rate March 2015 July 2014  Per cent  2.6 2.4 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0  A significant part of the explanation for low interest rates, at least in the years Mar Jul Oct Mar Jul Nov Mar Jul Nov Mar Jul Nov immediately after the crisis, was the 2014 15 16 17 weakness of demand. Chart 6 looks at the path for UK output growth expected Sources: Bloomberg and Bank Calculations. Notes: Chart shows UK instantaneous forward OIS curves. in the MPC’s Inflation Report each February since 2009. Up until around 2012, growth significantly and repeatedly disappointed to the downside. The same was true internationally, with IMF forecasts significantly and repeatedly revised down. With recovery weaker and taking longer than expected, the expected date of interest rate rises was repeatedly put back, and the expected level of future rates was lowered, in the UK (Chart 1) and globally (Chart 2). Over the past two years, this story has subtly changed.
Between December 2002 and March 2004, the interest rate has moved from a high to a low level. The real interest rate is now lower than a real interest rate that implies balance in the economy in the long term – the neutral real interest rate. A real interest rate that is lower than the neutral rate will stimulate activity and fuel pressures in the economy even after the effects of the interest rate fall have been exhausted. Calculations may indicate, on an uncertain basis, that the neutral real interest rate for Norway is between 2½ and 3½ per cent. It has probably fallen somewhat in recent years. Real post-tax mortgage rates and deposit rates at banks are also very low. Household debt is higher than household deposits in Norway. The fall in interest rates pushed up house prices. Higher housing wealth provides increased borrowing opportunities that are used. Household debt has risen by around 11-12 per cent over the past year. Household debt is now more than one and a half times as high as disposable income. The accumulation of debt partly reflects structural adaptation over time to a deregulated credit market and partly low interest rates. The higher debt burden has made households more vulnerable. A gradual normalisation of the interest rate will probably contribute to curbing the rise in house prices and gradually bring down debt accumulation. Conclusion Two and a half years after we started to lower interest rates it would appear that inflation is moving up, albeit slowly.

In other words, should a requirement arises for a tightening in the public budget, we assume that this requirement will be met by measures for cutting down on expenditures rather than increasing the indirect taxes. Any deviation from this framework may lead to a revision of the outlook for inflation and monetary policy. Distinguished Members of the Press,  BIS Review 100/2008  13  A protracted period of rising food and energy prices has been hampering our disinflation efforts since the adoption of the inflation targeting regime. Ongoing uncertainties resulting from global as well as domestic factors that led to a significant deterioration in inflation expectations necessitated a more cautious monetary policy stance. In this respect, in order to prevent the said uncertainties to be reflected on the general pricing behavior, we have conducted a monetary tightening over the past three months. Monetary tightening was effective in containing inflation expectations, as the deterioration in inflation expectations came to a halt in July. Current stance of the monetary policy supports disinflation. We expect inflation to remain at elevated levels in the short term before gradually moderating towards the targets. Our revised inflation forecasts suggest that the inflation targets of 7.5 percent, 6.5 percent, and 5.5 percent set for the next three years are attainable, even under quite conservative assumptions on food and energy prices.
12. Major FIs, including Standard Chartered Bank and AIA, have stepped up on training for employees to deepen expertise and acquire new skills across domains, including business planning, compliance, wealth management and tech. We should not let up on training. We may not emerge from COVID-19 soon, and should take this period of slower growth to help our people and businesses build longer-term capabilities. To encourage continued and in fact intensified training, MAS, in April this year, raised the level of IBF course fee subsidies for all locals from 50%-70% to 90%. IBF further provides a 5% course fee credit, bringing the total course fee support to 95%. In addition, we introduced the Training Allowance Grant to alleviate the burden of manpower costs on FIs, so that they can retain and upskill their employees. IBF has been bringing onstream more online courses, so that training can continue even with the safe management measures. The number of such courses has increased from about 400 to over 600 within the span of three months. As a result of these efforts, training participation has increased at least 75% year-onyear, to 11,000 in Q2 2020. As the IBF Credit and training allowance support will expire on 31 Dec 2020, we are looking into extending these measures into next  year, so as to provide longer term certainty and support for business and 3/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  workers. I would like to highlight in particular, the need to expand and deepen the Singapore workforce’s capabilities in technology areas.

It is also possible that, in addition to the distribution  8  of the costs and benefits of the reserves, which is built into the current regulatory framework for the financial interactions between the Treasury and the Central Bank, ways could be found for banks and even other financial institutions to participate in the cost of financing the reserves, as these institutions enjoy the benefits of them, including better credit ratings and lower foreign financing costs. The worst that we could do in this context would be to sacrifice the long-term benefits of price stability and economic equilibrium in order to increase the Central Bank’s profits in the short-term. The monetary policy framework I would now like to turn to two related topics: the pros and cons of independent monetary policy, on the one hand, and possible changes to the monetary policy framework and implementation, on the other. I must be brief because the clock is ticking, but I am more than willing to answer questions about this and other points later on. “Is independent monetary policy too costly?” is the topic of this meeting. Presumably, the question implied is whether the benefits of such monetary policy are outweighed by the costs. To my mind, this question can hardly be answered without reference to the various options available because we must have some sort of currency regime, and all of them have pros and cons. If there is a currency union, it is the monetary policy of the union’s central bank that carries the day.
As the SMR starts to bed in, there are encouraging signs that it is making a difference. For firms, the SMR is clarifying and improving governance, accountability and decision-making. For supervisors, the regime is helping identify weaknesses in governance and accountability, and it is helping them to encourage the necessary changes. Adoption is spreading. Some international firms are voluntarily adopting elements of the SMR’s certification requirements to strengthen their global operations. A number of jurisdictions are applying the principles and features of the SMR. 5  And elements of the regime are included as examples in the FSB’s recently published  toolkit on governance frameworks. 6  While we cannot eliminate misconduct, these measures should reduce its scale and frequency, and they will broaden the sanctions for bad behaviour. All of this will help restore trust in financial markets so that they can work as effectively and efficiently as possible to serve the real economy. Markets Forum 2018 Today marks an inflection point, when we can celebrate what has been achieved but then look ahead to future challenges. The spirit and intention behind FEMR is that continual focus is required because markets continually evolve. 4  The Government has legislated to extend the SM&CR to all other FSMA authorised financial services firms. As a first step, the Government will extend the Regime to insurance firms from 10 December 2018 and will confirm when the Regime will be extended to firms regulated solely by the FCA in due course.

As FEMR recognised, while fines and sanctions have roles in deterring misconduct, they will not, on their own, bring about the cultural change needed. We must move from an excessive reliance on punitive ex post fines of firms to greater emphasis on more compelling ex ante incentives for individuals, and ultimately a more solid grounding in improved firm culture. This starts with reducing opportunities for bad behaviour, for example, by overhauling the regulation of key benchmarks in FICC markets. It requires compensation rules that align risk and reward. In the UK, a significant proportion of variable compensation now must be deferred for a period of seven years. To address the ‘rolling bad apples’ problem, mechanisms are now in place here to ensure that when individuals move on their history will be known to those who consider hiring them. Firms will be required to share information on breaches of individual conduct rules, their fitness and propriety assessments and outcomes around subsequent disciplinary proceedings. These measures are all very constructive but they are not yet sufficient. That’s why the Bank of England supports initiatives that ensure firms and their employees take greater responsibility – individually and collectively – for their own conduct. UK authorities have used their convening powers to encourage market participants to establish standards of market practice that are well understood, widely followed and, crucially, that keep pace with market developments. Industry has responded. The Banking Standards Board is promoting higher standards of conduct and competence across the UK banking system.
They engaged in discussions with potential Korean buyers and approached Warren Buffett. At no time did the New York Fed tell Lehman that it would be bailed out with taxpayer money, nor did the New York Fed instruct Lehman to act as if such an option was available. Lehman’s CEO, Mr. Fuld, and the Chairman of the Lehman board of directors, Thomas Cruikshank, have made clear that Lehman was not expecting any Federal bailout. 4 Both men fully understood that Lehman was a public company and needed to be fully responsible for its own financial situation. Lehman weekend September of 2008 will likely be remembered as an epochal period in the history of American finance. The bankruptcy filing by Lehman occurred during that month, and it must be analyzed in the context of that most distressing time. On September 7, the Federal Housing Finance Agency placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship, and the Treasury Department used its authority, granted by Congress in July 2008, to make financial support available to these two government-sponsored entities. While Lehman is often considered the trigger for the systemic consequences that were to come later in the month, it is also clear that Fannie and Freddie’s decline, among other factors, caused a number of market participants to begin “hunkering down” to protect their balance sheets. Exposure to Lehman was one of the items to be addressed.

I see it as a “strategic square”, the four parts of the system to be solved for delivering a European strategy: i) Cross border payments shortcomings, ii) BigTech’s global projects in the financial sector (including stablecoins), iii) The developing European Payment Initiative and iv) The potential Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). •  Indeed, the current digitalization triggers at least two important risks. o The risk (in red) that BigTechs, leveraging on their global reach, will build private financial 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  infrastructures and “monetary” systems, competing with the public monetary sovereignty since they will position themselves as issuers and managers of a universal “currency”. CBDC could then be issued but at the “backend” of this “currency”. o The symmetric risk (in blue) that some jurisdictions judge that the only way to respond to the otherwise overwhelming private payments’ wave would be to issue and spread on a domestic but also a global basis, “their” CBDCs. This could, if not sufficiently coordinated within the global financial community, set precedents as to the features of the CBDCs and their articulation with the private projects, with no say for other central banks. The way forward for Europe (in green) could be different and could rather disseminate central bank money in a retail form with the intermediation of the private sector and ensure interoperability between EPI and other non-European payment solutions. 2.
As the graph shows, inflation in the first quarter developed as predicted by us (blue curve). The dashed red curve represents the new forecast. This is based on a steady three-month Libor of 0.5%. The forecast begins in the second quarter of the current year and ends in the first quarter of 2007. In order to analyse the inflation prospects, it is useful to differentiate three phases. I shall begin with the short-term inflation prospects. In particular, I shall discuss the role of oil prices. Then I will present our outlook for the economy, which affects the medium-term inflation forecast. Finally, I shall talk about the long-term inflation prospects. For this, an analysis of monetary developments is helpful. The development of oil prices In the short term, i.e. for a period of approximately one year, monetary policy can hardly steer price developments. Price levels are largely determined by monetary policy decisions made in the past. Inflation may, however, be temporarily influenced by events that are not attributable to monetary policy. We are currently experiencing such an event in the form of higher oil prices. Price increases for oil products have contributed significantly to the rise in annual inflation measured by the national consumer price index (CPI) from 0.5% in April to 0.9% in May. The increase in the oil price is also the main reason why our inflation forecast exceeds the March forecast until the first quarter of 2005 despite the higher interest rate level.

It must also be mentioned that, given the exchange rate developments, the increase in the oil price was less marked in Switzerland than in the US and in the euro area. Despite higher oil prices, inflation in our country has remained within the range that we equate with price stability. BIS Review 39/2004  1  Economic prospects For a period of one to two years, the development of inflation depends decisively on the economic outlook. Our economy has already been on a growth track for a year now. Real gross domestic product in the third and fourth quarters of 2003 grew at an annualised rate of more than 2% compared with the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2004 the trend continued at a slightly weaker rate of 1.6%. Due to improved economic activity abroad and the favourable exchange rate, exports exceeded their year-earlier level by 7.4%. Equipment investment, which had expanded by as much as 7.5% in the final quarter of 2003, declined slightly due to special effects. The upswing has also made itself felt in certain domestic sectors. This is evident in private consumption, which increased by 2.3%. The uptrend, which had begun towards the end of last year, thus continued. Surveys confirm that consumer sentiment has improved. Construction investment also topped the year-earlier level by a hefty 2.8%. The expansion in mortgage loans by 5.5% confirms the revival in the construction and real estate sectors. The upswing is also evident from a stabilisation on the labour market.