samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In addition to this bill, at least three other bills have been introduced into Congress within the past five months that propose specific rules for electronic signatures. The Electronic Financial Services Efficiency Act introduced by Representatives Baker and Dreier (H.R. 2937) on November 8, 1997 is by far the most comprehensive of the three. The Baker bill would place electronic authentication methods on par with traditional written signatures provided that they reliably establish the identity of the sender or maker of the electronic communication, and reliably verify that the message has not been altered. Public key cryptography and signature dynamics technology are specifically recognized as trustworthy electronic authentication techniques. Other technologies would be deemed satisfactory if they meet certain criteria. One aspect of the Baker bill which has generated a lot of interest is its establishment of an industry self-regulatory organization along the lines of the National Association of Securities Dealers. Any person or entity -- not just a certification authority -- wishing to provide electronic authentication services in the United States would have to be registered with the SRO. The SRO would establish a committee, supervised by the Department of Treasury, to develop, refine, and apply standards respecting the role and responsibilities of parties involved in electronic authentication services and the licensing and registration of certification authorities.

Because of the use of the hash function, a digital signature allows the receiver of a message to determine whether the message has been altered since it was digitally signed. State legislation in this area tends to address either electronic signatures (23 states) or digital signatures (16 states), but not both. States with legislation on electronic signatures differ on the question of what qualifies as an electronic signature. Several states have taken the UCC Article 1 approach and recognize any form of electronic mark intended to serve as an electronic signature. Other states, however, require that several conditions be met before an electronic signature will be legally enforceable. Generally, for these states, in order for an electronic signature to be effective it must: (1) be unique to the person using it; (2) be capable of verification; (3) be under the sole control of the person using it; (4) be linked to the data in such a manner that if the data is changed the signature is invalidated; and (5) conform to regulations adopted by the Secretary of State. Digital signature statutes typically provide for the promulgation of regulations governing the implementation and use of a digital signature infrastructure. The digital signature infrastructure contemplated by these statutes involves a trusted third party, usually a certification authority or CA, whose job is to confirm that the private key used by a sender to sign an electronic message is in fact the private key of the purported sender.
Outside of the real estate sector, companies greatly de-levered after the Telco boom and bust in 2001–2. Chart 4: PNFC capital and income gearing Per cent 60 50 40 30 20 10  Overall corporate leverage fell to around 25% on a market value basis and to 0% at replacement cost (Chart 4). External fund raising, matched by investment in oversees companies, was high peaking at around 7% of GDP, with bank borrowing the dominant source. Real-estate sector debt, quadrupled as a share of nominal GDP, as commercial property prices soared. 0  90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08 10 Interest payments/pre-tax profits Net debt/capital stock (replacement cost) Net debt/capital stock (market value)  16  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Chart 5: UK-resident banks’ total assets The UK-resident banking sector’s balance sheet increased to around 5 times national output by 2007 (Chart 5). Banks also increased their business abroad. External assets increased to 2.5 times GDP by 2007, nearly double the level of the early 2000s. Much of this expansion was financed with debt. The average leverage for large UK banks increased from 20x in 2000 to 35x by 2007.

Amongst other examples, recent work by Jeremy Stein and Samuel Hanson at Harvard and, subsequently, by a Bank of England team11 has found some evidence that changes in Federal Reserve and Bank of England policy rates are accompanied by material (similarly signed) changes in long-term real forward rates. This is striking given the usual assumptions about monetary policy being both credible (no effect of cyclical policy on long-term inflation expectations) and neutral (no effect on real magnitudes beyond cyclical horizons). While, I must stress, not proving anything, this is consistent with a group of investors responding to lower short-term rates by moving along the maturity spectrum in a “search for yield”. That interpretation is, to my mind, fortified by a finding, for the US, that the effect on long forward real rates is greater when short nominal rates are low. Imagine the behaviour of asset managers who have guaranteed a minimum nominal return to investors. This is the “carry trade” – perhaps mythical for many years to many economists as there is a flavour of “irrationality” around it, but part of the fabric of the world for practitioners. Although current mainstream “structural” models of conventional monetary policy do not work like that, perhaps we should not be too amazed.
However, if households believe that house prices could decline further, the expected capital loss adds to the financing cost of owning a home and prospective buyers will be reluctant to buy even if mortgage rates are low. That said, it should also be recognized that the factors that affect demand and home prices are not immutable. They depend, in part, on policy choices. Consider, for example, the fact that most home purchases are financed with long-term mortgage credit. This means that the demand for housing is highly sensitive to the availability and cost of that credit. Outcomes in housing are also affected by the legal and operational infrastructure of the mortgage market. This apparatus has been wholly inadequate for dealing with a systemic shock to housing and employment, and is amplifying bad outcomes. A flawed resolution regime – very different from the more efficient regime for resolving excess debt in private commercial property – exacerbates the risks of under-shooting. 6  In Las Vegas, for instance, the ratio of house prices to replacement costs is now 0.7, having peaked at about 2.0 during the boom. 7  The supply curve is fixed and vertical at the post-bubble stock of housing so the entire adjustment to changes in demand takes place via prices rather than quantities. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Conflicts of interest are embedded in mortgage securitization structures and between first and second lien-holders. There are challenges to how the industry records and transfers interests in these mortgages.

Furthermore, from my point of view as a central banker in charge of ensuring price stability in the medium term, the main risk has changed radically in recent months: it is no longer that of "too low for too long" inflation but that of "too high for too long" inflation. Hence the need for the immediate normalisation of monetary policy that the ECB Governing Council decided upon and started to implement by reversing the exceptionally accommodative measures that were designed to address the risk of inflation being too low for too long. But the ECB's commitment is clear: the Governing Council will do whatever is necessary to reduce inflation and stabilise it at 2% over the medium term. The ongoing normalisation of monetary policy will follow a clearly defined sequencing. Last December, the ECB announced the gradual reduction of net purchases under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP). These net purchases were stopped last March. In March and April, it announced the reduction of monthly net purchases under the Asset Purchase Programme (APP). At the last Governing Council meeting, the ECB announced the end of net purchases as of 1 July 2022, and its intention to raise all key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points at its July monetary policy meeting. The ECB is also planning a further increase in key interest rates in September, the calibration of which will depend on the updated medium-term inflation outlook.
Maintaining and enhancing market competition and cooperation in the development and operation of payment systems; and  8. Ensuring consumer protection in payment system services. I am glad that this workshop is going to address these key issues and challenges with respect to the above and I am confident that the rich discussions you are going to hold and the lessons of experience you are going to share will not only enhance your skills but also bring out pertinent issues that require to be addressed when you go back to your home countries. Ladies and Gentlemen; let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the NorthWest University, South Africa, the South African Reserve Bank and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for releasing their officials to share with us their knowledge and experience at this workshop. To all of you, I wish you the best and I encourage you to participate actively during the presentations and discussions. Use every opportunity to tap from the vast experiences of the resource persons during these five days. Last but not least, I wish to thank the MEFMI Secretariat for organising this important workshop and for choosing Zambia as the venue. With these remarks, Ladies and Gentlemen, I declare this workshop officially open. 2  BIS Review 95/2010

Thomas Jordan: Funding mortgages – securitisation and pfandbriefe in the light of the financial crisis Summary of a speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the annual general meeting of the Pfandbriefbank Schweizerischer Hypothekarinstitute, Zofingen, 15 May 2008. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The funding of mortgages is the focal point in discussions on the causes of the international financial crisis. The massive credit expansion in the US, particularly in the area of sub-prime mortgages, reinforced and prolongued the US real estate bubble. From mid-2007, the value of financial products backed by sub-prime mortgages declined substantially, leading to heavy losses on the part of banks and investors. The problems encountered with these financial products gave rise to discussions on the future of mortgage funding. The danger of such discussions is that the problems inherent in different instruments could be confused and their economic benefits overlooked. Three different refinancing instruments can be differentiated: pfandbriefe, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and structured securitized products. Common to all three is that they make it possible to refinance mortgages, and ease the process. However, they differ with respect to risk transfer. While the credit risk remains with the bank when refinancing via pfandbriefe, it is passed on to the investor in the case of MBSs and structured securitized products.
The economy is now undergoing a slow recovery, driven by the normal cyclical course of events but subdued by balance sheet adjustments and geopolitical uncertainty. Balance sheet adjustments will continue, however, as there are still substantial savings imbalances between different regions of the world. At the same time, the risk of war has caused flight to safer assets and thereby resulted in low interest rates. Recently, there has been an improvement in earnings and a slight fall in credit spreads. Nevertheless, the effects of asset price adjustments on pension funds, life insurance companies and non-financial enterprises are still been felt through various parts of the economy. Should the economy follow a debt cycle in the future, there is also a risk that the currently low interest rates will lead to the implementation of projects that would be unprofitable at normal rate levels. How has housing finance in Sweden been affected in recent years by internationalisation, regulatory changes and balance sheet adjustments? Developments in the Swedish asset and debt markets have largely been the same as those abroad. Shares and commercial property have declined in value since 2000. Investment in residential property and prices of permanent single-family dwellings have risen by 8 and 15 per cent respectively for the past two years. Prices of tenant-owner apartments have also increased.

Another factor of importance is the new capital adequacy rules that are planned for introduction in 2006. Put simply, capital adequacy rules are rules governing how much capital a bank is required to hold for various borrower groups for each krona lent. In the new rules, it is intended that the risk weighting will better reflect the actual credit risk. This means that the banks will be more careful in assessing the relationship between the risk of a loan and its return. It will therefore be possible to observe increased risk in the banks' interest rates. The new capital adequacy rules have both advantages and disadvantages. The proposed rules require the banks to hold more capital if the risks in their loans increases. If they do not have more capital than that prescribed by the rules, they must either acquire more capital or reduce the risk in their lending. In such a situation, a bank can decide against renewing loans, which of course would entail severe consequences for its borrowers. There is therefore a risk that the new rules will reinforce cyclical developments. Nevertheless, the new rules entail several advantages: a more all-round, individual risk assessment that better protects savers' funds and reduces the risk of tax payers via the Government having to step in, opportunities for cheaper loans to low-risk borrowers as well as increased interest expenditure for high-risk companies. Consequently, the pricing of loans will be fairer.
A warehouse cannot easily or cheaply be turned into an office building; if a manufacturing company installs an extra production line, and demand for its product subsequently weakens, it can’t then choose to lease the line to another firm; the same is true of specialised software for a bank or insurance company. Clearly, this “sunk-cost” property of investment spending may in practice apply to some types of capital more than others. What we do know is that, without it, economic theory would have a hard time explaining why greater uncertainty depresses investment to the degree it does – or even at all. 3 Conversely, once you do take it into account, the predicted effects can be quite powerful. Investment projects that would otherwise make a great deal of sense – because the income they’re expected to generate easily exceeds the costs of financing them – will be avoided, or at least postponed, if the reversal costs are high enough and the uncertainty about those returns sufficiently acute. Instead, it often makes sense to wait until the expected value of the project is sufficiently high that it covers not just the direct cost of the project but an extra margin of safety on top, something economists have called the “option value of waiting”: Return on investment > cost of finance plus option value of waiting  [1]  The greater this margin, the higher the profitability required of any new investment. As this hurdle rate goes up the number of new projects that can meet it declines.

Actively choosing the very thing that businesses seem to fear the most is more likely to mean that investment projects that have so far been postponed will instead be cancelled for good. The point, rather, is that for a given duration of uncertainty, it’s better that people are aware of it from the start, rather than being repeatedly surprised at how long the process takes. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  4  One way of thinking about this situation is that periods of uncertainty – especially those with acute downside risks and that are expected to last only a short period of time – raise the required rate of return on new investments. They therefore have similar effects as a standard increase in the cost of finance: they incentivise firms to meet new demand with labour rather than capital. In the last section I’ll go through some crude arithmetic to get some idea of the scale of such effects and, in that context, comment on the recent strength of employment and, more generally, on the weakness of productivity growth since the financial crisis. The Value of Waiting for News In economic theory, the negative impact of uncertainty on investment depends centrally on the assumption that capital spending is costly to reverse.
They provide confidence for financial institutions and customers to do business here. MAS pays close attention to the design of financial regulation to ensure that they are risk-based and not more burdensome than necessary to meet regulatory objectives. •  An example is the Financial Holding Companies (FHCs) Bill that is currently before Parliament. •  MAS will not regulate all FHCs. The Bill will give MAS the flexibility on whether or not to regulate a particular FHC, taking into consideration, for instance, whether the FHC’s subsidiaries are important to Singapore’s financial system. MAS consults the industry and other stakeholders when introducing significant new regulation. The exception of course is where the issue is market sensitive. We consult at an early stage on the broad policy proposals as well as in the later stages of detailed rule-making. We carefully consider all feedback on the impact of new regulation and implementation issues, and adjust the proposals where appropriate. This helps MAS to calibrate the rules in a way that is appropriate for our market. •  Take for example, the recent proposed changes to the regulatory capital framework for holders of capital markets services licenses. MAS briefed the industry, consulted extensively, and conducted quantitative impact studies. •  In response to feedback, MAS has decided to provide a longer transition period of two years for industry to comply with the new rules. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  •  MAS will also revise its calibration of the operational risk capital charge.

The new liquidity rules will make deposits a strategic source of funding. Retail banking stands a good chance of reclaiming its role as the bedrock of banking. Insurance companies, facing higher capital requirements and ageing demographics, will be under pressure to boost returns on investment and enhance asset-liability management. Many of them will be motivated to access new and under-penetrated markets, and seek higher yielding investments within the constraints of regulations and their mandates. Exchanges will continue to consolidate and adopt a “multi-asset class” approach. Companies will explore other avenues for raising capital, including private placements. There will be more standardised derivative products and new types of market infrastructure: central counterparties for clearing, trade repositories for reporting, and swap execution facilities for trading. High-volume, low-margin platforms will likely become more competitive. A big unknown is the future of long-term finance. •  First, banks are likely to play a reduced role in providing long-term financing, especially for infrastructure. Basel III will raise the cost of issuing long-term corporate and project finance loans above the cost of issuing mortgages and short-term loans. •  Second, insurance companies may be discouraged from investing in long term assets, as a possible consequence of Solvency II. •  Third, institutional investors such as pension funds and endowments often face restrictions on portfolio allocation that discourage them from providing long-term financing.
Lars Heikensten: Introduction on monetary policy Speech by Mr Lars Heikensten, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, to the Riksdag Committee on Finance, Stockholm, 15 March 2005. *  *  *  Allow me as usual to begin by thanking you for your invitation. I think it goes without saying that these hearings are a highly valuable feature of the open discussion of monetary policy that we are all keen to safeguard. It is also my hope that the hearings can help spread knowledge about monetary policy issues to a wider audience, especially since they are now broadcast live on television. As is customary at the first hearing of the year I intend to begin by looking back on developments last year. As we all know, inflation turned out sharply lower than the Riksbank’s target in 2004. When that happens it is natural that a debate on monetary policy should arise in the public domain. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the discussions in the past year have been unusually lively. I commented on the debate in detail when I was here in October, but there may be reason to touch upon it again today. Subsequently I intend to present our current assessment of the inflation outlook and explain the interest rate decision we made yesterday, after which I will round off with some general reflections on Swedish monetary policy and the conditions under which it operates.

For example, the IEA estimates that the transition could require $ in energy sector investments a year for decades – twice the rate at present.11 By 2050 we will need nearly 95% of electricity supply to be low carbon, 70% of new cars electric, retrofitting of the entire building stock, and an 80% fall in the CO2 intensity of the building sector.12 With an estimated $ trillion of infrastructure investment expected between 2015 and 2030, smart decisions now can make sure that investment is both financially sound and environmentally sustainable.13 Investing in more sustainable agriculture could deliver an estimated $ trillion in economic benefits per year and generate millions of jobs, while also improving food security and reducing GHG emissions.14 Reducing air pollution could not only prevent millions of premature deaths per year, but avoid over  11  See IEA (2017), ’Perspectives for the Energy Transition - Investment Needs for a Low-Carbon Energy System.’ Ibid. 13 New Climate Economy (2018), ‘The 2018 Report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.’ 12  7  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  7  $ billion in lost productivity and health impacts.15 Getting climate disclosure right will mean that investment flows to firms which are managing the risks and seizing the opportunities. Ensuring our banks and insurers are resilient to climate-related risks will reinforce this process while keeping the financial system open for UK households and businesses in all types of weather.