samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It is small firms (those with fewer than 50 employees) that have most stepped up their entry into foreign markets, although their contribution to total exports remains small compared with larger companies. At the same time, the number of regular exporting firms (i.e. those that sell their products abroad for four years running or more) has risen in this period by 32%. This increase has been particularly notable in target markets with high growth potential, such as North Africa, Asia and North America. The decision by a firm to begin to export entails fixed costs of a significant magnitude. This would suggest that, once these costs are assumed, the firm tends to remain in the market chosen. It also points to the fact that the broadening of the base of exporting firms might be predominantly structural in nature, as attested to by the fact that the persistent recovery in domestic demand since 2014 does not appear to have had a negative bearing on the number of regular exporting firms. 3/6  The Spanish productive system’s greater export orientation has boosted business investment. The evidence is that exporting firms have higher investment/capital ratios, whereby the broadening of the export base is estimated to have contributed to the buoyancy of investment in aggregate terms. As a result, the behaviour of investment during the recovery has been more favourable than that arising from the course of aggregate demand.

In this connection, it is worth offering some figures illustrating the scale of this change. Specifically, the Spanish economy’s current account balance has improved by more than 11 percentage points (pp) of GDP since the start of the crisis, turning from a deficit of 9.4% of GDP in 2007 to a surplus of around 2% in 2019. In terms of components, while all captions have contributed positively to this adjustment, of most note has been the correction of the net balance of non-energy goods and of the primary and secondary income balance. The contributions of the latter to the improvement in the total balance in this period were almost 6 pp and 3 pp, respectively. But the energy goods, tourism and non-tourist services balances have also each contributed about 1 pp. As suggested, among the key factors behind this correction of the external balance are the gains in competitiveness achieved in these past ten years. These are estimated to have contributed both to the increase in the structural level of exports and to their geographical diversification towards markets with greater growth potential, thereby resulting in a favourable market-share performance. At the same time, imports have been seen to be flatter in relation to the rise in final demand, despite the momentum of exports in firms and sectors with a high import content. That likewise points to an improvement in the competitiveness of the resident productive sector compared with foreign competitors.
In order to underscore its ambitions for public finances, the Government has a long-term objective: as the average level over a business cycle, government finances are to generate a surplus at 2 per cent of GDP. A surplus will make it possible to reduce public debt so that future challenges which the Swedish economy may encounter can be accepted without leading to problems for government finances. Considering the public debt that has accumulated in the 1990s and the fact that government finances in Sweden are relatively sensitive to cyclical factors, I find this objective reasonable. Besides the increased awareness of the importance of stable finances, the conditions for achieving Sweden’s budget target have been improved by institutional changes in the budget process. Sweden now has a budget process that is inherently more disciplined and can thereby contribute to maintaining sound finances. Further steps are being taken to consolidate economic policy’s focus on stability. The independence which the Riksbank already has in practice is to have a formal legal status as of next year. The monetary policy objective of price stability will be enshrined in law and the Riksbank will be accountable for fulfilling it. This new Riksbank legislation has already been approved once by the Riksdag (Sweden’s parliament) and the final decision is due this autumn. The reform is backed by five political parties, whose combined representation in the newly elected Riksdag is over 80 per cent.

In 2009, the penetration of deposit accounts and loan accounts in Malaysia are 3,300 deposit accounts per 1,000 adults and 1,100 loan accounts per 1,000 adults respectively, which is amongst the highest in the world. This high level of financial inclusion is the result of conscious policies to build a progressive and inclusive financial system. The strategies implemented have generated six characteristics of the financial system. First, a business environment that allows a diverse range of financial service providers to thrive and compete. This environment has led to the creation of commercial financial institutions with differentiated strategies based on their strengths and the delivery of a broader range of products and services that meet the diverse needs of consumers and businesses. The financial system also includes foreign financial institutions through a series of sequenced liberalisation measures as well as development financial institutions, cooperatives and Government agencies that complement the domestic commercial banking institutions. This approach leverages on the innovation and the implementation capabilities of the private sector and the diversity and dynamism of competitive markets. At the same time, it has allowed the Government to have a complementary role in serving the segments that are under served by the private sector. Second, basic banking products and services that are made available at reasonable costs. In February 2005, Bank Negara Malaysia issued a guideline that required all banks to provide such basic banking services.
Looking ahead, our challenge is now to specify the rules and implement them. The main challenge for regulators now lies in finalizing the rules and incentives that will be conducive to reaching these targets. Thanks to the agreement reached by G20 leaders, ambitious regulatory reforms and markets initiatives are now under way. I recognize that the regulation of global finance is a considerable challenge: we have to preserve innovation while setting the limits on the capacity of instruments, markets or models to weaken the whole system. –  Our goal now is to ensure consistency across countries of the detailed regulations while keeping the momentum of the reform. Indeed, OTC derivatives are a global market, large banks are not local players and accounting standards should be a common language. Any discrepancies in the regulatory frameworks would be easily arbitraged, creating loopholes in the system. In that perspective, we clearly need to strengthen our coordination. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  ANNEXES : 1.

First of all, regulators have been mandated to make important determinations, such as which derivatives may still be traded over the counter or which participants could be granted exemptions in clearing obligations. It is obviously essential that our regulatory efforts result in similar solutions so as to avoid creating arbitrage opportunities. Second, the scope of possible mutual recognition regimes for trade repositories and clearing houses should be carefully assessed in order to obtain a fair reciprocal treatment. The basic principle is fairly simple: a third country trade repository or clearing house could service participants or markets of other countries provided that the legal and supervisory arrangements are deemed equivalent and that international cooperation arrangements are established. But equivalence is not really easy to assess and one could understand a more conservative approach based on a systematic registration. Indeed, under such a regime, a third country trade repository or clearing house servicing participants or markets of another country would have to be registered by the competent authorities of that country and, once registered, would have to be subject to regulations and to on-site inspections, in addition to the domestic ones.
In the case of Thailand, the economic growth which slowed down to 1.8% last year has picked up significantly to 3.9% in the first quarter of this year. Unemployment rate has also declined, helping to strengthen consumer confidence. Our growth was driven by private consumption and government stimulus. For the remainder of the year and the next, contribution from fiscal pump priming will be less, but we are confident that the recovery of exports will take up the slack. We think that our exports will recover because we believe the improvement in the US economy will continue, even though at a more moderate pace than originally forecasted. The bottoming of the electronic cycle will also revive growth of many of our neighbours, who are our most important export customers. The only point of disappointment is in business investment growth which has been slow due to the still high excess capacity in many industries in Thailand. These are the industries that cater for the domestic market, although the capacity utilization rate is rising quickly in recent months. However, I am optimistic that the buoyant consumer demand will soon make it more and more attractive for some businesses to start thinking about expansion or diversification. I believe similar development is also being seen in varying degrees throughout South East Asia. The rate of inflation was only 1.6% last year, allowing the central bank to conduct an accommodative monetary policy. The reduction of external debt has been steady.

Although GDP growth will slacken and employment will increase more slowly this year, resource utilisation will nevertheless be higher than normal. On the other side there was an increased risk of weaker growth in the world economy. There is considerable uncertainty over which direction developments in the US economy will take and how this will affect the rest of the world. And the financial markets have continued to be marked by unease and turmoil. BIS Review 22/2008  1  When all of these factors were weighed together, the majority of us reached largely the same view regarding the repo rate as expressed in our December forecast, that is, that the interest rate needed to be raised in order for us to attain the inflation target. However, there is still considerable uncertainty regarding economic indicators and inflation prospects. It therefore appears particularly important to point out that the interest rate path is a forecast. It is not a promise! And the interest rate decisions that are made in the future will of course depend on how new information affects the prospects for inflation and economic activity in Sweden. Communication in connection with the interest rate decision It can hardly have escaped the notice of anyone here that the Riksbank received a good deal of criticism in connection with this interest rate increase. What has been criticised is, perhaps, not so much the increase as such, more that the interest rate decision took many by surprise.
Instead, just as CCPs were part of the solution when it came to counterparty credit risk, they can play a role in helping to solve the liquidity risk we have seen recur in each recent episode of stress. In particular, CCPs can: ensure that IM is sufficiently conservative in good times that it reduces the need for wild swings once a crisis hits; and ensure that participants have sufficient information, data, and tools to anticipate what margin calls might look like under stress, and how pro-cyclical they may be. Importantly, tackling the side effects will also require addressing participants’ preparedness to meet stress margin calls. While CCPs can play a part in the solution, this is not something CCPs can solve on their own. We also need to take a hard look at the ability of non-banks to insure against severe but plausible liquidity stress. The international work to look at these issues[8] is welcome – it offers opportunities to address them in a way that preserves and enhances the role of CCPs. If done right, it can help to address the lessons of the COVID and Russian invasion market turmoil, while ensuring that market participants have incentives to centrally clear their derivatives trades in good and bad times. (2) The past is not always a good guide to the future Markets, especially those for physical commodities, can behave in unexpected ways. Let me give you just a few examples.

A one dollar increase in the oil price gives an increase in GDP of almost 1% and most of it arrives as increased budget revenues. With large and varying budget revenues, the basis for determining central government expenditure and taxes from one year to the next may easily be impaired. If budget expenditure is allowed to fluctuate in step with oil prices, the result may be abrupt shifts and instability in the Norwegian economy. Changes in oil prices may then quickly influence wage and price expectations, the exchange rate and long-term rates. In that case it will be very demanding to achieve nominal stability. Short-term interest rates would have to be changed frequently and sharply and would generally reflect a high risk premium for the Norwegian krone. It is therefore important that the annual budgets are anchored in a long-term strategy that takes into account that oil revenues may fluctuate from one year to the next. In addition, it is advantageous if fiscal policy can be used to counter fluctuations in demand and production. Final words By hosting this workshop, we hope to take part in an exchange of new knowledge about the conduct of monetary policy. We hope that the workshop will be a fruitful experience for both researchers and monetary policymakers. 3  BIS Review 101/2000
  Pricing: Investors who redeem should receive a price for their units that reflects the discount needed to sell the required proportion of a fund’s assets in the specified redemption notice period; and    Notice period: Redemption notice periods should reflect the time needed to sell the required proportion of a fund’s assets without discounts beyond those captured in the price received by redeeming investors. Chart 21: The FPC’s principles for fund design to  Chart 22: Stylised combinations of price  deliver consistency  discounts and notice periods needed to reduce incentives to redeem ahead of others  This July the FPC will publish in its Financial Stability Report an analysis of how implementing these principles would likely impact the FPC’s primary and secondary objectives. GDP-at-risk should fall as the additional incentive for investors to liquidate assets in open-ended funds in stress is reduced. Estimating this requires simulating first-mover advantage under the status quo, then assessing the extent to which it is removed by applying the FPC’s principles. The difference must be mapped through to the impact on prices in corporate bond, bank funding and other markets, and then to the real economy. 29  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  29  The analysis will rely on bottom-up, simulated estimates within each market rather than macro analysis, as there has never been widespread crystallisation of these risks.

It is not surprising that across 800 years of economic history, financial crises occur roughly once a decade (Chart 3). Chart 3: Financial crises occur with fairly regular frequency Proportion of countries with banking crises, weighted by share of world income  Sources: Reproduced from Reinhart, C, and Rogoff, K (2013), “Banking crises: An equal opportunity menace”, Journal of Banking and Finance, vol 37(11), pp. 4557-4573  9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  9  Creating a unifying framework for macroprudential policy can help to break this dreary cycle, guide policymakers and improve the understanding and effectiveness of macroprudential policy. It can also promote self-reinforcing behaviour within the private financial sector, just as with credible monetary policy. And a clearer framework will improve the transparency and accountability of the FPC to parliament and the people we serve. IV. Grand Unifying Theory of Macroprudential Policy  The FPC is accountable to Parliament for operating the instruments of macroprudential policy to achieve the objectives of macroprudential policy, as determined by the Government. Society chooses the ends, and, within pre-set boundaries, the FPC determines the means to achieve them. The FPC framework mirrors that of the MPC because of the time-inconsistency problems. The (often) long lag between boosting growth today and the damage it does in the future makes an even stronger case for delegating operational responsibility for macroprudential policy to an independent authority than for monetary policy.
Compensating factors may have been at work, one of which is longer working hours. One of the clear benefits of home-working is reduced commuting time, some of which might have been allocated to work. Studies point to daily savings in commuting time of almost an hour. They also suggest around a third of that saved time has been spent working.12 Assuming an eight-hour working day, that represents a 4% increase in working hours. Studies of the length of the working day – measured by the time between the first and last email being sent – point to a larger effect still, with close to an 8% rise in working hours as a result of home-working.13 If that is roughly right, this suggests most workers’ overall economic contribution may not have been much affected by the switch to home-working, with extra hours compensating for reduced productivity. Another relevant factor is that some of initial losses in productivity from home-working might be expected to lessen over time: as the kitchen chair is replaced by an office chair (office equipment sales have soared); as the video-conferencing facilities become less daunting to navigate; and as children return to school. Consistent with the last of those, there is evidence both of women assuming more of the childcare responsibilities during lockdown and of their productivity being harder hit.14 Indeed, one of the beneficial long-term side-effects of home-working is that it has brought about a forced improvement in both our digital kit and our digital skills.

The result is that, when surveyed, most seem to prefer working at home to working in the office. There are some important caveats in saying all that. These benefits are clearly not evenly spread, even for those who can work from home. In general, they have been felt less by workers than by their managers; less by women than by men; less by Black people than by White or Asian people; and less by people working in sectors worst-affected by the Covid crisis – for example, retail and hospitality. In this respect, these results echo other findings about the highly uneven economic effects of the Covid crisis.18 Despite these important qualifications, I was pleasantly surprised by the survey findings. If home-working has led to longer working hours for many people, you might have expected that to have dented well-being, not to have raised it. The WorkL survey also points to rising levels of workplace anxiety since Covid, understandably so, which would also be expected to harm happiness. Yet happiness at work seems, despite all that, to have risen. What is going on? Weighing against these effects appear to be at least two key factors: commuting and empowerment. In well-being studies, commuting ranks just after death and divorce in the unhappiness stakes. A study by Chatterjee and Clarke (2017) showed that an additional 20 minute commute reduced people’s well-being as much as a 19% pay cut. On that basis, home-working would be expected to have boosted well-being, with 17 18  RSA (2020). Blundell et al (2020).
If, against our hopes and expectations, that proves not to be the case, authorities in Europe and elsewhere will need to think through what if any measures we could sensibly take to make our part of the global financial system more resilient to the faultline that the money fund industry currently represents. One possibility would be for   bank supervisors to limit the extent to which banks could fund themselves short-term from US money funds and from other fragile/flighty sources, including CNAV money funds domiciled elsewhere. I should stress that such a policy need not be targeted at US funds per se. It is also a question of the prudence of the banks that borrow. So it could be cast in terms of the liability structure and sources of funding of the banking system. The Basel 3 Net Stable Funding Ratio may help a bit with this. And I should add that on some fronts – notably transparency – Europe should aim to catch up with the progress the US has already made. Securities dealers, finance companies Some shadow banks are “businesses”, not funds or vehicles. These non-bank financial intermediaries finance themselves externally in the markets. Some such financing is short-term and so effectively runnable, as events showed. In those cases:   If they are financed materially by short-term debt, they should be subject to bank-type regulation and supervision of the resilience of their balance sheets. That would apply to some kinds of finance company. It might apply to securities dealers too.

Examples probably include money market mutual funds and an element of the prime brokerage services offered by securities dealers to levered funds. 1  See Section 1, Financial Stability Board, “Shadow Banking: Scoping the Issues”, April 2011; Section 3, European Commission , “Green Paper on Shadow Banking”, March 2011; and also Turner, “Securitisation, shadow banking and the value of financial innovation”, April 2012. 2  My definition was: instruments, structures, firms or markets which, alone or in combination, replicate, to a greater or lesser degree, the core features of commercial banks: monetary or liquidity services, maturity mismatch and leverage. See Tucker, P M W, “Shadow Banking, Financing Markets and Financial Stability”, January 2010. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  With that brief bit of scene setting, I will quickly set out my current thinking on policy. The objective should not be to curb non-bank finance in general, but to recognise where a form of intermediation is banking in substance or in the risks it creates for the system as a whole. Shadow banks that are really part of banks Many examples of shadow banking are sponsored by banks or are operated by them, or both. They are effectively part of their “parent” bank. In the run up to the present crisis, prominent examples were Structured Investment Vehicles, ABCP conduits, and money funds. Many benefitted from financial support from their “parent” during 2007–08.