samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
They include the need to designate a Euro area finance minister with her own budget for macroeconomic stabilisation, a rainy-day fund with or without the possibility of issuing debt, a European unemployment (re-)insurance scheme, and so on. Views on these proposals, however, differ in terms of size, allocation of competences, political feasibility and in many other respects. According to Banco de España simulations, the effective design of any of the proposals needs to be sizable enough to provide stabilizstion for an economy facing a recession, even a large economy facing a deep recession. The trigger mechanism must be clear and smooth to ensure a timely response. But it should also address legitimate concerns over moral hazard and permanent transfers. The phasing-out should ensure that fiscal transfers will not be permanent so as to avoid undue redistribution across member states. To preserve sound incentives, in my view, countries with access to this instrument must comply with fiscal rules and with the rules of the Macroeconomic imbalances procedure. Even countries with a good fiscal record can fail to deal with sizable shocks, but ex ante compliance with fiscal rules –and a transparent process- is necessary to dispel doubts about the behaviour of the country under stress, while also providing flexibility for national fiscal buffers. The Banco de España simulations show that, with an annual contribution of 0.35% of GDP per country, it is possible to design a fiscal capacity with a risk-sharing capacity similar to that of the existing instruments in the US.

Less traditional firms, often with a primary focus on automated, low-latency trading strategies, have entered the arena and helped to transform the landscape. In addition to adapting to these changes, traditional broker-dealers are complying with a more rigorous regulatory framework and are also expanding their use of automated trading technologies. These developments raise a number of important questions. They include: Who are these new entrants and what are their motivations? Has the changing composition of firms affected the nature of market making and liquidity provision? How have traditional liquidity providers responded to the expanded use of new technology? Has the changing structure introduced operational risks in the clearing and settlement infrastructure? How has the evolution of the repo market affected the secondary market for Treasury securities? Are the regulatory requirements imposed upon the Treasury market sufficient in today’s world? And finally, are there any changes – regulatory or otherwise – that could improve the functioning, efficiency and/or integrity of the Treasury market? As I noted in my recent remarks on market liquidity, many open questions remain on the subject of Treasury market liquidity. 2 At the same time, the agenda for this conference makes it clear that there are many other important questions beyond market liquidity worthy of consideration and debate. The breadth and expertise of the attendees at this conference make this forum an excellent opportunity to advance our collective thinking on this range of important subjects.
These include a broad range of tax rate reductions, exemptions and deductions that, ultimately, reduce revenues significantly and introduce distortions that contravene the principles of efficiency and fairness. 3.4  Population ageing and pension system reform  One factor that makes it all the more necessary to reduce the vulnerability of public finances in Spain is the challenge of population ageing. The large projected increase in the dependency ratio over the next 30 years will give rise to a very significant increase in public spending on pensions, health and long-term care. Consequently, a crucial aspect of the medium and long-term budget plans is the sustainability of spending in these areas. 32  In the specific case of the pension system, recurrent deficits have been recorded in recent years. In its recent recommendations, the Toledo Pact Commission emphasises that the social security system currently bears burdens for which it should not be responsible and therefore it proposes transferring them to the State. In addition, the AIReF has proposed transferring some of the social contributions currently allocated to the National Public Employment Service to the social security system. These measures seek to significantly reduce the social security system’s deficit, at the expense of the State deficit.

And although the emergence of fresh outbreaks was considered, their containment would only require restrictive measures of limited scope, from the geographical standpoint and from that of the productive sectors affected. In this respect, the impact of these new restrictions on activity would, it was assumed, be relatively limited. Under scenario 2, by contrast, fresh outbreaks on a greater scale in the short term were envisaged. It was admittedly assumed that the containment of these outbreaks would not require the application of such strict and widespread social distancing measures as those in place before the start of lockdown-easing last spring. But it was believed these limitations would have an appreciable adverse effect on activity. In particular, the scenario envisaged the possibility that, in addition to causing more intense harm to activity in the services 2  Illustrating these inequalities, there was a very high year-on-year decline in temporary employees (-13%) to Q3 according to the Labour Force Survey, while in the case of permanent employees there was a 0.8% fall. By gender, the decline in employment was very similar (-3.6% for women and -3.4% for men), and it remained higher among younger workers (aged 16-29), falling at a rate of 12.8% in Q3, compared with the decline of 5.9% among those aged 30-44 and the 1.4% increase among the over-45s. In the case of young people, there has been a 7 pp increase in the unemployment rate to 31.4% compared with 2019 Q3.
Maintaining a stable currency safeguards purchasing power over time and ensures the currency’s continuity across the territory, so that every individual can spend that currency anywhere and at any time and enjoy the same ability to purchase necessary goods and services. Back in the 18th century, France's authorities found themselves unable to guarantee this stability. After the bankruptcy of the John Law note-issuing bank in 1720 and several other  2  failed attempts to set up a central bank,5 the hyperinflation fuelled by monetary financing of the Revolutionary Wars and the ensuing default on two-thirds of France’s public debt in 1797 had destroyed confidence in the currency.6 The most pressing task facing the Consulate government was to rebuild the foundations of that trust, which it did by authorising the establishment of the Banque de France in 1800 and anchoring the value of the franc through the creation of the Germinal franc in 1803. In establishing the Banque de France, France set up a central bank that was capable, because it was trusted by the French people, of offering an “elastic” money supply, to use the economic jargon, that is, of adjusting the money supply to suit the needs of the economy. In this way, the foundations for an active lender-of-last-resort policy were laid very early, providing a means to combat financial crises and thus support the economy.

With this, the Banque de France became the cornerstone of the monetary and financial system spanning the entire French economy.4 Since the Bank was first established in 1800 through to the present day, our core mandate has been to guarantee monetary stability and, through our supervisory, refinancing and lender-of-last-resort policies, to  1  See the Decree of 2 May 1848, indicating that the decision of the Board of Directors of the Banque de Bordeaux was adopted on 27 April, following the decision by the General Council of the Banque de France on 24 April. 2 The branch opened its doors with the decrees of 27 April and 2 May 1848. 3 The other branches that opened in spring 1848 were in Rouen, Nantes, Marseille, Le Havre, Lille, Toulouse, Orléans and Lyon. 4 Leclercq, Yves, 1999, La formation d'une banque centrale: la Banque de France (années 1830 - années 1850), Revue économique Vol. 50, pp. 151-174  1  preserve financial stability. By establishing a branch network, we strengthened and enhanced our ability to serve the regional economies. Moreover, in each era, the Bank has tailored the approach taken to execute its statutory mandate, catering to the economic and financial environment and the institutions of the time in order to provide France's regions with the best possible support.
This assessment still applies, and it is gratifying that recent events have confirmed an improvement, although forecasts of the future of course remain uncertain. 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Figure 6 Positive signs Purchasing Managers’ Index PMI, manufacturing industry, seasonally-adjusted data 70  70  65  65  60  60  55  55  50  50  45  45 Sweden  40  40  USA EMU  35  35  30  30 06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  Source: Markit Economics  Uncertainty remains However, apart from uncertainty regarding developments in the euro area there are, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defence of the United States, also other “known unknowns” that may affect the short-term prospects. One example of this is if there is a tangible change in market expectations regarding monetary policy in the United States. Ahead of yesterday’s meeting of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, long-term interest rates had risen in the United States and Europe, partly due to expectations that the Federal Reserve would reduce its asset purchases and partly due to the more positive signals about the performance of the economy. Share prices have risen in parallel with the rise in interest rates. However, a side effect of the better growth prospects and the expectations of a less expansionary monetary policy in the United States has been that several emerging economies have been hit by capital outflows.

Reforms should, in particular, be conducive to capital accumulation and bring about tangible increases in total factor productivity. In other EU neighbouring regions, efforts in structural reforms have varied considerably. Following a severe financial crisis in 2001, Turkey witnessed a strong rebound in 2002 and began an ambitious process to reduce inflation, while still struggling with some of its long-standing problems. This achievement was supported by structural - though still insufficient - reforms. In Russia, after a long delay in the early years of transition, a first package of structural reforms has been implemented in recent years, positively contributing to the strong recovery the country has been enjoying since the 1998 crisis. United States Turning to the United States, labour, product and capital markets have reached a high degree of flexibility. This reflects both the traditional market-oriented nature of the US economic system and reform efforts over the past 20 years, including a variety of deregulation measures in the 1980s. The flexible microeconomic structure of the US economy has helped to make it one of the strongest growth poles in the world, with GDP growth averaging 3.3% from 1983 to 2002 (compared with 2.4% in the euro area). At the same time, the US experience shows that no country can consider structural reforms as “completed”. In its latest Article IV report on the United States, the IMF identified a number of areas where further efforts would be desirable, including the budgetary framework, the social security system and the energy sector.
For the coming year, BISIH have announced 6 thematic priorities for driving innovations and staying ahead of the digital challenges. Responding to New Developments in the Payments Landscape 4. No doubt payment has been a key area for innovations in recent years. Traditional payment systems have undergone transformation, not least with the introduction of fast payment systems. And new payment methods have emerged in the private sector. Consumers are increasingly reliant on digital payments that offer better speed and convenience. However, when new forms of digital payment are increasingly used by the public, or even become the dominant means of payment in society, central banks would rightly be concerned about the resilience of the payment landscape, as disruptions could cause not just inconvenience, but also potentially significant economic damage. 5. At the same time, cryptocurrencies and stablecoins have emerged as a new class of assets that are sometimes claimed to be also a medium of exchange despite their volatility and concerns about their security. Widespread adoption of these digital currencies by the general public could also diminish the use of the sovereign currency, and even affect a central bank’s monetary operations. 6. Notwithstanding all these developments, the core role of central banks in ensuring trust in money as a public good for the economy at large remains unchanged. So whether central banks should provide a new form of central bank digital money completed with new payment infrastructure to households and businesses has become a very pertinent question.

As of now such competence resides mostly in big internet platform companies. However, many data subjects have no way to make better use of their own digital footprints, or data about themselves currently scattered in various different platforms, for their own benefit. 12. For example, SMEs are facing the long-standing problem of having limited access to finance. Conventional credit scoring approaches are not particularly favorable to SMEs because they often lack auditable operating data, which large corporates have. This disadvantage hinders not only the growth of SME businesses, but also the stability of our job markets and economic growth. Worse still, the blow of the pandemic has put the survival of many SMEs at stake, and their need for financing is stronger than ever. So is there a way to better empower data subjects to make better use of their own data for their own benefit? 13. With this objective in mind, we are expanding our financial infrastructure to enable data to take the centre stage. Our recently launched initiative, the Commercial Data Interchange (CDI), is a centralized platform which allows data owners to share their digital footprints voluntarily with banks through data providers in an efficient and secure manner. With a more substantial body of up-to-date and authenticated data shared by SMEs (such as monthly or even daily trading and turnover statistics), banks could use data analytics to perform more accurate credit assessments, and then provide more tailored services to SMEs.
Should additional pre-funded capital or liquidity resources be needed for cases of resolution, this will have to be shared in a fair way among all relevant stakeholders. Global coordination and consistency is therefore important in order to ensure a level playing field. Looking beyond the debate on CCP loss-absorbing resources, we should keep in mind that there are other key questions regarding resolution. Indeed, the success of a resolution process will not only depend on whether the CCP has adequate resources, but also on whether it is actually resolvable (for instance, whether its viable activities can be separated from its non-viable ones and transferred to another CCP). This will depend to a large extent on the operation and design of the CCP being resolved – e.g. whether its viable clearing activities are insulated from losses from the non-viable ones through separated default management silos. It will also depend on whether or not positions from the CCP which undergo resolution can be successfully transferred to another entity in a safe and timely manner, via an interoperability link or some other means. Further analysis will probably be required regarding the means to facilitate the porting of positions in a resolution scenario, in order to guarantee substitutability across CCPs.

What is needed is an empirical assessment from case to case. I think that monetary policy does have the flexibility needed to deal with the problems with which we are faced. At the same time, clarity in the formulation of objectives brings advantages. The basis of the way in which the Riksbank evaluates the future path of inflation and makes decisions on the repo rate is the guiding rule, which we have followed for a number of years. According to this simple rule, policy is based on an inflation forecast with a horizon of several years. If, in one or two years' time, inflation exceeds the target, we have said that there is normally a case for raising interest rates and vice versa. But there can be reasons for deviating from this rule. Some of these reasons are given in the clarification issued by the Executive Board of the Riksbank when it took office. Other 1 reasons have been presented in various speeches. Perhaps I should also say right at the beginning that what I am going to say today is nothing new. I 2 have presented the same message in varying forms in a number of speeches for several years. It is, however, important to emphasise that in practice there are seldom any straight answers when decisions have to be taken on the repo rate. It is often possible to come to different conclusions based on convincing arguments, even when one has the ambition of keeping to a simple and clear rule.
Ravi Menon: Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Annual Report 2012/13 Opening remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Annual Report 2012/13 Press Conference, Singapore, 23 July 2013. *  *  *  Good morning. Welcome to MAS’ annual report press conference. I would like to highlight five key messages today. •  first, macroeconomic outlook better this year than last;  •  second, strong $ more than offset good returns on MAS’ investments;  •  third, banking system sound but build-up in household debt worrying;  •  fourth, stepped up efforts to ensure we remain clean and trusted financial centre;  •  fifth, good progress in key drivers of financial centre growth. GDP growth stronger and CPI inflation lower this year compared to last Let me start with the economy. The overall macroeconomic outlook this year is better than last year. Barring shocks, Singapore’s GDP growth will be stronger and CPI inflation lower in 2013, compared to 2012. Economy comfortably on track to meet 1–3% growth forecast The Singapore economy will comfortably meet the growth forecast of 1–3% for 2013. Growth was estimated at 2% in H1 and should pick up further in H2 First, the advanced economies are in better shape this year. •  Tail risks have receded. There is less likelihood of a Eurozone break-up or a fiscal cliff in the US.

•  For property loans, tighter loan-to-value ratios, higher minimum cash downpayments, caps on loan tenures, and guidance on total debt service ratios. •  For car loans, tighter loan-to-value ratios and caps on loan tenures. •  For credit card loans, new proposals to: –  help individuals with credit problems avoid further debt accumulation;  –  improve due diligence conducted by FIs; and  –  empower consumers to make informed decisions. These measures helped to limit risks facing financial institutions but more importantly helped to encourage greater financial prudence among borrowers. •  It is important that we act now to limit the build-up of leverage. •  It is much harder to do so later, when growth might be weaker, interest rates higher, and property prices lower. Stringent efforts to ensure Singapore’s financial centre remains clean and trusted Next, let me touch on the efforts we have been making to ensure that Singapore remains a clean and trusted financial centre. •  There has a growing concern internationally on the use of financial centres to hide illicit funds or evade taxes. Singapore takes seriously the integrity of its financial centre and is fully committed to international efforts to combat money laundering and tax evasion. The policy measures Singapore has taken on this front well-known; so I will not elaborate. •  Laundering proceeds of tax evasion and tax fraud is now a crime in Singapore, effective 1 July.
This is because the risk to financial stability can come from many sources other than domestic inflation. In the current crisis, it was the housing bubble and excessive risk-taking by financial institutions that precipitated the crisis in the environment of stable prices. Therefore, to maintain financial stability, attention must be paid to all the key sources of risk and imbalance, other than price stability, that can have systemic implications for the economy’s growth and stability. This is the second lesson. The third lesson relates to the importance of having a robust and resilient financial sector at all times. For emerging markets, this means a strong banking sector. In the current crisis, it is the strength of the banking sector that has enabled the Asian economies to cope more successfully with the impact of the global crisis. These strengths are underpinned by the sector’s strong capital base, its limited exposure to subprime-related and other toxic assets, and its low reliance on external funding. Such strength and qualities are no accident. They are the results of deliberate policies to reform the financial system, strengthen supervision of financial institutions, and revamp financial regulation, risk management, and governance after the Asian financial crisis. The point I want to stress here is that these are the qualities that helped us through the current global financial crisis and they are the qualities that we need to keep.

To do this the MPC has to assess the prospective balance between demand and supply in the economy as a whole. That requires an analysis of both demand and supply developments. The interesting feature of recent quarters has been the combination of strong demand growth and a tight labour market, on the one hand, with weak wage and price pressures, on the other. So the MPC monitors monetary data as well as signs of tightness in both labour and product markets in order to detect early warning signs of inflationary pressures. The MPC needs as much timely and accurate information as possible. Official statistics and surveys provide an excellent starting point. But they often need to be complemented by more timely and focussed information on particular aspects of the economy. So the Bank has a network of twelve Agencies, which gather economic intelligence from all parts of the United Kingdom – from Cornwall to the Highlands, and from County Tyrone to the Norfolk Broads. The task of these Agencies is to provide information on the state of the local economy. In total, the Agents have around 7,000 business contacts covering all sectors of the economy from farming to finance and textiles to tourism. Our Scottish Agent, Janet Bulloch, who is with us tonight, is well known to many of you. I would like to thank those of you who give your valuable time to see Janet and her team.