samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Mario Draghi: ECB press conference – introductory statement Introductory statement by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, and Mr Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, 7 March 2013. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice-President and I are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. We will now report on the outcome of today’s meeting of the Governing Council. Based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. HICP inflation rates have declined further, as anticipated, and fell below 2% in February. Over the policy-relevant horizon, inflationary pressures should remain contained. The underlying pace of monetary expansion continues to be subdued. Inflation expectations for the euro area remain firmly anchored in line with our aim of maintaining inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. Overall, this will allow our monetary policy stance to remain accommodative. Available data continue to signal that economic weakness in the euro area has extended into the beginning of the year, while broadly confirming signs of stabilisation in a number of indicators, albeit at low levels. At the same time, necessary balance sheet adjustments in the public and private sectors will continue to weigh on economic activity. Later in 2013 economic activity should gradually recover, supported by a strengthening of global demand and our accommodative monetary policy stance.

We also call upon other industry players in the financial sector to emulate our noble contribution in building human capital and research capacities at this important institution. This is important to ensure that our financial sector operates at the cutting edge of knowledge and innovation. I have no doubt therefore, that such investment will yield returns in the long run as knowledge is a secure investment. I thank you for your attention. 2  BIS Review 91/2010
In part, domestic wage growth and other business costs could be temporarily tempered by the initial cyclical productivity uptick in some capital intensive sectors of the economy. For the year as a whole, headline CPI inflation is projected to average between 2.5% and 3.5%. MAS underlying inflation, which excludes the cost of accommodation and private road transport, will come in at around 2%. BIS Review 103/2010  1  6. When Singapore entered the recession in 2008, monetary policy, followed by fiscal policy, was eased to provide support to the domestic economy. As economic activity recovered swiftly in 2009, macroeconomic policy settings were recalibrated to levels which were conducive to sustainable growth and medium-term price stability. In a pre-emptive move, MAS tightened monetary policy in April 2010 by re-centring the $ policy band upwards and restoring its modest and gradual appreciation path. 7. Looking ahead, the outlook of the industrialised economies remains uncertain. However, there is sufficient momentum from the Asian economies and domestic industries that will continue to support Singapore’s economic activity at a high level for the rest of the year. While CPI inflation is expected to pick up towards the latter part of the year, it has evolved broadly as anticipated during the April review. At this stage, we assess that the current monetary policy stance of a modest and gradual appreciation of the $ policy band remains appropriate. Strengthening the financial system 8. Singapore’s financial system remained resilient during the global crisis.

There are many ways for banking groups to reconfigure their corporate structure. In the end, what counts as a FHC is a matter of substance, and not of the form of the organisation chart. MAS reserves the right to declare any company which owns a substantial share of a bank, directly or indirectly, as an FHC. Such an FHC will be subject to MAS regulation and will not be allowed to own non-financial activities. BIS Review 53/2000  4  Cross-shareholding The financial entities will not be allowed to own, directly or indirectly, the shares of non-financial firms affiliated to the same principal shareholder. Within the financial arm, shareholdings should only be in one direction. We will not allow two companies in the financial arm to have mutual shareholdings in each other. For example, if a bank takes a stake in an insurance company or securities firm, then the insurance company or securities firm would not be allowed to hold a stake in the bank. The Companies Act already prohibits subsidiaries of banks from owning shares in the bank. We will extend this principle to all entities below the bank or FHC, whether or not they are subsidiaries of the bank or FHC. Ideally, we should also disallow the non-financial entities from owning shares in the financial entities. However, we do not start from a clean slate. Requiring the banks to divest themselves of the nonfinancial activities will already be a major structural change.
To the extent that the pricing of long-dated risk-free securities provides a floor for the pricing of any other types of long-dated securities, this operation is expansionary as it lowers the whole yield structure. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  There is another parallel between our early liquidity operations with banks and OMTs. In providing liquidity to our banking counterparties, we cannot and do not want to subsidise banks that are failing. Our liquidity support is not and should not be equity support. Likewise, in pricing out the break-up risk in sovereign debt securities, we cannot and do not want to subsidise governments. Our interventions can only take place in the secondary market: they are not fiscal transfers and adequate safeguards are attached so that they do not become so. While banks are subject to solvency regulations, governments – because of sovereign immunity – are not. So, we need a supranational structure which guarantees that government solvency – fiscal sustainability and macroeconomic viability – is in place and sufficiently constrains national policies. This is why we need programme conditionality and multilateral surveillance as a precondition to initiate OMTs. Without successful policy reforms, there will be no OMTs. On the issue of possible inflation risks stemming from OMTs, let me assure you that, from a pure liquidity perspective, OMTs will not inject one euro more into the economy. All possible purchases will be fully sterilised through the absorption of the additional liquidity elsewhere. How should the ECB be held accountable?

The prospect of a disintegrating monetary union is harmful for both weak and strong member countries. Weak economies experience a currency run, which in the single financial space of a monetary union translates into two phenomena: loss of value for any liability issued by domestic borrowers – including the sovereign – and a depleting deposit base for domestic banks. Here, the scramble for liquidity and the flight from bank liabilities act as a powerful shock on domestic money demand. This is a money demand shock of the worst possible kind, one which shrinks the money multiplier and puts downward pressures on domestic consumer prices. At the same time, countries perceived as safe havens are the target of significant capital inflows, which mainly take place via cross-border bank transfers. In these receiving countries, the monetary base expands. But in order to induce local depositors to hold the excess cash which they are receiving, the expected return on all the competing assets has to fall. This means that the prices of a wide range of securities and of real capital are bid up on impact. Asset price inflation looms. What is the role of the central bank which finds itself in the middle of these panic transactions? 3  Monetary policy should offset the genuine drift in the nominal scale of the economy, which measures the progressive loss of purchasing power of the currency.
Indeed, it narrowed from 11.6 percent of GDP in 2008 to 4.2 percent of GDP in 2009 (a level around which it remained thereafter). Had Romania been on a fixed exchange rate, the entire burden of the adjustment would have fallen onto the real sector of the economy, with the ensuing social and political costs. Conversely, had Romania allowed a completely free floating of its currency, no adjustment in the real sector would have probably occurred (including a 25 percent wage cut in the public sector and the redundancy of more than 200,000 public employees). At the same time, too abrupt a depreciation would have generated a much larger share of non-performing loans (currently, they stand at nearly 16 percent of total loans), with the result of worsening banking indicators. The flexibility we have retained in managing the exchange rate proved a valuable tool in mitigating the consequences of the crisis. At the same time, theory has evolved and the “managed floating plus” concept (introduced by Goldstein in 2002) gained recognition. In the aftermath of the Argentine crisis it became obvious that hard pegs could not solve the problems of an overvalued real exchange rate, limited flexibility of domestic costs and prices, and too much public debt to allow countercyclical fiscal policy. (Incidentally, outside of the EMU, all other 37 economies with no independent legal tender were small, with the exception of Argentina and Hong Kong SAR).

I feel the need at this ceremony to pay tribute to all deserving persons of history, who left inerasable trace in the development and building of the institution and in the establishment of the monetary system of the country. Here I would mention Dr. Todor Mirovski, as the first director of the Regional Office of the National Bank of FNRY of the then National Republic of Macedonia. Then, Mr. Aleksandar Bogoev who succeeded him in office shortly afterwards, and his successor, Mr. Trajan Ivanovski. I would also pay tribute to Mr. Bozidar Dare-Dzambaz who served as a finance minister at the time of establishing the central banking in the Republic of Macedonia. To Mr. Vladimir Polezhinoski – Polezhina as a Macedonian representative of the body that adopted the Decision that made the dinar a Yugoslav currency. To academician Ksente Bogoev, who also served as a governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia. To the Governors of the National Bank in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Stojan Kjosev, Andon Makraduli and Risto Filipovski. I would pay special tribute to the first prime minister of independent Macedonia, academician Nikola Kljusev, who was one of the main protagonists not only of the monetary independence, but also as a maker of other decisions of that time, which meant completion of statehood. There is also the academician Petar Hristo Ilievski, known as the man who gave the name of the Macedonian denar.
The US share falls from 28% to around 12%. The flow counterpart to these external stock positions is no less dramatic (Chart 20). By 2020, gross capital flows of the non-G7 countries are projected to exceed those of the G7 economies. By 2030, non-G7 flows are more than three times G7 flows. And by 2040, they are almost four times G7 flows. Even if these calibrations represent an extreme case, they are indicative of a striking power shift in the pattern of global financial flows. If this path were to be even broadly followed, it would have implications for the scale of global imbalances, which will tend to rise as gross capital flows outpace GDP growth. It would have implications for financial stability, as the scale of gross capital surges (fuelling bubbles) and reversals (fuelling crises) increases. And it may also have implications for the dollar’s reserve currency status. Differential savings behaviour. Consider next the possible future path of savings behaviour across the world’s major economies. There are likely to be many factors affecting crosscountry saving rates in the period ahead. Predicting these is fraught with uncertainty. But one key medium-term determinant of saving is demographics (Wilson and Ahmed (2010)). And demographic trends are something about which there is little uncertainty in the period ahead. 10  BIS Review 174/2010  BIS Review 174/2010  11  Chart 21 looks at projected changes in the fraction of adults in the age range 40 to 59 in developed and emerging countries – the “prime savings” cohort.

Andrew G Haldane: Global imbalances in retrospect and prospect Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at the Global Financial Forum, Chatham House Conference on “The New Global Economic Order”, London, 3 November 2010. *  *  *  I am grateful to Charlie Bean, Martin Brooke, Oliver Bush, Richard Davies, Katie Farrant, Samuel Knott, William Speller, Gregory Thwaites, Iain de Weymarn, Tomasz Wieladek, Michelle Wright and Gabriele Zinna for comments and contributions. Global imbalances are colossal. At their high-water mark in 2006, imbalances of the G7 economies totalled around 5% of GDP. Like Colossus, global imbalances straddle many of today’s most important global public policy issues. These include the architecture of the international monetary system, the future of the international trading system and the design of the international financial system. These are high stakes. This paper assembles some facts from the past on global imbalances. More speculatively, it also assesses some of the factors shaping the course of imbalances in the future. Those medium-term forces suggest that imbalances may get worse before they get better. If so, this global financial fault-line could cause further tremors to the international monetary, trading and financial system in the period ahead, the like of which we are currently experiencing. Global imbalances – past Global imbalances are a natural by-product of free trade in goods, services and capital. In others words, capital flows are a necessary ingredient of trade and capital liberalisation. In that sense, they are good cholesterol.
Perhaps the first point to make is that Lehman was allowed to fail, even though no one can seriously have been in much doubt about the severity of the consequences. In a democracy, interventions are sometimes severely constrained. It would be myopic for market participants to set aside the probability of that happening again. In fact, I doubt markets will forget for a long time. And arguably one can see awareness of this risk in bank debt spreads today and in the movements following policy consultations in Europe and the US on “bailin” and resolution reforms. But, secondly, the idea of not equipping ourselves with better tools for the “last chance saloon”, when all else had failed, would be a counsel of despair. Adair must be right, though, that we will need to build credibility for our commitment to resolve rather than bailout. That means building institutions to underpin that commitment. Idiosyncratic failures do occur. We can – and where appropriate should – prospectively apply the same resolution tools to the failure of medium-sized firms as we are developing for the largest global firms, demonstrating our willingness to use them. Living wills – or, as they are now called, Recovery and Resolution Plans – will help, provided they have teeth. Which means ensuring that firms are organised and structured to permit effective resolution of different kinds of business line. And a prompt-intervention supervisory action regime can be designed to limit the scope for regulatory forbearance.

The outcome is obviously the major uncertainty affecting us all. The other major external influence on the economic situation in this country is the development of the exchange rate. Depending on who you speak to sterling is variously described as dangerously weak, at a 15-year low, against the dollar, or as unsustainably strong, close to its peak, against the euro. The truth is that sterling's effective exchange rate has been relatively stable for most of the past 2 ½ years – at about 105 on the standard index, plus or minus 5%. The bilateral rates that are frequently quoted in fact tell us very little about sterling: they are essentially a reflection of the persistent general strength of the dollar on the one hand and the persistent general weakness of the euro on the other, resulting from sustained capital inflows to the United States in large part from the Eurozone. It was widely expected that, with the slowdown in the US economy, and associated weakening of US earnings expectations and stock prices, these capital flows would moderate, causing the dollar to weaken and a corresponding recovery in the euro. That clearly has not, yet, occurred, although – given the size of the US external imbalance – it is difficult to see how an exchange rate adjustment can ultimately be avoided. In the meantime, the stronger dollar – and higher oil prices – have added to inflationary pressures elsewhere.
Issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) globally was $ billion in the first half of 2007, up from $ billion 9 years previously. There  2  BIS Review 93/2008  was rapid expansion in the market for collateralised debt obligations (CDO) from $ billion in the first half of 2005 to $ billion in the first half of 2007. And innovation spawned greater complexity. Investment banks launched a series of highly complex products such as constant proportion debt obligations (CPDO) and re-securitisations of CDOs and ABSs (so called CDO-squared and CDOs of ABS). •  Demand for such tailor-made products has plummeted over the past year, while other markets such as the corporate CDS market have continued to expand rapidly. A possible explanation and assessment of the implications is set out in the remainder of the paper. Section 3: Financial innovation: a broadening of choice 6 A crucial function of the financial system is to help companies and households to manage risks. The discharge of this function depends on the type of financial products or contracts made available to companies and households to hedge and take on risk exposures in close alignment with their individual risk preference and tolerance, as well as the capability of the institutions that make up the financial system to manage the risk inherent in these products.

6  See for example, Borio, C., Furfine, C and Lowe, P “Procyclicality of the financial system and financial stability: issues and policy options” BIS paper 1, March 2001 and BIS Annual Report: The unsustainable has run its course and policymakers face the difficult task of damage control, 30 June 2008. 7  See Box 9 – Market dynamics and options selling, pp. 60-61, Bank of England Financial Stability Review, June 2005. 10  BIS Review 93/2008  Table 1 Growth of selected financial markets (per cent) OTC derivatives (notional principal outstanding) (a) 98H1 - 07H1 07H1 - 07H2 FX forwards and swaps 8.1 18.8 FX options 11.0 8.0 Interest rate swaps 28.1 13.7 Interest rate options 23.4 8.9 (a) 05H1 - 07H1 07H1 - 07H2 Credit default swaps 17.2 36.0 Asset-backed securities (issuance) (a) (b) 98H1 - 07H1 07H1 - 07H2 07H2 - 08Q1 Non-agency RMBS 15.7 -67.4 -67.5 CMBS 25.0 -40.9 -93.8 Auto loans 7.8 -32.5 -17.1 Credit cards 6.7 -9.8 19.0 Student loans 12.0 -56.9 -34.2 Collateralised debt obligations (issuance) (a) (b) 05H1 - 07H1 07H1 - 07H2 07H2 - 08Q1 Corporate CDOs 121.0 -46.0 -92.1 CLOs 42.5 -56.9 -74.4 ABS CDOs 38.7 -68.2 -85.2 Sources: BIS, Dealogic and SIFMA. (a) Annual growth rate. (b) Growth of annualised issuance. 43 It is vital that market forces should be decisive in determining which instruments live or die.
Yves Mersch: Translating a shared vision into a winning story Closing remarks by Mr Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the T2S Launch Celebration, Milan, 2 July 2015. *  *  *  We chose to call this T2S launch celebration “Translating a shared vision into a winning story”. Listening to the speakers for the past two hours I believe the name was just right. We have heard how the T2S Community transformed the shared vision of an integrated securities settlement landscape into a winning story, culminating in the launch of T2S on 22 June. Stimulating views have been shared tonight and I would like to thank the speakers for presenting their perspectives on the capital markets union. It is evident that T2S, post-trade harmonisation and the CSD Regulation are among the elements that will be pushing this agenda forward. Looking around the room I am happy to see so many familiar faces. Faces of people who have been part of the project since the idea of T2S was born in 2006. The journey over the past nine years has been an inspiring one. There have been some bumps in the road, some twists and turns, but with the launch of T2S we have achieved a monumental milestone. We made the vision of a single securities settlement platform for Europe a reality.

In autumn 2002, Norges Bank established a regional network as a tool to gauge the level of activity in the Norwegian economy. The network consists of companies, organisations and municipalities throughout Norway. In the two contact rounds in connection with Inflation Report 1/03, discussions were held with 440 contacts. We will be having six rounds of talks each year with business and community leaders concerning financial developments in their enterprises and industries, with about 200 visits in each round. The selection of contacts represents the production side of the economy, both industry-wise and geographically. In the course of 2003, the number of contacts associated with the network will rise to about 1000 persons, who will be contacted once or twice a year. Østlandsforskningen is responsible for the network and conducts contact meetings in Hedmark county. Our assessments are based primarily on official statistics, but because of the time lag involved and revisions of these statistics, supplementary information from other sources is useful. The regional network provides up-to-date information on the state of the Norwegian economy. Regular talks with local business and community leaders provide information that can supplement available official  BIS Review 23/2003  3  statistics. Moreover, we obtain supplementary information about areas not covered by official statistical sources. We also learn which issues are of particular concern to enterprises. Region Inland seems to have felt the impact of the downturn to a lesser extent than other parts of the country. Developments in domestic manufacturing are approximately in step with domestic consumption.