samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
When the agreement was officially signed at the Hofburg Palace here in Vienna this summer, with the Austrian president in attendance, I was reminded that it would perhaps have been impossible to achieve such an outcome on such a delicate and sensitive issue without this foremost mental closeness and some similarity of thought. However over the top it might seem to some, we are indeed very close mentally as well as geographically – perhaps more so than we would care to admit and more than we would like to admit, I should add. So, if you want to know a bit about the future of our economic, civic and other relationships and want to know how the other country is going to respond/react, all you need to do is look in the mirror. As really, you look at your neighbour in the Czech Republic or Austria, you will see something of yourself. Our relationships are sometimes like those within a broad family. Needless to say, we don’t always get along swimmingly. Besides many positive emotions, there is sometimes envy, spite, bickering, lack of understanding. Again, how typical are all these emotions for broader families. As a result, issues can arise between us. But that feeling of closeness in my eyes remains and should remain. It is a feeling I firmly believe we might share.

One possible way to cut through Too-Big-To-Fail is to adjust our sense of what “Fail” involves. Perhaps it does not have to involve liquidation or administration. Perhaps it does not have to involve a binary shift from “going concern” to “gone concern”. But it does have to involve loss for equity holders and uninsured creditors. It does have to rekindle market discipline. It does have to preserve the flow of financial services. Those are, surely, the essential components of the resolution leg of the regulation, structure, resolution triangle that make up the reform debate. Individual countries or economic areas such as the EU can get only so far on their own. To cope with distress in global banking, we need to decide whether or not we want international collaboration in the resolution of cross-border banking groups. That is a question which, one way or another, the highest reaches of the authorities should answer as part of the reform debate. Once that is clear, some of the questions about structure and regulation might become clearer. A lot rests on whether we can resolve distressed LCFIs. We need to answer the big questions. 6  Examples of such safeguards include: creditors left no worse of than in liquidation; netting and set-off agreements respected; secured creditor claims and collateral kept together; and capital market arrangements, such as covered bond programmes and securitisations, protected. 6  BIS Review 33/2010
08.07.2019  The Banco de España and its promotion of economic history research Presentation of the “Guide to Historical Banking Archives in Spain” Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure for me to close this conference, which has presented the “Guide to Historical Banking Archives in Spain”. This publication, both for the quality of its information and the wealth of data it contains, will no doubt contribute to increasing knowledge on the historical development of the Spanish banking system. I would like to thank all those who have participated in this project for their efforts. My gratitude in particular to the academic historian, Pedro Tedde, to Professor María del Carmen Angulo, and to all those institutions and individuals who have enthusiastically collaborated in the publication of the guides to their respective archives. And naturally, too, to the Banco de España teams behind this initiative. The value of the initiative lies in the very value of the Spanish banking and Banco de España archive collections. These archives are fundamental to the study of our history and the development of Spain’s banking system. In this respect, I wish to highlight the importance of having historical archives that allow documents to be held and conserved and that guarantee their traceability and integrity. Without these archives, our knowledge of the past would no doubt be limited. Indeed, their subject matter provides for well-founded historical analysis and for a better understanding of the reasons that led to specific financial decisions.

And it is this tradition that has enabled the Banco de España to continue promoting economic history research. Many of these figures were my predecessors as governors or directors general of what was then known as the Research Department. 3/5  Others, who collaborated with them, then went on, in many cases, to pursue brilliant careers in academia and research. Indeed, some are here with us today. For the sake of brevity, and so as not to run the risk of missing anybody out, I will not mention in detail those who continued the work of the pioneers Mariano Rubio, Ángel Madroñero and Joan Sardà back in the 1960s. As a tribute to their work and following in their wake, I shall, without being exhaustive, set out some of the projects that our Bank currently has under way or on the drawing board in terms of promoting economic history studies. Firstly, the Banco de España regularly organises conferences focusing on the discussion of aspects relating to economic history. This year, for example, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Stabilisation Plan, the Banco de España will, next October, be organising a conference in Barcelona focusing on the analysis of the Plan. It will likewise pay tribute to the figure of Joan Sardà. I trust you will be able to join us at this conference. Also, since 2015 the Bank has organised annually a top-level international economic history conference aimed at academia.
We would experience a Minsky Moment for monetary policy, a taper tantrum without the taper.10 This would leave monetary policy needing to play catch-up to re-anchor inflation expectations through materially larger and/or faster interest rate rises than are currently expected. Even if this scenario is a risk rather than a central view, it is a risk that is rising fast and which is best managed ex-ante rather than responded to ex-post. If this risk were to be realised, everyone would lose – central banks with missed mandates needing to execute an economic hand-brake turn, businesses and households facing a higher cost of borrowing and living, and governments facing rising debt-servicing costs. As in the past, avoiding that inflation surprise is one of the central tasks of central banks. These near-term inflation concerns also have a bearing on the medium-term risks facing central banks. After the Global Financial Crisis, central banks went in large and fast with QE, I believe rightly, to support the economy. They then withdrew that stimulus slowly, if at all, to protect the fragile recovery – again, I believe rightly. As a result of these actions, central banks’ balance sheets, including the Bank’s, inflated quickly and never subsequently deflated. When the Covid crisis struck, central banks again went in large and fast to protect a collapsing economy, I believe rightly. Balance sheets ratcheted higher. On current expectations, central bank balance sheets are unlikely to deflate any faster than after the Global Financial Crisis. But this time that policy script feels stretched.

UK inflation expectations ratcheted down by a further 50 basis points on announcement, as credibility stepped-up.5 The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was soon formed and met for the first time in June 1997. Internally, a new machine and procedures were developed to service and support the MPC. The centrepiece of this support was a meeting called “Pre-MPC”. This was a full day of briefing presentations by Bank staff to the MPC. It is, and remains, the closest you will ever get to economic theatre at the Bank of England. Bank Staff sit on one side of the amphitheatre armed with Powerpoint presentations, the MPC sit on the other armed with tricky questions. As luck would have it, I gave the first-ever pre-MPC presentation at the first-ever pre-MPC. The room was rammed with banks of screens, crowds of people and clouds of cigarette smoke – three of the MPC were smokers, including the Chair Eddie George. I was a bag of nerves. Eddie gave me the nod, I pressed the button on my PC to start the presentation – and all the screens went blank and an ear-piecing noise let out around the room, the type of which instantly causes teeth to grind. 3  Haldane (1995). Briault, Haldane and King (1997). 5 King (2002). 4  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  With my bag of nerves now full to overflowing, I peered through the fug of Rothmans to see Eddie staring back at me.
These pairs of possible clearing rates can be derived from the bids, and the resulting “frontier” can be converted into a “demand schedule” mapping the difference between the two clearing rates (known as the stop-out spread) against the proportion of the auction that would be allocated to wider collateral (and hence by implication, narrow collateral) in each case. This concept is best understood using a simple example. Consider Table 1 below, which shows hypothetical bids from six counterparties. Three of the bids are against the narrow collateral set (N) and the remaining three are against the wider set (W). At the end of the auction, the bids within each set are ranked from those with the highest spread to those with the lowest spread, as shown. For simplicity of exposition, assume that there are no paired bids, and that the Bank has committed to supply £ in this operation. The most systematic way to construct the demand curve is to start at the top left corner solution where all the funds are allocated against narrow collateral (bidders 4, 5 and 6 all have their bids filled). The clearing spread would be the lowest accepted bid on the narrow collateral: 10bps and that would dictate the uniform price.16 Now assume that 99% is allocated to narrow (conveniently 1% is equal to £ in this example), and 1% to wider collateral.

Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell: Elements for intervention on accounting issues Speaking notes by Ms Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the colloquium “La juste valeur dans tous ses Etats”, organised by the Académie des Sciences et Techniques Comptables et Financières, Paris, 27 April 2010. *  *  *  Which are the issues related to the fair value for companies? Fair value is an appropriate measurement for certain financial instruments, notably those that are held for trading (i.e. business model is to generate profits by buying/selling in the short term) and for which reliable market prices are readily available, as well as for derivatives. Indeed, given that many derivative contracts have a zero cost at inception, fair value accounting is crucial as it recognises the potential leveraged exposure on the balance sheet. Fair value accounting mainly raises two issues: first, when to apply fair value measurement (conceptual considerations) and second, how to apply fair value measurement (operational challenges). First, in our view fair value accounting does not provide decision-useful information to investors if the intention of an entity is to hold the assets until maturity or to settle the liabilities at their nominal amount at maturity. In these cases, recognising interim fair value changes simply heightens the volatility of the financial accounts, without providing actual “information content”. This is typically the case for the loan book of commercial banks.
This is money we could have used for consumption and welfare. And let us remember that this is just one of the effects. Add to this the reduction in wealth in the form of falling values of companies, financial instruments and other assets. Contagion effects in a globalised financial market The origins of the crisis lay in US subprime mortgages. Although Swedish banks had very little exposure to this type of asset, the crisis nevertheless affected them. Like the Swedish economy as a whole, the Swedish financial system is very dependent on other countries. For example, only half of the banks’ funding is deposits from private individuals, companies and institutions in Sweden. The rest is borrowed on the market, and a large part of this on international markets. Moreover, most of the funding is relatively short term. This is not unique to Sweden. The advantage is that it reduces the banks’ funding costs, which in turn  2  BIS Review 159/2010  makes it cheaper for households and companies to borrow money. But there are also disadvantages. As the banks have made themselves more dependent on the outside world, they have of course become more vulnerable to problems arising abroad. When the international money markets slammed on the brakes in autumn 2008 the Swedish banks’ funding was immediately affected. Not least because they had borrowed money in the short term. So unlike the crisis of the 1990s the crisis we have just experienced is largely an imported one.

But the role of capital is primarily to reduce the risk of a bank failing at all. When the bank suffers losses it should have a capital buffer to meet them and thereby be able to continue its operations. What this means for the banks in the end, as for the rest of us, is that they must try to earn more money than they spend and have sufficient reserves to cope with the periods when they don’t. The banks manage this by constantly assessing the risk that a borrower will experience difficulties in meeting interest payments or paying off the loan. If this risk increases, the bank leaves a good margin for it by adjusting its lending or allocating reserves for potential losses. But as borrowers are affected by so many factors that are difficult to judge – for instance, economic recessions have very different impacts on different sectors and geographical areas – it is easy for the bank’s losses to become larger than expected. The minimum capital required by the regulations should act as a buffer against such unexpected losses. It is necessary for everyone to be convinced the bank will survive in order for it to survive. If the bank is perceived as unsteady, the supply of money will be cut off. A lack of sufficient capital buffers can easily shake confidence in the bank. And this was exactly what happened when the crisis loomed large. People were uncertain how badly off the banks were.
There are also common efforts to fully open our economies and to attract foreign capital. As we are in the process of fully opening our markets, we are benefiting from increased competition, improved productivity and efficiency, and increasing quality of services for our citizens. But, we are also facing several uncertainties and risks. Markets remain segmented and their infrastructure faces difficulties in supporting new and imposed developments. Market infrastructure deficiencies exacerbate their shallowness and make it difficult for various market participants to act in order to meet their business objectives and manage their risks. The technological improvements have to fully show their effect in meaningfully reducing costs of financial services. Regulatory gaps in different areas of local financial markets create the conditions for regulatory arbitrage and may adversely affect the supervisory work. BIS Review 103/2006  1  Therefore, erroneous and costly decisions are unavoidable. The financial situation of single market participants, due to market segmentation, is highly affected by their capacity to find financial support in the international financial markets. In reality, this leads to an increasing gap among so called “big” and “small” or among foreign and locally owned financial institutions. Real economy development is an additional source of risk for financial markets. Such interaction should be carefully watched to better understand financial market trend in the future and identify financial imbalances in a country and regional level. Indeed, we are all experiencing a construction “boom”, where residential house prices have increased considerably.

The inherent difficulty of assessing the short-term costs of structural reforms in real time creates significant moral hazard problems, with governments having an incentive to overestimate the costs of reforms they are implementing to mask additional spending or shortfalls in consolidation efforts unrelated to reforms. Having said that, it is clear that the recent reform of the Stability and Growth Pact allows fiscal policy to mitigate the possible short-term cost of structural reforms, if these are clearly specified and can be quantified. It is, however, crucial that fiscal authorities create the necessary room for manoeuvre regarding their possible support for the implementation of reforms beforehand. Otherwise, there is a risk of significant policy mistakes, with reforms eventually leading to persistent increases in deficit and debt ratios. Employment rates in the euro area and the US  Source: Eurostat. 4  BIS Review 31/2008
Jaime Caruana: Making diligent preparations for Basel II Opening remarks by Mr Jaime Caruana, Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, at the Thirteenth International Conference of Banking Supervisors (ICBS), Madrid, 22-23 September 2004. * 1. *  *  Welcome and overview  Distinguished guests and friends: as the Governor of the Bank of Spain, it is my pleasure to serve as your host at the Thirteenth International Conference of Banking Supervisors here in Madrid. I am also privileged to serve in a second capacity at this event as chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. In that regard, it is my honour to launch our dialogue on the two main themes selected for this conference. As you know, the Committee reached agreement on an historic revision of the international capital framework just this past June. So naturally an important focus for this conference will be on preparing for its implementation. In addition, because Basel II relies increasingly on the quantification of risk exposures to understand a bank’s risk profile, it is more important than ever before to look behind the numbers and into the rules that define how exposures are measured. The second day of our conference will be devoted to the emerging issues in accounting and their relevance to banking supervision.

The majority of global consumer transactions still take place through cash. As previous Currency Conferences have affirmed, we expect physical cash to remain necessary and relevant. Digital media has significantly transformed the way we experience the world. However, it has not brought us to the closing pages for physical media – including notes and coins. This may appear strange, if one considers the fact that much of our communication, planning and transportation revolve around the internet. As a recent McKinsey report puts it, mobile devices have become the “digital container” of our daily lives. This marks a profound cultural shift. The smartphone is fast becoming an extension of ourselves. Indeed, this digitalisation is altering the way payments are being made. We are not only spending more time online, we are spending more money through online channels. Our familiarity with and dependence on mobile devices is unprecedented. I believe that this attachment has made us increasingly comfortable with digital payments. They now appear more intuitive, more reliable and more convenient than ever before. This trend is evident in the findings of a recent international survey by ING. Most of the respondents are using less cash now compared to a year ago. A third of Europeans surveyed were even willing to go completely cashless if it were possible. We have seen a similar shift here in Malaysia. When internet banking was first introduced in Malaysia back in 2000, most people were sceptical about its safety and reluctant to learn how to use it.
20 [30]  However, the interdependence between monetary and fiscal policy is not reflected in the monetary and fiscal policy frameworks. The frameworks are designed so that the two policy areas function independently of each other. The Riksbank has a high degree of autonomy and a mandate that prioritises price stability. The budgetary policy objective of fiscal policy is to ensure that fiscal policy is stable over time, which in practice means that government debt should be sustainable in the long term. This approach is based on the view that fiscal policy has little impact on inflation; that monetary policy has negligible fiscal consequences; and that a fiscal policy mandate that stabilises government debt and budget deficits is sufficient to support the central bank's inflation target.38 Central banks' difficulties in bringing inflation up to target without relatively drastic measures after the financial crisis may indicate that this view has been too simple. A fiscal policy that is expansionary when inflation is too low and contractionary when it is too high makes it easier to achieve the inflation target.39 It may of course be politically easier to conduct an expansionary fiscal policy, but it is important that it is symmetrical so that the national debt does not risk becoming too large.

Purchases of private assets and assets other than government securities are primarily relevant when markets that are important to the financial system are threatened, and we risk an acute financial crisis, such as at the start of the pandemic. Under the new Sveriges Riksbank Act, the Riksbank can – under certain conditions – buy and sell Swedish securities issued by the government and private actors. Our monetary policy toolbox in this respect remains the same as before. However, the new act has a more restrictive view of when it may be relevant to purchase private securities. The Riksbank may only buy and sell such securities if there are exceptional reasons. This means in practice that, from a monetary policy perspective, we can only buy and sell private securities when we cannot achieve the desired effect on the economy by using other measures. The new act also gives the Riksbank a more explicit mandate than before to trade in securities, also within the scope of our task of contributing to a stable and efficient financial system. To counter serious disruptions in the financial system, the Riksbank may if there are exceptional reasons buy and sell financial instruments at predetermined prices to temporarily support the functioning of systemically important financial markets. An important task for the Riksbank is to be the lender of last resort for important credit institutions that have problems, but also, under certain conditions, to act to keep markets that are critical to the financial system going.