samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Now, one year later, the economy is still very strong, yet some important changes have taken place – changes that in some respects have reduced the potential risks to price stability and financial stability. First of all, the vast majority of the capital controls have been lifted, and these risks have not materialised. Short-term exchange rate volatility did indeed increase, but this was expected, and it was not pronounced enough to cause financial instability, as I will discuss further in a moment. And exchange rate volatility has subsided this autumn. Second, the historical achievement of monetary policy, which was on the horizon last year, has now been confirmed much more convincingly. The credibility of monetary policy has increased, as can be seen perhaps most clearly in inflation expectations, which are now much more firmly anchored to 1  the target. It is not least this that made it possible to lower the Bank’s key interest rate by a full percentage point in this one year, even though demand pressures in the economy were growing until recently and interest rates were already low in historical context in 2016, after adjusting for the business cycle position. I explained this in detail in my speech last year. Third, GDP growth appears to be approaching its long-term trend rate more rapidly than previously anticipated, and indications that the positive output gap has already peaked have grown stronger.

Jaime Caruana: Reflections on financial information from the standpoint of a banking supervisor Speech by Mr Jaime Caruana, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the 13th XBRL International Conference, Madrid, 16 May 2006. *  *  *  Introduction Good afternoon. I would like to begin by thanking the organisers of this 13th XBRL International Conference for their kind invitation to participate. I am delighted to have this opportunity to close today’s session by sharing with you some reflections on financial information from the standpoint of a banking supervisor. And it is, of course, a special pleasure for me to be able to address this audience in my home country. I guess that, looking from the outside, it might seem somewhat strange that banking supervisors and other regulators are taking such an active interest in a computer language. But I think that all of us here are very well aware of the role that tools such as XBRL can play in promoting the effective and efficient flow of financial information, and it is on this wider objective that I want to focus my intervention today. I will begin with a brief introduction to recall the important role that information plays in financial markets from a macroeconomic perspective.
The impact of external factors moved inflation up to 11.4% in 2014. Unfortunately, it turned out to exceed the level we had expected. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  According to our estimates, sanctions and external trade restrictions account for one-third of the surfeit of inflation over the 5% target level, and ruble depreciation accounts for two-thirds. These are one-off factors and now we can see the inflation going down. It responds to the set of measures taken by the Bank of Russia to stabilise the situation. Let me remind you of these measures. These are both the transition to the floating exchange rate, and the unpopular but absolutely needed decision to raise the key rate. I would like to emphasise that as soon as the situation began to stabilise we started to gradually reduce the key rate. We have already cut it four times as we realise its importance for the economy and lending. The Bank of Russia introduced non-conventional refinancing instruments and started to lend foreign currency. This allowed us to pass the spikes in external debt repayments relatively easily this year amid restricted access to foreign markets. We worked with exporters to ensure that our major suppliers of foreign currency sell it evenly. Meanwhile, the stabilisation of the financial system in January should not be tied to the oil price growth alone. Certainly this process was supported by the oil price growth.

But even excluding those price increases, inflation had moved up on account of, for example, a growing tendency for wage costs to rise too rapidly. With a quick global economic recovery, there was a risk of the Swedish economy becoming excessively strained too soon in the upward phase, so that inflation would start rising again. During the summer, however, the perspective has changed and it looks as though the recovery in the world economy has recently slowed. Probable explanations for this are the widespread financial turbulence and the concern about the mounting security policy risks. Most of the evidence therefore points at present to the international economic upturn being slower and more protracted. The Swedish economy, which, as I said, has coped fairly well to date, cannot of course ultimately remain immune to developments in the rest of the world. Pronounced stock market fall Thus, the developments in financial markets have heightened the uncertainty about the future paths of consumption and investment, both in the rest of the world and in Sweden. If the international stock  BIS Review 59/2002  1  exchanges were to go on falling or the effects of the decline to date turn out to be more extensive, the scenario for the Swedish economy could become considerably less favourable. A closer look at stock markets shows that since the high in spring 2000 there has been a major fall around the world.
General concerns for all regions in Africa primarily encompass the problems of deforestation, scarcity of water resources, access to clean water sources, and access to non-pollutant energy sources such as electricity. Primary concerns of the northern and some parts of the eastern, western, and southern  3  The World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio +10), African Preparatory Conference for the World Summit on Sustainable Development Nairobi, 15-18 October 2001. 6  BIS Review 74/2004  sub-regions however include the effects of desertification on human development and economic growth. Regional government policies in Tanzania, have led to implementation of environmental management policies aimed at promoting waste management, urban planning, and impact assessments for large projects. Government authorities have created designated protected areas aimed at conserving forests as well as supporting community-based income. This initiative is also being implemented in Zambia. Africa now has a total of 1,254 protected areas, or 7% of the landmass. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) plays an important role in the implementation of programmes aimed at improving the environmental sustainability of the region. Acknowledging the importance of water in development, the SADC Water Sector Coordination Unit was established in 1996. Prior to the formation of this Unit a Protocol on Shared Water Course Systems was ratified by the majority of the SADC Member States. This Protocol aims to promote the availability of fresh water resources in the region.

This is in the light of an important contemporary directive of European Union, which we are working to introduce in our banking legislation. Last, but not least, we will continue our efforts during 2016 for the further institutional perfection the Bank of Albania, aiming a fast approximation to the model of ESCB central banks. The new organisational structure and the three-year development strategy of the Bank of Albania will guide a set of decisions of the Bank of Albania's Supervisory Council to improve legal and sub-legal acts. The daily activity of the Bank of Albania's departments, the mobilisation and motivation of human resources, efficient management of funds for the financing of the activity, the strengthening of the internal audit and risk management in the activity of the Bank of Albania will be the main priorities in our work during 2016. Thank You! BIS central bankers’ speeches  3
As a result, today, unlike a few months ago, nobody is defending the possibility of certain European economies decoupling from what is happening in the United States. As you can imagine, the Spanish economy has not been able to remain unaffected by these processes. In fact, our country, which had been building up certain imbalances, in the form of rapid growth of household and corporate debt and, consequently, of a large external deficit, had already embarked upon a smooth correction from mid-2006. However, global events have accelerated and intensified this adjustment, even though, from the viewpoint of the financial system, Spanish banks have had absolutely nothing to do with the causes of the financial crisis. They have not generated doubtful assets like US banks have, nor have they invested in these assets like many European Banks have. However, the financial crisis has not only affected the institutions that generated these toxic products or invested in them but, by inducing financial market breakdown, has spread to all institutions. For Spain, this means that the adjustment process must now take place in the presence of much more difficult conditions in the financial and international environment than we have enjoyed during the last decade. That said, the Banco de España has pointed out on a number of occasions that some of the adjustment we are experiencing is an inevitable part of economic developments, which will allow correction of the imbalances that had been accumulating during the upswing.

It is vital that governments and parliaments reject these temptations, not only because of the possible budgetary repercussions, but also because it is essential that economic agents adapt to the new realities, however painful these may be. This is even more important when these realities, like the price of oil and the availability of funds on international financial markets, are global phenomena that even countries larger and more powerful than our own have been unable to influence. Thus, the aim should not be to isolate the Spanish economy and protect its agents from the various shocks that we have suffered in recent quarters, but rather to facilitate the adjustment process, permitting changes in relative prices (energy, labour costs, mark-ups) and the reallocation of resources across sectors to take place with a high degree of flexibility. Another approach that must be ruled out is short-termism. In general, economic policy should be designed in all situations from a long-term viewpoint, because many important measures  2  BIS Review 117/2008  (I dare say the most important) are structural, and these are the ones that tackle the economy’s fundamental problems. It is understandable that, when faced with a stream of bad economic news, like at present, public opinion calls for rapid reactions and that the temptation to focus on short-term measures increases. Such proposals are also based on the idea that structural measures only have medium and long-term effects, and are therefore inappropriate for a period of economic weakness. This is not true.
Second, progress is being made to reduce the vulnerabilities intrinsic to the derivatives markets. We, regulators, tend to think that clearing and settling those derivatives through CCCPs will considerably reduce aggregate counterparty risk, limit the contagion channels, hence strengthening the whole financial system’s robustness. I am fully aware that there are doubts, in some parts of the financial community, on the opportunity of such an evolution. There are fears it will lead to greater standardization of derivative products and less flexible markets overall. This is clearly a case, where the optimum trade-off between efficiency and stability is different according to the market and regulator’s point of view. But, of course,  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  regulators’ views are naturally finding their way into legislation, especially on this issue, as you know, in the United States. More generally, when any new financial regulations are designed, two polar views were expressed. One view is that regulatory reforms will take a significant toll on the economy. The argument is because they would raise, in this case, the cost of funding for the economy. It is feared that financial institutions will then pass this cost on to the private sector through an increase in lending rates or worse abandon certain financing segments. This would in turn have a negative effect on output growth.

In practice, how can we successfully diversify the sources of financing? At the national level, I am pleased to see that the “Pacte” law drafted by the Minister for the Economy and Finance seeks to foster long-term an d equity-based life insurance contracts – by overhauling Eurocroissance – and encourage and simplify retirement savings, including the annuity component which has the longest investment horizon. Moreover, one approach supported by the Banque de France is the implementation of an ambitious European framework: [slide 4]a “Financing Union for Investment and Innovation” to better channel the euro area’s EUR 400 billion savings surplus into equity financing and innovation. This Financing Union needsto unite and build on existing initiatives, first and foremost the Capital Markets Union, but also the Banking Union and the Juncker Investment Plan. It also means making concrete progress in several areas: the revision of accounting rules, taxation and insolvency lawsin order to facilitate cross-border investment, notably in equity; the European-wide development of long-term savings products and investment vehicles such as venture capital funds; the completion of the Banking Union. 2. Avoiding an angelic vision: monitoring, testing, regulating So no irrational fears in the face of the shadows; but no angelic vision either. [slide 5] A portion of shadow banking is still overly exposed to credit, liquidity, leverage and maturity risk, and there is significant potential for these to spread to the rest of the financial system and cause financial instability. We discussed this issue at the IMF and G20 meetings in Washington just last week.
But the reviews did surface areas for improvement. They identified specific areas – like trade finance, infrastructure finance, SME finance and market liquidity – where the cumulative effects of various reforms had led to sub-optimal social outcomes. This led the way to carefully calibrated adjustments to regulations that eased the constraints in these areas without significantly increasing risk. The responsiveness and flexibility shown by regulators helped to sustain the broad-based political and industry consensus in favour of the post-crisis reforms. Today, looking back from the vantage point of 2028, we can say with greater certainty that the post-crisis reforms have left us a financial system that is, on the whole, more robust and more resilient. 2/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  Large banks are now stronger, more liquid, and less leveraged. Derivatives markets are safer and better collateralised. The era of enhanced supervision (2021 onwards) The third phase began from around the early 2020s, when the focus shifted away from rulemaking to enhancing the supervision of financial institutions. The Global Financial Crisis was not just about gaps in regulation, it was also about gaps in risk management and supervisory oversight. Three developments in recent years added new impetus to the supervision agenda. First, as the international activities of global banks increased and became more complex, regulators realised that effective supervision increasingly required much stronger cross-border co-operation and even co-ordination.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that we can hope to provide all the knowledge and information needed, at exactly the right times, for individuals to successfully navigate the digital financial landscape. Rather, our job as a financial education community is to help people become comfortable with the language and ways of digital financial services - much like learning how to get around and get things done in a new city. Then individuals will be far better able to adapt to the continual changes brought about by new technologies and empowered to know what to look for, where to look, and how to make sense and use what they find to their best advantage. This is not achieved in one month or over the few days that our teams will be spending in each location on the roadshow. It requires sustained efforts on our collective part to help your customers, the schools and organisations that you work with, and the public at large, build greater confidence in using financial services effectively. 17. Financial education is absolutely central to the goal of making sure that finance works for the people. Today, more than at any time before, our society needs the right  3/4  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  knowledge and skills to manage their finances. Saving for retirement, borrowing responsibly, investing wisely, and protecting against financial harm will build resilient households. Resilient households, in turn, will promote financial stability and healthy economies.
Although it will not be the case in all interest rate environments, currently, purchasing newly issued production coupons removes from private hands securities that generally have greater exposure to duration risk, since the borrowers whose loans back these lower coupon agency MBS have limited incentive to refinance.13 Moreover, by purchasing in the TBA market, investors also ultimately deliver securities that have relatively more prepayment risk than the more valuable securities that trade as specified pools. One difficulty with purchasing in a manner that is roughly proportional to anticipated gross issuance is that it can be difficult to forecast which securities will be produced in the future. Gross issuance of new securities changes over time, based on the level of refinancing and home purchase activity, and the production coupons will vary along with the overall level of interest rates. This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that TBA market transactions settle up to three months in the future, so in many cases the Desk is purchasing a security that has not yet been issued. For example, mortgage originators will often sell agency MBS backed by loans that they anticipate will close, which allows them to hedge the risk that interest rates will change in the period of time between when a borrower locks in his or her mortgage rate and when the securitized loan is sold.

Timothy F Geithner: The Fed Challenge Remarks by Mr Timothy F Geithner, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the National Academy Foundation’s 2004 Dinner, New York, 8 December 2004. *  *  *  Thank you, Gene, for that generous introduction. It is a pleasure to be here tonight to celebrate the National Academy Foundation and all of your contributions to this important mission. I am very pleased to accept this award on behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I want to compliment Sandy Weill on his commitment to education and the achievements of the NAF. And I want to recognize three important people from the New York Fed who are responsible for the Fed Challenge: Steve Malin, Lloyd Bromberg and Bob Diamant. Among these and other contributions to public service, Sandy serves as a member of the board of directors of the New York Fed. I want to tell you his reaction to a presentation early this year on our work in financial education. Sandy listened carefully to the description of the full array of New York Fed programs. Then, in his typically tentative and understated way, with the same soft approach he brought to building one of the most formidable financial institutions in the world, asked why the Bank didn’t limit its role in education to simply supporting the National Academy Foundation.
The main shock to financial stability and monetary policy would be if asset prices were to drop sharply at the same time as the growth of real disposable income slows down at the end of the aluminium-related investment boom. Lending developments As I mentioned before, lending growth is a cause for concern, both for financial stability and the Central Bank’s inflation target. Domestic lending grew at a brisk pace in 2003 and this development appears to be heading in the same direction this year. Total domestic lending by deposit money banks over the twelve months to the end of January increased by about 23%, which is above a rate consistent with longterm price stability and economic stability. The period 1998 to 2001 provides a recent example of the consequences of heavy credit growth. Both arrears and loan losses rose in the wake of the credit boom, leading to a temporary tightening of the commercial banks’ and savings banks’ foreign funding. While the recession and the ensuing strain on the financial system are now over, it can be partly ascribed to relatively favourable economic conditions and the consequently sharp turnaround in the exchange rate of the króna that financial companies only sustained minor setbacks. Proportionally, the highest growth in deposit money banks’ lending has been to foreign borrowers, but foreign currency-denominated lending to domestic entities has also surged, by more than 45% over the past 12 months.

In 2002 the Central Bank began building up its foreign reserves again, purchasing foreign currency for the equivalent of 4.5 b.kr. Last year the Bank stepped up these purchases to the equivalent of 43.2 b.kr. Nonetheless, the Bank’s purchases only amounted to 3.6%  2  BIS Review 18/2004  of total turnover in the FX market during the year. By mid-2003 the Central Bank had repaid its foreign short-term borrowing in full and at the end of the year the foreign reserves amounted to more than 58 b.kr. This year the Bank has continued to purchase currency in the market, but on a smaller scale than in 2003. It thereby aims to strengthen its foreign reserves even more this year. Ample foreign reserves are an obvious prudential measure and one of the factors that international ratings agencies consider when evaluating the creditworthiness of Iceland’s sovereign and corporate debt. However, a high level of reserves does leave the Central Bank’s operations much more exposed to changes in the exchange rate, as reflected in the minor operating loss reported for last year, which was described earlier at this meeting. Financial stability The Central Bank is obliged by law to promote price stability and also an efficient and safe financial system, including payment systems domestically and with foreign countries. In most countries these are he main objectives of central banks.