samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The sub-region came into the new millennium with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $ 80 billion, representing about 10 percent of the GDP of Spain and against a backdrop of high unemployment, it is not surprising that income per capita averages 386 US dollars for our sub-region one of the lowest in the world. In addition, virtually all the countries are burdened by a huge debt overhang. Indeed, only two of the 15 countries of ECOWAS are not classified among the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC). Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not intend to spoil your day with depressing statistics about the economic performance of the sub-region as this would be tantamount to showing you only one side of the coin. The more pleasant face of this coin shows a sub-region parading some of the world’s leading exporters of crude oil, diamonds and gold, as well as abundant maritime resources. Many of our countries also perform well in the global market for other commodities, including cocoa, cotton and groundnuts. However, when the abundant resource-endowment of the sub-region is set against its pandemic poverty, we see a development paradox that challenges scholars and policy makers alike. Several reasons have been advanced for this state of affairs. They include inappropriate macroeconomic policies, weak institutions, weak executive capacity, weak legal institutions, and severe exogenous and endogenous factors. Time will not permit me to dwell on the relative contribution of each of these factors to the overall poor economic performance.

One reaction to these extremely large packages – "bailouts" – and the accompanying moral hazard is simply to say that the official sector should have no part to play in what is essentially a private international capital market. Official lending is now small relative to private capital flows. Over the last three years, private flows have been around 7.5 times greater than official flows, according to IIF data. Against that backdrop, some have argued that the IMF should be abolished. This would be to throw out the baby with the bath water. What is needed is a "middle way" between full IMF insurance and no insurance at all. This middle way would comprise IMF lending but within strong presumptive limits. A key principle underlying this approach is that the international community needs to set out as clearly as possible the criteria that will govern the size and scope of IMF lending. Since most agree that there are limits on IMF lending, there is merit in explaining those limits to both potential borrowing countries and their private creditors. This would enable debtor countries better to plan their policies. It would also allow creditors to assess risk more accurately. Indeed, put more controversially, how can sovereign risk be accurately assessed without clarity about the Fund's role? A lack of clarity about the likely response of the international community to potential crises is a recipe for inaccurate assessments of risk. Such uncertainty would add to the (already high) cost of borrowing by emerging markets.
Furthermore, for the last several months, we have been experiencing an economic cooldown whose causes largely lie outside the euro area. According to the IMF, heightened trade tensions are expected to shave up to 0.8% off global GDP in 2020, primarily due to mounting political uncertainty and a resulting decline in business confidence. At 3% in 2019, global growth is expected to be at its lowest level since 2008/09. The euro area as a whole has been badly affected, principally due to the weight of Germany, whose growth at best is expected to amount to 0.5% this year. Our country is holding out far better with expected growth of 1.3% this year and the next. I would just like to add a few words about Brexit: even with a withdrawal agreement, all aspects of a possible trade agreement and its financial services component will still have to be negotiated in 2020. The uncertainty surrounding Brexit will therefore continue. Our monitoring of the implementation of contingency plans, however, gives us confidence for the future of the French insurance industry: for our part, we are ready, for every scenario. Given the context of prolonged uncertainty, we are compelled to pursue an accommodative monetary policy. It would go against all logic to raise interest rates now. When there are reasons for supporting demand, which is apparent in the excessively low inflation we see today, active monetary policies have to be maintained.

During the Storting’s deliberations on Norges Bank’s activities, the following comment was made: “… Norges Bank had offered immediate support at a moment when it was less important to be the Bank’s director and more important to keep a cool head and a warm heart.” Norges Bank’s heart beat for the monetary system. Cold reason dictated that if the turbulence in the banking system was allowed to spread, the country’s economy would suffer a heavy blow. The year 1905 is regarded as a milestone in Norway’s history. But in the history of the monetary system, the year is almost a non-event, although Norges Bank noted some unrest through summer and autumn. There was a risk of war, and as the population braced for what might come, Norwegian banknotes, rather than gold, were in demand. In other words, the Norwegian currency was regarded as safe, reflecting the progress achieved in Norway in the shadow of the union with Sweden. When the union was dissolved, Norway stood on solid foundations with well-developed social institutions. Among these were a central bank of Norway and a monetary system that inspired confidence at home and abroad. With the German occupation of Norway in 1940, disorder returned to the monetary system. The occupying power needed money and could in practice simply commandeer the banknote printing press to meet its needs. But one thing was not seized – Norway’s gold reserves.
Peter Pang: Sukuk as a viable fund-raising and investment instrument Opening remarks by Mr Peter Pang, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the HKMA-BNM Joint Conference on Islamic Finance, Hong Kong, 14 April 2014. *  *  *  Dato’ Muhammad Ibrahim, distinguished speakers and guests, ladies and gentlemen, 1. Good morning. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this Islamic finance conference jointly organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), with the support of the Treasury Markets Association. I am particularly grateful to Dato’ Muhammad Ibrahim, Deputy Governor of BNM, who leads a delegation of Islamic finance experts from Malaysia to share with us their experience and knowledge on a wide range of matters concerning sukuk, from the latest developments of the global sukuk market to the practical issues in structuring sukuk products. 2. This conference marks the third Islamic finance-related event organised in collaboration with BNM within the past year or so, following an Islamic finance workshop held in March last year and the first meeting of the Joint Forum on Islamic Finance between Hong Kong and Malaysia held last December. This series of events is a testament to our determination to deepen co-operation with Malaysia in the development of Islamic finance. 3. The theme of today’s conference is “Sukuk as a viable fund-raising and investment instrument”.

Financial innovation and tax reform in major international financial centres have made sukuk largely comparable to conventional bonds. Apart from Islamic investors, sukuk are increasingly appealing to conventional investors as a way to diversify their investment portfolios. With such promising growth potential, developing Islamic finance would open up vast business opportunities and bring tremendous benefits to the financial services industry in Hong Kong. It would also help widen the range of financial products and broaden the types of market players here, adding to the breadth, depth and diversity of our financial market and consolidating our role as an international financial centre. Platform building for sukuk issuance 9. With this in mind, we have taken concrete steps over the past few years to build a conducive platform for sukuk issuance. Just last July, we have put in place a tax framework for common types of sukuk to level the playing field between sukuk and conventional bonds. 10. Generally speaking, sukuk are no different from conventional bonds in terms of economic substance, enabling issuers to raise funds while giving investors interestlike return. However, the more complicated structure of sukuk, which involves the setting up of a special purpose vehicle and multiple transfers of underlying assets, had led to additional tax liability for sukuk issuers. The tax law amendments have overcome this obstacle by removing the additional profits tax and stamp duty charges incurred in issuing sukuk as compared with conventional bonds. 11. With the tax framework in place, Hong Kong’s financial platform is ready for sukuk issuance.
This has been the focus of considerable discussion, particularly in Finland, as there they have chosen to continue their practice of rounding-off and to round off cash payments to the nearest five cents, something we would probably also do in Sweden if we adopt the euro. Eurostat's euro indicator for January 2002 shows that the price level in the euro countries rose by 0.5 per cent between December 2001 and January 2002. However, this is not considered to be caused primarily by the cash changeover - the effect of this is estimated to be somewhere in the interval of  2  BIS Review 23/2002  0.0-0.16 per cent. The Bank of Finland has not yet made a complete analysis of how large an effect the cash changeover has had on prices, but the figures for the month of January give no indication of inflationary pressure from the price rounding-off. However, there have been reports from the Netherlands of some effects on inflation. In a number of other countries (e.g. Greece, France and Ireland) the authorities have been keeping a very close watch on price increases and are working to counteract them. Naturally, there are a large number of other experiences from the introduction of the euro that could be mentioned in this context, and the Riksbank is working on a compilation of the information we have received from other central banks in the euro area. This compilation will be presented in the next progress report from the SIFS group (no.

We are happy that during the recent years, our financial sector has also improved in every respect. This is clearly evident when we look around the financial institutions, financial markets and the developments in financial infrastructure. Within the last five years, assets of the licensed banks in the country doubled. Altogether, there has been an addition of over 400 branches of these banks. Other financial institutions including Registered Finance Companies, Leasing Companies, Insurance Companies, Merchant banks, Venture capital firms and Unit Trusts have also grown in sympathy with the banking sector. At the same time, we have also progressed rapidly in the financial infrastructure developments as well. This is particularly visible with the leap forward in the Payment System development as evidenced by the implementation of a Real Time Gross Settlement System in 2003. Now, 84 per cent of the value of country’s payments are settled through the RTGS system. In 2006, we completed the Cheque Image Truncation project, reducing the maximum cheque clearance time to 2 working days, which is another significant achievement. The Colombo Stocks Exchange remains one of the most technically advanced stock exchanges of the world. Soon, we will also have a SWIFT Service Bureau in Sri Lanka and that will help to reduce cost of financial transactions. Together with these infrastructure developments, our banking system has expanded their horizons by introducing several innovative infrastructure facilities and complex financial products as well.
The first two central banks, the Sveriges Riksbank and the Bank of England, were founded in the second half of the seventeenth century. The Banco Nacional de San Carlos, the first forerunner of the Banco de España, was founded during the reign of Charles III, the Enlightened, in 1782, and the Banque de France opened its doors in the year 1800, shortly after the coup of 18 Brumaire, which brought Napoleon to power. Central banks were initially set up to satisfy European states’ demand for funds, to pay for their increasingly costly armies. The banknote issuance monopoly, which most central banks enjoyed from their foundation, was the main feature that distinguished them from commercial banks. Until the First World War, the operations of central banks were linked to the gold standard. The interwar period was marked by a number of economic disasters, such as the hyperinflation in Germany and the Great Depression in the United States, partly associated with the attempt to adapt the role of central banks to the new political realities. The post-war world was marked by the Bretton Woods agreements, which are named after the location (well chosen, it is really a beautiful place that I would recommend you to visit when you get the chance), in the US state of New Hampshire, where there was then, and there still remains today the hotel at which an international conference was held in July 1944.

First, quantitative easing, through the purchase of public and private debt, seeks to extend the effects of low short-term interest rates to the rest of the yield curve, including to longterm rates, over which monetary policy normally has no direct influence. To do this, the central bank purchases assets with long-term maturities, generating an increase in their price, or, tantamount to this, a reduction in their yields. These lower yields on the assets acquired by the central bank are in turn partly passed through to the yields on assets with a similar duration, such as the interest rates on bank loans, which tend to be the most relevant ones for the saving and investment decisions of households and firms, thus stimulating demand and price rises. Second, forward guidance seeks to transmit to private agents the central bank’s commitment to maintaining an expansionary monetary policy throughout the early stages of the recovery, in order to avoid the deanchoring of inflation expectations. These programmes, whose application has involved major challenges for central banks given the lack of any similar experience in the past, seem to be working acceptably well, assisting the economic recovery and avoiding the emergence of crisis-induced deflationary pressures. According to analysis carried out by the Banco de España, ECB action can explain around half of the nominal GDP growth in the euro area over the period 2015-2017. That said, it is important to stress that central banks cannot take sole responsibility for the recovery.
Muhammad bin Ibrahim: The future of finance Speech by Mr Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at a "Teh Tarik Session", at the Harvard PETRONAS Alumni event "The future of finance", Kuala Lumpur, 8 September 2017. * * * Thank you for inviting me here today to share my thoughts on the future of finance. The future is always a topic weighing heavily on the psyche of our nation, as we reflect on our transformation over the last 60 years, and what the future will be 50 years from now. I would like to share my thoughts today in three parts: a. A brief reflection on finance and five themes that may affect its future; b. A look at four possible future scenarios that may develop based on these themes; and c. Finally, implications of these future scenarios on the Bank and policy development. Let me place a qualifier here, it is not an exhaustive survey of the future landscape. My remarks today are meant to stimulate our thinking and discussion. These are my personal reflections and insights. Finance across the years and five themes for the future At its most basic level, finance is an intermediary service that matches the funding, saving and investing needs of agents in an economy. It lubricates the economy to function smoothly and allocate scarce resources efficiently. But over the years finance has evolved. It is useful to understand the ideas behind why and how finance has changed in the past.

Finance has come a long way- from serving the basic societal needs to save and borrow at its infancy to its role today as the backbone of the global economy. In ancient days, kings and rulers look to astronomers, magicians and soothsayers to tell them about the future. The Greeks for example, consulted the Oracle at Delphi before embarking on major decisions. The world today is much wiser I hope, and we no longer believe that the future can be predicted with absolute certainty. What finance and technology can bring for the future of human kind is so exciting that it can go beyond containment. Yet if left on its own, the outcome can be perilous. Resisting them, however, is not an option. While we embrace them as they synthesise and evolve, we also need to shape and control them such that they would not lead us to face extreme financial market fragilities and devastation. In the words of Nassim Taleb, we need to make ourselves “antifragile” – not only able to withstand shocks, disruptions and volatility but able to position ourselves to take advantage of it. But I always like the quote by Peter Drucker, “The best way to predict the future, is to create it.”  5/5  BIS central bankers' speeches
Experience suggests that the increase in demand, initially at least, often exceeds the upward shift in potential growth. As a result, unutilised capacity is brought into production, unemployment falls and resource utilisation rises. So all in all, the demand effect tends to drive inflation up. The direct damper on inflation is a consequence of higher productivity growth leading to lower unit labour costs and thereby lower costs for production. Profits therefore rise initially but competitive pressure on prices leads in time to lower inflation. This effect presupposes that it takes time for wages to adjust to the higher productivity growth, which is not uncommon. These two effects on the rate of inflation accordingly work in opposite directions. An upward effect on inflation from the rising demand is countered by the dampening effect. For an inflation targeting monetary policy, the problem in principle should amount to striking a balance between these two effects. As I shall soon be discussing, however, things are not quite as simple as that. But first I want to point out that in the longer run — when both the demand effect and the dampening effect have dropped out — the interest rate will unquestionably rise because a higher level of potential growth pulls the equilibrium real interest rate up to maintain the balance between saving and investment. 3.2  Two alternatives for monetary policy  Behind this seemingly straightforward and fairly simple discussion there are, as we shall soon see, major challenges for monetary policy and pitfalls for economic development in general.

This shock and the negative effects that it brought upon the economy and the central bank policies have been beyond comprehension. The authorities are feeling the difficulty of performing their task in the zero lower bound or very close to it. In this respect central banks have lost the traditional instruments of monetary policy and are reverting to money as the instrument of monetary policy. The shift has been significant not only in size but also in concept. The leading central banks in developed economies, the ones which set the trends, are under process of reviewing their objectives and monetary policy. Using support of research analysis and conclusions they are eventually rewriting monetary economics by giving central banks new instrument in the form of permanent use of the central bank balance sheet as a tool of monetary expansion. However, while implementation of balance-sheet strategies is easy to implement and deal with for developed countries central banks, same policies might not be easily adaptable and applicable by developing economies. Narrow and shallow capital markets, problems of financial inclusion and financial education, stressed private, public and fiscal balance-sheets and history, remind us of several potential risks that such policies can have for the highly dollarized/euroized economies of South-East Europe. Yet in the presence of current constrains faced by monetary policy we have to react and to find new ways to support the economy.
Mervyn King: Jackson Hole Conference - remarks to the Central Bank Governors’ Panel Remarks by Mr Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, at a symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 27 August 2005. *  *  *  Jackson Hole speakers normally draw out the lessons of economic theory for one specific area of policy. But this year we are trying to distil lessons from the practice of monetary policy in the United States - over an extraordinarily successful quarter century under the leadership of Alan Greenspan – for the theory of monetary policy. At most celebrations of a long and successful career, invited speakers talk at length and the great man himself is allowed a few minutes at the end. It is a remarkable tribute to Alan that on this occasion the tradition has been turned on its head. We all remain intrigued by what he has to say. In the few minutes I am allowed, I want to describe the three important lessons that I have learnt from Alan during my time at the Bank of England. First, to be a successful central banker requires an extraordinary degree of objectivity. The key is to recognise that economics tells you how to think, not what to think. It is not a set of settled conclusions about issues. Above all, it is vital never to confuse the world with a model.

To use a tennis analogy, I see Alan as the central banking equivalent of the non-playing captain of a Davis Cup team, encouraging the younger and less talented members, and stressing the importance of footwork, timing and getting into position early. Alan, thank you for raising the respect which others give to our discipline of economics and our profession of central banking. 2  Transparency in monetary policy. At the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Economic Policy Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, October 11, 2001. This definition was set out much earlier, in similar terms, in Alan Greenspan’s statement before the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, January 25, 1990. 2  BIS Review 56/2005