samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In December last year we held a Stakeholders Workshop at which the drafts of the Revised Companies Act, the Securities Bill, the Bankruptcy Bill and the Collective Investment Schemes Bill were tabled for discussion by all stakeholders. These pieces of legislation are now being finalized and would be presented to the next Parliament for enactment. The Other Financial Services Amendment Act 2007 will serve to provide the legal basis for the operation of the stock exchange until the enactment of these legislations. We have also invested in training of personnel to guarantee the professional conduct of operations, and in this regard, we have collaborated with relevant institutions and professional bodies to make sure that the codes and practices underlying the operations of the market meet established standards. Today, as we inaugurate the Sierra Leone Stock Exchange we note with pride and confidence that we have achieved a significant milestone in the development of our financial system. In the coming weeks we will commence actual operations. In this regard, I wish to solicit the support and cooperation of all institutions and the general public to work towards the success of this venture. In closing, I wish to thank all those who have helped us in getting to where we are today, and seek your continued assistance as we traverse this very difficult terrain.

Second, one can consider whether reported expectations vary with observable characteristics in a predictable way.8 Third, whenever possible and assuming a stationary environment, one can check for relevance of reported expectations, looking at whether they are meaningfully related to future or past realizations. Fourth, one can ask whether subjective expectations help predict actual behavior. Finally, one can look at whether agents update their reported expectations in sensible ways upon receipt of relevant information. Based on these criteria, a literature that has grown rapidly since the mid-1990s has demonstrated the validity and information content of responses to probabilistic questions  6  See Manski (2004), Hurd (2009), Attanasio (2009), and Delavande, Giné, and McKenzie (2011a, 2011b) for recent overviews. 7  Likert (1932). 8  For instance, researchers can consider whether mortality expectations vary in expected ways with age, education, and risky behaviors. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  about a broad spectrum of economic concepts. This evidence extends beyond the United States and Europe to developing countries.9 Thus, probabilistic questions, with appropriate instructions and visual aid tools, have been successfully used not only in the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the U.S. Health and Retirement Survey (and its sister surveys in Europe and Japan) but also in surveys of fisherman and farmers in India, aspiring migrants in Tonga, poor households in rural Colombia, and junior high school students in Mexico.
Brexit and the pound Speech given by Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor Monetary Policy  Imperial College, London 23 March 2017  I’d like to thank Matt Corder, Chris Salmon, Michael Saunders, Greg Thwaites and Anthony Veal, along with other colleagues, for their helpful comments and assistance. I reserve particular thanks for my Economic Advisor Alina Barnett. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  Introduction and summary The vote to leave the EU led to a big drop in sterling’s exchange rate. One consequence is a rise in import prices and a squeeze on households’ real income. We may already be seeing the impact of that squeeze on retail spending, which in real terms fell quite sharply around the turn of the year. While it’s hit the income of households, however, the depreciation has come as a boon for many exporters. In sterling terms goods export prices rose 12% through the course of last year. This will significantly have boosted exporters’ profitability and with it the incentive to invest in extra capacity. In general, it’s not really right – not enough at least – to think about the impact of a change in the exchange rate in isolation. Asset prices are volatile in the short run, sometimes inexplicably so. But over time they tend to move for a reason. They’re driven by deeper things that can have important effects of their own.

In other words it’s a matter of supply not demand. Chart 6 gives a stylised description. In a competitive market the demand curve facing an individual firm (and those in a relatively small country) is essentially flat. Domestic events don’t have much effect on the global price. When the currency falls, pushing up prices and profits of outward-facing firms, the response of export volumes depends on the slope of the supply curve: to what extent do firms in the tradable sector have the capacity to raise output and, where that is insufficient, the willingness to invest in more? Chart 6: For a small open economy tradable demand is highly elastic  Chart 7: Depreciations push up the sterling price of goods exports as well as those of imports  Source: ONS and Thomson Reuters Datastream. * excluding oil and erratics. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  8  Now commodities may be an extreme case. They’re essentially homogenous – one country’s output is much like another’s. But even in non-commodity goods markets you find a similar pattern. The UK is relatively small, accounting for only 3% of international goods trade (even including oil). Many UK firms are to a significant extent “price takers” in international markets. And you can see from Chart 7 the close correlation between the sterling price of the UK’s (non-oil) goods exports and the exchange rate. The reaction is a bit less than one-for-one but in general no less marked than that of import prices.
The persistent slippages do not augur well for the July 2005 deadline for the launch of the Second Monetary Zone. In this regard, it is imperative that all hands be put on deck in pursuing the monetary integration project. As legislators, your involvement in enacting the enabling legislation that would form the legal underpinning for the policies, programmes and institutional framework for the monetary union will be critical. In this connection, the national parliaments should set up as a matter of urgency, research units comprising economists and financial experts to provide the requisite professional back-stopping for them. 2  BIS Review 43/2004  Conclusion Ladies and Gentlemen, Once more, I welcome you all to Freetown and wish you a pleasant stay. It is my singular honour and privilege to declare open the third Regional Forum on Economic and Financial Management for Legislators. BIS Review 43/2004  3

The forecasts for 2012 are also marked by uncertainty and potential adverse effects of the events related to the euro area crisis. Given the generally unfavorable expectations for the European economy, the growth prospects of the countries in the region are also uncertain and accompanied by downward risks, considering the relatively close trade relations with the European Union. The lower external demand, along with the lower capital flows to the region, creates a need of proper adjustment of the domestic demand aimed to ensure sustainable external position. Therefore, some countries will need fiscal consolidation. The growing European debt crisis, the series of downward revisions of credit ratings of several international banks, the volatility of stock markets and the uncertainty clouding the future developments undermined the confidence of investors, in global terms, thus making the issue of deficit financing more pronounced and being treated more prudently. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Besides the macroeconomic performances, the attention has been and will be focused on the financial stability. The new risk to the financial sector triggered by the European debt crisis is either direct or indirect exposure to the Greek debt and the subsequent potential losses. The second risk is attributable to the reduced availability of funding from foreign parent banks, when some of them face the need of recapitalization that refers to additional risks to the intensity of credit activity in the countries from the South-Eastern Europe, particularly those where borrowings from foreign banks played a significant role in the establishment of credit potential.
Given these developments, the role of credit rating agencies may assume a still higher profile in guiding investors. I have mentioned these global trends in order to illustrate how even those markets which are regarded as mature have to adapt continually to changing circumstances; and I haven’t even mentioned the potential role of internet trading, virtual exchanges and the like, which may pose still greater strategic, managerial and operational challenges. If we turn now to consider the debt markets specifically in this part of the world, we encounter at least as great an array of challenges, albeit in somewhat different circumstances: for example, in a number of Asian countries government issuance has still been on the increase. Last year saw something of a milestone for regional markets with the publication, by a working group under the chairmanship of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, of the APEC compendium of sound practices to facilitate the development of domestic bond markets. This comprised a comprehensive list of recommendations covering topics such as government involvement in the market, level playing fields, consistent tax policies, sound regulation, clarity of responsibilities, transparency, robustness and efficiency of market systems, and so on. Crucial though these considerations may be for the foundation of sound markets, they are, by and large, just the basic tenets. Even when they have all been observed or put into practice, there is no certainty that active debt markets will emerge.

The next step in the process is likely to be the issuance by the SFC of a consultative paper. Another area which we are looking at is taxation. We acknowledge that there are serious anomalies in the current arrangements for taxing interest income in Hong Kong but, given the uniqueness of Hong Kong’s overall tax structure, and the conflicting aims of retaining international competitiveness on the one hand and preserving fiscal revenue on the other, there is no very easy solution. What we are doing is to sponsor, under the auspices of the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, a fundamental study of the taxation of financial intermediation in Hong Kong. This study will hopefully further inform the debate on this tricky subject. I would not at this stage wish to guess as to the direction in which our advice will eventually point. BIS Review 57/2000  2  We are also overseeing the development of a US dollar payment clearing system for Hong Kong, which will provide an enhanced framework within which the market in US dollar debt securities could develop if issuers and investors so wished. There are also two initiatives on which we are actively engaged in collaboration with others in the region, though each is still very much in its early stages. One is the question of a possibly wider role for credit rating agencies.
The team visited a petroleum refinery complex 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  in Pengerang. It was towards the end of the event; it had been a long day and all they could think of was going back to be in the comfort of their own accommodation. This was when they noticed a number of migrant workers of various nationalities, noticeably tired from many hours of working – they were using their mobile phones; engaged in highly animated video conversation with their families back home. Some of these workers had not seen their family for years; some were fathers who left for Malaysia before their children were born – and the closest that they can get to see their families was through the small screens of their mobile phones. Listening to this story, I was reminded to a quote by the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki- Moon on migration. He said “Migration is an expression of the human aspiration for dignity, safety and a better future. It is part of the social fabric, part of our very make-up as a human family.” Indeed, the single most important reason why these workers travelled thousands of kilometers away, was to seek for opportunities to secure a better future for themselves and their families; and the simplest form of these opportunities is to earn more money. This brings me to my second story; on remittances.

From our engagement sessions, it was not uncommon for us to hear about stories of anger, resentment and frustration from the migrant workers about the difficulties they had to go through in remitting money to their families. The workers whom we approached in Sapong estate for example, told us that they only had two options to access the remittance service: the closest is in the town of Tenom which is located 8 kilometers away from their estate; or if that is not available, the next option is to go to Keningau which is about 50 kilometers away! We also knew of instances where the workers were robbed on their way to remit money. Some told us that the money that they sent through hawaladars did not reach their families. These aptly sum up why it is crucial for us to promote a remittance service that is safe, affordable and convenient. This is also the primary reason why we decided that Project Greenback 2.0 Kota Kinabalu should be focusing on accelerating usage of digital remittance services.
We insist that remuneration is structured to ensure that individuals have skin in the game, namely that a meaningful amount of past remuneration is  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  retained or deferred and for senior people is at risk should problems then emerge. We require that risk management and internal audit in firms are effective and act to root out poor incentives and weak controls. All of this is important and central to what we do as regulators, but let me reinforce the point that culture begins and lives, and I am afraid dies, at home, with firms. It is not for us as regulators to prescribe culture, that would not work. Firms and their management have to want good culture. But we can have a lot of influence here. In the last few months we have taken a very important step here by introducing for banks the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, as proposed by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. It replaces the Approved Persons Regime, and in time it will be implemented across the regulated financial services sector. There is, let me be clear, no magic bullet to change culture, but the new regime is a big step forward in my view. This is because at its heart it embeds the notion of personal responsibility for the affairs of the firm at the level of senior management. The Approved Persons Regime did not do this, and in practice it focused on a notion of culpability not responsibility.

We talk often about credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, conduct risk in it’s several forms. You can add to that, hubris risk, the risk of blinding over-confidence. If I may say so, it is a risk that can be magnified by broader social attitudes. Ten years ago there was considerable reverence towards, and little questioning of, the ability of banks and bankers to make money or of whether boards demonstrated a sufficient diversity of view and outlook to sustain challenge. How things have changed. Healthy scepticism channelled into intelligent and forceful questioning of the self-confident can be a good thing. In turn, culture matters to us as financial regulators because it can, left alone, tend to shape and encourage bad outcomes, but it doesn’t have to do that. What can we do therefore as regulators to shape and influence better outcomes on a more consistent basis? Let me start with one thing that we cannot do. As regulators, we are not able, and should not try, to determine the culture of firms. We cannot write a regulatory rule that settles culture. Rather, it is the product of many things, which regulators can influence, but much more directly which firms themselves can shape. We seek to ensure that firms have robust governance, which includes appropriate challenge from all levels of the organisation; and promote the acceptance that not all news can be good and the willingness to act on and respond promptly to bad news.
For many larger institutions, a release of loan loss reserves has been important in supporting earnings. Credit availability has improved somewhat as very tight standards start to loosen (Chart 9). As a result, some measures of bank credit are beginning to expand again (Chart 10). Second, monetary policy and fiscal policy have provided support to the recovery. On the monetary policy side, the unusually low level of short-term interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchase programs (LSAPs) have fostered a sharp improvement in financial market conditions. Since August 2010, for example, when market participants began to anticipate that the Federal Reserve would initiate another LSAP, U.S. equity prices have risen sharply and credit spreads have narrowed (Chart 11 and Chart 12). Long-term interest rates have moved higher after initially declining, but this does not appear troublesome as it primarily reflects the brightening economic outlook. On the fiscal side, the economy has been supported by the shift in policy toward near-term accommodation. In particular, the temporary reduction in payroll taxes is providing substantial support to real disposable income and consumption. This could have a particularly strong impact on growth during the first part of the year. Third, growth abroad – especially among emerging market economies – has been strong and this has led to an increase in the demand for U.S.-made goods and services. Over the four quarters of 2010 real exports rose 9.2 percent (Chart 13). After a disappointing performance earlier in the year, U.S. net exports surged in the fourth quarter (Chart 14).

BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  sustained basis, that would pose a risk to inflation and, thus, would have important implications for monetary policy. With respect to the inflation outlook, I think there are four important questions that deserve attention. 1. How much slack is there in the economy? In other words, how fast can the economy grow for how long until the economy is close to full employment? 2. Are there speed-limit effects on inflation? In other words, could inflation rise because the rate of economic growth was unusually high, even though plenty of slack remained in the economy? 3. Given the emergence of such economies as China and India, can commodity price pressures be safely ignored as temporary “noise” in terms of the long-term inflation outlook or are these pressures likely to prove persistent? If commodity price pressures persisted, this could undercut one rationale for focusing on core measures of inflation – the argument that core measures are better predictors of future headline inflation than today’s headline rate. 4. What can the Federal Reserve do to ensure that inflation expectations stay wellanchored? With respect to the first question, the economy retains a very large amount of slack by virtually all measures. For example, last month the industrial capacity utilization rate was 76.1 percent. This compares with a long-term average of 80.9 percent (Chart 21).
Given the above favourable economic outlook, it is anticipated that the annual rate of inflation would be in the single digit region by the end of 2006, mainly, due to the current momentum in policy implementation and developments in the real sector. This in turn will provide an environment for further stability in the exchange rate and lowering of lending interest rates. In the financial sector, enormous progress has been made towards the development and deepening of the financial markets in Zambia. Additionally, significant achievements have been made in areas, such as monetary policy formulation and implementation, broadening of the money markets, foreign  4  BIS Review 5/2005  exchange policy management and establishment of the capital market. Improvements have also been made in the formulation of prudential and regulatory regulations to enhance financial system stability and development. However, the development of a more active secondary financial market to enhance efficiency in the financial system remains a key challenge for all stakeholders in the financial services industry. To address this challenge therefore, the Government approved the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP), which, after implementation, will enhance financial intermediation and efficiency of the financial sector. Ladies and Gentlemen As I conclude, I wish to reiterate that during the past 40 years, several achievements have been made in macroeconomic management in Zambia, but more could have been done had it not been for the reasons I alluded to earlier.

In this context, on 12 December the ECB, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and the Swiss National Bank announced measures designed to address elevated pressures in short-term funding markets. In particular, the ECB participated in joint action with the Federal Reserve and the Swiss national Bank. The ECB provided a total of 20 billion US dollar in two auctions to Eurosystem counterparties against ECB-eligible collateral. Through its own actions as well as the joint efforts with other central banks, the Eurosystem as well as the community of central banks have shown their capacity to cope with a number of challenges that euro and global money markets are currently facing. More than ever, in these periods of tensions, lucidity in the diagnosis, rapidity in the decision, and absence of complacency are of the essence. This total absence of complacency is particularly necessary as regards financial stability. Financial stability I would now like to share with you our assessment of the financial stability situation, as described in the recent Financial Stability Review. I will discuss briefly the role of financial institutions and supervisory authorities in coping with the present financial market correction. With financial systems undergoing a process of de-leveraging and re-intermediation, uncertainty surrounding the financial stability outlook for the euro area has heightened and may persist until it becomes clear how the potential balance sheet effects of the turbulence will be spread across individual financial institutions.