samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Simply put, a CTC could not claim tax deduction for interest paid to fund providers within the group as expenses, but all its interest income was subject to profits tax. This tax asymmetry greatly diminished the attractiveness of Hong Kong as a CTC hub, especially as our main competitors in the region and elsewhere do not seem to have this problem. 4. When faced with this possible deal breaker in our effort to promote Hong Kong as the CTC hub, what did we do? Rule number two in marketing: you cannot do good marketing if the product is not a good one. You can only fool some people some of the time but not for long. So one has to make good a product if it is found defective or inferior. Thanks to the help from the TMA, we formed a working group to study the problem and make recommendations to remove the obstacles undermining Hong Kong’s development as a CTC hub. We made a report to the Financial Secretary and obtained his support to change this tax anomaly. With the support of the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), and in consultation with the industry, we managed to pass the legislative amendments to remove the tax asymmetry in May 2016. In addition, the Government has gone one step further by providing additional tax incentive by halving the profits tax rate payable on specified CTC activities in Hong Kong from 16.5% to 8.25%.

A BIS Review 78/1998  -5-  few minutes before the start of the scheduled 10:00 a.m. meeting, one of the Core Group firms told me that an investor group would make an offer to acquire the Long-Term portfolio. I called one of the representatives of the investor group to confirm this development. The offer was subsequently conveyed to Long-Term Capital by that investor group and a response was requested by 12:30 p.m. After a brief consultation with the Core Group, I decided that the effort to proceed with the consortium approach needed to be suspended for a short time until the alternative offer could be considered. As noted earlier, the consortium approach was seen as a “last resort”. Consequently, the meeting about the consortium approach was adjourned at about 10:50 a.m., to reconvene at 1:00 p.m. At 12:30 p.m., I learned that the alternative offer had not been accepted and would not be extended. Shortly after 1:00 p.m., the meeting about the consortium approach resumed. This was now the only solution being pursued. During the next five hours, the private sector participants discussed every aspect of the terms and conditions. At the end of that discussion, 14 banks and securities firms agreed to participate in the recapitalization, with three firms contributing smaller amounts than the other eleven. Two firms declined to participate. I want to emphasize a few points. First, this was a private sector solution to a private-sector problem, involving an investment of new equity by Long-Term Capital’s creditors and counterparties.
This should lead to a more modern and flexible system to align wages to productivity in particular sectors or firms. This will improve prospects for domestic firms to hire staff. A long way to go… But we must remain honest with ourselves: even though considerable progress has been made, we still have a long way to go before the situation normalises. House prices have continued to fall. The domestic economy remains fragile. And there is still considerable work to do on fiscal and structural reform. This is of course very demanding for Irish households who have already seen their disposable income and wealth decline a lot over recent years. It is thus important that also the relatively rich and wealthy carry a fair share of the adjustment burden. Worst of all, perhaps, is the fact that a large portion of the population is currently out of work. This makes job creating structural reforms so important. The deep recession, high levels of public spending, a narrow tax base and the burden of supporting the financial sector have all have put stress on the fiscal position of the State. As a result, the fiscal deficit has surged. The government has therefore rightly embarked on a path of progressively cutting expenditures while taxes have had to be increased. But here there are no easy solutions either. Whether inside or outside a monetary union, fiscal consolidation would be required, in the best interests of the country.

The ECB is obliged and can be trusted to always fulfil its role and deliver on its Treaty mandate, and this is above all to secure price stability in the euro area as a whole, which consists of 17 countries. And there are clear limits to what the central bank is entitled or even able to do. It is impossible for the ECB to provide guarantees or assurances concerning future funding amounts or interest rates over the medium term. Certain tasks should and can in Europe only be dealt with by the Member States, and not by the ECB or the Central Bank of Ireland. Our common objective therefore must be to reduce over time the reliance of Irish banks on central bank funding and in particular on the emergency liquidity assistance. The Irish government has the capacity to further consolidate and implement the necessary reforms, so that there will be no lingering doubts about the sustainability of government debt. I am thus confident that Ireland will continue to fully implement the necessary adjustment and reforms, and that on this basis, Member States will continue to show solidarity towards Ireland. I understand that Minister Noonan has said that champagne corks will be popped on the night the Troika leaves Dublin. As long as Ireland continues to implement fully its programme and preserves its credibility as a State that honours all its obligations, I think that day will come in the not too long future, at the end of this programme in 2013.
The banks were asked to put in place effective controls to prevent recurrence. 10. Combating leakage: The paper has highlighted the challenge of policy leakage in the 1990s such as top-up loans in the form of a personal loan to finance the down-payment of property acquisitions. On this front, again, the market has moved on. These days a major avenue of policy leakage is mortgage loans exceeding the HKMA’s limits provided by non-bank institutions, such as finance companies and property developers. Both of them fall outside the HKMA’s supervisory remit. 11. To address this, we require banks to terminate credit relationship with finance companies offering mortgages that do not comply with our requirements. As for developers, we set higher risk weights for credit exposure to those property developers offering high LTV mortgages. We recognise that these measures can not completely stem out the leakage. This brings up the question of whether there is a need to extend the regulatory perimeter to cover mortgage lending by non-bank institutions. We understand that in some jurisdictions, residential mortgage loans provided by banks and non-bank institutions are subject to the same supervisory parameters. Closing 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  12. I have shared our experience gained from the actual operation of our macroprudential measures since the 1990s. Some are more practical, operational issues but some involve complex considerations deserving further analysis. I hope my sharing has provided some food for thought for the audience. Let me pause here.

However, some slowdown is foreseen, partly because of a weak international trend but also due to subdued consumption. The high level of equity prices has been cited as a risk to US economic development. US stock markets have recovered completely from last autumn’s fall and new all-time highs have been noted. Equity prices are considered by many observers to be unduly high in relation to the companies’ profit expectations and there has been talk of a future correction. Given the importance of the share price rise for the US economy’s upward trend, a price fall could by the same token lead to a slowdown. Prospects for the euro area as well as for the Japanese economy seem to have become somewhat poorer since the December Report, at least for the coming year. In the euro area, it is mainly manufacturing which has weakened, while the consumption trend still looks relatively good. At the same time, household sentiment is closely related to the development of employment, not least in Germany. Thus, the international outlook can hardly be said to have improved since the publication of the December Report and there still seem to be risks of a development that is weaker. Industrial activity weaker but domestic demand good so far Turning to the Swedish economy, the statistics suggest that industrial activity may go on weakening. But households’ expectations of their own economy indicate that private consumption may remain relatively strong.
The fact that CPI inflation was far below the target can thus be seen as the result of a deliberate monetary policy from the autumn of 2008. GDP fell by 4.9 per cent in 2009. This is the largest fall in Swedish GDP in a single year in modern times. Average unemployment increased by approximately 2.2 percentage points during the year and amounted to 8.4 per cent in 2009. Both employment and the number of  BIS Review 32/2010  11  hours worked fell significantly. The reason that Sweden was so hard hit by the global crisis is that the Swedish economy is highly dependent on exports. The effect on GDP was reinforced by the fact that the households increased their saving. Companies also sold from stock to a great extent during the year, thus reducing investments in stock and contributing to the fall in GDP. The impact of the financial crisis surprised all the forecasters The turmoil on the financial markets has been part of the picture and has influenced monetary policy and the forecasts since 2007. It nevertheless came as a surprise that the situation would deteriorate as dramatically as it did in the autumn of 2008 and result in such a dramatic fall in production around the world. Neither the Riksbank nor other analysts predicted the strength of the global financial crisis and how much it would affect inflation and the development of the real economy.

All in all, it can be noted that the Riksbank overestimated the outcome for inflation in 2009 to approximately the same extent as the average for other forecasters, although with the exception of July and September 2008 when the Riksbank’s forecasts overestimated the prospects for inflation to a higher degree than other forecasters (see Figure 8). This was because energy prices increased more than expected during the spring, which led to inflation reaching over 4 per cent in the summer of 2008. The Riksbank thus saw a risk that the substantial increases in the prices of food and oil would also lead to rapid increases in other prices. Unusually high inflation expectations also contributed to this assessment. With regard to the outcome for GDP growth, the Riksbank’s overestimation was approximately the same as the average of the other forecasters. All of the forecasters continued to overestimate GDP growth for 2009 even during the first quarter of 2009. In other words, no forecaster predicted the economic downturn sooner than any other. How accurate are the Riksbank’s forecasts? As monetary policy is based on forecasts it is important that the Riksbank’s forecasts are acceptably accurate. However, it is not possible to assess accuracy by analysing the forecasts for a single year. Even forecasters with a good average accuracy may be less successful in an individual year. A fairer assessment requires a longer observation period.
And, to explore what could be genuinely new under the sun, we are researching the policy and technical issues posed by Central Bank Digital Currencies. On some levels this is appealing; people would have direct access to the ultimate risk-free asset. In the extreme, however, it could fundamentally reshape banking 24  including by sharply increasing liquidity risk for traditional banks. This last point underscores that, in order for FinTech’s potential to be realised, authorities must manage its impact on financial stability. On the positive side, FinTech could reduce systemic risks by delivering a more diverse and resilient system where incumbents and new entrants compete along the value chain. At the 20  Carney, M ‘The Spectre of Monetarism’ speech given at the Roscoe Lecture, Liverpool John Morres University, 5 December 2016 Followed by its regulatory sandbox in 2015. See: https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/project-innovate-innovation-hub/regulatory-sandbox 22 The PRA and FCA launched a New Bank Start-Up Unit in January 2016 to more effectively manage interactions with potential new entrants with innovative business models. To date, some four digital banks have been authorised. 23 Given RTGS is critical infrastructure supporting real economic activity, such access should come with proportionate responsibilities. New non-bank entrants would be required to meet liquidity and operational resilience requirements. A fuller account of the market dynamics can be found in Carney (2016). 24 Carney, M ‘Enabling the Fintech transformation: Revolution, Restoration, or Reformation’ speech given at Mansion House 16 June 2016.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated some of these factors, amplifying the challenges that the world economy, and therefore the economic and monetary authorities, will now have to contend with. But beyond the impact on the global economic outlook, the war has struck the largest blow to the international economic order since the Second World War. This dramatic event has thrown into relief the need to reinvigorate and bolster the foundations of multilateralism, which are the set of rules and values that we have established to ensure peace and prosperity. But we should also view this as a chance to give fresh impetus to international cooperation, which has contributed so much to global progress in recent decades. Such impetus means strengthening the international institutions, many of  1  which date back to the mid-20th century, so that they can respond more effectively to the new crises, such as the global financial crisis and the pandemic crisis, which are more global in nature than the typically regional crises of past decades. International institutions should equip themselves, in their respective field of competence, with the appropriate tools to prevent and respond to systemic crises. In addition, the global nature of processes such as the green transition and digitalisation means these institutions must adapt in readiness to deal with these challenges and help attain the goals and fulfil the commitments we have set ourselves in these areas.
The average ownership share in a listed European company is now around 2.5 percent, which is twice the ownership share on other continents. Almost 2 percent of the fund is invested in Italy. The share invested in emerging markets is growing, as these markets develop. Over the past couple of years, we have started investing in Slovenia, Ghana and Mauritius, to provide three examples. At the end of 2014, 10 percent of the fund was invested in emerging markets. Still, close to 80 percent of the fund is invested in North America and Europe, where markets are largest and the most advanced. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Through the fund’s investments in equities and bonds, we seek to ensure broad exposure to global equity and bond markets. In the management mandate, the Ministry of Finance has defined public stock and bond indices, which are used to benchmark our performance. These benchmarks are based on the FTSE and Barclays indices. These indices are constructed to meet the needs of a typical investor. As pointed out earlier, the oil fund is not a typical or average investor. Rather, the fund has certain distinguishing characteristics. The investment strategy seeks to exploit these characteristics to improve the overall balance between risk and return. Our portfolio will therefore deviate from the index along a number of different dimensions: •  First, the index providers adjust for so-called free float. The free float of a company represents the portion of a company’s shares that are readily available for trading.

Chart: The fund mechanism The Norwegian parliament passed the act relating to the oil fund in 1990. Under the act, the net fiscal surplus, including oil revenues, is transferred to the fund, and invested in international markets. A main purpose of the fund mechanism is to make the actual spending of oil revenues transparent. Towards the end of the 1990s, inflows to the oil fund increased, and there were expectations of considerable petroleum revenues in the future. There was increasing political pressure to spend more. In a climate of high inflows and even higher expectations, it was demanding to restrain fiscal spending. At the same time, it was clear that future pension obligations would be substantial. Economic policy guidelines were clarified in 2001 through the introduction of the fiscal rule. Under these guidelines, government spending of oil revenues – measured by the non-oil budget deficit – is limited to the expected real return on the fund – estimated at 4 percent annually. The idea is to leave the capital in the fund untouched, saving it for future generations. Chart: A growing fund The fiscal institutions that were established proved to be well suited to managing the revenues from the petroleum industry. Even though most of the income was to be saved, the fiscal rule provided for a gradual but sustainable increase in petroleum revenue spending. Fiscal policy was not set on autopilot. The guidelines provided for countercyclical fiscal policy in the short term, around the longer term path.
The prominent role of money is signalled by the announcement of a reference value for the annual rate of growth of the broad monetary aggregate M3. This reference value represents a visible public commitment to analysing and explaining monetary developments and their implications for price stability in detail. In December 2000, the Governing Council of the ECB reconfirmed the reference value of 4 1/2% annual growth. This rate should be consistent with price stability in the medium term. While the reference value plays an important role in monetary analysis, the assessment of the first pillar goes beyond the evaluation of the deviation of M3 growth from the reference value. It encompasses a variety of approaches which assign a central role to money because of the ultimately monetary nature of inflation, as well as a detailed analysis of the components and counterparts of M3. Thus, an in-depth analysis of the overall liquidity conditions in the euro area is provided. BIS Review 10/2001  1  Despite broad consensus on the fact that inflation is ultimately a monetary phenomenon, the assessment of monetary developments alone does not give an accurate picture of the state of the economy and of the potential risks to price stability. Therefore, for a robust strategy, it is useful to analyse additional indicators relevant for future price stability and to combine them under a second pillar.

Under the new rules and our strict supervisory practices, we are optimistic that the banking system will play a more meaningful role in the economy in the near future. Ladies and gentlemen, Much has transpired since 1997. Our economy has been under intense pressure to perform, and I am confident enough to say that we are in a better position today to manage future challenges. Although, the outlook for 2002 is brighter than that of last year, we do remain somewhat cautious. The reform process must continue so that the global pick-up does not pass us by and that our economy can secure the potential gains imbedded in our talented entrepreneurs and workforce. It has been an honor and thank you for your attention tonight. 4  BIS Review 16/2002
Peter Praet: Interview with Bloomberg Interview by Mr Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, with Bloomberg, conducted by Mr Alessandro Speciale, Mr Jeff Black and Mr Jonathan Ferro, and published on 17 November 2015. *  *  *  How can we estimate the impact of the tragic events in Paris? I would like first of all to express our profound sympathy for the victims. It’s something that concerns everybody. Now when we talk about the possible impact on the economy, in general, we have to take a holistic view. It’s not so much the economy as the geopolitical environment that is impacted by these events. The impact remains to be seen, beyond the tragic events of last week. The main issue is the economic context of such events, which is a rather difficult one, we cannot deny that. It’s difficult because the euro area is still going through the aftermath of a balance sheet recession which started in 2008. As of today, the GDP of the euro area has still not recovered the level it had in 2008. That’s one thing, and the second thing is the management of immigration in Europe which creates some strains at the political level in different countries. How is the next round of staff economic forecasts shaping up? It’s too early to tell, of course, because the teams are working on it.

BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  Chart 4 Negative rates in European government bond markets Positive Negative  Switzerland  1 -0.89  2 -0.99  3 -0.81  Maturity (years) 4 5 6 -0.61 -0.47 -0.38  Germany  -0.27  -0.25  -0.24  -0.21  -0.16  -0.09  -0.02  0.05  0.13  0.20  Finland  -0.20  -0.18  -0.15  -0.11  -0.08  -0.06  -0.03  0.09  0.14  0.22  -0.18  -0.15  -0.13  -0.07  -0.05  0.00  0.07  0.17  0.26  -0.31  -0.04  Netherlands  7 -0.32  8 -0.29  9 -0.24  10 -0.11  Denmark  -0.80  -0.62  Austria  -0.16  -0.17  -0.17  -0.12  -0.06  -0.05  0.02  0.12  0.19  0.29  Belgium  -0.16  -0.16  -0.13  -0.08  -0.06  0.02  0.15  0.24  0.34  0.43  France  -0.19  -0.20  -0.16  -0.09  0.01  0.08  0.18  0.27  0.36  0.45  Sweden  -0.16  -0.17  0.01  0.24  0.44  0.61  Spain  0.07  0.10  0.18  0.28  0.47  0.63  0.74  0.88  1.05  1.15  Italy  0.03  0.11  0.23  0.36  0.50  0.65  0.79  0.93  1.06  1.19  Norway  0.73  1.34  1.45  UK  0.35  1.82  1.91  0.76 0.59  0.87  0.92 1.12  1.31  0.15  1.16 1.47  1.61  1.72  0.26  0.73  Bl oomberg a nd Ba nk ca l cul a ti ons  8  BIS central bankers’ speeches