samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Since that time, North Sea oil revenues have been substantial, and today the Norwegian government invests its large surpluses in equities and bonds in other countries. Sovereign debt differs from private debt. Private debt is protected by the law in the country where the loan is contracted. The creditor can recover debt by legal means in the event of default. Similar mechanisms do not in principle exist for sovereign debt. There is no supranational body that can recover government debt when a government defaults. 3 If a government does not consider itself to be legally obliged to repay its creditor, it might be tempting to default. In the economic literature the question has therefore been raised: Why should a government repay debt? This question begs another: If governments can turn their backs on commitments, why do investors lend them money? We observe that most countries choose to repay debt. This must mean that there are costs associated with default. Even if the creditor has no legal recourse for collecting debt, there are forms of costs that can be imposed on the debtor. First, creditors can refrain from providing new loans to a government in default. When a government is in debt negotiations, it is naturally difficult to raise new capital. But recent history shows that it does not take long before creditors are again willing to provide loans. Second, borrowing costs may increase. Funding rates rise when fears of sovereign default spread through the markets.

Over the next few years, the return on the Pension Fund is expected to rise roughly in line with government expenditure on retirement pensions through the national insurance scheme. Revenues from petroleum activities will nonetheless gradually decline, pulling down growth in the Fund. Over time, therefore, the national insurance scheme’s retirement pensions will grow considerably faster than the expected real return on the Fund. (See Chart: Generational account.) However, it is wrong simply to compare the Pension Fund and obligations under the national insurance scheme. The government has the option of taxing households and businesses, and this naturally also has a considerable net present value. Generational accounts allow for this. These accounts show whether there is a need to raise taxes or lower expenditure for the government budget to balance in the long term, based on forecasts for benefit and pension payments and oil revenues. The generational accounts reveal that there is currently a need for fiscal tightening equivalent to 10 per cent of GDP or of the order of NOK 200 billion. Longterm forecasts from the Ministry of Finance, that also take the pension reform into account, show a shortfall of around 6 per cent of mainland GDP. Calculations by professors Alf Erling Risa and Erling Vårdal here in Bergen paint a similar picture. The need for fiscal tightening roughly corresponds to current spending of oil revenues. Estimates of this kind are highly  16  Revised National Budget 2010.
Benoît Cœuré: Ensuring the smooth functioning of money markets Speech by Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the 17th Global Securities Financing Summit, Luxembourg, 16 January 2013. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, 1 It is a pleasure to speak to you today at this annual Global Securities Financing Summit organised by Clearstream / Deutsche Börse Group. In my remarks today, I will talk about the smooth functioning of money markets and the role of market infrastructures in this respect. The speech is composed of two parts. I will start with some comments on developments in the euro area (interbank) money markets. As you are well aware, the financial crisis and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis have led to a gradual shift from the unsecured to the secured segment of the money markets. Moreover, the crises have exposed the weaknesses of certain financial institutions, causing the European interbank money market to fragment. Fragmentation has occurred between cash-rich and cash-strapped banks and also between different jurisdictions, leading to a “renationalisation” of money markets. Since money markets can be a source and a propagation channel of financial instability, it is important to ensure their proper functioning and mitigate the potential risks they pose. In the second part of my speech I will consider the role of market infrastructures in ensuring well-functioning money markets.

Let me set out the key dimensions of the financial sector jobs and skills agenda that we will cover over the next few months under the Growing Timber series: Job opportunities – what are the new jobs being created and how to access these jobs; Job readiness – how can we prepare our tertiary students so that they are job-ready when they embark on a career in the financial sector; Job retention – keeping our mid-career workers employed through upskilling amid new skills demands; Job redeployment – reskilling mid-career workers in jobs that are being transformed by technology and pivoting them to new careers; Job specialisation – deepening skills and capabilities in highly specialised areas in strong demand; and Job leadership – grooming promising Singaporeans for leadership roles at diﬀerent levels. Today, I will cover the first three dimensions of the jobs and skills agenda – namely, job opportunities, job readiness, and job retention. JOB OPPORTUNITIES  https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/speeches/2020/gearing-up-for-new-and-evolving-jobs-in-financial-services  4/18  04/12/2020  "Gearing up for New and Evolving Jobs in Financial Services" - Remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authorit…  The financial sector provides good job opportunities. Financial services employs a workforce of 170,000. It is the most productive workforce in the economy, accounting for 4.5% of Singapore’s total workforce but 13.3% of our GDP. During 2015-2019, the financial sector created 22,000 net jobs. 70% of these jobs went to Singapore Citizens, in line with the overall proportion of Singaporeans in the financial sector workforce, also at 70%.
The hallmarks of such a high communication level are curiosity about the other person’s views and the ability to broaden one’s views or change one’s mind as a result of discussion with others. This type of communication normally requires a high level of professional  18  This outcome assumes that each member of the group singly is more likely to arrive at the correct conclusion than the wrong one. 19  See James Surowiecki (2004): The wisdom of crowds. Little, Brown, London, pp. 3–4. This example was also cited in the speech “Uncertainty in macroeconomic policy making: art or science?”, which Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, gave on 22 March 2010, and is available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/news/2010/034.htm . That we both use this example may not be a coincidence. I received my copy of The Wisdom of Crowds from Dr. John Llewellyn. Llewellyn and King were fellow students at Cambridge. 20  See Alan S. Blinder and John Morgan (2005): “Are two heads better than one: An experimental analysis of group versus individual decision making”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 37, no 5, pp. 789–811 and Alan S. Blinder og John Morgan (2007): “Leadership in groups: a monetary policy experiment”, CEPS Working Paper No. 151. 21  Alan S. Blinder (2008): “On the design of monetary policy committees”, Norges Bank Working Paper, 2008/6. BIS Review 147/2010  5  competence, mutual sympathy and trust and a large degree of openness. The potential reward is better decisions by the group.

25  It has also been shown that when people are in groups of like-minded persons, and especially when they are socially isolated, they are prone to taking more extreme positions than they would on their own. The psychologist Irving L. Janis is particularly known for his research into groupthink. His analyses concerned US foreign policy, where groupthink might deserve much of the blame for competent persons making poor decisions. See Irving L. Janis (1972): Victims of groupthink; a psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 26  The psychologist Salomon Asch conducted a number of similar experiments in the 1950s. He found that “the tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well meaning young people are willing to call black white.” See Salomon E. Asch (1995): “Opinions and social pressure”, Scientific American, vol. 193, no. 5, pp. 31–35. 6  BIS Review 147/2010  exaggerated self-confidence is found in many occupations. 27 There is no reason to believe that we economists are so different from others in that regard. Norges Bank’s Executive Board consists of five external members with varied backgrounds, in addition to the governor and deputy governor of the Bank. The external members have influence over decisions on a par with the internal members. The Bank is in a peculiar situation in that the central bank governor is both administrative head of the Bank and chairman of the Executive Board.
Several years ago, most major investors were investing in Asia but based thousands of miles away. Today, many investors are realising that a ground presence in this time zone is necessary. The rapid structural changes of economies in Asia, the differences in the stages of economic development, in political systems, regulatory regimes and corporate governance standards mean that investors must not only understand the differences within Asia, but they have to be able to respond to swift changes in outlook, and to take into account ongoing structural changes in their assessments. In short, the ability to distinguish noise from trend is essential. Having the right risk mindset 14. Apart from responding to policy reforms and initiatives, investors and financial institutions will do well to continuously rethink and challenge the fundamental tenets of their investment and risk management tools and methodologies. To do so, it is imperative for investors to have the right risk mindset. 15. We should put once-neglected risks, such as counterparty credit risk, model risk, liquidity risk and technology risks, at the forefront of risk considerations. We have to be  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  mindful that falling back on historical experience may not necessarily provide the guidance especially when developments are unprecedented. In this regard, boards of financial institutions play a vital role in driving the level of risk consciousness in their institutions and exercising effective risk management oversight.

I would like to single out three key aspects of this strategy. We will emphasise exploiting the Bank's characteristics as a large and long-term investor in order to achieve the objective of the highest possible return. Norges Bank is able to make investments whose underlying value may take a long time to realise. A long-term investment horizon also means that we can invest differently to many other investors, even in difficult and illiquid markets. The fund's size enables us to explore new ways of investing at little additional cost. As a large, active and long-term participant in capital markets, the Bank is an attractive investor and partner. In unlisted markets, this may open up opportunities unavailable to others. We will set great store by being a responsible investor. Responsible investment and active ownership support the objective of the highest possible return. Transparency about this work is important, and we expanded our reporting in this area in 2022. Managing climate-related risks and opportunities is an important priority. An orderly climate transition in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement is in the fund's economic interest. 1/2  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  The Ministry of Finance updated its mandate for Norges Bank in 2022. The Bank's work on responsible investment is now to be based on the long-term goal that the companies we invest in align their activities with global net zero emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. We published an ambitious Climate Action Plan in the autumn for the period 2022-2025.
4 Such a growth rate has some historical precedent, as shown on the right side of the chart, but it is much faster than the growth rate in the past two recoveries. And to reach 5 per cent unemployment by 2015 would still take growth averaging 4.2 per cent per year – considerably faster than the average rate of growth after the 1991 and 2001 recessions. Given the need for very rapid growth to get unemployment back to 5 per cent, let me pose an oversimplified question – why would policymakers not keep monetary policy very accommodative, and fiscal policy very stimulative, until we had a sustained growth rate that brought the economy much closer to full employment? At least on the monetary side, one reason might be concern among policymakers that rapid growth would be inflationary. To explore that, let’s turn to Figure 7, which shows the total and core inflation rates, measured by changes in the CPI, with recession shading. What the chart shows is that inflation has declined in each recession, including this so-called Great Recession. It also highlights that inflation tends to continue falling in the early stages of a recovery. Figure 8 shows the change in the inflation rate from the business cycle peak. From the peak (shown at zero on the horizontal axis) the inflation rate is very restrained, and generally negative, for many months.

Information about future demand and supply levels ought to be reflected in the current price and in the prices of commodity futures. But the increases from Autumn 2010 onwards were largely unexpected, and have been a genuine surprise for our forecasts. For example, spot oil and gas prices have risen very substantially since their low points in 2009.2 Spot oil prices are well above the levels implied by futures prices at the time of the February Inflation Report (Chart 2). Gas futures prices have also moved markedly higher since then (Chart 3). Chart 2  Chart 3  Sterling oil prices(a)  Sterling gas prices(a)  Sources: Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters Datastream and Bank calculations. Sources: Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters Datastream and Bank calculations. (a) Futures prices for February and May are averages during the fifteen working days to 9 February and 4 May respectively. Each futures curve assumes that the sterling-dollar exchange rate remains constant at its average during those periods. (a) Futures prices for February and May are averages during the fifteen working days to 9 February and 4 May respectively. (b) One-day forward price of UK natural gas. (b) Brent forward prices for delivery in 10–21 days’ time converted into sterling. Third, we have been experiencing the ongoing effects of sterling’s fall during 2007 and 2008, when the nominal effective exchange rate fell by around 25% (Chart 4).
However, we differ from other countries in two areas in a somewhat disadvantageous way: first of all, we let a portion of the large-value transfers go through multilateral netting before being settled in Norges Bank. This is not common, but obviously contributes to less stringent liquidity requirements (this occurs in Germany and the US, among others). Second, in Norway we still make use of so-called “T-copying”, in which the payee receives information on payments before the settlement has taken place.9 This creates the risk of the payee bank crediting the customer before the bank has received the money. The payee bank may thus be exposed to a non-controlled risk relative to the payer bank. On the whole, however, we may conclude that we have come a long way relative to the systems some of us recall from 10-15 years ago. 3.2.2  Risk can be further reduced  In spite of the progress which has been made, I still think that risk in the Norwegian clearing and settlement system can and should be reduced. Allow me to point out three areas where I believe risk is still too high: Retail netting in NICS Turnover in this area has been high and on the rise. Average daily turnover is now NOK 28bn compared with about NOK 18.5bn in 1998. Turnover has reached up to NOK 76bn on certain days. 8 9  NBO: Norges Bank’s settlement system.

Its supervision focuses on issues such as the financial strength of the whole firm, including the adequacy of its liquidity and the resolution plan for the firm (collaborating with the Special Resolution Unit and home authorities to develop such plans in colleges or Crisis Management Groups as applicable), taking into account the importance of the firm to the PRA’s objective.” “For UK branches of non-EEA firms where the PRA is satisfied that the home regulatory regime is equivalent, and where the PRA has assured itself over resolution plans and the home regulator’s supervisory approach, the PRA relies where possible on the home regulator’s prudential supervision. In these cases, the PRA focuses on collaboration with home regulators (including via supervisory colleges) and on resolution plans. In addition, the PRA takes a close interest in liquidity and ensures that there are senior individuals in the United Kingdom that are clearly responsible for management of both the UK operations and business booked in the United Kingdom. The PRA discusses and agrees with the home regulator the areas in which it will seek to rely on the home regulator’s supervision”. This Approach document concluded that the PRA would in due course publish a fuller statement on our approach to the supervision of overseas firms operating in the UK. To take that forward, over the summer the PRA Board, acting in its new statutory capacity considered our policy further.
Due to the expected significant number of applications for exemption from the contingency mechanism, a simplified procedure for consulting EBA is envisaged until the end of 2019. The Bulgarian National Bank has established a procedure for prompt handling and examination of applications for exemption. This will enable the account servicing payment service providers, which comply with the requirements of the Regulation, to be exempted from obligation prior to the 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  entry into force of the requirement for providing a fallback mechanism on 14 September, 2019. Strong Customer Authentication According to the provisions of Commission Delegation Regulation (EU) 2018/389 – by 14 September, 2019 the payment service providers in the country must fully implement the requirements for strong customer authentication in respect of all electronic payment transactions. The focus is on the use of at least two independent authentication elements from different categories. The two elements should refer to one of the categories of knowledge (e.g. static password), possession (SMS OTP or generated by token device) or inherence (e.g. fingerprint scanning). Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389 exhaustedly stipulates the cases for which payment service providers are allowed not to supply strong customer authentication. Where a payment service provider wishes to benefit from any of the exemptions, it will have to notify BNB in advance, indicating the particular payment service to be exempted.

As was the case before the crisis and indicated in the June 2011 principles, the Committee intends to adjust the policy stance during normalization primarily through actions that directly influence the level of the fed funds rate and other short-term interest rates rather than through active management of the size or composition of the Fed’s securities holdings. Specifically, when economic conditions and the economic outlook warrant a less accommodative stance of monetary policy, the Committee will raise its target range for the fed funds rate. During normalization, the Committee intends to move the fed funds rate into the target range primarily by adjusting the rate of interest on excess reserve balances (IOER) that it pays. We expect changes in the IOER rate to have a significant influence on the fed  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  funds rate and other short-term interest rates. However, to help control the fed funds rate, the Committee also intends to use an ON RRP facility and other supplementary tools, as needed. The Committee will use an ON RRP facility only to the extent necessary, and will phase it out when it is no longer needed to help control the funds rate. With regard to the Fed’s balance sheet, the Committee intends to reduce securities holdings in a gradual and predictable manner, primarily by ceasing to reinvest repayments of principal on securities held in the SOMA.
B  The introduction of the euro has increased the homogeneity of European economies and limited the risks of macroeconomic disequilibrium inside the euro area  The convergence process, the homogeneity of European economies and the synchronization of business cycles have increased since the introduction of the euro •  Regarding business cycles, some recent work presented by a working group joining the CEPR (Centre for Economic Policy Research) and the Eurosystem shows that the correlation between business cycles as a whole and also consumption and investment in most euro area countries has increased since 1999. A common European component seems to play a more important role in these economies than the national components do. The  degree of correlation between national cycles and the euro area aggregated cycle varies between 0.70 and 0.92. •  Concerning inflation, the research conducted by the Eurosystem shows that the degree of dispersion of inflation rates inside the euro area is not significantly superior to that observed in the USA, where the federal budget and the much more unified market of goods and services constitute additional room for manoeuvre. The standard error of the annual growth of prices in the 12 euro area countries is in the vicinity of 1.1, compared with 0.8 in the 14 regions of the USA. •  Finally, the updating of the vast work on monetary transmission mechanisms led by the Eurosystem shows that Member States’ economies are more homogeneous as regards the transmission of monetary impulses since the introduction of the euro.

The EMU has limited the risks of exchange rate crises and catalyzed the financial integration of the euro area economy •  The euro has put an end to the potential effects of exchange rate crises and favoured the emergence of a stable environment characterized by historically low interest rates. Thanks to these developments, the euro area countries have not been confronted with difficulties stemming from the uncertainties due to recent geopolitical troubles. •  The introduction of the euro has catalyzed the financial integration of the European economy, which is totally complete as regards the money market. In the first weeks following the introduction of the euro, price differences on national interbank money markets decreased very quickly to stand at less than 5 bp. This level corresponds to the spread bid-ask currently observed on the market. •  A comparable movement has occurred on European bond markets, where returns on government yields have converged. •  The euro area, and more broadly the European Union, now have a consistent financial architecture. The implementation of the Financial Services Action Plan defined at the Lisbon European Council is on the way to completion. Subsequently, the Lamfalussy process should provide a new institutional architecture in the fields of financial supervision and regulation and develop flexible and uniform technical rules. Part 2: The euro plays the role of an international currency and a nominal anchor The available data bear out the increase in the international role of the euro.