samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
There needs to be awareness of the alternative assets that can be accumulated not only to generate an income stream but also towards building wealth. Of equal importance is to draw those operating in the informal sector into the formal sector, where their financial requirements, whether households or businesses can be better served. A further phenomenon taking place in Asia is the increased regional economic and financial integration that is taking place. This has manifested itself in increased intra-regional trade, investment flows and the increased intra-regional presence of corporations and financial institutions. A more recent phenomenon is the increased mobility of labour in the region. Of significance is the number of women who have ventured beyond their own borders in search of new employment opportunities. While data on this is not available, the statistics on remittances of income show this is a growing trend. Overseas employment is particularly evident in the manufacturing and services sectors. Financial literacy under these circumstances becomes even more vital. In venturing to new areas where different systems, languages and cultures prevail, it becomes important to have knowledge of the basic financial matters so as to maximise the benefits the new employment is expected to yield. As the formal economies of Asia prosper and grow, there is a greater need to integrate the informal sectors of the economy with the formal sector.

The Financial Mediation Bureau aims to serve as a one-stop center for the resolution of retail consumer complaints against financial institutions regulated by the Central Bank. The Central Bank is also establishing a one-stop service centre in the Bank that will function as a Public Information Centre for the promotion of financial literacy among the Malaysian public. The service centre will provide advisory services on financial matters to small and medium enterprises. Ladies and Gentlemen, Concluding remarks Financial literacy among women is all about having sufficient awareness of financial matters to enable women to protect and prosper for themselves and their families in a world that is becoming increasingly more complex and uncertain. To be an effective participant in this modern economy, we cannot take financial literacy for granted. It is a knowledge and skill that must be deliberately pursued. From a national and institutional perspective, promoting financial literacy must be an integral part of the overall agenda for financial and economic reform and development. Let me conclude with the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, “We talk of revolutions, political and economic. And yet the greatest revolution in a country is the one that affects the status and living conditions of its women. It is in so far as our revolution has affected our women that it is basic.” Thank you. BIS Review 64/2004  5
With regard to inflation, one may ask “how much is too much?”. I  believe that the answer does not lie in pinning down certain numbers, but in the commitment to maintain a relatively low and stable inflation in the medium and long run. Experience has taught me that inflation is an insidious disease that should not be treated carelessly. With respect to real convergence, a question raised by many is “how fast is  fast enough?”. Again, I would not look for a certain figure; I would tackle this issue by approaching real convergence not as a race where the fastest track is also the right one, but rather as a complex process giving the steady runner (a marathoner rather than a sprinter) the opportunity to reap most of the potential benefits, while avoiding excessive risks. Much like the fable about the turtle and the rabbit, which we all know how it ends... Beyond targets and levels, and irrespective of the convergence gap an economy faces or the monetary policy regime a central bank opts for, what matters for both real convergence and price stability (as part of nominal convergence) is the consistency and the sustainability of the effort. In other words, being and staying on the right track. Thank you. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches

Attracting, retaining and nurturing talent of our brightest mind would form the basis for our country’s transition to being a high income growth economy. It is also the groundwork that we need to built and strengthen so that our financial services remain competitive and innovative. With the support from the industry players, FSTEP can serve as a bridge that connects the needs of the financial services industry with the talents produced by institutions of higher learning. But the industry must be forward looking in its approach. FSTEPS was designed and intended to develop the best graduates that we can recruit. Properly trained and exposed, they could form the pool of future leaders and senior management for the financial services industry. FSTEP was not envisaged to produce technicians and mechanics. Neither was FSTEP created to duplicate the training programs of financial institution. FSTEPS comprehensive one-year programme while emphasizing the important facets of technical knowledge also exposed trainees to personal development and on the job internship. FSTEP was intended to produce graduates that can be entrusted with positions of responsibility in the industry over the long term. This was the idea behind the formation of FSTEP and we need to bear this in mind when devising the syllabus and enhancement in the future. The Quality Assurance Committee was created based on the thinking that a dynamic and relevant programmes requires continuous and timely revision. The QAC that had developed the new syllabus incorporated valuable inputs from the industry.
The current account figures for the second quarter of this year offer a good illustration for this phenomenon - the primary current account deficit was 7% of the GDP - more than 6 pp below the actual deficit. At the present time foreign investors are taking into account the perspective of Estonia's EU membership within the near future, the optimistic growth forecasts and continuing increase of living standards. Due to favourable financing conditions, total investment activity has recently been the highest since the beginning of the transition period - during the first quarter of 2003 investments together with stock building accounted for 38% of the GDP in Estonia. At the same time, a number of small and medium-size enterprises are bringing their production plants in line with EU requirements. And of course, borrowing at the present low interest rates is very attractive to private individuals. But despite all the exceptional one-off factors behind the present high external deficit figures, we must not close our eyes to the fact that the level IS high. And reducing the imbalances - with all the attendant stress on increased public and private savings - is presently one of the main priorities for Estonia. BIS Review 42/2003  1  It must be stressed, in this context, however, that one indicator taken alone - even if it were an indication of possibly unfavourable developments - would not give an adequate picture of the relative health of an economy.

Rodrigo Vergara: The Monetary Policy Report and the Financial Stability Report Presentation by Mr Rodrigo Vergara, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, before the Finance Commission of the Honorable Senate of the Republic, Santiago de Chile, 15 December 2014. *  *  *  The Monetary Policy Report of December 2014 and the Financial Stability Report of the second half of 2014 can be accessed at http://www.bcentral.cl. Introduction Mr. President of the Finance Commission of the Senate, Senator Ricardo Lagos, senators members of this Commission, ladies, gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me to present Central Bank of Chile’s financial and macroeconomic outlook and its view on the most recent developments and their implications for monetary and financial policy. This vision is contained in detail in our December 2014 Monetary Policy Report (IPoM) and our Financial Stability Report (IEF) of the second half of 2014. In recent months, our macroeconomic outlook has reflected unexpectedly high inflation and a slowdown in economic growth. In the projection scenario that I will be presenting shortly, we have revised upward our inflation forecast for the coming months, although we continue to estimate that it will converge to 3 percent during 2015. We have also revised downward our growth forecast for domestic output and demand this and next year. There are several factors underlying these corrections. The inflation surprises of the past few months originated in specific prices and were mostly temporary.
According to research, the productivity rise was mostly due to what we call "total factor productivity", that is improvements that can be attributed neither to capital nor to labor, but to specific organizational, technological and institutional changes that result in productivity rises and GDP growth. In the past few years, the new EU member-states register trends of positive influence also of the labor to the economic growth, while among the SEEU countries this contribution is still mainly negative. 3 Structural and institutional reforms also had key influence on the accelerated productivity growth. Transition indicators of the EBRD that are commonly used for assessment of the reforms indicate that the new member-states have already reached the level of the developed countries in the fields of privatization, price liberalization, trade and foreign exchange systems (although they are still lagging behind with respect to the enterprises restructuring, competition protection, banking reform and liberalization of the interest rates and financial markets and institutions, as well as the overall infrastructure). 4 On the other hand, these indicators clearly point to the fact that the SEEU countries, are significantly lagging behind with the reforms in all these areas, except price liberalization and to a certain extent trade and foreign exchange systems. The process of accelerated income increases, that is the process of real convergence, also initiated the process of nominal convergence.

In addition, the rise in incomes, the presence of abundant foreign capital, the expansion of the banking sector and sometimes negative real interest rates all contributed to rapid credit growth in transition countries. Again, the rates of growth were almost unprecedented before, and in 2007 they reached around 60% year on year in Bulgaria, Romania and around 40.6% in Lithuania. 11 After a previously suppressed consumption, the process of credit growth was understandable and desirable for economic growth. However, the rates of growth are only adding to demand pressures in these countries, and in combination with the other factors, adding to the rise of inflation, rise of imports and further worsening of the current account position. Dear guests, At the current time, these developments pose two particular challenges for the policy makers in transition countries, one a short-term and the other a longer term. The short term challenge is how to lower the risk of high current account deficits, which can cause wider financial crisis, combined with a currency crisis in countries with pegs and currency boards. Both the economic theory and the economic history are clear that current circumstances are not the most favorable for these countries. Worsening current account deficits are not sustainable and can not continue forever. The more they widen, the bigger the pressure becomes for real exchange rate depreciation as a way of restoring competitiveness.
Consistent with this, we can see that in their published accounts, banks are placing a fair value on some of their assets which is below the book value. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  This evidence, while informative, does not, for me at least, get to a conclusion on the need to add more nominal capital, or more particularly how much capital to add. To do that, we need to know more about the contribution of these various possible causes of market values of banks’ capital, and that must be the key next step in the work. On this, I would ask for the insights of banks themselves and analysts, because as I always say, I know one thing for sure, we don’t have a monopoly of wisdom, and this is a tough question. But, it is a key question, because the danger of a very slow resolution of the capital gap is that new lending to the economy is seriously restrained. This is the Japanese threat, based on the recent history of Japan, and the basis of the argument that a more aggressive approach to re-capitalising banks will create more support for new lending. Moreover, it does illustrate why we see a close interaction of the FPC’s two objectives, of resilience and growth. I need to see more evidence and analysis of why market values of banks’ capital are low before I can determine what and how much needs to be done.

Inflation expectations are based therefore on forecasts for the development of the real demand, how many unused resources there are in the economy initially, assessments of the productivity trend and the long-term trend level of production. However, consumer prices can be affected by factors that are not related to resource use in the Swedish economy. Inflation measured by CPI is also affected, for instance, by changes in supply and other factors that temporarily affect inflation. When CPI is affected by temporary factors of this kind  1  BIS Review 72/2000  that are unrelated to resource use, inflation diverges, in the simplified model, from the target even when the output gap is closed. UND1X is a measure that makes adjustments for some of these effects although far from all of them. The rule of conduct The Executive Board of the Riksbank has decided to formulate a decision rule that states that if inflation, measured as the annual change in CPI, is expected to rise about the target of 2% during the nearest one to two years, then the interest rate should normally be increased and vice versa. The choice of time horizon is justified by our assessment that an interest rate change has the greatest effect on price developments during this period. However, interest rate changes also affect inflation in the shorter and longer term, so that there are reasons for giving some consideration to the inflation forecast for the coming year and for the time beyond two years.
1  BIS Review 92/2000  The objective of monetary policy Norway has a tradition of having a fixed or stable exchange rate, although we cannot say that we have had a high degree of continuity in monetary policy. On the contrary. In the 1970s and 1980s, the economy lacked a nominal anchor. Interest rates were low in nominal terms and they were politically  determined. Frequent devaluations were used to redress the negative effects of high price and wage inflation on competitiveness. The average rate of increase in prices between 1973 and 1987 was almost 10%. The value of the Norwegian krone against the German mark was nearly halved from 1973 to 1987. We paid about 2 kroner for a mark in 1973 and close to 4 kroner in 1987. The low interest rate and devaluation policy collapsed in the mid-1980s. Following a shift, which can now perhaps be said to have occurred in 1986, monetary policy has created nominal stability. Through the 1990s inflation in Norway was on a par with the level elsewhere in Europe. At the same time, the value of the krone against European currencies is about the same today as it was in the early 1990s. The exchange rate against the German mark is still around 4 kroner. BIS Review 92/2000  2  Norway abandoned a fixed exchange rate system in 1992 in the wake of heavy speculation against the krone during the period of turbulence in European foreign exchange markets.

I’ll be taking stock on how we are doing with respect to our employment and inflation goals and whether it will be appropriate to continue purchasing longer-dated Treasuries when that program concludes. I think that this will depend on whether we have seen a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook  6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  in the interim and any further evidence about the costs and benefits of continuing such purchases. In terms of our monetary policy regime, the FOMC statement noted that the Committee expects to maintain a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy “for a considerable time after the economic recovery strengthens.” This is important because in situations such as the one we find ourselves in today, when monetary policy is somewhat constrained because we cannot lower the federal funds rate below zero, one of the most powerful things a central bank can do is to provide guidance as to how it will behave in the future. In this respect, I am pleased that we have drawn a sharper distinction between what we expect the economy to look like in a few years time and how we expect to set policy based on that outlook. In particular, when the Committee extended the period for which it anticipates keeping the federal funds rate at exceptionally low levels – which I interpret to mean the current range of zero to 25 basis points – to “at least through mid-2015,” I don’t think this was due to greater pessimism about the economic outlook.
In our downside scenario, which captures – among other shocks – the impact of a complete cut-off of Russian gas, we project that the economy will contract next year before picking up in 2024. But inflation is expected to be higher at the end of the projection horizon than in the baseline scenario. [14] A third factor will be the actions of governments. Monetary policy will do whatever is needed to return inflation to our target. But a truly European approach where monetary and fiscal policy complement each other can improve the inflation outlook. In particular, how fiscal policies support firms and households through the difficult winter ahead will play an important role in inflation dynamics. Targeted, temporary and tailored measures are needed to protect the incomes of the most vulnerable, while also preventing a significant loss of capacity owing to production cuts and bankruptcies. But beyond that, it will make a difference whether fiscal policy focuses mainly on public consumption and transfers – which may add to inflationary pressures – or on public investment and debt sustainability. As many of the sources of inflation today are on the supply side, government policies that lift supply and redirect investment to where it is needed are necessary to support sustainable growth. The pace of rate increases The second consideration in responding to current inflation is the pace of rate increases.

Headline inflation – which was negative as recently as December 2020 – has risen by 9.4 percentage points from its trough during the pandemic to its peak last month. Core inflation has risen by 4.1 percentage points. In the recent past, elastic global supply has meant that shocks to production or energy have dissipated eventually. Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s, for example, oil prices fell below their pre-war level after around five months. And following the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster in 2011, production is estimated to have returned to normal after only seven months for Japanese firms. [4]  But the shocks triggered by the pandemic and the war have also created what I have previously called a “new global map” of economic relationships. [5] The economic turning points on this new global map imply that supply constraints are likely to last longer than in the past. And this means, in turn, that it is taking longer for the inflationary effects of those shocks to fade out. Two issues are worth considering here. First, geopolitics have shaken up European energy markets. The cut in gas supplies owing to the Russian invasion has become a major structural change which will have ramifications for several years. For example, following the two oil shocks of the 1970s – the OPEC embargo and the Iranian revolution – the effect on oil prices was still persistent after three years.
Professor Tilakaratna’s greatest contribution to economics was his continuous upgrading of the standards of the syllabuses and examination papers in economics at the GCE (Advanced Level) Examination to be on par with international standards. New theories, trends and ideas in economics were all built into his examination structures with a time gap of only one or two years. This strategy forced students, teachers and, above all, tuition masters, to continuously update their knowledge. The failure to do so would have meant failure at the examinations. From his side, to help them, he wrote text books, appeared on the educational services of both Rupavahini and the Broadcasting  BIS Review 4/2007  1  Corporation and attended frequent public and teachers’ seminars. When the Central Bank broadened the definition of money supply and introduced the concept of high powered money, it took only less than two years for these new subjects to be a part of the examination paper. He confessed to us that he had to learn these concepts anew in order to handle them safely as examination material. He was also an administrator par excellence as the Chairman of the University Grants Commission. In this position, he was able to perform his duty without fear or favour. He had the remarkable ability of effectively managing politicians, friends and even relatives who made unreasonable demands which were against the approved rules and regulations.

I have no doubt at all that the City has the professional and technical capacity, and the self-confidence, to make a major contribution to this process. Let me touch, finally, Chairman, on financial globalisation more generally. As we have seen, the increasingly free flow of capital internationally has the capacity to contribute massively to the expansion of the world economy; but it can become distorted, with the risk of destructive volatility, which in turn can pose a significant threat to financial stability on a world-wide basis. Since the sudden onset of the Asia crisis some three years ago with its global repercussions there has been a 3  BIS Review 49/2000  huge international effort to reduce the risk of volatility. This has involved drawing up codes of best practice - covering everything from fiscal and monetary prudence, external balance sheet and liquidity management and greater transparency, to increased financial regulation as well as higher legal, accounting and corporate governance standards - which national governments particularly in capital importing countries, are being encouraged to apply. It has involved extensive and ongoing reviews of the financial infrastructure and regulatory practice also in creditor countries. And it has involved a continuing review of the role of the international financial institutions in preventing and managing international debt crises.