samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
As Bank of Zambia, we believe that the recent economic developments, such as, the attainment of single digit inflation for the first time in three decades in April 2006 and sustaining low-level inflation for nearly three consecutive quarters so far to November 2006 are supportive of this initiative. These developments also indicate that Zambia is able to rally foreign private capital to improve the domestic financing limitations and support efforts of encouraging faster economic growth, private sector investment and exploitation of the country’s huge potential in various sectors. Ladies and gentlemen, we also believe that events such as this complement the outcomes of Government’s economic reform agenda which in part is aimed at strengthening our country’s creditworthiness as demonstrated by the attainment of the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) completion point in April 2005. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to elaborate. In order to strengthen and sustain our new status as a creditworthy economy following the attainment of the HIPC completion point, the Bank of Zambia, together with Government, is working on ensuring that our institutional arrangements are supportive of keeping the global investor audience, amongst others, informed about domestic economic developments transparently and on an ongoing basis. For instance, we believe that obtaining a formal sovereign credit rating would help us build part of the necessary institutional arrangements of keeping all stakeholders informed.

Much in the same way, the Zambian private sector in general and Celtel Zambia plc in particular has the challenge of opening up to creditworthiness scrutiny and withstanding world-class due diligence by recognising and upholding good corporate governance norms of transparency, accountability and fairness. We are also aware that a formal sovereign credit rating undertaken by international credit rating agencies would not only further open up Zambia to global financial markets but also permit the appropriate reflection of our sovereign creditworthiness or risk premium in private sector financial dealings, which we believe is currently much better than generally held by both domestic and offshore market participants. In other words a good sovereign rating would improve the terms and conditions of international financial dealings for the Zambian private sector and businesses which could also be passed on to consumers in terms of affordable pricing and improved product quality. Ladies and gentlemen, today’s event therefore is an opportunity for honest introspection, though, this time not about the potential of our economy but about our own private and collective resolve of translating this potential into jobs, incomes and a quality life for all. We all need to recognise and  BIS Review 126/2006  1  understand that our commitment to upholding good corporate governance practices in both the public and private sectors and the resultant confidence and trust of our citizens, customers and clients be it in Government policies or private sector goods and services is inescapable for the long term health of both our society and businesses.
47, no. 3, pages 402-14. 15  Of course, if true risk-free rates fall then, other things being equal, nominal forward rates would fall too, and so would not, on their own, be a good indicator of inflation expectations. Given the bulge in Asian savings, there are reasons to think that long real rates might have fallen. But this is much less pronounced in $ TIP yields than in UK indexed-gilt yields, and so I incline to the view that the gilt-market “breakeven” rates are somewhat distorted. BIS Review 112/2008  7  medium-term expectations suggests that the expectations might have been more contained, and might more recently have started to edge down a bit. But it is hard to know how much weight to place on that. But if the upside risks to medium-term inflation are not yet firmly embedded in expectations and so are not evident across the nominal indicators, we certainly cannot conclude that the risk has passed. Headline inflation outturns remain elevated, and could top 5% – well above the 2% target – for a number of months. Not only have goods prices accelerated, reflecting the direct impact of food and energy prices, but services inflation has risen too (Chart 7). As a diagnostic of the underlying upside risks, ignoring the direct effect of past increases in food and energy prices, inflation has reached around 2%.

To translate this back into a Taylor-rule world, we would need to know the so-called “shadow prices”. Of course we don’t know those unobservable prices. But we can, perhaps, get a broadbrush handle on the materiality of the tightening by using estimated equations for credit (and money) demand, holding all other influences constant. 10 There is just huge uncertainty  7  See Tucker, PMWT (2008), “The credit crisis: lessons from a protracted peacetime”, remarks given at the Chatham House conference on “The New Financial Frontiers”. These remarks are also forthcoming in the 2008 Q3 edition of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin. 8  See Taylor, JB., (2008) “Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy”, testimony before the Committee on Financial Services, US House of Representatives, February and Mculley, P and Touli, R (2008) “Chasing the Neutral Rate Down: Financial Conditions, Monetary Policy, and the Taylor Rule”, Global Central Bank Focus, PIMCO. 9  Another reason reflected in the Curdia and Woodford (2008) paper is the fact that borrowers and savers have different propensities to consume. Consequently a change in spreads will affect the “average rate” faced by borrowers and savers in a different way from a change in the policy rate. 10  Based, for example, on Brigden, A and Mizen, P (1999) “ Money, credit and investment in the UK corporate sector”, Bank of England Working Paper number 100. BIS Review 112/2008  5  about such estimates but, for what it’s worth, they indicate a material tightening from this source.
As one can see in the chart, the relative minimum wage in Malta is the fourth highest in the euro area, and this may impact the incentive to acquire additional skills or pursue more advanced education. It is worth reflecting on the experience of other countries in this respect. For example, Slovenia increased the minimum wage by 23% in 2010. The IMF, in its reaction to this increase, remarked that this will “hurt employment in labour intensive sectors and put upward pressure on the general wage level, exacerbating already high unit labour cost compared to regional peers. The increase is also likely to reduce incentives for workers to increase their human capital by compressing the wage differential between unskilled and specialized low-skilled workers.” 1 From discussions I have had with officials from the Central Bank of Slovenia, it is their considered opinion that the IMF as well as the Commission were right in their assessment. Indeed, a major reason for Slovenia’s increased fiscal gap and loss of competitiveness can be laid at the door of this large increase in minimum wage a few years ago. A similar picture emerges from the experience of Greece and Cyprus that also had significant increases in minimum wages, while labour market inflexibilities have contributed to the loss in competitiveness in Spain and Italy. The most sustainable way to raise living standards is through structural reforms along with investment in education and physical capital (that is, through the promotion of investment in human and fixed capital.)

What about the funds earmarked under the second plan to support the Greek banks? That money, € billion, disappears with the stopping of the programme, on Tuesday evening, as does all assistance for Greece which was still available but conditional on the implementation of the programme. The ECB has maintained its emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to the banks. Did the question of its withdrawal come up last weekend? The ECB acts within its regulatory framework. We can offer emergency liquidity assistance to the banks provided that they are solvent, the collateral submitted is of good quality, and that the ELA doesn’t interfere with the ECB’s monetary policy. Until Sunday these conditions were met. It was found at the same time that the creditworthiness of the Greek government was seriously degraded, particularly after the Eurogroup’s decision to withdraw the safety net granted to Greece. That led to us not authorising new drawdowns from the central bank, while maintaining the current level of liquidity. I regard this as a measured decision as it does not create an irreversible situation. Are you going to continue providing support to the banks until Sunday evening? We are going to continue the support until further notice. The situation is being constantly monitored by the Governing Council. What is the ECB’s exposure to Greece? On the one hand, there are the loans extended to Greek banks by the Eurosystem, with a total value of more than € billion.
The labour markets in Europe – including Sweden – have shown clearer tendencies towards this than in the United States. During the period 1960-1999 employment increased substantially in the public sector. Since then it has stagnated and it is not likely that it will be the same engine for employment growth in future as it was previously. At the same time, employment in industry is continuing to decline. Instead, employment has increased most in the private service sector (see Figure 10). The capacity of the labour market to adapt to these changes in demand is of course important. In future, a large part of employment growth will probably be in the private service sector. It will be very important that the labour market functions in a way that enables a smooth transfer to growth sectors. This concerns retraining, localisation of new production and also wage formation. Something that one can feel apprehensive about is how the Swedish economy will manage an international recession. We are strongly dependent on exports. Investment is also increasingly made abroad. I therefore believe that it is important to make it attractive to invest in Sweden so that the domestic economy is strengthened. The current account surplus also shows that there would be scope to increase domestic demand, which could increase employment in Sweden and alleviate the effect of an international downswing. Wage formation Normally, increased competition in the goods and labour markets leads to lower profit shares and in the long term to lower unemployment and higher welfare.

Do this increase in unemployment and the decline in the employment rate have anything to do with monetary policy and the introduction of an inflation target or are there other explanations? Unemployment and the employment rate When a large shock like the 1990s crisis occurs, there are tremendous demands on both policy and flexibility among firms and individuals. If one looks at the developments in employment (or unemployment) since the 1990s crisis, one may wonder whether the labour market has really recovered, despite the fact that 13 years have passed (see Figure 5). There may also have been structural changes in the economy that make it difficult to return to the low unemployment levels we had prior to the crisis, for instance, as a result of the strong competitive pressure that globalisation entails. In the long term, it is the way the labour market functions (structural factors) that determines unemployment and the employment rate. How quickly an unemployed person can return to work depends on several factors. Some people may find that their skills have become obsolete when one technique has been abandoned in favour of a more modern technique, such as typographers being replaced by IT people. In this case, training is one opportunity that can lead to a new job after some time. Hopefully, it will also lead to a job with a real wage that is at least equally as high as the previous wage. The greater this possibility, the more probable it is that the employee will return to work.
Vestin, David (2006). “Price-Level versus Inflation Targeting”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 53(7), 1361–1376. White, William R. (2006). “Is Price Stability Enough?”, Bank for International Settlements Working Paper 205. White, William R. (2009). “Should Monetary Policy ‘Lean or Clean’?”, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Globalisation and Monetary Policy Institute Working Paper 34. Williams, John C. (2009). “Heeding Daedalus: Optimal Inflation and the Zero Lower Bound”, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2, 1–50. Woodford, Michael (2003). Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ. BIS Review 111/2010  45

Also, the real-estate bubble encouraged the demand for homes to be used as financial assets. These credits were sold to agencies that did not do a diligent risk assessment, and that triggered contamination not only throughout the US financial system at large, but also to other developed economies. Risk-rating agencies were unable to give the proper ratings to complex instruments. In addition, there was a severe conflict of interests in the risk-rating system. The executive compensation structure also encouraged the search for returns with little attention to the risks involved. That it is costly to lend to bad debtors that will not repay goes without question, but this can hardly spark off a crisis of the proportions we are seeing today. The problem worsened because of the way banks decided to get rid of these loans, the way they were rated, and the financial instruments that were devised to reduce risks and make it appear as they had vanished when they had only shifted. There are also doubts whether the operations of derivatives markets have been as transparent as they should have been or if they have been manipulated. The paradox here is that in the banking system, whose purposes must be credit intermediation and risk hedging, it seems that risks were covered up rather than covered against, in an intricate web of derivatives (and acronyms) favored by regulations that did not measure up to the challenges.
Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya: SMEs and financial inclusion Speech by Mr Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC) SME Awards 2018, Kuala Lumpur, 27 June 2018. * * * It is my pleasure to address you this evening at the SME Awards hosted by Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC). I would like to commend CGC for the continuous effort in championing the SME cause, and in recognising the banking and financial industry players that have made meaningful contribution in supporting the SMEs. As mentioned by Dato’ Agil, ‘Digital Disruption’ has become the new normal not only for the banking and financial industry, but also for other sectors and industries. We have seen the fortunes of traditional businesses changing overnight with technological disruption. In fact, the financial industry may at times need to play catch up to ensure products and services are relevant in a new digital economy. We believe CGC will continue in its efforts to be agile and dynamic in embracing the higher expectations of meeting the financing needs of SMEs moving into the future. SMEs and Financial Inclusion In broad terms, financial inclusion means access to affordable financial products and services that meet the needs of individuals and businesses and that are delivered in a responsible and sustainable manner. At Bank Negara Malaysia, we recognise the impact of financial inclusion on the broader economic performance of our country.

But it highlighted a number of deficiencies in the legal framework. It turned out to be a long process to finally have the institution closed, something which may have contributed to the failure coming at higher costs to the deposit insurance scheme than necessary. Other countries appear to have had similar experiences Taking a broader outlook, it is not uncommon that countries rely on some modification of the ordinary corporate insolvency procedure to deal with weak banks, and in some cases a different regime altogether. And many countries seem to be able to handle small problems within their ordinary framework. But when it comes to those exceptional circumstances where the payment system and the stability of the financial system are at risk, the common denominator between different crises seems to be that the authorities did not find it possible to rely on the normal rule. Instead there have been special provisions or special crisis legislation. A case which I followed closely was the Asian crisis in the late 1990s. Like in Sweden in the early 1990s, it was necessary to take specific measures to avoid a serious interruption of the financial system. And there are a number of emerging markets which have had similar experiences and have been confronted with the same dilemma of how to secure financial stability without overly eroding market discipline in the long run. 4  BIS Review 62/2008  But I think that until recently, most industrialised countries may have felt quite removed from this problem.
Since the start of the year, there have been signs of stabilisation in the offshore RMB liquidity pool in Hong Kong, now hovering at around RMB 600 billion. On the other hand, our RMB RTGS system continues to record a high volume of turnover of some RMB 900 billion per day, indicating that a large amount of RMB financial intermediation activities have been taking place in Hong Kong. July this year, the HKMA and the People’s Bank of China jointly launched the Bond Connect. It provides an additional channel for international investors to gain access to the vast bond market in Mainland China, using international common practice in securities settlement and custody. This is made possible thanks to new infrastructure linkages between HKMA’s Central Moneymarkets Unit and relevant onshore institutions. So far, over 200 investors have successfully registered as Bond Connect investors, holding some RMB80 billion Mainland bonds. Daily turnover averaged RMB2 billion per day. This is not bad in four months’ time, but we foresee considerable headroom to grow further. The investment thesis is compelling – Mainland China’s solid economic fundamentals, RMB internationalisation, inclusion of RMB bonds in major indices, etc. And from an investor’s perspective, the nominal yield of around 4% on 10-year government credit is simply attractive. The Stock Connect schemes have been running smoothly and next year, A-share will be included in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which is tracked by some $ trillion in assets. This will be a big boost to Stock Connect trading.

Jean-Pierre Roth: Once a student, always a student Summary of a speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the University of Bern, Switzerland, 9 February 2006. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  Like all decisions relating to the future, monetary policy decisions involve numerous uncertainties. Economic researchers are divided as regards both the effects of monetary policy and the form that this policy should take. There are a number of competing models in economic theory, and their policy recommendations often vary. Relationships that have been stable in the past may change at any time, due to the fact that the structural equations used in economic models are not based on the laws of nature. The Swiss National Bank's monetary policy concept takes account of these uncertainties. Our inflation forecast is a key element in this concept and combines the results obtained by a variety of different models. Research is extremely important in our changing world. We can only be sure of identifying new developments as early as possible and basing our monetary policy decisions on a solid foundation if we engage in constant research. BIS Review 9/2006  1
This being the PPE society, I am sure you know the standard answer: money, as you learn on an economics course, has to be all of three things:   A means of payment – everyone has to be able to buy things with it;    A store of value – everyone has to be able to hold their wealth in it; and    A unit of account – everyone has to use it as a common measure of the economic value of things. This is as good a practical description as you can get, though defining the boundaries is not easy, as monetary statisticians know. 3  It is, essentially, a description of what money does rather than what money actually is. Mill and Friedman describe money as a machine but perhaps a better description is a technology. But it is not a physical technology – metallic, electronic or otherwise, though its embodiment may take any 4  number of physical forms. It is in the end, a social convention or what has been called a ‘social technology’, by which we create, hold, use and measure claims on each other. 5  3  For a discussion, see ‘Proposals to modify the measurement of broad money in the United Kingdom: a user consultation’ by Burgess, S and Janssen, N. Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, 2007 Q3 4 The pacific island of Yap historically used carved stones as a form of money.

The scenario also poses a number of risks to banks’ market share, to the liquidity of retail deposits, to fees from payment services and to the ability to retain and access customers and to the use of their current data advantage to cross sell products. If firms are depending more on technology like the cloud and third party providers, this environment could also pose cyber and operational risks. The impacts are not of course all one-way. There is an upside for existing banks. New technology and customer relationships gives them the opportunity to provide customers with new and better products and services, to compete and, crucially, to become more efficient. 12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  12  In their responses, the banks in the test judged they could maintain existing business models without increasing overall risk taking, meeting the requirements of both regulators and investors, and using technology to increase efficiency to offset lower margins. Our assessment was that there were a number of risks to the banks’ projections in the exploratory scenario. In particular, Open Banking, PSD2 and other related changes might cause greater and faster disruption to business models and the forecast increases in efficiency may be more difficult to deliver than assumed. Investors might also demand a higher return than banks’ forecast in the exercise. The Bank of England’s 2017 Exploratory Scenario was not a pass or fail stress test.