samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Such an acceptance comes naturally when consumers trust that the goods or services being offered by the company are of the quality that is worth their price, that they are being treated fairly and with respect; and that they do not have ill feelings towards the company. In Western society where there is great awareness for consumer protection, such ideas have therefore not been incorporated in the prescribed governance of the corporation. In the Oriental world, however, the idea of consumer protection has not been well embedded in our culture. Hence there is a need to broaden the principle of governance to include consumer protection. In short, this means that the Board of Directors needs to oversee that the firms provide not only quality goods and services, but that they also treat their customers fairly and with respect. Indeed, the absence of a strong consumer protection standard does not give the corporations the liberty to act in their interests alone at the expense of the interests of consumers. Producers and service providers that start by caring about the interests of customers as part of the principle of non-exploitation and mutual co-existence, will find that they can maintain long standing relation and consumer loyalty. Within the universe of businesses, the domain of financial services, particularly commercial banks, stand out as one of the most prone to abuse. As capitalist organizations, commercial banks are in a convenient position to profit directly from the general public.

Thus, Board Members may never be aware of the company’s problems. If and when they have been informed of the problems, it may already be too late, as evidenced in the case of Enron. It is for the above reasons that the authorities here in Asia, are pushing for the separation of Chairman and CEO positions so that they cannot be occupied by the same person in order to properly balance the powers and functions of the two roles. It is also fortunate for us that the practice of issuing stock options to directors of financial institutions is not yet widespread among banks in Asia. Ladies and Gentlemen, What I have highlighted is only one facet, and in fact only half of the story of good governance: that is what NOT to follow. Let me turn to the other issue of the missing link in the Western concept of governance. In the Western World, the focus of the governance structure is to protect the interest of the organization and its shareholders. It ensures that the management or staff would not abuse their organisation for personal gains. However, there is nothing in the Western structure of governance that talks about the need for the protection of consumers’ interests, and, more importantly, the interests of society at large. A corporation that grows sustainably does so because it has earned the recognition of its customers.
Let me highlight some of the main areas of concern about the current arrangements: *  First, the sheer number and diversity of banks involved in some workouts can make it extremely difficult to achieve the necessary consensus on restructuring proposals. This is compounded by the point I have already mentioned that a number of foreign banks are reducing their commitment to Hong Kong. This increases the possibility that some banks, particularly those with a small exposure may be tempted to take a hard line by threatening legal action or refusing to sign restructuring agreements in the hope of extracting better terms for themselves or being bought out by the other banks. Head offices sometimes encourage such an attitude. This indicates a lack of understanding of the spirit of cooperation that should underlie the HKAB Guidelines. Negotiation should not be by ultimatum. *  Second, the growing number of workouts is stretching resources. This is holding up progress in some workouts and is leading to concerns that more and more smaller companies could end up in liquidation because the banks lack the resources to deal with their problems. Banks may therefore need to strengthen their workout teams, though I admit that this is easier said than done. *  Third, there is a view that burden of handling workouts could be more evenly spread among the banks. The role of lead bank in Hong Kong is generally conducted by only two of the larger banks.

Unlike any of the ratios we are used to handling, there is no minimum level of governance that banks should reach. Governance is a means of doing things and a culture. And attaining it is an objective that takes some time to be implemented. All this makes it difficult to transmit a sense of urgency. Yet without proper governance, the conflicts of interests that arise daily at banks cannot be managed. When a conflict of interest arises, the bank must create a control function. Evidently, the control function will only work if it is independent and strong; otherwise, it will be neutralised or absorbed by the pressure of daily business. We have seen how, without proper governance, control functions are lacking in weight and effective power. This gives business units excessive influence and even, occasionally, exclusive influence over day-to-day bank management. Ultimately, then, it is governance that allows banks to manage the conflict in question which arises between the search for short-term profit and the bank’s sustainability and viability in the long-run. 9/13  Regrettably, we have seen how, as the crisis was brewing, a good number of banks behaved just as Keynes had predicted they would. Others, in contrast, decided not to emulate their competitors or to do so to a much lesser extent. I believe the quality of governance structures had much to do with this uneven behaviour. But there is always room for improvement.
Much of the upturn can be explained by the interest rate decline that has taken place since the mid-1990s at the same time as confidence in the inflation-targeting policy has become established. Stable inflation expectations have probably led to households feeling less uncertain about future interest rate developments. Lower nominal interest rates coupled with the fact that the banks now appear to accept loans payable in full at maturity have further reduced the debt service ratio and probably increased demand for loans. Despite the fact that the debt/equity ratio is as high as in 1992, interest rate expenditure after tax corresponds to just under 4 per cent of household 1 income , which should be compared with 11 per cent when the situation was at its worst in the early 1990s. In addition, many loans are now repayable in full on maturity. Increased competition in the banking sector, coupled with more efficient credit risk management can also have increased the supply of loans as well as making them cheaper. There are thus many factors that may motivate households’ indebtedness being higher than it has been historically. However, the more time that passes without growth rates in house prices and debts slowing down, the greater the concern that households are borrowing more than is sustainable in the long term. Corrections in inflated house prices and debts may thus subdue demand and inflation in the long term.

Qualifying high-growth and high value-added financial activities will enjoy a concessionary tax rate of 5%, while a 10% rate will apply to tax-sensitive but mature activities. We have also enhanced incentives for specific activities, such as fund management, trustee and custodian services, insurance and capital market and treasury activities. We also undertook a fundamental review of the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Scheme, which is our social security and pension fund scheme. We refocused the CPF on its core objective of providing for the basic needs of the majority of Singaporeans, in terms of retirement needs, healthcare expenses and home ownership. We are tightening the use of CPF for buying properties, so as to leave more for retirement needs. We are reducing the coverage for high-income Singaporeans, who should be able to plan and provide for their own retirement. We are lowering contribution rates for older workers, who are most vulnerable to losing their jobs. These measures will make our labour market more flexible, and contribute to our economy’s overall resilience and competitiveness. Second, we want to encourage entrepreneurship in order to develop more local and foreign start-ups and emerging enterprises to complement our strong base of MNCs and established local companies. In this rapidly changing, unpredictable environment, the best way to spot and exploit new opportunities is not by centralised direction, but through the drive and entrepreneurship of our people. According to the 2001 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report, Singapore ranked 27th out of 29 countries in terms of entrepreneurial activity. We need to do better.
A second cost is of a financial nature. Foreign reserves are invested in highly liquid and secure instruments of developed countries, whose interest rates are lower than those of the domestic instruments used to finance their acquisition. This originates a significant cost that deteriorates the Central Bank’s capital. The benefit of having these reserves is the enhanced  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  security in case of an abrupt cut of external financing. These benefits are hard to quantify, but it is reasonable to expect that they will diminish as the availability of reserves increases, as has been occurring in Chile since 2008. On the real side, the deceleration of output and demand has been slower than expected, reflecting the fact that the external scenario has had a lower than projected impact. Although there are differences among sectors, economic activity in general shows a behavior consistent with convergence towards its long term trend. Some sectors have performed poorly and have shown more cautious inventory management, while others such as Trade and Construction have performed solidly. There are several signs that activity and demand will decelerate in the coming months. On one hand, there is the behavior of imports of capital and consumer goods. Worth noting is the drop in car imports that has taken place during the last months, consistent with the cautious behavior I mentioned a few moments ago. On the other hand, domestic credit conditions have also become somewhat tighter these last months, specially for consumer loans.

Rodrigo Vergara: Chile – economic outlook Speech by Mr Rodrigo Vergara, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, at seminars held during the Annual Meeting of the Inter American Development Bank, Montevideo, Uruguay, 12 March 2012. *  *  *  I thank Luis Oscar Herrera, Enrique Orellana and Tatiana Vargas for helpful comments. I would like to thank you for inviting me to present our views on Chile’s economic situation at this Conference. These last years have been particularly challenging for policymakers worldwide. Periodically we must make decisions in an uncertain environment, weighing the costs and risks of alternative scenarios. For this reason, we welcome opportunities for meetings and discussions such as this, as they allow us to communicate our views in greater detail, as well as to hear other opinions. A better understanding of our decisions strengthens the effectiveness of our policies. More than four years have elapsed since the onset of the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession. Nonetheless, we are still handling its legacy, experiencing periodic episodes of financial stress that will likely continue for some time. The situation in the Eurozone is complex, due to the interaction among fiscal, financial and macroeconomic vulnerabilities. From a historical viewpoint, growth perspectives for developed countries are weak. The outlook for emerging economies is noticeably better, although we are witnessing a slowdown whose pace is difficult to assess, particularly for China.
It should also be remembered that, since the bulk of public spending, including investment, is carried out by regional and local government, the behaviour of these authorities is going to be decisive in determining the general government contribution to weathering the adjustment. In the case of the Spanish adjustment, moreover, a shift in productive activity is required. It seems obvious that the relative size of the construction sector, following its strong expansion over the last decade, is going to be reduced, while other activities need to fill the gap. To facilitate the reallocation of resources of all kinds (human, financial, technological) entailed by this shift in output, it is essential that goods and factor markets should have a flexible and competitive structure. Thus, in a period like the present one, it is fundamental to review the situation of these institutions and to explore the scope for undertaking structural reforms to make the economy more flexible, liberalise sectors and markets and increase competition, so that resources can be used optimally. Despite the efforts made in recent decades, there are still a number of areas of the Spanish economy in which these reforms continue to be very necessary. The high inflation rates recorded for some components of the consumption basket and the large mark-ups observed in certain activities underline the need to enhance the competitive environment in certain segments, such as goods distribution and services provision. The transposition of the Services Directive is an opportunity to boost competition in this sector that must not be missed.

Also, there is a broad consensus about maintaining a high degree of budgetary stability, probably the most significant development in the Spanish economy in the past decade. That said, the unemployment rate is rising rapidly and the growth rate of activity has begun to decline notably. Today I have tried to put forward the idea that all economic agents (authorities, social partners and households) can contribute to making this adjustment phase brief and to helping the Spanish economy to harness this opportunity to strengthen its foundations for growth. In particular, a bolder attitude on the part of the authorities in their reforms and on the part of the social partners in their shaping of wage-setting and other labour-market mechanisms would lead to an earlier and stronger emergence from this complicated phase. BIS Review 117/2008  7
If the economic agents are aware that the central bank applies this strategy when the interest rate is at its lower bound, and they regard it as credible, then long interest rates should adapt in roughly the same way as if the lower bound did not comprise any limit. 10 If one uses the reasonable assumption that demand in the economy is not solely dependent on the current level of the policy rate but also depends on interest rates with longer maturities, this should give the central bank the possibility to stimulate the economy even in times when the policy rate is at the lower bound. One advantage of the makeup strategy is that it can be applied within the framework of the current inflation-targeting policy. However, a condition for it to work is that it is a predictable element of the central bank’s policy. If one wishes to apply such a strategy, it would therefore be a good idea to formalise it in advance by means of a strategy document describing how the central bank will act in a situation where the interest rate is at its lower bound. 11 In a moment I will discuss a specific application of the makeup strategy. Moderately strict Odyssean forward guidance? When the central bank tries to give economic agents an idea of how the policy rate will develop, this is known as “forward guidance”. In Sweden the Riksbank publishes quantitative forecasts for the repo rate.

Growth is concentrated in the largest cities like New York and San Francisco, and those who benefit the most are those who already have high incomes.2 A large part of this is because current economic conditions favor highly skilled workers who tend to flock to cities. These big metropolitan areas are successful, but they also suffer from some of the starkest wage inequality in the country. By contrast, upstate New York is less unequal, but the disappearance of manufacturing jobs has held back growth. More equal wage growth is only good news if people have jobs. But many have found themselves in the position of leaving the area in which they grew up to look for work. The Albany area has bucked this trend. The mix of colleges and universities specializing in innovative subjects like nanotechnology, and high-tech businesses, alongside its position as a state capital, has created a real economic success story. I know there are a lot of students in the room, and choosing SUNY was a wise move. Investing in an education that equips you for the future will pay off over the long term. The Tale of Many Economies So what can the Fed do about this complex picture—the tale of many economies I’ve talked about today? 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  Monetary policy is an important tool, but it alone cannot address all the economic issues that we face.
Similarly, 3/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  when the unemployment rate breaches certain thresholds, payroll tax cuts could be triggered, helping to support the disposable income of workers facing reductions in hours. Payroll tax cuts also have the advantage of skewing more toward low- and moderate-income workers, who typically have a higher propensity to consume out of current income. Obviously, it is up to the incoming Administration and Congress to decide on the appropriate fiscal measures. But, the point that I want to highlight is that robust automatic fiscal stabilizers would complement monetary policy, and take some pressure off of the Federal Reserve to undertake extraordinary measures in situations where there is little scope for cutting short-term interest rates. This approach might also be superior to other proposals—such as raising the Federal Reserve’s inflation objective—that are designed to reduce the risk of monetary policy being trapped at the zero lower bound. For such fiscal actions to be sustainable over time, it is important that the United States retain sufficient fiscal capacity. This would also ensure that automatic fiscal stabilizers are viewed as fully credible. On this score, while significant progress has been made in recent years in stabilizing the country’s fiscal situation, circumstances are likely to grow more challenging in the years ahead. There are three areas that I would highlight.

So, from a cyclical perspective, the economy is in reasonably good shape. Over the longer term, however, the U.S. economy faces significant challenges. On the positive side, economic expansions don’t die of old age, and there appear to be few imbalances in the economy that could lead to the current expansion ending. But, in order for this to remain the case, it is important that fiscal policy and monetary policy are well aligned going forward. It is also important that the United States retains sufficient fiscal capacity so that fiscal policy can support the economy when the next cyclical downturn does occur. If fiscal policy can play a greater role in promoting macroeconomic stability, it would likely reduce the need for monetary authorities to take extraordinary actions to support economic activity. There are other structural issues worth noting. In particular, productivity growth has been anemic over the past few years, while income inequality has increased and income mobility remains low. As a consequence, the gains in living standards generated by the current business expansion have been modest compared to previous expansions, and these gains have not been widely shared. Much more could be done both locally and nationally to increase the economy’s potential to perform better for a broader array of our citizens. The outlook for growth and inflation The U.S. economy has been expanding at a moderate rate. Growth has averaged about 1.8 percent this year and seems likely to continue at or slightly above this pace in 2017.
It would seem that the need to distinguish between different roles was not very firmly rooted: the first permanent chair of the board, director Karl Gether Bomhoff, was also a parliamentary representative. 8 He was, by the way, one of Henrik Ibsen’s few friends. 9 In 1897 the Storting had enough confidence in the independence of the central bank to relocate Norges Bank’s head office to Kristiania (now Oslo). Payment by cheque was introduced in Norway in the same year, and from 1898 Norges Bank functioned as settlement bank for payments between private banks. 10 The more flexible note issuing rules proved very useful during the Kristiania crisis in 1899. The crisis followed a housing and construction bubble in the capital. This was the first time the central bank acted as lender of last resort for the banks. Boom, banking crisis and parity policy The fairly stable years that then followed after the turn of the century came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of World War I. 5  Lars Fredrik Øksendal (2008): “Trondhjem som hovedsete for Norges Bank – noen faktiske og kontrafaktiske betraktninger” [Trondheim as Norges Bank’s headquarters – some factual and counterfactual considerations], Staff Memo 2008/8, Norges Bank. 6  See Oskar Jæger (1894): “Udsigt over de forandringer, som Norges banks virksomhet har undergaaet ved den nye banklov” [Changes in Norges Bank’s operations as a result of the new Norges Bank Act]. Statsøkonomisk tidsskrift.

This may have limited the demand for new labour. This trend has now been reversed. Employment growth measured by number employed is strong. Our regional network reports that there are labour shortages in many sectors. The wage settlements concluded so far indicate that wage growth may, as expected, be somewhat stronger this year than in 2005. Historically, it has proven difficult in both local and central negotiations to keep down cost growth when unemployment is low. There is thus a risk of even higher wage growth further ahead. On the other hand, the threat of relocation of jobs, increased labour inflows and higher imports of services from low-cost countries will probably contribute to restraining wage growth. In the period 1998-2002, businesses and employees experienced that high wage growth resulted in high interest rates and wide fluctuations in the krone exchange rate. This insight is perhaps still marking wage negotiations. The phase with ample labour supply may be in the process of tapering off. The decline in sickness absence has been reversed, and is now increasing. As was the case earlier, the number of persons on disability benefits is rising. The supply of labour from other countries is important for many industries, but on the whole is no longer offsetting increased flows into benefit schemes. There is competition for highly skilled labour in the new EU accession countries. Labour flows into the UK and Ireland have been particularly high and labour barriers may be more restrictive in Norway than in the UK and Ireland.