samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
In fact, these events have taken place at a time when the Spanish economy, too, continues to show considerable buoyancy that is prolonging its already long expansionary phase. Output grew in the first half of this year at a rate of around or slightly above 4% (in line with  BIS Review 134/2007  3  the performance in the closing months of 2006) and the vigour of activity was compatible with a more even balance between domestic and foreign sources of spending. In particular, the contribution of net external demand, which trimmed two percentage points from growth in certain months of 2004 and 2005, improved in 2006 and continued to do so in the first half of this year. At the same time, the share of business investment in domestic demand has continued to rise at the expense of private consumption and residential investment. The process of normalisation of monetary and financial conditions that commenced at the end of 2005 has contributed effectively to achieving this more balanced composition of spending. Moreover, the healthy performance of the world economy in 2006 and, in particular, the recovery of the euro area have spurred exports after several years of weakness. On the supply side, the growing availability of labour resources in a highly expansionary demographic setting helped to smooth the adjustment of activity to this robust demand, preventing excessive cost and price pressure from building up.

At over 400 USD/ounce, the gold price was at a seven-year high at the beginning of December. Because of the weak dollar, the gold price increase in francs was more modest. However, its peak of approximately 17,000 CHF/kg was still the highest for several years. The main reason for this rise was persistently modest hedging activity by gold producers. 2  BIS Review 58/2003  Equity markets International equity markets exhibited a positive course overall, steadily making up lost ground after their mid-March low (see graph 3). As the equity environment began to present a perceptibly brighter picture, turnover also picked up. This, together with the more confident investor sentiment, reduced volatility. The ambitious profit expectations now reflected in share prices suggest that market players are optimistic about the economic situation and the corporate environment. To sum up, the financial markets are currently influenced by a complex interplay of factors: a globally synchronised economic recovery is taking place against a backdrop of external imbalances. An autonomous economic recovery outside of the US - underpinned, not least of all, by supply-side reforms - would help substantially to redress these imbalances. Key features of the SNB’s future investment and risk control process The SNB’s investment activity is subordinated to monetary policy and is determined by the criteria of liquidity, risk and returns. The new National Bank Law will extend the SNB’s investment opportunities. The current National Bank Law (NBL) limits eligible investments to gold and fixed-interest securities, and eligible borrowers to states, international organisations and banks.
It is clear that further increases in the policy rate are required for inflation to return to the target. I will return to this later. But let me say now, that I am confident that the Riksbank will do what is needed to attain the inflation target. In contrast to the early 1990s, we now have a better mandate and a constitutional independence that enable us to take decisive action to attain the target. However, this must not lead us to underestimate the challenges we are facing. New vulnerabilities have been built up over the past 30 years: High indebtedness among households and businesses3, housing shortages, a divided labour market and a lack of investment in, for instance, defence, infrastructure, and climate transition. This means that the tightening will severely affect some households and businesses, while higher interest rates risk making necessary investments more difficult and costly. Diagram 1. The Riksbank’s policy rates since 1907 Per cent 100 80 60 40 20 0  -20 1900  1920  1940  1960  1980  2000  2020  Note. The Riksbank's policy rates consist of the discount rate, the marginal interest rate and the current policy rate (formerly known as the repo rate). Source: The Riksbank. Today, therefore, I would like to invite you to discuss the economic policy framework.

An example is the Risk Management & Corporate Governance Programme, conducted with SPRING Singapore. 2  BIS Review 164/2010  19. SID can do much more in this respect. SID should be sensitive to the current needs of directors and fine-tune the content of its courses accordingly. In addition, SID can better engage experienced directors, and tap on their expertise through putting together relevant case studies. Conclusion 20. Ladies and gentlemen, with increasing expectations on directors, companies will come to place a premium on well-trained, ethical directors who look out for the interests of all stakeholders, and are not rubber stamps for management decisions. This presents an opportunity to directors who are proficient and professional. 21. It is in companies’ and directors’ best interests to “Get it Right” by having effective and committed directors who pursue good corporate governance practices, as this will result in a premium for shareholders. Grooming such directors will help to encourage new ideas, better practices and encourage leadership renewal for company boards. 22. On this note, I would like to end by thanking SID for its efforts in the area of corporate governance. I hope that the discussions arising from this conference will help directors gain a better understanding of how they can carry out their duties more effectively. 23. Thank you and have a pleasant day ahead. BIS Review 164/2010  3
In this respect, the legislation recently approved by the Council of Ministers initiating transposition should smooth access to services activities; prior authorisation will no longer be needed, administrative procedures will be notably simplified and certain obstacles to free movement of services will be eliminated. 4  BIS Review 43/2009  Nonetheless, the success of the reform, in terms of greater liberalisation of services, will depend on its proper application to key sectors, such as professional services and retail trade, and on the strict limitation of legally permitted opt-outs. Top of the to-do list is a matter concerning the main source of wealth of any country: the human capital of its citizens. It is well known that the level of educational attainment of the Spanish labour force increased notably during the second half of the past century. But it is also a fact that convergence in educational terms with our European partners has slowed in recent years, which will bear most adversely on the economy’s productivity. Many facets of our education system need changing, but the overriding priority is to extend and improve the quality of secondary education, an area where regional governments admittedly have an essential role to play. The system for continuous training throughout employees’ working lives must also work properly. Here, the delay in the labour market reform not only has adverse effects on employment but also discourages investment in human capital by workers themselves and by companies, which negatively impacts productivity.

Furthermore, the work conducted by the EOFS does not replace the oversight by the national central banks. They still need to oversee the banks as a part of their mandate on financial stability. 4  BIS Review 96/2006  The creation of an EOFS could, if the organization is successful, be seen as the embryo to a fullfledged European supervisor – a future European FSA. It is much too early to tell whether such a development is feasible. First the EOFS would have to prove that it can produce added-value in terms of information gathering and assessments with real supervisory resources beyond that of a talk shop. To be honest, my approach is not without problems either. It would make the regulatory structure somewhat more complex and it would increase the regulatory burden on the cross-border banks by adding a new agency for reporting. However, in my view, we need to achieve a greater coordination of the information gathering and assessments. Sometimes you need to settle for the second-best solution when the first-best is not possible. Given the problems that I have sketched, a natural question is why my proposed solution has a purely European focus. The growth of cross-border banking is not unique to Europe, even if the development of truly cross-border banks is accelerating fast in Europe – perhaps faster than in other regions. The reason for my European focus is that there is, within the EU, a common regulatory framework, which includes the establishment of joint organizations.
23.05.2018  25th Financial Sector Meeting: Innovation, Transformation and Reputation Deloitte, Sociedad de Tasación and ABC Luis M. Linde Governor  Let me begin by thanking the organisers – Deloitte, Sociedad de Tasación and ABC – for their invitation to me to participate in this session of the 25th Financial Sector Meeting, which on this occasion turns on three ideas: innovation, transformation and reputation. In my opinion, these three concepts accurately encapsulate the main challenges currently faced by the financial sector. The new technologies are enabling financial institutions to transform their systems and their business models, but this transformation should not lead us to forget that the keystone of any market, and all the more so financial markets, is customer confidence. The financial sector is faced with a singularly complex setting and this conference provides an opportunity to confer with institutions’ key decision-makers on the different ways in which changes are being addressed at this time of transformation, which will be crucial for the future of the industry. The new technologies, which have already significantly impacted various sectors, now have the potential also to substantially change the way in which financial services will be provided in the not-too-distant future. I would thus like to take this opportunity to offer my view on the opportunities and risks these new technologies pose.

In this connection, I shall first briefly review the innovations I consider most significant and, secondly, I shall address the challenges posed by the new scenario for the authorities, and in particular for a central bank. Financial market innovations Any list of ongoing financial innovations inevitably highlights the weight of technology. The significance of the technological component in this new phase is such that it has ultimately lent its name to the process of change: Fintech. What is involved, however, is a broad and diffuse concept, which encompasses not only new highly technological firms, but any financial institution that is innovating through the application of new technologies. Occasionally, it is also used to describe new business models and even to refer to the basic technologies enabling the various innovations. The confusion surrounding the Fintech concept is illustrative of the confusion deep-change processes can cause. In these circumstances, it is easy to be swept away by excessive enthusiasm or by unwarranted pessimism, two options with little value added. It is undoubtedly much more useful to focus on separating those innovations with the potential to improve efficiency in the provision of financial services, cutting costs and increasing security, and those seeking to adapt to the changes occurring in demand, from those spurious novelties that provide no significant improvements and which should be blocked as soon as possible. In other words, what is truly important should be separated from what is simply showy.
So if a large share of a country’s imports is invoiced in a foreign currency, changes in its exchange rate will mostly show up in changes in the domestic currency price of imports – in other words, pass-through will be higher. For the UK, Gopinath finds that just under half of imports are invoiced in US dollars. 55 There is evidence of threshold effects in exchange rate pass-through. Pass-through of bilateral exchange rate movements that are larger than 5% is around four times larger than that of changes smaller than 5%. See Lewis, J (2016), ‘What can Big Data tell us about the pass-through of big exchange rate changes?’, Bank of England Staff Working Paper No. 579. 54  20  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  20  Turning finally to the policy implications, it is critical to recognise that Brexit represents a real shock about which monetary policy can do little. Monetary policy cannot prevent the weaker real incomes likely to accompany the move to new trading arrangements with the EU, but it can influence how this hit to incomes is distributed between job losses and price rises. And it can support UK households and businesses as they adjust to such profound change. On balance, the de-integration effects of Brexit can be expected to steepen the Phillips Curve and to be inflationary. At present, the main question concerns the extent to which this adjustment has been brought forward.

Charting a path for monetary policy in this environment thus requires a nuanced understanding of how globalisation both affects inflation and influences the stance of monetary policy. It is to these I will now turn. Global Influences on Domestic Inflation In a closed economy, inflationary pressures depend on developments in domestic costs, which in turn depend on domestic spare capacity, or the balance of domestic supply and demand. Opening up the economy changes this relationship in three ways. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  Most straightforwardly, external demand exerts pressure on domestic resource utilisation and therefore domestic inflation. The importance of this channel has steadily increased for most of the past half century (Chart 4). 7  Chart 4: External demand has steadily increased in importance  Sources: IMF and Bank calculations. Next, in an open economy, prices of imports affect domestic inflation both directly – through the final goods and services bought by households – and indirectly – through the prices of imported intermediates used in the production of final goods and services in the consumption basket. For years the direct effect has imparted a steady disinflationary bias. The integration of lower-cost producers into the global economy acts like an increase in potential supply for advanced economies, raising the level of 8  spending that is consistent with inflation at target.
But how do we achieve DvP and eliminate settlement risk in the digital world? MAS, Singapore Exchange, and various industry partners worked together to tokenise digital currencies and securities assets so that they can be simultaneously exchanged thus achieving final settlement and DvP. This has potentially powerful implications for not just the financial sector but also the broad 5/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  spectrum of economy. We have published a report from the experiment. Please take a look, consider the findings, and work with us to advance this cause of real-time settlement. It is still a holy grail in the world of finance that we must collectively solve. Second, MAS is working with like-minded central banks to explore faster, cheaper, and more efficient cross-border payments. MAS, together with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and various commercial banks, did an in-depth study of the inefficiencies of today’s international payment systems. MAS and Bank of Canada have begun work on linking our respective blockchain  platforms to explore the possibility of instant, 24/7 settlement of cross-border payments transactions. We are very much looking forward to reporting our progress on this at next year’s SFF. Data Governance The fourth element of FinTech ecosystem is data governance. The ability to aggregate, store, process, and transmit data – especially across borders – is critical to the digital age. Yet, we all have deep-seated concerns about the privacy, confidentiality, security and ethical use of data.

We have received more than 30 applications from financial and research institutions. We have now put out five calls for applied research proposals: in econometrics and data science, back-testing methodologies, quantum computing for the financial sector, and explainable AI. Last year, MAS and the industry also began collaborating with MIT Media Lab to do serious FinTech R&D. MAS, industry professionals, and MIT researchers have come together towards developing prototypes that look into applications of AI and distributed ledger technology in the financial sector. They include use cases in smart contracts, trade finance, and central bank digital currencies. And earlier this year, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore established a FinTech Fast Track initiative for patents. 7/9  BIS central bankers' speeches  Under the Fast Track, FinTech patents can be granted in as quickly as six months, compared to the industry convention which can be up to two years. Once patented in Singapore, applicants can leverage on our global patent highways to expedite the registration of their patents in more than 30 overseas markets. Platforms for Innovation The final piece in FinTech ecosystem - platforms for innovation. Innovation does not occur in isolation. We need platforms to connect people and ideas; problems and solutions; and foster collaboration. One such platform we are excited about is AFIN – the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network. Let’s begin with the problem statement. There are about 1.7 billion adults globally who are unbanked.
A weakness in the current criticism is that it takes the advantages I have just outlined too lightly, or in other words underestimates the benefit of maintaining confidence in an already formulated inflation target. I also think that the criticism overestimates the possibility of managing the debt and housing problem by using the repo rate. I will explain what I mean in more detail shortly. The criticism: Lower the target or accept long term low inflation It is easier to discuss the criticism if we divide it up based on the conclusions drawn from it. Different commentators have put forward roughly the same arguments in favour of the Riksbank reconsidering its policy, but they have drawn slightly different conclusions about what the consequences should be for the inflation target. Some have claimed that the inflation target is outdated or that it should be lowered. 2 Others have not gone as far, but instead said that the Riksbank should keep the 2 per cent target but accept that inflation will continue to remain below the target for a long time to come. 3, 4 My perception is that the criticism has gradually aligned itself with the latter view, but I still want to say something about the argument that the inflation target should be lowered, as that discussion is important in principle.

The Riksdag (2014), Finansutskottet utser toppnamn för att utvärdera Riksbankens penningpolitik. [The Committee on Finance nominates prominent persons to evaluate the Riksbank’s monetary policy] (In Swedish), Press Release, June 17. Rosengren, Eric S. (2015), Changing Economic Relationships: Implications for Monetary Policy and Simple Monetary Policy Rules. Speech on 16 April. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Schück, Johan (2015), 2 procents inflation är ett orealistiskt mål. [2 per cent inflation is an unrealistic target] (In Swedish), Column, Dagens Nyheter, 8 May. Stein, Jeremy C. (2013), Overheating in Credit Markets: Origins, Measurement and Policy Responses. Speech on 7 February. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Sydsvenskan (2015), Sikta lägre Ingves. [Aim lower, Ingves] (In Swedish), Editorial, 4 September. Williams, John (2009), Heeding Daedalus: Optimal Inflation and the Zero Lower Bound. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no.2, s. 1–37. Winsth, Annika and Isaksson, Torbjörn (2015), Låg inflation gynnar Sverige. [Low inflation benefits Sweden] (In Swedish), Debate article, Dagens Industri, 2 February. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches
As a result, by end-2014, Spanish deposit institutions’ level of exposure to real estate development, net of provisions, had fallen by around € billion since 2011, almost 60% of the exposure then existing. ii)  Consolidation  A second package of measures involved driving greater consolidation in the sector and thus redressing its excessive size. This was achieved through corporate integration operations, the acceptance by most banks of business restructuring strategies and the elimination of non-viable banks, through resolution processes. Overall, since 2007, the number of banking groups has diminished by 40% (or 40 banks). Likewise, the number of offices in the banking sector has declined by 30% relative to the 2008 peak, and staffing numbers have fallen by 25%. That makes for a notable capacityadjustment drive which has been decisive in improving operating efficiency in the industry. iii)  Recapitalisation  Thirdly, the measures aimed at promoting the recapitalisation of banks should be highlighted. As I said, while the Spanish banking sector was generally able to meet comfortably the regulatory requirements in force before the crisis, overall it had insufficient leeway in terms of capital to withstand such adverse scenarios as those arising from the far-reaching downturn in the macroeconomic situation as from 2010, and the acute correction of the real estate market. The recognition of losses caused by the adverse turn in macroeconomic conditions weakened the financial situation of the sector as a whole.

After absorbing this substantial balance sheet clean-up into results or reserves, banks have managed to increase their own funds by more than € billion over the same period. This massive effort is unprecedented in Spanish financial history. iv)  Regulatory reform  As regards the fourth and final ingredient of the reform process undertaken, I should like to highlight the initiatives aimed at improving the regulatory framework for credit institutions. These include most notably the reform of the savings bank sector in Law 26/2013. I believe that, irrespective of the sound trajectory of some savings banks, it is currently an indisputable fact that their particular legal form often hindered the rigorous professional management of banking business, in a setting in which savings banks had become more complex and bigger, increasingly moving away from their foundational goals. Above all, the nature of savings banks frequently prevented a reaction to adverse developments that seriously impaired their solvency. To a greater or lesser degree, these factors contributed to the crisis at various savings banks, which appreciably damaged the stability of the banking system as a whole, and whose rectification, as earlier stated, entailed sizeable costs for the public at large. The reform firstly seeks to confine the application of the traditional status of savings banks to those that retain a limited size and scope, thereby ensuring the link between the institution’s welfare function and its operating region.