samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Foreign currency deposits are expected to have a considerable annual increase, of about 18.2 percent, or Lek 17.7 billion, by the end of 2004. Table 4. Money supply growth as to trimesters (in Lek billion) T1  T2  T3  T4  2004  Money supply  10.9  11.0  11.5  14.0  47.4  Money outside banks  1.7  3.1  3.2  6.9  14.9  Lek deposits  4.1  3.6  3.7  3.4  14.8  Foreign currency deposits  5.1  4.3  4.5  3.7  17.7  Generally, the M2 aggregate growth will follow the performance of the economy demand for monetary assets. This demand is expected to higher in the first trimester of the next year. BIS Review 8/2004  5  Table 5. M2 and monetary assets demand growth (in Lek billion).

The Bank of Albania - in its recent analyses - has been underlining the fact that its monetary policy has been a careful, financial, budgetary policy, where special emphasis has been given to the budget expenditures control versus the realized revenues ratio. Consequently, the government’s liquidity needs, up to the present moment, have been completely covered by the banking system, and therefore, the Bank of Albania financing was unnecessary. Under these circumstances the fiscal pressures on the monetary policy are weak. Following this reasoning, it could be concluded that the move of both policies (monetary and fiscal) has been in harmony and in conformity with the general economic-financial development program of the country. Domestic budget deficit financing from the banking system during 2003 is estimated to be almost at the same level as the one of 2002, being about 2.2 percent of the GDP. The stable level of the internal government borrowing, facing the rapid increase of Lek deposits, was another factor, which influenced the immediate reduction of treasury bills interest rates. The monetary policy of 2003 has continued to be careful, characterized by smoothing tendencies. This is reflected in the reduction of interest rates three times throughout the year. Watching attentively the inflation performance and the liquidity indicators in the banking system, the Bank of Albania reduced, all in all, the Repos rate by 1.5 percentage points during 2003, bring it by the end of October at the pre-crisis liquidity level of the previous year.
In this tribute to his memory, I would like to dedicate this opening address to sharing with you some reflections on the difficult and complex situation the euro area is now facing, on the economic policy lessons we should draw and on some of the measures adopted and those yet to be taken, all of which show that we are, I believe, learning something. We are all mindful of the critical times European integration is facing; times so different from the first 10 years of the euro, in which the single currency provided all Member States with extra stability and defences against all types of shocks. Today we face a large-scale crisis, a situation in which we could well use the analytical quality and rigour of figures like Ángel Rojo to correctly gauge the economic policy measures needed to exit the crisis. Various causes have led to this situation. But, if you will excuse my simplification, these may be grouped in two main blocks. On one hand, a lack of understanding by the Member States of the consequences of belonging to a monetary union, which translated into the adoption of national economic policies inconsistent with the framework adopted in 1999. On the other, a series of weaknesses in the European governance structure which have been progressively highlighted as the crisis has widened and deepened. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  The diagnosis of the relative role played by national economic policies in the unfolding of the euro crisis is still subject to some controversy.

As to other economic policies, these were subject to even laxer oversight procedures, and proved worthless in redressing other imbalances. The list of structural weaknesses in the area’s governance framework would not be complete without mentioning the failure to design any crisis-management mechanism capable of making a rapid and forceful response in the initial stages of tensions, preventing the problems from becoming protracted and untreatable. These shortcomings in the original design of Monetary Union have played an increasingly greater role as the crisis has advanced. Currently, investors have become fully aware of the particular fragility of the euro area countries’ sovereign debt markets, which differentiates them substantially from the debt markets of other developed countries with their own currency and central bank. I refer, naturally, to the fact that the euro area combines a single central bank and single currency with 17 independent States and, therefore, 17 different sovereign risks. Under these conditions, the well-known mechanisms that countries with monetary sovereignty have to counter potential liquidity problems on their national sovereign debt markets are blocked by the fact that the action needed would entail some transfer of income between States, action that the institutional arrangements of the euro area not only do not envisage, but which, it is assumed, must be avoided.
In short, there are two arguments for this: (i) engaging in such behaviour – let’s call it “leaning against the wind” – in situations when an asset price is changing due to non-fundamentals can dampen the effects of the unmotivated price change on the real economy and thereby prevent an inefficient allocation of resources; (ii) if the market knows that the central bank engages in “leaning against the wind” activities the probability will fall of non-fundamental price changes arising in the first place. The key issue here is, of course, identifying price changes that are driven by nonfundamentals. This problem cannot be overly emphasized. But difficult or not, it is an issue that central banks cannot ignore. If prices of houses or other assets are partly driven by factors that are hard to explain and that are believed to give rise to inefficient allocations and risks of large fluctuations in real economic activity and inflation, such events will, in one way or another, find their way into our thinking about monetary policy. Extending the forecasting horizon In practice, most inflation targeting central banks have chosen to adopt forecast horizons of two to three years, at least in external communication and official documents. In this environment, the idea that a central bank can need to extend the horizon over which it constructs inflation and output forecasts is one that has been heard from many central banks.

Much progress has been made, but there is still much to do. The ARRC transition plan is well underway, but we need to see certain developments in the U.S. financial industry for a smooth transition. Milestones for the future include deeper liquidity in SOFR derivatives markets, greater issuance of SOFR-linked cash products, a reduction in the issuance of LIBOR-linked cash products, and the closing out of legacy positions on cash products, to name a few. These all require the partnership and perseverance of the market. 2022 Is Just Around the Corner 2022 feels like it’s a long way away, but believe it or not 901 days can disappear, almost in an instant. And I don’t always sense urgency among market participants on this issue. Tellingly, contracts referencing U.S. dollar LIBOR, without robust fallback language, continue to be written. My message: don’t wait for term rates to get your house in order. Engage with this issue now and understand what it means for your operations. Recognize where your exposure lies and deal with the contracts that mature after 2021 that lack robust fallback language. This is a problem you have the opportunity to get ahead of now. Don’t wait until January 1, 2022 to manage your business’ transition away from LIBOR, because it’s going to be too late. Conclusion I’ll conclude with this: Reference rates are a complex issue, with numerous countries, a wide range of public and private entities, and trillions of dollars involved. Progress has been made, and the way forward is clear.
Tax neutrality is important – a recent McKinsey report 2 indicates that investors are more likely to invest in Shariah-compliant products if returns are comparable to that of conventional products. In facilitating the growth of Islamic finance in Singapore, MAS works with financial institutions to ensure a level playing field between Islamic and conventional financing deals. This includes the waiver of additional stamp duties incurred by qualifying Islamic financing arrangements involving immovable property. In developing the Islamic financial services market during its nascent stage, we also provide tax incentives to help offset the initial additional costs. In February this year, our Finance Minister announced a 5% concessionary tax rate on the income derived from qualifying Shariah compliant financial activities. In addition, all investors will enjoy tax exemption on income derived from qualifying Sukuks. This is to create a seamless framework for the industry in Singapore, although I understand that in the GCC and Malaysia the tax framework is even more favourable. The various changes in our regulatory and tax framework are done in partnership with the industry. Based on our latest consultation, to promote the further growth of Islamic Finance and to meet the needs of financial institutions conducting Shariah-compliant activities in Singapore, I am pleased to announce that Singapore will develop a facility to make available sovereign-rated sukuks. Our facility is likely to be different from traditional issuances in two respects.

When they do so, it is also inevitable for them to base their conclusions on personal biases, fears and prejudices they have been harbouring in their minds. Such conclusions are tainted by biased or prejudiced views held by the person making the conclusions. Hence, such findings are simply an imposition of personal views on the society and, therefore, fail to explain reality and Nature. Therefore, discoveries made in that manner do not enhance the human knowledge. In this background, it is necessary to build the knowledge base of mankind free from biases, fears and prejudices. This could be attained by pursuing scientific inquiry which bases itself on a set of principles, guidelines and an ethical and moral code that discipline the  BIS Review 161/2008  1  researchers. It should, however, be noted that the conclusions derived through scientific inquiry are not static and permanent. The very nature of scientific inquiry is that conclusions derived from a given research study, as Karl Popper pointed out, should be capable of being refuted by a new inquiry. Hence, results produced by scientific research carry with them the property of refutability and are valid only until a new research study would replace them with new results. In this sense, the knowledge base developed through scientific inquiry could be equated to a reservoir from which water would flow out and fresh water would flow in continuously. But the core knowledge, just like the permanently stored water in the reservoir, would remain intact.
Nor is this a complete assessment, focusing as it does on the prudential angle as opposed to market liquidity considerations. I make them to illustrate the point that it is sensible for us to maintain a spirit of active enquiry about these sorts of issues, and to track developments so that we can intervene if we are concerned that the regulatory system is being arbitraged or simply encouraging the wrong behaviour at firms. Conclusion  We, together with many others, have done a huge amount to make the financial system safer over the last 10 years. But the lesson of financial history is that unless we are absolutely vigilant, and keep questioning both firms and ourselves about evolving and emerging developments in the markets we oversee, then this safety can easily slip through our hands. So our horizon-scanning will be an important part of our effort in the coming period. And as the PRA is holding itself to a flat nominal budget this year I would like to finish by asking any birdspotters present here today to lend us their binoculars, in the national interest.

if house price had their national in 2018) mortgages in that year stayed constant since 2013)  Source: EBA transparency exercise 2016, EBA benchmarking exercise 2018 (article 78 of the CRD), and Bank of England’s calcula tions. Chart 8: Capital held against a recent margin loan exposure shows wide dispersion across firms  Source: Bank of England Note: Box and whisker plot of margin loan RWA data. Whiskers denote 0% (the minimum) and 100% (maximum) value. Edges of box d enote 25th percentile (RWAs 11% of exposure) and 75th percentile (RWAs 91% of exposure). Horizontal line denotes 50th percentile (RWAs 26% of exposure)  11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  11  Chart 9: Leverage ratios in 2018 could be lower if we measured activity such as collateral swaps differently Impact of measuring activity differently on aggregate leverage ratio of sample banks 6%  5%  5.34%  0.53% 0.68% 0.11%  4%  4.02% 3%  2%  1%  0%  Current leverage ratio (reported)  Collateral swaps  Netted Repo  Synthetic PB  Leverage ratio (incl. all potential 'missing' leverage)  Impact using worst case assumptions Source: Bank of England Note: Banks in sample include large UK banks and large overseas investment firms  12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  12
Their degree of vulnerability or resilience depends, amongst other things, on the leverage and the liquidity mismatch in the system as a whole. That entails thinking of the system in aggregate (effectively netting out intra-system exposures), in terms of its position vis a vis borrowers and savers in the rest of the economy. And it means thinking of the system distributionally (ie gross), meaning the network of exposures amongst firms and taking into account the weakest links in the chain. Pulling those various strands together, a definition of financial stability that has informed my own contributions to the reform debate is the following: “financial stability prevails where the financial system is sufficiently resilient that worries about bad states of the world do not affect confidence in the ability of the system to deliver its core services to the rest of the economy.” The key words are “confidence” and “resilience”. “Bad states of the world” obviously include recessions; and other jolts from the real economy, due to the accumulation of too much debt within or between countries. Macro imbalances do not invariably lead to instability in the financial system, but they do often extend the chain of intermediation between savers and investors, can unravel in ways that reduce asset values and increase volatility, and are often sustained by accumulating indebtedness. In the face of ultimately unsustainable macroeconomic imbalances, whether domestically or internationally, the financial system therefore needs to be more resilient than otherwise.

Otherwise disruptions could materially impair the supply of credit (and equity) to the economy, with macroeconomic and other welfare costs. When the securitisation markets closed in the USA, it was not realistic for that part of the credit system to be reintermediated by the banking system in short order. The essential ingredients of a resilient market include a robust post-trade infrastructure for clearing and settlement. But trading platforms matter too, as do disclosure standards, and even the pattern of demand. In my book, a market is unlikely to be resiliently liquid if demand is almost entirely from leveraged investors and traders: not only do they vanish when prices stop rising, but prices are then subject to the sudden force of gravity. Much of the  3  Anil Kashyap, Raghuram Rajan and Jeremy Stein, “Banks as liquidity providers: an explanation for the coexistence of lending and deposit-taking”, Journal of Finance, February 2002. 4  See “Shadow Banking, Financing Markets and Financial Stability”, Tucker, January 2010. The Financial Stability Board released a first paper on Shadow Banking earlier this week. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  securitisation markets would have failed those tests from around the middle of the past decade. That is a lesson we and our successors will need to recall when contemplating future innovations. Over time the Financial Policy Committee will need to consider whether, as a matter of fact, core capital markets in the UK are sufficiently resilient for stability to be preserved in stressed conditions.
I shall explain why. The reason is that the foreign currency reserve needs to be much larger than before, as the banks’ funding in foreign currency has expanded so much over the past ten years. And this means that the traditional funding sources, equity and banknotes and coins, are not enough. How should the Riksbank fund its assets? As I have already described, the Riksbank chose to borrow foreign currency on the international capital market through the Swedish National Debt Office when the foreign currency reserve was strengthened. We assessed that this was the most suitable procedure at the time and it functioned well and is still doing so. Although the Riksbank is able to borrow euros and dollars at a low cost on the capital market through the National Debt Office, the interest expenditure for the currency loans is higher than the return the Riksbank receives on the money when it is invested in safe assets with very low risk. The difference is around 0.2 per cent. This means that the strengthening of the foreign currency reserve of SEK 200 billion costs the Riksbank around SEK 400 million a year. One can regard this cost as a form of insurance premium that the Riksbank considers is worth paying to ensure a good level of preparedness for a crisis. As the Swedish banking  4  See Peter Sellin and Virginia Queijo von Heideken: “The banking system’s liquidity surplus and interest rate formation” in Sveriges Riksbank Economic Review 2014:3.

The Central Bank of Turkey aims to match the expectations by being a good institution through its independent, transparent and accountable status, policy implementations focused on its sole mandate of price stability and by practices to increase efficiency in institutional design. Distinguished guests, Turkey has decidedly taken a significant step in improving governance indicators since 2000. In 2005, it advanced to rank 103 among 216 countries in the governance indicators reported by the World Bank. However, the continuation of this performance is as important as the recorded performance so far. Hence, we still have a significant way to go and every institution or organization in the economy has its own responsibility. 10  Ahrens, J. and Meurers, M. “How Governance Affects the Quality of Policy Reform and Economic Performance: New Evidence for Economies in Transition”  BIS Review 35/2007  3  That is why it is essential that there should be a good level of cooperation of the policy makers and of the economic management units in the leading role of the public sector and the current national program. Calls for policy coordination are based on the idea that individual policies, which affect one another, should take each others’ objectives and actions into account in order to yield the best 11 possible outcome . In this respect, for example, banks should play a special role in corporate governance in monitoring investments and leading corporate reorganizations.
Both companies and employees can take as a given that inflation will be 2½ per cent over time. This reduces uncertainty and makes it possible for the social partners to disregard brief spells of somewhat lower or somewhat higher inflation. Inflation does not have to be higher than 2½ per cent in Norway to achieve growth and high employment. The experience of the 1990s demonstrates this. During that period unemployment fell and growth was strong. Even with major restructuring and changes in industry structure, inflation was close to 2½ per cent. Growth in real wages is now markedly higher than the underlying growth in productivity. This is why unemployment is rising. Businesses must adjust their workforces to sustain profitability. This leads to a fall in employment, but also continued operations in Norway. The alternative is that companies are not able to adjust their workforces quickly enough. If higher costs cannot be passed on to customers, earnings will fall and the wage share rise. This may lead to closures or relocation of production. Chart 12. Wage shares Labour costs as a percentage of factor income 100  100  90  90 80  Manufacturing  70  70 60  80  Other mainland industries  60 50  50 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002  Sources: TRCIS and Statistics Norway  The wage share in Norwegian manufacturing has increased. The situation in service industries is more mixed. Import firms have wider margins.

Payments and clearing arrangements are increasingly transnational in scope. But, the legal and supervisory frameworks for financial activity are still national, and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. And despite the development of a much more intensive and extensive network of cooperation among supervisory and regulatory and enforcement authorities, and movement toward an ever-higher standard of convergence in key elements of the regulatory structure across jurisdictions, the regime is inevitably uneven, with different standards across jurisdictions and therefore continuing opportunities for regulatory arbitrage. Implications These broad developments alter the hierarchy of systemic concerns for the U.S. authorities. The greater systemic importance of a smaller number of large bank-centered financial institutions, the greater role played by non-bank financial institutions, the growth in the GSEs, the greater operational demands on the more concentrated core of the clearance and settlement infrastructure, the dramatic increase in the complexity of the risk management and compliance challenge, and the extent of global financial integration - these developments change the nature of the potential sources of stress to the financial system. They change how stress is transmitted. And they change the impact of tools we use to mitigate risk ex ante and to contain the broader financial and macroeconomic fall-out of financial distress. These developments can have both positive and negative impacts. In many respects, they help to reduce risk. In some ways, they increase risk. On balance the positive aspects dominate the less positive. Shocks may act more quickly, but they can be more easily diffused and absorbed.