samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We would like to request your good office, “Your Worship” to issue mandatory directives to all business houses in the country to complete construction sites within a stipulated period and to ensure that all buildings are properly maintained and where necessary repainted on a regular basis. In conclusion, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to commend the Bankers Association of Zambia and in particular the Project Committee for the effective and efficient manner in which this initiative has been implemented thus far. My hope is that the initiative will not only be confined to Cairo Road but to all areas of the country. Finally, I would like to urge all of us present here today to extend this initiative to our homes. Let us keep our homes, communities and the country clean as cleanliness is next to godliness. I thank you. 2  BIS Review 112/2009

In the area of Islamic banking, the requirement to manage the risks becomes more important because of the unique peculiarities in the contracts. Basel II has, to a certain extent, incorporated some aspects in the identification of risks, in particular the credit, market and operational risks that can be assimilated by the Islamic banks in terms of its product offering. However, further refinement will have to be done by the Islamic financial specialists to assess the appropriateness of the capital definition in particular as outlined by the Basel committee. One of the considerations that need to be addressed in assessing the risks associated with the Islamic bank is with regard to the capital charge on its investment accounts. Basel II does not address this unique feature in its framework. Assets that are funded by monies in the investment account may not require the capital charge for the purpose of capital adequacy measurement except in the case of misconduct and negligence. Similarly, if the Islamic banking institutions were to be more engaged in the profit-sharing arrangement in its balance-sheets, it will require the Islamic bank to have a more rigorous risk management assessment and monitoring mechanism. This is an area that is being addressed by the Islamic Financial Services Board in the drafting of the standard on the overall risk management framework for the Islamic financial community that takes into account this unique requirement of Islamic banking. While risk mitigation is desirable in Islamic finance, further improvements need to be made to the existing risk management framework.
Without clearer guide rails of this kind, we are destined to proceed somewhat messily from crisis to crisis, building a framework by circumstance rather than by design. Second, we need to work towards a more developed understanding of the tools that central banks need to deal with this new era of liquidity risk, and in particular the right mix between lending and asset buy/sell facilities required in different scenarios. Most of us share the instinct that lending tools are the right place to start – but progress on defining the set of non-bank firms that are needed, able and appropriately incentivised to participate has so far been limited. And there are important debates to be had about the regulatory perimeter. Whether a steady state  Page 13  toolkit will require buy/sell tools is an important debate – but at the very least it does seem that we are going to need to be able to reach for ‘break glass’ versions of such tools until and if more developed repo facilities are developed. Third, we need to debate the relative merits of standing vs discretionary facilities. Appropriately designed standing facilities could help reduce the incidence of future liquidity crises, by clarifying the circumstances in which public assistance would be available, replacing the sort of crude guesswork that constructive ambiguity can generate, and incentivising more effective self-insurance. But calibrating them accurately, and ensuring they are ready to function, requires sharply improved levels of understanding and operational readiness.

But what Lorie and I wanted to highlight was that, while Covid itself may have been truly exceptional, the financial market propagation mechanisms that turned that shock into a nascent systemic liquidity crisis reflected more structural trends: an increasing reliance by the real economy on core capital markets rather than banks; constraints on market intermediation capacity; and a range of unresolved vulnerabilities in non-bank firms that played an ever-growing role in those markets. In short, even if nothing as awful as Covid ever happened again, market dysfunction at a scale capable of threatening systemic stability could recur – and in all likelihood, would do so. And central banks needed to be ready to play their part. Our working group did not seek to provide a single definitive ‘playbook’ for such events – the range of potential shocks, and different national market and institutional structures, made that impossible. But it did set out a framework of principles and possible tool choices. [2] And that framework proved invaluable at the Bank of England when, late last year, vulnerabilities in Liability Driven Investment (LDI) funds amplified the impact of an abrupt change in fiscal stance into a selfreinforcing spiral in government bond prices. Long maturity nominal gilt yields rose by 130 basis points in a matter of days – three times the size of any comparable historical move – and we were  Page 3  required to intervene to safeguard financial stability.
Adopting a package of adjustment measures to come into force immediately, for a significant amount, in sufficient and specific detail, and affecting items as sensitive as public-sector wages, welfare benefits and public investment, gave credibility to the commitment to reduce the budget deficit. Also contributing to this was the bringing forward of the fiscal adjustment targets, whereby almost two-thirds of the adjustment envisaged by 2013 would be completed in 2011. Finally, having noted the failed negotiations between the trade unions and employers’ associations, the government approved a labour market reform on 16 June aimed at encouraging permanent hires and increasing internal flexibility at companies, two of our labour market’s most serious shortcomings. The adoption of these measures, along with the publication of the banking stress test results, saw the tensions on financial markets abate. There was a significant reduction in funding costs for the Treasury and a reopening of funding channels for credit institutions. Yet this does not mean that the period of instability is over, as the tensions still bearing down on other European countries show. Accordingly, following this initial response it is essential to maintain the credibility earned without losing sight of the fact that for a long time we will be subjected to very close scrutiny, and that episodes likely to spread suspicion and a lack of confidence may arise. This is the particular juncture we have reached and at which we are discussing this Budget.

And these are the reasons why the recovery of the Spanish economy and employment will depend, more so than on past occasions, on a suitable budgetary policy mix and on its interplay with other economic policy tools, most particularly with supply-side and structural reform policies geared to improving employment-generation capacity, smoothing the switch to other productive activities and increasing the economy’s effectiveness and productivity. The cyclical juncture at which the Budget for 2011 has been drawn up is marked by the muted start of a phase of recovery which became discernible in the opening months of 2010 and which will foreseeably continue over the coming year. Nonetheless, exceptional domestic and external factors of uncertainty are clouding the outlook. So far, the recovery is proving very subdued and dependent on temporary stimuli linked to the government plans supporting spending and to the possible bringing forward of consumption and residential investment decisions by households and firms in the face of the rise in indirect taxes on 1 July. Moreover, funding conditions remain restrictive and both the public and private sectors have a pressing need to restore health to their financial position. In these circumstances it will be difficult for domestic demand to post the same figures it did in the first half of the year.
Ravi Menon: An electronic payments society Keynote address by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Sim Kee Boon Institute Conference on FinTech and Financial Inclusion, Singapore, 19 August 2016. *  *  *  Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Singapore has embarked on a journey to become a Smart Nation. •  We want to embrace innovation and harness technology so as to increase the productivity of our businesses and enhance the welfare of our citizens. The financial services sector is well placed to play a leading role in the Smart Nation project. MAS has been partnering the financial industry to create a Smart Financial Centre, where innovation is pervasive and FinTech is used widely. We want to do this to: •  increase efficiency;  •  manage risks better;  •  create new opportunities; and  •  improve people’s lives. A key component of the FinTech agenda is payments. •  All of us – as consumers, employees, or businesses – use payments. •  Payments impacts every sector of the economy. •  So, getting payments right is important; and we need to get it right for the future. That future is digital and mobile, and it is already here. •  Our wallets are overflowing with cards of every type and form. We can dip them, tap them, and now, add them to our mobile phones.

The initial wave of globalization was in the form of trade, and this was followed by the globalization of corporations. More recently the globalization of financial flows and in the flow of talent that follow increase in capital and labour mobility across borders. Indeed there has been a shift from the domestic sphere to a greater global orientation. This is evident in the stronger trends in international trade, foreign direct investment, international capital flows, and movement in labour across borders. Greater connectivity enabled by technological advancements have also significantly increased the pace of globalisation to an extent that was previously not possible. BIS Review 98/2010  1  For SMEs, gaining access to the expanding global market is a strategic step forward that would bring tremendous business opportunities. It would enhance the possibilities to exploit economies of scale and scope of the business, and the potential for enhanced technological capabilities and greater risk diversification. The globalised economy will, however, challenge existing comparative advantages and thus drive the search for new business models to sustain competitiveness. The SMEs in this new environment need to evaluate new markets, move to higher value-added products and services, and develop new synergies by forging new business alliances, acquisitions or partnerships. Given the important socio-economic contribution of SMEs to national economies, promoting an increased participation of SMEs in both domestic economy and international markets has become an important agenda in most emerging economies as part of the efforts to enhance the overall economic growth potential.
Few people - even in the suffering sectors - argue that we should - not because of insensitivity to the economic and social distress that can result for those communities that are most affected, but because of the more extensive damage that it would be likely to cause to the wider community. I said a moment ago macro-economic stability depends upon keeping overall demand growth continuously broadly in line with the underlying structural, supply-side, capacity of the economy to meet that demand. There is not a lot frankly that macro-economic policy itself can do directly to affect the supply side which is obviously crucial in determining the rate of growth we can sustain. That depends fundamentally on the ability of management and the skills of the workforce, though it can be importantly affected by the whole range of government policies beyond overall fiscal and monetary policy. These policy choices are far more complicated than the more technical choices at the macroeconomic level - and they are way beyond my area of competence. But they are essential to the present debate so let me offer a view, as it were from the sidelines. A key issue in this area concerns the respective roles of government on the one hand and private markets on the other. And there is little doubt that the tide has recently been flowing in favour of private markets - certainly as far as direct government involvement in the processes of production is concerned.

The net effect of particular forms of intervention may enhance the capacity of the private sector to create wealth and employment - I imagine that most people would generally regard public health and education services, for example, in this way, or forms of regulation that enable markets to function more effectively. But even then there are questions of degree. And other forms of intervention may be more likely to reduce the wealth-creating capacity of the private sector by, for example, blunting incentives either to provide or to take up employment. That is not, of course, to say that they are in any sense necessarily wrong, merely to point out that here again choices to be made, the difficulty often being to know where to strike the balance between conflicting objectives. The question of relieving poverty needs to be addressed within this framework. Our social conscience may say that we should lean more towards redistribution in favour of the poorer sectors of our community generally, or in favour of those who are particularly disadvantaged in one way or another and goodness knows there are endless causes that in themselves are worthy of our collective support. 3  BIS Review 110/2000  But it is important to recognise that in doing so, we could reduce the wealth and income generating capacity of the economy as a whole, and so reduce our ability to provide rising living standards to all sectors of society, including rising absolute living standards of the poorer sectors we were seeking to help.
The high productivity figures in Sweden were partly connected to the rise in the telecommunications products industry, but a rise in total factor productivity has also been seen in other parts of Swedish trade and industry, mainly in the engineering and pharmaceuticals industries. Despite the fact that the importance of IT is now being played down, the extensive use of computers, networks and the Internet in Sweden will make a positive contribution to productivity. Efficiency gains should arise, for instance, when tax authorities, social insurance systems, municipal services, etc. move over to Internet-based self-service. The connection between IT use and internationalisation of trade and industry appears particularly strong, with increasingly advanced networks of specialised sub-contractors. It appears that the countries which had good productivity growth during 1995-2000, such as the USA, Finland, Australia and Sweden, all had trade and industry that opened up to international exchange more quickly than other OECD countries, parallel with an increase in IT use. Challenges The question is whether these improved conditions are enough to provide Sweden with stable, good growth over the next five to ten years. Can we trust that the problems of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are definitely over? Or are there other institutional or structural changes which the economy need to undergo? Some of the growth during the 1990s was probably a temporary effect of the economy making a recovery after having been so hard pressed at the beginning of the 1990s.

Another method of raising potential growth would be to invest so heavily that the productivity of the labour force increased sufficiently to allow one worker to support one pensioner in the future. Capacity for renewal To summarise, much has changed recently in the Swedish economy. The external framework is currently characterised by a substantial fiscal policy and monetary policy stability, which facilitates planning and decision-making for both households and companies. These fundamental conditions, together with a marked increase in openness to the world around us, give reason to believe in a continued favourable development in productivity. At the same time, one should remember that many markets in Sweden still show clear signs of poor competition. This involves considerable costs. I believe that the Swedish economy has considerable unutilised potential for stronger development if we concentrate on this, i.e. how we shall increase the "speed limit" in the economy. It is not enough to have good macroeconomic conditions; a policy for growth is concerned more with microeconomics than macroeconomics. It is a question of creating good incentives for individuals and people to behave in a rational social manner in their roles as economic agents. What is profitable and attractive behaviour for the individual should also be profitable for the whole. This takes me into the field of politics, which is not part of the Riksbank's responsibilities. However, this is a field where I have been very involved in my previous career roles.
We have made substantial progress with respect to the labor market outlook since we began our current program of large scale asset  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  purchases in 2012. Because it looks very likely that the program will have fulfilled its objectives, I expect to support a decision to end the asset purchase program at the end of this month. At the same time, it still is premature to begin to raise interest rates – the labor market still has too much slack and the inflation rate is too low. The consensus view is that lift-off will take place around the middle of next year. That seems like a reasonable view to me. But, again, it is just a forecast. What we do will depend on the flow of economic news and how that affects the economic outlook. For example, firmer growth, higher inflation, and a more rapid tightening of the labor market could cause us to move earlier. Conversely, should economic growth disappoint, the timing of lift-off could be pushed later. I hope the economy cooperates. If it does and lift-off begins sometime next year, that will be something to be very excited about. It will signal that the economy is finally getting healthier and that the Fed is getting closer to achieving its dual mandate objectives of maximum sustainable employment and price stability. That would be very good news even if it were to cause a bump or two in financial markets.

William C Dudley: The national and regional economy Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, 7 October 2014. *  *  *  Good afternoon. I am pleased to be here today at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). It is always a pleasure to speak with members of the different communities that make up our region, and it is particularly exciting to have the opportunity to speak with the students and faculty here at the Lally School of Management and Technology. Much of my day in the Albany area has been focused on the intersection of technology, the workforce and innovation, so it is a pleasure to speak with the people who are the future leaders in this fascinating evolution. My meeting with you today is part of our continuing efforts to understand what is going on at the grassroots level of our economy. Earlier on this trip, I met with government and business leaders to learn about some of the challenges the region faces as well as the collaborative efforts being taken to further economic development. I listened to community leaders describe the problems in affordable housing, workforce development and employment facing many in the lower income communities. I was also impressed by the potential innovations in energy production at the GE Global Research Center. These could have large consequences not only in the United States but in developing nations as well.
With ferocious typhoons, recordbreaking heatwaves and major landslides, Japan is already at the sharp end of a new pattern of devastating extreme weather events. 1  Full list of current TCFD supporters available at: https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/tcfd-supporters/. Climate.nasa.gov. Available at: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/. 3 Source: Climate Action Tracker. Data available at: https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/. 2  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  2  The transition to a low carbon economy will also bring its own risks and opportunities. Changes in climate policies, new technologies and growing physical risks will prompt reassessments of the values of virtually every financial asset. Firms that align their business models to the transition to a net zero world will be rewarded handsomely. Those that fail to adapt will cease to exist. The longer that meaningful adjustment is delayed, the greater the disruption will be. Like virtually everything else in the response to climate change, the development of a more sustainable financial system is not moving fast enough for the world to reach net zero. To bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial decision making, climate disclosure must become comprehensive climate risk management must be transformed, and investing for a two degree world must go mainstream. Today, I want to focus on how the TCFD can help achieve these goals. TCFD: progress to date Only two years after the final TCFD recommendations were published, support has sky-rocketed and conversations about climate-related financial risks have moved from the fringes to the forefront. The demand for TCFD disclosure is now enormous.

And this, together with climate-related disclosure requirements, can decisively contribute to the correct pricing of climate-related risks by financial markets. Moreover, central banks can – and probably should – use their non-monetary policy portfolios, within the natural remit of their mandates, with a view to contributing towards the goal of addressing climate change. Actually, the Banco de España has led by example in recent years in adopting these considerations. Since 2019, we have applied sustainability and responsibility investment principles to our non-monetary policy portfolios, which has effectively led to an increase in the share of green bonds in these portfolios. More recently, the Eurosystem has agreed on a common stance on this issue, aimed at contributing to the transition to a low-carbon economy and to EU climate goals by increasing the awareness and understanding of climate risks while promoting climate-related disclosure. To conclude, we, central bankers and financial regulatory and supervisory authorities, within our mandates of guaranteeing price and/or financial stability, can and should actively contribute to global action to fight against climate change. Thank you. 3  The natural interest rate is the level of real interest rates consistent with aggregate output being at its potential level and inflation stable at its target. 3