samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Secondly, while there is now greater certainty than some years back about regulatory and supervisory capital requirements, some factors continue to put pressure on capital ratios. These include the end of phase-in periods, which have enabled certain requirements, such as the capital conservation buffer, to come into force gradually over the course of several years. Thirdly, regarding resolution regulations, compliance with loss absorption-related minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) poses a far from negligible challenge, especially for that segment of banks that finds it most difficult to tap the markets for funds. Part of the challenge lies in the low profitability of banking activity and in the high cost of issuing eligible liabilities. In this scenario, it is essential that Spanish institutions pay due attention to the organic generation of capital in the design of their strategy and contemplate the steps needed to be well-prepared for the future regulatory scenario and to improve their relative position in the European banking industry. Another key element in the design of Spanish banks’ strategies should be to persevere with the efforts made to date to reduce non-productive assets. Having regard to the figures for business in Spain, the resident private sector’s nonperforming loans have fallen by 60% from their end-2013 peak. At that time, they accounted for close to € billion. This figure was practically € billion as at June 2018. In terms of the NPL ratio, the early-2014 peak was 13.9%. As at June 2018, the figure stood at 6.4%.

How these decisions materialise, which in the literature is known as “risk culture”, is particular to each bank and the responsibility of each one. Supervisors observe and assess but, ultimately, this is one of the idiosyncratic aspects of banks’ DNA. In short, governance structures should be capable of measuring, heading off and analysing current risks and those that are arising. While there are no strong signs of any easing, for activity as a whole, in lending conditions and of aggressive pricing that might suggest that risk is not sufficiently reflected, banks must be careful to retain a suitable profitability/risk trade-off that is sustainable over the cycle in all business segments. An individualised reflection, adapted to the characteristics of each institution. I shall conclude with a brief but nevertheless important reference. In addition to being comprehensive and strategic, reflection on the business model should also be individualised, i.e. adapted to the idiosyncratic characteristics of each institution. Indeed, the findings of the SSM thematic review of profitability and business models show that there is no one single approach and that, even among those banks with better profitability results, there are differences in strategies. Some pursue strategies geared to obtaining high income, which counter relatively high costs. Others place an emphasis on low costs that are compatible with relatively low income. And others strike a balance between a medium income-generating capacity and medium or low-level costs.
Monetary policy Last week the FOMC took additional action to promote a more robust recovery in a context of price stability. In order to ease policy, the FOMC deployed two complementary tools: asset purchases and forward guidance on interest rates. With respect to asset purchases, the Committee said it would start buying additional mortgage-backed securities at a rate of $ billion a month. In terms of rate guidance, the Committee said it anticipated that exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate would likely be warranted “at least through mid-2015.” As Chairman Bernanke explained in the press conference that followed the meeting, the Committee also took two steps to underscore its commitment to ongoing support for the recovery. First, the Committee said that if it did not see substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market, it will continue the MBS purchase program, undertake additional asset purchases and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until it does. Second, the Committee emphasized that it expects that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the economic recovery strengthens. As usual, the Committee will publish minutes of the meeting three weeks after it took place. In the interim, however, I thought it might be useful to provide my own perspective on these actions. In my view, the decision to ease policy further is fully consistent with our dual mandate and policy framework. As I mentioned earlier, we have two goals – to promote maximum employment and price stability.

However, I wish to focus on another reason why Akerlof’s insight was never fully absorbed by policy makers and the public: I believe that we allowed the workings of the financial sector to become more and more divorced from key stakeholders such as the legislature, who had the responsibility of enacting regulations governing the financial sector, and the public for whom the media was an important source of information – and so our fate was sealed. Mr. Chairman, clearly Africa was not the source of the financial crisis, but it is being impacted by the crisis and there are many who believe that Africa may well bear the long term costs of the global economic downturn – if the broad gains of the past years are reversed and the productive capacities (e.g. human and social capital) are destroyed due to worsening health and education outcomes. From this perspective, the role of the legislature and the media in ensuring the African governments make the right policy choices in dealing with the crisis will be critical in determining how well African economies weather and recover from the crisis once it is over – as all crises do come to an end.
Productivity growth has been high. Use of new technology and the shift away from private shops to chain stores have reduced distribution and administration costs. Digital technology is now driving yet another shift, towards online shopping. Chart 9 High productivity growth in retail sales. Index. 1980 = 100. 1980 – 2018 400  400  Gross product Employment  300  300  200  200  100  100  0 1980  0 1985  1990  1995  2000  2005  2010  2015  Sources: Statistics Norway and Norges Bank  In other areas, intermediaries are changing or disappearing. Travel, cinema tickets and doctor appointments are bought or made online. Government agencies, banks and insurance companies are offering more and more do-it-yourself online services. Restructuring involves job losses, with potentially painful consequences for those affected. But over time labour is freed up for employment in other higher value added jobs, generating gains in the form of cheaper goods and services. Structural change is the basis for growth and welfare. 11  AN EVOLVING PAYMENT LANDSCAPE New and more efficient forms of payment are playing an important role in the ongoing transformation of supply chains. NORGES BANK ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 14 FEBRUARY 2019  Customers are steadily being offered new and simpler payment solutions. Bank cards have largely replaced cash. Using a PC or mobile phone, we pay for goods and services online or use a mobile app to transfer money to friends.

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES Address by Governor Øystein Olsen to the Supervisory Council of Norges Bank and invited guests on Thursday 14 February 2019  Analyses and charts are based on information up to and including 12 February 2019. THURSDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2019  Economic perspectives 2019  NORGES BANK ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 14 FEBRUARY 2019  Good morning, Kristoffer! It is now 6:00 am on Friday, 15 February 2030. The temperature is 7 degrees and it’s raining. You have been through four sleep cycles and can get up without violating the terms and conditions of your health insurance. The health module recommends cereal with oat milk for breakfast. I have bought oat milk, which was delivered at 4:00 am. News of relevance to you: The new government quarter opens today – your space is finally ready. Your investments in Green Equities have risen by 20 percent, on news of the major trade and environmental technology agreement concluded between the United States and China. The trading platform Nett sustained a hacker attack last night. Customer data were stolen, and customers are leaving the platform. I managed to withdraw 8 000 of the 67 000 kroner you had uploaded to the platform before all accounts were frozen. The rest of your money may be lost. In yesterday’s Annual Address, the Governor of Norges Bank announced that the next generation of central bank digital currency will be managed by artificial intelligence for a trial period. Have a nice day.
And since its inception, the Bank has played a role in shaping the development of the financial sector in the UK and using its influence to promote financial stability. For much of its history, that role was not one of statutory regulation and supervision. The Bank exercised its influence behind the scenes on the small club of actors that dominated the financial system. Indeed, the UK came rather late to the idea that banks and financial firms needed to be regulated by law rather than steered by the eyebrows of the Governor of the Bank of England. The Macmillan Committee (1931), which inquired into financial policy in the wake of the Wall Street Crash, did not advocate statutory regulation. Rather it endorsed the informal role of the Bank in guiding the banking sector, commenting that “financial policy can only be carried into effect by those whose business it is”. 30 years, a Great Depression and a world war later, the 1959 Report of the Radcliffe inquiry into the monetary system concluded similarly that “it is on this relationship, and on the mutual trust and confidence that are the basis of the relationship, rather than on formal power…that the Bank has relied in seeking to inform itself about and influence the policies of the clearing banks”. In the immediate post war period it was not necessary to do a great deal to promote financial stability or the supervision of financial firms.

Permit me to return to last year's discussion about energy prices in order to illustrate what I believe could be one of the problems. As I mentioned, the repo rate was not lowered in April 2003 despite the fact that our forecasts pointed to below-target CPI inflation two years ahead. The reason was that the forecast of CPI inflation was depressed by energy price effects that were judged to be transitory and that were expected to subside just beyond the forecast horizon. However, the measure that was considered a better reflection of longer-term cyclical inflation, UND1X excluding energy, was forecast to be in line with the inflation target at the end of the forecast period. One perhaps likely interpretation, and an interpretation that was obviously common, was that the Riksbank had not departed from its policy rule of adjusting the repo rate when inflation deviates from the target, but that the target variable itself had been changed. And since the new supposed target variable was in line with the inflation target there was no reason to change the repo rate. Our intention, however, was rather the reverse, i.e. to highlight UND1X excluding energy to point out that fluctuations in CPI inflation were driven to a great extent by temporary variations in energy prices, also somewhat beyond the normal two-year horizon, and that this was an occasion on which there was reason to depart from the rule.
One explanation for this can be a low level of customer activity. Such situations frequently tend to arise at the end of the year, when companies and financial institutions have adjusted their balances in preparation for closing their books and therefore have little interest in modifying their portfolios. Judging by comments on the market, there are expectations that the period of low activity in the market at the end of this year could turn out longer than usual. In other words, uncertainty about the effects the change of millennium might have on interest rates and financing possibilities could lead agents on the market to make adjustments to their portfolios earlier than usual. On this view, one possible explanation for why the interest rates on loans and investments that run over into next year have risen could therefore be a higher liquidity premium, i.e. a rise in the price that reflects how easily a security can be sold on the market. However, it is important to point out that this type of liquidity problem – a thin market – has no direct connection with the practical liquidity management exercised by the Riksbank. The Riksbank’s role in liquidity management is rather to function as the banks’ bank. This leads us to a second definition of the concept of liquidity: the opportunities available to financial agents to obtain refinancing without needing to sell assets. Uncertainty regarding the future liquidity situation in both senses risks reinforcing the problems.

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03.04.2018  Spain: From Recovery to Resilience Banco de España-IMF High-Level Seminar Luis M. Linde Governor  Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me welcome you to this Banco de España and International Monetary Fund joint conference devoted to the recent evolution of the Spanish economy in the Euro-Zone and European Union context. I would like to thank the International Monetary Fund, represented here today by David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director, Poul Thomsen, Director of the European Department and Andrea Schaechter, Mission Chief for Spain, for their proposal to organise this conference. The Banco de España was more than pleased to accept, considering it to be very timely and of great interest. As to the title of the conference: “Spain: From Recovery to Resilience”, allow me, before going forward, a candid clarification: I can assure you that it is far from our intent to suggest any pessimistic forecast or premonition. The title refers to our economy’s resilience in the face of a hypothetical cyclical downturn which, needless to say, we hope will be later rather than sooner. In 2017 Spain’s economic recovery maintained the strong growth path of previous years, exceeding expectations for the fourth year in a row. In particular, GDP grew by 3.1%, meaning that the economy has grown above 3% for the third consecutive year. Strong domestic and external demand pushed GDP up, and the economy has proved quite resilient to uncertainty shocks.

Timothy F Geithner: The changing face of risk management Remarks by Mr Timothy F Geithner, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, before the Institute of International Bankers, New York, 9 June 2004 *  *  *  It is a pleasure to join you today for this meeting of the Institute of International Bankers. The financial institutions you represent play a major role in our financial system. The IIB has played an important part in shaping financial policy in the United States, by reminding us with force and persistence of the impact of our actions on the standards of fairness and equality of opportunity that we strive to maintain. The U.S. financial system has a number of features that help to make it attractive to participants from all around the world. The structure of our financial system is characterized by a diversity of channels for financial intermediation, with a relatively larger role for the capital markets and a smaller role for banks, than is true in most other major economies. And we have preserved, despite substantial consolidation, a system that comfortably accommodates the largest globally-active financial institutions side by side with a competitive and diverse array of regional and community banking organizations. We are very open to the presence of foreign financial institutions, and perhaps as important, have traditionally been very open to attracting non-U.S. financial talent to work in our markets.
How far do our forecasts appear to drive interest rate decisions? And is there any evidence that this has helped to make policy more or less predictable? Finally I want to end by commenting on some of the issues raised by forecasts as a means of communication. Why the MPC has always been involved in forecasting The MPC’s early involvement in the forecast process is firmly rooted in the kind of committee it is, as well as the nature of the remit it has been given. The objectives of UK monetary policy have been expressed in terms of an annual inflation target since 1992, but responsibility for achieving the target initially lay with the Treasury, acting on the Bank’s advice. In 1997, as part of a wide ranging restructuring of the Bank of England’s role, decisions about interest rates were delegated to the Bank’s new MPC. Its nine members – five internal Bank officials and four external members chosen for their relevant knowledge and experience – are individually, and publicly, accountable for meeting the inflation target. The Government remains responsible for setting the annual inflation target, within the context of legislation that requires the Bank of England to achieve ‘price stability and subject to that to support the government’s objectives for output and employment’. Under its current remit, the MPC is required to achieve 2% consumer price inflation ‘at all times’.

Households and firms optimise – they are forward-looking and they use available information efficiently. Unlike our previous model, things add up: flows add to stocks, profits are allocated, and so on. There is a high degree of simultaneity in the way the model is solved. It no longer makes sense, nor is it at all easy, to consider the model equation by equation. This provides a greater degree of discipline on Committee members and staff, who are now forced to confront the full implications of their judgements more explicitly. If someone wants to change one of the economic relationships, they need to say why, and acknowledge the possible implications for other behavioural relationships. If, for example, we want to assume that the trend rate of labour productivity growth has changed, the model requires us to recognise that there are implications for both demand and supply. Faster productivity growth will increase productive capacity, but income will also grow faster. So what might that mean for demand now? This is a definite advance – providing the general equilibrium mechanisms in the new model do in fact reflect our ideas about how the world works. But it also makes for a more demanding discussion. There are no easy fixes, and it can be difficult to accommodate views that differ from the model’s paradigm. As an example, the model is firmly rooted in the rational expectations tradition. And we have assumed that monetary policy is credible. Both are perfectly reasonable, arguably essential, modelling assumptions.
Our job is to ensure it works safely and reliably, through ups and downs, so that everyone in society can depend upon it. That means ensuring its value can be depended upon – monetary stability. It means ensuring that the banking system, which creates and issues most of the money we actually use, as well as the payment systems through which that money moves, are safe and can be relied upon – financial stability. It means ensuring that the physical money the Bank of England actually produces – the cash we use – cannot be forged and can be used with confidence. Money, of course, can be a slippery concept. It is, I think, best described as a social convention, the way we calibrate, exchange, store and settle claims we hold on each other in the economy. That convention has been expressed in very different ways at different times and in different societies. It can be expressed in different ways at the same time. At the moment in the United Kingdom, all money is denominated in one unit of account, the pound sterling 1, but it takes different forms. It can be expressed physically as actual claims on the state, in the form of the Bank of England: the banknotes we issue with the famous promise to ‘pay the bearer’. A very small proportion takes the form of physical tokens issued by the state that do not contain any claim – the coins issued by the crown.

However, the missions need to be restated in a way that is intelligible and visible for our fellow citizens - the Banque de France is communicating more than ever about what it does - and results need to be measured - which, as I have said, is more difficult in the public sector. Page 17 of 19 At the Banque de France, we have resumed and extended the practice of strategic planning: after "Ambition 2020", we prepared "Building 2024 Together". We have set ourselves 10 key results targets and set quantified targets for each of the 30 priority actions. Accountability for resources Once these objectives have been defined, it is time for the crucial phase of effective implementation. To this end, the central tool for effective governance is contractualisation with the management team; demanding standards are balanced by delegation of responsibilities. At the Banque de France, each Director General is in charge of his or her own staffing, overheads and investment budgets, both on an overall and a multi-year basis over the plan horizon. This allocation- and contract-based approach is largely transposable to central government ministries and large state administrations. The 2004 Camdessus Report xvii already recommended going in this direction. In 2008, the Attali Commission - of which I was a member – specifically adopted as one of the 20 major proposals contained in its report xviii the promotion of "agencies".