samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Discussion questions were geared toward concerns about the feasibility of these new policies and regulations, and the need for global coordination and cooperation. In recent years, as you know, the global regulatory community has made significant progress on finalizing the post-crisis reforms and the conversation has naturally shifted to the impact of these regulatory reforms; for example, a desire for consistency across firms, business models and jurisdictions and an assessment of factors driving changes in market liquidity. In raising these three frequently discussed topics – systemic risk, governance, and regulatory reform—I also wonder what topics have emerged that we are not discussing, but perhaps should be. Since the financial crisis, I think we are all more aware of the importance of actively looking for our blind spots. Gillian Tett, writer for the Financial Times and author of The Silo Effect recently visited the NY Fed, and reminded us to look broadly. In her case, when trying to understand social dynamics, it is important to look not just in the middle of the dance floor, but also at the “non-dancers” outside of the spotlight. In our case, it is what other factors might create either idiosyncratic or systemic distress. So, with that perspective in mind, I noticed two surprising omissions from prior Global Risk Forum agendas. The first is cybersecurity. Over this time period, there has been an increasing awareness among risk professionals about the constant and present danger that cyber-threats pose to the financial sector.

One explanation for this, common to all these countries, appears to be keener competition, which has led to high productivity growth. In the first round, heightened competition affects companies’ profit margins. But enterprises respond by reducing their costs. This occurs in part in the individual business, but subcontractors also come under pressure to reduce their prices and enhance efficiency. Increased competition therefore triggers higher productivity growth in the economy. Low inflation may thus be matched by higher productivity. Economic developments External cyclical developments and events are of considerable importance to developments in the Norwegian economy. In autumn 2003, activity in the global economy picked up from a very low level. After rising sharply for several quarters, economic growth in the US slowed in the second quarter of 2004. Economic growth has picked up from a low level in the euro area. Growth has also gained momentum in Sweden and the UK. Strong growth in the US and China exerted upward pressure on commodity prices in 2003 and into 2004. A number of central banks have increased interest rates. Interest rate increases are expected in a number of countries. Oil prices have also risen considerably during the summer. High oil prices constitute a risk factor with regard to developments in the global economy. In Norway, output growth has picked up after a growth pause in 2003.
I would like to thank you very much for your attention. I will now hand over to my colleague, Dewet Moser, who will provide more detailed information about the latest developments on the money and foreign exchange markets.

Over the last decade, as the geographic dispersion and size of lending portfolios grew at large banks, and amid intense competition, reliance solely on expert judgment in the evaluation of the risks of retail exposures became less and less plausible. Banks developed, and continue to enhance sophisticated scoring systems to better express the likelihood of repayment of individual borrowers, and have grown increasingly sophisticated in their ability to segment exposures by characteristics that provide a fine classification of the risk of a homogenous pool of borrowers. Basel II allows banks to build off of these practices, bringing regulatory capital requirements into much closer alignment with internal economic capital estimates. Importantly however, this occurs only when banks use those models for risk management purposes - ensuring their continuing effectiveness. A key element of Basel II is that it establishes rigorous standards for data collection and the systematic use of the information collected. The greatest challenge for the industry, and the greatest potential long-run benefit, involves the collection and categorization of accurate, detailed information on borrower and exposure characteristics and exposure performance. This involves significant investments in technology, and for some firms the revamping of historical underwriting practices. Enhancements to technological infrastructure and MIS, combined with detailed, granular data will, over time, prove a powerful combination allowing firms to better price exposures and manage risk.
Global Year 2000 Round Table BIS Review 56/1998  -3-  Recognizing the global nature of the issues surrounding the Y2K problem, each of the Sponsoring Organizations undertook initiatives in 1997 to raise awareness, enhance disclosure, and prompt appropriate action within the financial industry. Their decision last fall to organize a Global Year 2000 Round Table was motivated by a growing sense of the seriousness of the Y2K challenges posed in many countries and of the potentially severe consequences for financial markets that fail to meet these challenges. The Global Year 2000 Round Table was held at the Bank for International Settlements on April 8, 1998. It was attended by more than 200 senior executives from 52 countries, representing a variety of private and public organizations in the financial, information technology, telecommunications, and business communities around the world.2 The discussions at the Round Table confirmed that the Y2K issue must be a top priority for directors and senior management, and that the public and private sectors should increase efforts to share information. The importance of thorough testing, both internally and with counterparties, was emphasized as the most effective way to ensure that Y2K problems are minimized. Round Table participants identified the need to continue the widening and strengthening of external testing programs in many countries.

In the next portion of my remarks, I would like to address each of these roles in turn. Efforts to Promote Awareness The Joint Year 2000 Council is undertaking a series of initiatives that may be described under the heading of promoting awareness. By this term, I do not mean to include only those initiatives aimed at raising general awareness, although that too is still needed in some cases. I mean to include efforts to promote better awareness of the many efforts currently under way to BIS Review 56/1998  -5-  tackle the Y2K problem. I have found that, while many organizations are working hard on various aspects of the Y2K challenge, in many cases these efforts would be enhanced by a greater degree of information sharing with others. For example, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, we have been holding quarterly Y2K forums with a diverse set of financial organizations in the area. Participants have requested that we continue to hold these meetings -- in fact, to hold them even more frequently -- because they believe that the contacts and the exchange of views are broadly beneficial. We hope to use the Joint Year 2000 Council to achieve similar goals. Each of the members of the Joint Year 2000 Council has committed to help play a leading role in promoting awareness of Y2K initiatives within their region.
TLAC and MREL are comprised of debt-instruments and equity. The key point here is that this important reform requires a very clear distinction among debt contracts between forms of subordinated debt contracts which will bear losses in resolution first and deposit and other senior funding contracts on the liabilities side of the bank balance sheet. This may seem like a very simple point, but past arrangements meant it was unclear, and the moral of the painful story is “don’t leave the providers of debt funding in any doubt about their creditor status.” The lack of clarity about the instruments on the liabilities side of bank balance sheets and the order and mechanisms by which they would absorb losses was an important issue in the crisis. Looking ahead, clear disclosure of creditor hierarchies at a legal entity level will be a critical component of the resolution regime, so that all creditors know where they stand before resolution occurs. Let’s turn now to the other side of a bank’s balance sheet, the assets side. The massive increase in balance sheet size pre-crisis accompanied what came to be known as the “search for yield”, which could be re-named the “search for risk which turns out to be unsustainable”.

In Malaysia , such markets exist and have been key to facilitating liquidity management. Coordinated initiatives across jurisdictions can be taken to foster the development of an efficient and vibrant international Islamic financial market. The IFSB Task Force on Liquidity Management reflects a concerted effort to explore measures needed to develop the liquidity management infrastructure and framework for the Islamic financial institutions. Notwithstanding the effort by the Task Force to look into the pertinent issues, Islamic financial institutions are encouraged to promote innovation in the development of a broader range of Islamic financial market instruments. These include instruments with equity ownership features, Islamic asset-backed securities, the inclusion of permissible forms of credit enhancements as well as Shariah-compliant risk mitigating instruments. It is also essential that there should be sufficient availability of liquidity to support the intermediation of funds in the Islamic financial system. Central banks must therefore have sufficient Islamic financial instruments at their disposal to manage the liquidity conditions in the Islamic financial system. Secondly, is the international cooperation to ensure financial stability of the international Islamic financial system. This will also involve partnerships between international financial centres in promoting financial stability. A robust and effective regulation and supervision of Islamic financial institutions is key to preserving financial stability. The current ongoing  2  BIS Review 86/2009  global financial and economic crisis has highlighted the structural weaknesses in the global financial regulatory and supervisory framework.
First, if the market has misjudged the risks – if the UK emerges from this as open an economy as it is today, or more so – one imagines the exchange rate will re-appreciate, all else equal. I’ll come back to the significance of this point later on. Second, the weaker exchange rate is acting on an economy whose trading relationships are for the time being quite unchanged. As yet Brexit has done nothing directly to affect the UK’s openness because Brexit hasn’t happened. The MPC is always keen to caution against treating a change in asset prices as some independent, “exogenous” event, without considering its underlying cause. This case is a bit special, however: in this instance the cause has yet to occur. We’ve had the reaction in asset prices well ahead of the event. In that sense it’s more independent than usual. And what’s striking about this is that economists usually view independent depreciations in the exchange rate as expansionary rather than contractionary. Yes, they dent real household incomes and therefore consumer spending. But the usual view is that this negative effect is compensated, indeed outweighed, by positive effects on other areas of spending, net exports and investment. With the additional tailwind of a strengthening world economy you might expect most forecasters to have predicted faster economic growth following sterling’s decline. Yet the opposite is true: after 2% through 2016 (in the year to Q4), the consensus forecast is that UK GDP growth will slow to 1.2% through this year.

At its core, the Framework places significant emphasis on product suitability assessments in the delivery of insurance products. These developments that we observe in the offering of investment-linked products have at times been at odds with this emphasis. With more than twothirds of new premiums generated from such products in 2017, and an environment of heightened financial market volatility, a key concern for the Bank has been with the complexity of products offered, and the level of understanding of the investment risk, which is borne entirely by consumers. From our observations, the safeguards in place within insurers over product design, disclosure levels and suitability assessments continue to reveal gaps. 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  In this regard, the Bank has consulted the industry on potential enhancements to be made to our requirements on investment-linked insurance businesses to address some of these gaps. We expect to finalise the requirements to the Minimum Allocation Rate (MAR) shortly to protect the account value of consumers; more robust suitability tests to improve policy persistency; and enhancements to sales illustrations. The other key reform has been the Phased Liberalisation of Motor and Fire Tariffs which started in 2016. The Bank is currently assessing the outcomes of the second phase as we prepare to launch into the next phase of liberalisation. We are encouraged to see the positive response from the industry and the positive impact on the diversity of products available to consumers.
We deem that there is room for other agreements with international financial institutions specialised in providing funds and assistance. Establishing collective public protection releases the financial system and businesses from setting up individual protection. Besides, it may be transformed into a necessary source of funds for the Albanian economy. •  Improving the business climate further and observing the contract enforcement. The business climate is a rather complex issue, but I would highlight two issues here. First, the payment of deferred budget liabilities as a priority. In spite of the financial cost, it is an important step for easing the debt burden in the economy and signalling the political willingness to guarantee contract enforcement. •  Second, the improvement of by-laws that regulate the collateral enforcement and write-off of bad debt from banks’ balance sheets. The definitive solution to this problem would signal to the banking system that Albania is a country where lending is safe. All these steps would stimulate the economic activity and restore economic equilibrium. However, the Albanian economy is also suffering from structural weaknesses, which restrict the growth rate. I would not like to examine this aspect in detail but I think it's reasonable to reiterate my message that Albania should speed up structural reform. It should be anchored to the EU convergence process and aim at adopting its best models and rules. Through public investment and economic incentives, it should aim at a more effective and competitive economic structure, capable of generating a rapid and sustainable growth.

Furthermore, the fact that open unemployment has not fallen more during the 1990s’ economic boom indicates that the labour market does not function satisfactorily. Another sign that the unemployment problems are structural in nature is the big differences between regions and between occupational categories. In spite of a single monetary policy for the entire Swedish economy, unemployment figures in some regions are double those in others, while the proportion of people receiving benefit from their unemployment fund is twice as high in some occupational categories as in others (see Charts 3 and 4). These differences seem to remain over long periods, indicating low mobility in the jobs market. Another possible indication of such shortcomings is that the same vacancy ratio today is combined with somewhat higher total unemployment than 15-20 years ago. At the same time there is a large, growing need for mobility in the labour market. A comparison of different sectors’ employment growth during periods of expansion and contraction shows that many sectors suffer from job losses in both upturns and downturns, while others see jobs created both in upturns and downturns. The old cyclical pattern, where jobs are shed during a slump and are then created once the economy turns around, no longer appears to hold true. Jobs that are lost in a slowdown are being replaced, especially in manufacturing, to some degree by increased productivity and information technology. Growth is leading to new jobs but in different areas than before.
Bwalya K E Ng’andu: Enhancing corporate governance among various stakeholders within the financial sector Opening remarks by Dr Bwalya K E Ng’andu, Deputy Governor (Operations) of the Bank of Zambia, to the Financial Sector Development Programme (FSDP) presentation of corporate governance model board charter to financial sector stakeholders, Lusaka, 25 October 2011. *  *  *  Chief executive officers and senior management of financial institutions Members of the FSDP Secretariat and Working groups Distinguished participants Ladies and Gentlemen Let me start by thanking the organisers of this meeting for inviting me to make opening remarks at the presentation of the corporate governance model board charter. As you are aware, corporate governance has been identified as one of the most important components of the Financial Sector Development Programme (FSDP). The reason for this is not difficult to discern. The relationship between financial institutions and the public is premised on trust. Loss of confidence and trust in even one financial institution can threaten the stability of the entire financial sector because feelings about one erring institution can be extended to other institutions. This fiduciary responsibility that financial institutions carry requires that all players in the financial sector are subjected to elaborate oversight. In this regard, the Boards of Directors are one organ that is vested with this responsibility of oversight.

This collaborative effort among a range of market players has resulted in positive milestones being achieved including: (i)  Ongoing review and updating of the financial sector legislation, including the Banking and Financial Services Act; the Pensions Scheme Regulation Act; the Insurance Act; and the Securities Act targeted for legislation in 2012;  (ii)  Participation in the on-going review of the Companies Act whose comprehensive revisions under the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry are scheduled for 2012;  (iii)  Resolution of weaknesses in the state owned financial institutions which have become profitable and innovative in terms of delivery of financial services;  (iv)  Introduction of a regulatory framework for the introduction of a credit reference bureau;  (v)  Development and issuance of anti money laundering guidelines and the establishment of a Financial Intelligence Unit;  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  (vi)  Development and issuance of the corporate governance guidelines by the regulators; and,  (vii)  Strengthening the autonomy and enhancing the supervisory capacities of the three financial sector regulatory authorities. Through the FSDP, the BoZ is also working with stakeholders like the Institute of Directors (IoD) in enhancing corporate governance among various stakeholders within the financial sector. Under the first phase of the FSDP, IoD conducted seminars on core principles of corporate governance targeted at executives and senior officials in the financial and business sector.
Because it is a major investor, the Fund can contribute  5/8  effectively to the promotion of recognised principles of corporate governance. We believe that this will result in higher returns on the Fund’s equity investments in the longer run. The size of the Fund allows us to keep management costs low. We have built up an infrastructure that can handle large transaction volumes. Investments involving much larger amounts can be made without expanding the current infrastructure. Even though the Fund is a large institutional investor, it is not one of the world’s largest investment managers. Companies like UBS, Allianz, Barclays and State Street invest up to ten times as much as the Petroleum Fund, and these companies have funds in a much larger number of accounts with different investment mandates than the Petroleum Fund. Although the challenges facing the Petroleum Fund are considerable, the Fund’s structure is nevertheless much simpler than that of the largest investment managers. Government reserve funds Norway is not the only country to establish a reserve fund to be used in periods of fiscal stress. The age structure of virtually all the developed countries will lead to substantial changes in the ratio of pensioners to the working-age population over the next ten years or so. The working age population must be prepared for a larger share of national income to be spent on pensioners and others outside the working population. Substantial increases in pensions, benefits and health service costs will be necessary.

Benoît Cœuré: Interview with France Info TV Interview with Mr Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, and France Info TV, conducted by Mr Jean-Paul Chapel on 9 November 2017. * * *  Global indebtedness is at record levels. Government debt in the rich countries stands at over 100% of GDP. Isn’t that sowing the seeds for the next global crisis? It’s a matter that calls for attention, but I don’t think it will be the cause of the next financial crisis. What will cause it then? I don’t know. But at the ECB we are more concerned about the rapid rise in private debt. Corporate debt? Yes, corporate debt, and shadow banking – those loans that are not made by banks. Dark banks... Shadow banks. They are insufficiently regulated. Also, there’s a widespread temptation to relax banking regulations, at a time when, as you say, interest rates are very low. All that is a source of risk. Government debt is a concern, but it doesn’t threaten to trigger a financial crisis. When the next crisis hits Europe we want to be sure that Member States, governments, have budgetary firepower. Today, that power is very limited or even non-existent. That’s why countries have to deleverage. But in the meantime, you, the central banks, the European Central Bank and other banks, with low interest rates, ample liquidity, you are inflating these bubbles… It’s true that the low rates can create financial stability risks; we’re aware of that.