samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The PRA is therefore keen to continue to work with Boards to consider important questions around: Which of the incentives for management encourage the sustainable performance of the business over the long term; and which may favour shorter term? What could happen in the future and how resilient is the business to these risks? How easily could the business transfer from open to closed status if this became necessary? On what terms could the liabilities be transferred to a third party in a range of different market conditions? We have observed over the relatively short time Solvency II has been in force, that investment strategies for annuity business have been influenced by the up-front MA benefit that certain assets attract. The Prudent Person Principle[2] is part of our rules around investment and we expect Boards to challenge, approve and control the continuing appropriateness of the investment strategy. Risk management Moving from the challenges that Boards face in respect of BPA business to risk management challenges associated with investing for the long-term. Here success is about achieving a sustainable balance between investing safely for the long-term whilst also taking opportunities to diversify asset holdings, including into assets that have wider benefits for the economy as a whole. The PRA recognises that the increasingly diverse range of features associated with MA assets may have a significant bearing on the level of risk and uncertainty around the future long-term business plan.

Having worked with financial firms to improve their risk management and resilience over a quarter of a century, I remain, perhaps surprisingly, optimistic that we will be able to work through the differences, although I will be the first to acknowledge that there are no easy answers. The four Rs each prompt a more detailed question that take us to the main issues we need to resolve in the coming months in order to make sure regulatory reforms (reforms being a bonus R) are geared to enhancing the prospects for success: First, thinking about the governance and management needed for success: how do Boards take responsibility for the particularly long-term nature of BPA business? Second, what does effective risk management look like for BPA firms today, given the continuing evolution of MA asset portfolios and exposure to long-term economic uncertainty? Third, in aligning resilience to risk taking, what roles do balance sheet valuation and capital requirements each play in a going concern regime? And finally, in designing and maintaining a regulatory regime that has robust and risksensitive qualities, what package of Solvency II reforms will support the risks being taken now and for the long term? Responsibility of the Board Let me start with the inherent challenge of making decisions for the long-term. Imagine that instead of packing a suitcase for our 2022 summer holiday, we are instead asked to pack all of the suitcases we will need for every holiday over the next 30 years.
MR Chatu Mongol Sonakul: Inflation targeting - a new monetary policy approach for Thailand  Speech by Mr MR Chatu Mongol Sonakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Bank of Thailand’s International Economic Conference “Practical Experiences on Inflation Targeting” held in Bangkok on 20 October 2000. *  *  *  Distinguished panelists, Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the second seminar on inflation targeting organized by the Bank of Thailand. But this is the first seminar at international level, with highly distinguished speakers from many famous central banks. To set the right tone for the seminar, I want to start with a question: what does the general public expect from the central bank? People invariably want the good life: a high standard of living, abundant goods and services to consume. They also want political freedom, a clean environment, and many other things, but let us concentrate on the economic aspects in order to keep it relevant to central banking. To give people the good life, the economy has to be generating output at a high level, the highest level in relation to its capacity. The economy will also have to generate enough jobs to accommodate the new workers entering the labor force yearly. For many Asian countries where the demographic slant is heavily towards the younger ages, the number of new workers entering the labor force each year is substantial. Therefore, the level of output has to grow to provide adequate employment.

While other factors may have helped toward this reduction of long term borrowing costs, I am sure that public confidence in our commitment to control inflation was certainly one of the important factors. … The first seminar we organized concentrated on the principles of inflation targeting and laid the overall groundwork. In this seminar, we will go deeper into its implementation, its relevance to emerging economies, and the problems that it may face in the environment of large public debt overhang. We are very fortunate indeed to have with us eminent speakers, most of them from countries that have successfully applied this technique. I therefore strongly urge the audience to take advantage of the presence of the experts by asking questions and airing your concerns to the fullest extent possible. I very much hope that by the end of the seminar, you will all become convinced. BIS Review 106/2000  2
As such, we stand ready to guard against any build up of bubble and imbalance within the system. Let me now share with you what I believe are our priorities, going forward. Amongst these, Basel II implementation, especially adequacy of capital, ICAAP and stress testing practices is on top of our list. The principles stipulated in Pillar II, which came into effect in September this year, are in line with the existing risk-based supervision used by the BOT, but places greater focus on the qualitative aspect of risk management and assessment of capital adequacy. For example, the role of the Board of directors and senior management in the assessment and formulation of strategy on capital management for the current and future periods, has been stressed. In this regard, we hope that banks would ensure they have a good risk management system, with an ICAAP that covers all significant risks, including those stipulated under Pillar I as well  BIS Review 131/2009  3  as other risks. These other risks should at least include credit concentration risk, interest rate risk in banking book, liquidity risk, strategic risk and reputational risk. Moreover, it is desirable that banks maintain capital above the minimum regulatory requirement to withstand future losses both in normal and stress situations. To achieve this, banks should conduct stress tests and formulate capital plan in accordance with the stress test results, in a systematic and continuous manner.

This situation therefore, suggests that there must be now some innovative rethinking, about this process of reserve management. It should also prompt the reserve managers of the reserve accumulating countries to look beyond their  BIS Review 99/2008  1  traditional methods, and intensely search for new avenues for performance enhancement. 1. The philosophy in reserve management in our region has been historically based upon a very conservative approach which focuses on managing foreign exchange reserves, by limiting investment decisions to very low risk, very low return, highgrade instruments. Perhaps, as a result, there has been no significant cross investments of foreign exchange reserves within the countries in the South Asian Region. Of course, there is evidence of mostly concessional loans or similar types of direct investments, but not in the case of traditional financial investments, issued by our respective countries. It may therefore, be useful for those of us in the South Asian Region, particularly in the context of SAARC, to explore the possibilities of cross investment in financing instruments within our own Region. In that way, we would be able to shift and retain capital in this Region, which can then be applied in the development of our own Region. My dear friends, we speak of regional cooperation in lofty terms. We speak of our historical ties. We speak of our shared destinies. We speak of our common culture.
On the asset side, the Central Bank's claims on deposit money banks and other financial institutions increased by 59 m.kr., and its foreign assets by 101 b.kr. The growth in foreign assets was largely the result of the Treasury's euro loan, but partly due to the impact of the depreciation of the króna on the nominal amount of the reserves denominated in domestic currency. At the end of the year, the Central Bank's equity amounted to 48.2 b.kr., an increase of almost 12 b.kr. from the end of the year before. In the budget for 2007, the Treasury was authorised to strengthen the Central Bank's capital position. The Treasury borrowed € billion in international capital markets in 2006 for the sole purpose of boosting the Central Bank’s foreign reserves. All the proceeds from the loan were deposited in a foreign currency account in the Central Bank. The Treasury earns interest on the deposit at a rate matching that of the foreign loan. Here I have briefly summarised the highlights of the Central Bank’s accounts. The financial statements for the year are published in their entirety in the annual report with notes, and the Bank’s results and changes in its balance sheet during the year are also described in more detail there than I have entered into here. In June 2006, Jón Sigurðsson stepped down as Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland when he was appointed Minister of Industry and Commerce in the government of Iceland.

It came care of fixing the exchange rate – first to gold under the Gold Standard and latterly in the post war period to the dollar. With the demise of the dollar standard in the early 1970s, however, the exchange rate anchor had been tossed overboard. At the Bank of England, as elsewhere, the search was on for a new nominal anchor. Into this vacuum stepped Andrew Duncan Crockett. Crockett joined the Bank in 1966 as a graduate entrant, just before the break-up of the Bretton Woods dollar standard. He set to work on the biggest problem of the day, locating a new nominal anchor. In so doing, he began working alongside another young(ish) new Bank entrant, Charles Goodhart. The result was a joint paper published in the Bank’s Quarterly Bulletin in June 1970. It was titled “The Importance of Money”.11 Re-reading it now, it was a prophetic piece of work. In the UK, it laid some of the analytical foundations for what, during the late 1970s and 1980s, became monetarism. More than that, the paper placed commercial bank money and credit at the centre of the macro-economy. It could as well have been titled “The Importance of Credit” or indeed “The Importance of Banks”. After a successful spell at the IMF, Crockett returned to the Bank of England in 1989. In 1994, he then became General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, the central banks’ central bank. In central bank circles, change was in the air.
As I have already mentioned, this enabled us to conduct a monetary policy in the heart of the euro area that is suited to the needs of Switzerland. And that brings me to my concluding remarks. 5. Conclusion  Switzerland is a small, open country, with few natural resources, which in many ways has become global. The export industry and the financial sector have adjusted well to the new structures and have become global players. The domestic economy and the political structures, however, are straining to make the equivalent adjustments because changes in those areas would often affect vested interests and future claims on the social security system. Nor has there been sufficient pressure to act. However, in order for Switzerland to stand the test in a dynamic global environment, it must ensure that the reform process currently under way will be continued and accelerated. By now, some observers have come to question Switzerland’s ability to make comprehensive reforms altogether and assert that the country has become a problem case because of its inability to make changes. I do not share this pessimistic view. On the contrary, I am convinced that the understanding for the necessity of reforms, and with it the willingness to temporarily accept disadvantages, will grow. What ultimately gives me cause for optimism are Switzerland’s sense of realism and its wealth of experience. We are aware that neither the European environment nor globalisation will take our national feelings into account.

Jean-Pierre Roth: Switzerland - small, but global Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Swiss-Argentine Chamber of Commerce, Buenos Aires, 16 November 2004. *  *  *  Argentina is a country that fascinates us Swiss. At one time it offered my fellow countrymen a new home when they could no longer see a future in Switzerland. Today, Argentina largely attracts business people and tourists. As you know, Switzerland is a tiny country in comparison with Argentina. Situated in the heart of Europe, it has more or less come to resemble one huge agglomeration. It is therefore not surprising that many Swiss view Argentina as a land of space and opportunity. But as to what Switzerland could mean to the Argentineans is only something I can guess at. Perhaps you still associate my country with chocolate and watches. On the other hand, maybe you recently visited Switzerland and discovered that a great deal has changed. The country has become more liberal-minded and has begun to question its traditional views - partly of its own accord and partly as a result of external pressures. I am delighted to be here this evening and to have this opportunity to give you a brief overview of the challenges facing Switzerland in an era of growing globalisation, under the heading “Switzerland: small, but global”. 1.
This applied both internationally and in Sweden. It was partly due to the confidence crisis suffered by the business sector as a result of corporate scandals in the United States and a number of large-scale bankruptcies. This contributed to a new stock market fall. The threat of war in Iraq and the ensuing outbreak of war for a time created greater uncertainty over the global economy than usual. The lack of clearly positive economic signals once the acute stage of the war was over, contributed to an increasingly pessimistic view of the economic situation during the first half of 2003. The weaker economic activity was also reflected in the Riksbank’s inflation and growth forecasts, and the repo rate was cut by a total of one percentage point during spring and summer 2003. During the second half of 2003 the views of economic activity became slightly more optimistic again. It now appears that economic growth in Sweden and the United States during 2003 was largely as we had expected at the beginning of the year. In Sweden, investment showed a much poorer growth than expected during 2003, but this was counteracted by good growth in consumption, in both the private and public sector, and by favourable developments in foreign trade. One could therefore say that the Riksbank, in common with other analysts, became overly pessimistic in connection with the Iraq war, at least with regard to the view of economic growth in the United States and Sweden.

The conclusion was that underlying inflation excluding energy, which was assessed as the best mirror of cyclically-related inflationary pressure, was expected to be in line with the target 1-2 years ahead, and this was why the repo rate was left unchanged. The information received so far since December does not appear to significantly alter the picture of a recovery in economic growth. However, there may be a risk that the weak labour market situation will last longer than anticipated and have repercussions for growth and inflation through weaker private consumption. Now that we are in the midst of compiling the data on which to base our decision at the February meeting, it looks as though the new information received since December gives scope for a further slight downward adjustment to the forecast of domestic cost pressure. This is because it seems that labour market growth will be somewhat weaker than expected, and thereby also the rate of wage increases, and the fact that productivity growth during the first three quarters appears to have been somewhat more favourable than we had anticipated. The risk of contagion effects via energy prices also appears to have declined. However, as we said, we are in the midst of our forecasting work and not all of the information is complete as yet. Our monetary policy meeting will be held on 5 February and this is when the final decision on the repo rate will be made. Thank you. 4  BIS Review 7/2004
So that market finance can continue to deliver for the economy in bad times, as well as a good. Thank you. 13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  13

Scenarios where these variables denote higher or lower inflationary persistence could lead the MPR reduction process to take longer or conclude sooner than projected. Another relevant factor will be the economy’s adjustment speed. The external scenario has been deteriorating steadily and the expectations of households and firms are in pessimistic territory. In this context, a faster adjustment of the economy leading to an earlier reduction of the MPR cannot be ruled out. In any case, the opposite scenario cannot be ruled out either, considering that just recently demand, particularly investment, has behaved more dynamically than we expected. The Board believes that the lower and upper bounds of the MPR corridor capture the alternative MPR trajectories associated to said events (figure 15). Turning to risks, the external scenario has morphed into an important source of concern and events that could significantly disrupt financial conditions and sharply damage the external impulse are very possible. In such case, the short-term inflationary effects could be substantial (due to the global appreciation of the dollar) although mitigated in the medium term by their impact on growth. Meanwhile, measures impeding the projected adjustment of spending and give a new push to inflation, would yield the way to MPR increases to ensure the convergence of inflation to the target. Let me conclude with some reflections. Final thoughts Dear senators, it is important to note that this is the first Report in several quarters in which our projection scenario presents no significant changes with respect to the previous Report.
He cared deeply for his staff’s welfare and, like any parent, was stern to those under him so that they may grow into the best versions of themselves. He treasured friendship and spoke of his close relationship with fellow central bankers as one of the “most satisfying things for a Governor”. This underpinned his unwavering commitment to harness the spirit of trust and cooperation amongst the regional and international central banking community amidst the rising crescendo of challenges confronting the global economy and financial system. He sowed the seeds for collaboration, such as through the establishment of the South East Asian Central Banks Centre (SEACEN). Governor Ismail Ali strove for perfection, yet he understood that neither economic assumption, ceteris paribus, nor econometric models can accurately predict this world. He said that “the central bank works in an uncertain world, with policy tools that are often not easily understood, and seeking to meet objectives of policy that are always broadly defined. With these uncertainties in an imperfect world, the central banker needs to have the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what cannot be accepted, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other". As we sifted through the mementoes of Governor Ismail Ali for the book, we noticed that rarely were there pictures of him at the centre of attention; in most, he was at the side of a dignitary dispensing advice. I believe this aptly encapsulates his deep understanding of the role of a central bank.

Ardian Fullani: Agreement between the Bank of Albania and the Competition Authority Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, Tirana, 17 July 2007. *  *  *  Dear participants, I am pleased to have concluded this co-operation agreement between the Bank of Albania and the Competition Authority. In observance of the legal responsibilities of the institutions we represent, this agreement concludes the formal basis for cooperative efforts, in terms of achieving the objective of enhancing the competition conditions, in which the banking and financial activity is being conducted. Fair competition promotes the efficiency in the banking business and refines the composition and the functioning of the banking market, by providing significant services to clients and the public at large, being users of banking and financial services. It has been for some years now that the Albanian economy and the financial system are in an intensive process of integration into the regional economies and markets. This process requires the improvement of the legal and regulative framework for developing the business and the enhancement of the human and institutional capacities to cope with the challenges deriving from the economic openness and the enhancement of competition.