samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
This is particularly true in the euro area, where the gap between savings and investment is huge: the current account surplus reached EUR 350 billion on a yearly basis in August 2016,  2 which is more than 3% of GDP.i I believe that the solution to closing the gap is not to diminish savings, but to increase productive investment – and savings can be instrumental in doing so. Let me delve further into this issue by answering three questions: what is the evidence? What are the causes? What is the remedy? ** First, what evidence do we have? The total investment to GDP ratio offers a first glimpse of the current investment dearth (slide 4). The 2007-08 crisis caused the total investment ratio to fall sharply. In many countries, it has not yet returned to its pre-crisis level. This is particularly the case in the euro area, where the total investment ratio has dropped by around 3 points since the 2007 peak and has only slightly recovered since. By comparison, the pace of the recovery is significantly faster in the United States. Now, (slide 5) let’s dig deeper into the composition of this investment dearth: real estate and public investment have contributed to the post-crisis decline in total investment, but what matters the most for our economy is the contraction in business investment.

**  6 To conclude, let me quote Benjamin Franklin who, in his essay entitled The Way to Wealth, gave advice that remains highly topical: “vessels large may venture more, but little boats should keep near shore”. In the present situation, savings are certainly closer to large vessels than to little boats. And yet, unlike large vessels, they do not take sufficient reasonable risks. Our future will depend on them venturing more to help fill the investment dearth that plagues our economy. I have given you my view on the forms it can take, and I wish you fruitful debates throughout this conference. i  12-month cumulated current account for the period ending in August 2016. Source: ECB. IMF WEO Chapter 4 ‘Private Investment: What’s the Holdup?’, April 2015. The figures express the average percent deviation from spring 2007 forecasts. iii GFCF in machinery and equipment and intellectual property. iv rd 63% of French small business owners mention demand as an obstacle to investment. Source: Bpifrance, ‘63 survey of the economic climate for SMEs’, May 2016. v Matthieu Bussière, Laurent Ferrara and Juliana Milovich: ‘Explaining the recent slump in investment: the role of expected demand and uncertainty’, Banque de France WP No. 571 – September 2015. vi Ibid. vii The hurdle rate is the internal rate of return that must be cleared for a project to be approved by a company. viii ‘Savings and investment behaviour in the euro area’, ECB occasional paper series No. 167, January 2016.
Acemoglu and Robinson (2013). 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  20-fold. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, institutions in general, and government in particular, became an increasingly important growth-enabler. Institutional and infrastructural capital has continued to accumulate in the period since. Since 1950, the number of countries operating with democratic institutions has risen from around 25 to almost 90. 31 Legal systems globally have continued to improve in quality, and central bank numbers have continued to swell. Cross-country studies have found that the quality of these institutions and infrastructures is often key to driving growth. 32 In what is perhaps the most comprehensive study of historical experience, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have taken the institutional argument one step further. For them, the lack of good institutions is the defining reason “Why Nations Fail”. 33 You do not need to go that far to think they have really mattered historically for living standards. The final ingredient in the growth recipe is intellectual capital, for some the source of the Industrial Revolution, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Watt and all. Yet it would be wrong to think innovation somehow began in the 18th century. From the windmill in the 12th century, the mechanical clock in the 13th, the cannon in the 14th, the printing press in the 15th, the postal service in the 16th and the telescope and microscope in the 17th, the innovation escalator was in service well before the Industrial Revolution, albeit stepped and sticky.

We will then have detailed data on GDP for the third quarter, preliminary data on the balance of payments for the entire 2019, as well as current economic statistics for December and first data on inflation in January. We will adjust our mid-term forecast based on this information. Winding up, I would like to get back to the signal of our future actions. We have said today that we will consider the necessity of a further key rate reduction in the first half of 2020. Noting that, after similar signals in the past, it was twice that we cut the key rate already at the next meeting, namely in October and today, and anticipating your clarifying questions, I would like to point out the following. This wording means that we still see room for a slight decrease in the key rate. But both in February and at the next meetings we will comprehensively assess the reasonableness and relevance of such a decision taking into account the entire range of new data that will be available by that time. Our signal does not imply that we will necessarily lower the key rate in February or in the first half of 2020. A further key rate cut will become possible only if our analysis confirms that this is needed to bring inflation back to the Bank of Russia’s 4% target. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches
The use of credit guarantees, cross guarantees, or credit enhancements – to mention a few ways – can only act as a temporary measure to catalyze interest in Asian issues, and at a cost. Such guarantees increase the issuer’s cost of funding, and usually cannot be sustained indefinitely. The coverage of credit guarantees, for example, would have to be reduced from a full guarantee to a partial guarantee as markets develop. In the meanwhile, countries must tackle their fundamental problems that are hindering the rating of their issues, whether it is infrastructure, legal, or regulatory problems. 4  BIS Review 24/2003

Moreover, we have seen a common theme running through incidents that have occurred – the dash for cash in 2020, the Archegos Collapse, the LDI pension fund issue, the nickel metals case – namely that for firms to understand and respond to the  4/6  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  full risk implications they would have had to observe and respond to a much larger picture of risks than they did observe, and from that came potentially larger risks. There is a challenge of breadth and depth in the NBFI world. It is a very large and disparate landscape with many activities and entities. As a result, we have to survey a lot of ground to look out for risks. But in order to understand these risks, we need to get into the detail, hence the depth issue. LDI was a good case study of this. The LDI fund world comprised 85% of the larger so-called segregated funds, and 15% of the smaller pooled funds. Our stress testing work focussed on the 85%, but the problem arose in the 15%. In some ways the issues around NBFI bear a striking resemblance to ages old challenges in finance, such as leverage, and inter connectivity with other parts of the financial system, creating the scope for spill-overs and systemic consequences. But the heterogeneity of the landscape means that there is no single magic number for leverage as we have with banks, and the inter connectivity can be hard to map, reflecting the recent incidents.
Variability of inflation increases uncertainty and exerts a major negative influence on investment and thus on potential output as well as on  15  European Commission, 2004, “A 3% R&D effort in Europe in 2010: an analysis of the consequences”, study prepared by the Research Directorate General of the European Commission. 16  OECD Education at a Glance 2006. 17  European Commission, 2003, “Chapter 3 - Education, training and growth”, in: The EU Economy: 2003 Review  BIS Review 82/2007  7  other components of aggregate demand. The environment of price stability, the credibility of the ECB in delivering price stability over time and therefore the solid anchoring of inflation expectations, are paving the way for sustainable economic activity. Conclusions Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to conclude by stressing a few points. Monetary Union has been effective – and very successful – in supporting growth. In 2006, real GDP in the euro area grew by 2.9%, which is the highest rate since 2000. This positive development is very encouraging, but this is no time for complacency. Europe still has some way to go to fully benefit from globalization and meet the challenges of rapid technological changes and ageing population. We should also keep in mind that in a context of monetary union, not only fiscal policies, but also price competitiveness and unit labour cost developments across countries should be continuously and closely monitored. That said, structural reforms are decisive to raise the long-term speed limit of the European growth.

This seems also to have constrained to some extent the economic performance and the development of these sectors in the euro area as illustrated by their disappointing labour productivity growth performance. 9  See the ECB Occasional Paper Series No 44 “Competition, productivity and prices in the euro area services sector”, by the Task Force of the Monetary Policy Committee of the ESCB, April 2006. 10  Although the data available refer mostly to the 15 earliest members of the European Union, the EU15, they are still illustrative of the situation in the euro area. In 2000 only 0.1% of the total EU15 population (or around 225,000 people) moved their official residence between two Member States. Furthermore, only a small proportion of individuals – 0.4% of the EU15 population – were known to commute across borders to work, and half of this amount was to a non EU15 country. In the United States, geographical labour mobility appears to be far higher. Evidence suggests that around 5.9% of the total US population moved their residence between US states in 1999. See F. F. Heinz and M. Ward-Warmedinger, “Cross-border labour mobility within an enlarged EU”, ECB Occasional Paper No 52, 2006. See also “Action plan for skills and mobility”, European Commission, 2002. 11  See EIB “Financial integration in Europe” (2007).
Dato’ Ooi Sang Kuang: Malaysia – ready to face a new world Keynote address by Mr Dato’ Ooi Sang Kuang, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the National Economic Outlook Conference 2010–2011, Kuala Lumpur, 1 December 2009. *  *  *  The global economic and financial environment of the past two years has been extremely challenging. Financial market events previously thought to be highly improbable, occurred to create a financial crisis on a global scale. The international financial system froze, wealth destruction not seen since the Great Depression took place, world trade collapsed, and many advanced and emerging economies entered into a deep synchronised recession. Several well-known global financial institutions disappeared overnight while many others were rescued by Government bailouts. The global financial crisis saw policy makers having to respond strongly and adopting a wide range of unorthodox policy measures. A prolonged recession was averted and now the global economy is recovering. What is uncertain is whether the current revival can be maintained and growth sustained. Risks remain that the current recovery could lose momentum. Arising from the worst global financial crisis since the last depression, the world’s economic order and the character of the global financial system will be undergoing a process of transformation that will be significantly different. In a transformed new world, Asia is set to emerge as one of the most vibrant regions, and will increasingly play a critical role in determining the shape of the future global economic landscape.

Banks have demonstrated in recent stress tests their resilience to a sharp adjustment in credit market, and markets, rather than banks, have been the driving force behind recent growth. 10  But recent IMF work shows how rapid growth of corporate debt overall, and any skewing of corporate debt towards riskier firms can – by creating a debt overhang – add to medium term risks to economic growth. 11  The jury is out on whether what we have seen in the UK is material in this respect. But to keep the wider economy protected from financial disruption, it’s important that banks are resilient to these risks if they do become material. And that’s one reason why (as the Financial Policy Committee said in the Record of its March meeting) the FPC intends to “re-consider the adequacy [of capital levels] in June, with a focus on the evolution of domestic risk appetite.”  Let’s move on to the other hidden risks: the underwater bergs that can make markets less resilient  There were certainly plenty of these lurking under the surface of the system of 2008, making it fragile and amplifying market adjustments. They help to explain how $ of losses on subprime mortgages turned into well over $ of write-downs in the global banking system. The post-crisis reform programme has dealt with them. But our duty is not just to prevent the last crisis, it is to keep up with new risks as the financial system evolves and, where needed, take action to address them.
One notable example of this is the growth of corporate leveraged lending in many jurisdictions. The Bank estimates that the global stock of leveraged loans has now reached an all-time high of $ 3.4 trillion, equivalent to 11% of total advanced economy credit to nonfinancial corporates. The share of corporate debt owed by highly leveraged companies is now very close to or above pre-crisis levels in major advanced economies.11  The growth of this market has been accompanied by a marked easing of underwriting standards and compensation for risk. The share of new leveraged loans with no maintenance covenants has tripled since 2007.12 Spreads have declined and remain below their 2015 levels. And there has been growing use of accounting adjustments (‘add-backs’) that could understate leverage13. There are other examples. We have also seen an increase in sales of complex products as investment banks try to boost their income in a challenging trading environment. And in some countries, retail lending conditions have loosened. For example, in the United Kingdom the proportion of mortgage lending at higher loan-to-value (LTV) ratios has been rising over the past few years and is now close to its pre-crisis peak.14 At the same time, interest rate spreads on high LTV lending have declined and are close to recent post-crisis lows.15  Search for yield behaviour may have been more pronounced in the non-bank financial sector.

Hong Kong will shortly have a state-of-the-art facility for conducting US dollar transactions in Asian time. The benefits of this for both local business and international customers, in both trade and finance, should be considerable. I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate those who have worked hard to bring the project to its present advanced stage in so short a time, and I wish every success to all who will be involved in translating the design into reality. BIS Review 22/2000  2
Governance of the euro area can be imagined like a set of interlocking cogs wheels: they do not all need to be of similar size – that is, we do not necessarily need the same degree of centralisation in each area – but they need to all move in the same direction. If one cog moves in the other direction, the whole machine grinds to a halt. There were several inconsistencies between policy areas in the euro area that had such a countervailing effect. To begin with, the frameworks for economic and financial policies pulled in different directions. Increasing financial integration encouraged capital to flow from core to periphery, but this was not accompanied by increasing integration of product and services markets to ensure that this capital was allocated efficiently. In fact, as competitive pressures remained weak, in particular in the non-tradable/services sector, certain industries were able to maintain excessive rents and distort price signals. This meant that the low marginal product  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  of capital in these industries was offset by rising profit margins, leading capital to become misallocated. The fiscal and financial frameworks also interacted negatively with one another. In particular, policy-makers underestimated the extent to which financial integration depended on the false perception of relatively homogenous sovereign credit risk. As euro area banks were heavily exposed to own governments’ debt, when perceptions of sovereign creditworthiness diverged, so did confidence in their respective banking systems.

The life agency force has grown to about 80,000, with more of them earning higher average incomes as they pursue professional careers as full time insurance agents. The industry is on a strong financial footing with excess capital of RM23.5 billion, above the regulatory minimum capital requirement. Expense rates have declined from 41%, prior to the introduction of the Guidelines to Control Operating Cost of Life Insurance Business, to 26.3% in 2013, representing significant efficiency gains that have created a more competitive industry and improved value for policyholders. Most importantly, the life insurance industry has continued to innovate through new products and distribution channels, providing individuals protection against financial risks and help them meet their financial goals, whether for education, retirement, or to pay for medical expenses. In 2013, the industry paid out over RM16 billion in benefit claims to policyholders under various life insurance policies. The life insurance has contributed to the betterment of the health and Malaysian in general. The life insurance industry has also had a key role in the development of Malaysia’s capital market. At 104.5% of GDP, our bond market is the largest in South East Asia, and fourth in Asia after Japan, China and Korea. More than RM150 billion is invested by the life insurance industry in the bond market which provides an important source of long term funding that is critical for the development needs of the economy, in particular in financing long term infrastructure project.
M R Pridiyathorn Devakula: Thailand's Monetary Policy - its obstacles and challenges An address by Mr M R Pridiyathorn Devakula, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Seminar on "Where does Thailand stand now?" Bangkok Post – Tradex Economic Forum Bangkok, 26 September 2001. *  *  *  Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, The tragic terrorist attack in the United States, and the repercussion on the financial markets all around the world, reinforced what we already witnessed in the 1997 Asian crisis – that the financial world has become closely inter-twined, globalised and integrated. Disturbances in one market readily spread to and affect all the others. This is the kind of challenge facing policymakers in setting monetary policy these days. Past Achievements Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me briefly review the economic developments. Thailand has faced a number of difficulties and fought hard in the last four years. We have gone through unprecedented adjustments and improvements on both economic and financial reforms. The Thai economy has gradually recovered. The growth rate of GDP, which was a contraction close to 11% in 1998, has now been maintained in a positive territory for more than two years; 4.2% in 1999, 4.4% 2000 and would highly likely be positive again this year, even though at lower percentage of growth. Macroeconomic and financial stability has been restored.

We also recognized that the central bank's credibility is crucial in assuring the public on the smooth operation of our economy. The Bank of Thailand decided to adopt inflation targeting as the framework for our monetary policy. Inflation targeting is not simply setting an inflation target. It is instead an approach that emphasizes (a) a forward looking economic forecasts using the most reliable economic models, (b) transparency in communicating to the public the reasoning for policy stance, and (c) accountability to ensure that promises of price stability are upheld. BIS Review 81/2001  1  We have chosen to target core inflation, a measure which excludes volatile components, namely raw food and energy prices. Our target range has been set between 0 to 3.5 percent until 2002. When I stepped in as a Governor in June, bearing in mind that our current account surplus was decreasing (due to a reduction of external demand) and international reserves may be affected, a review of the monetary policy was made. It was however agreed that inflation targeting framework should remain for price stability is still very important to prevent the economy from another crisis. However additional attention was emphasized on certain elements. International reserves which seem to be treated as exogenous factor under the framework have been brought into consideration, with the belief that healthy reserves are needed to maintain investor's confidence amidst the current slowdown of world economy.
It is rather to assess to what extent a merger creates a more solvent bank and with a sound business model, enabling structural costs to be cut significantly and, in short, generating overall value. 6 7  CGFS (2018) Financial Stability Review – November 2019. 7/10  In my view, the lack of cross-border mergers is partly due to the overcapacity and fragmentation of the financial sector in Europe. True, the benefits of synergies, potential cost cuts and improvements in efficiency can be seen mainly in mergers between banks from the same country, thanks to the elimination of the doubling-up in branches and central services. In this connection, the radical consolidation of the Spanish banking system since 2009 is widely known. To give you some figures, there has been a reduction of over 30% in the number of banks. The number of offices has fallen by over 40% (some 20,000) while personnel figures have declined by more than 30% (90,000 fewer staff). Yet given the extremely competitive environment in place, I wish to stress that the map of national mergers may not yet be complete. This is particularly so when the reduction of structural costs is one of the few levers available to improve the profit and loss account. For most cross-border mergers, the economic rationale is more difficult to justify, although there will be potential gains in competitiveness for those banks with a business model that allows vertical savings.

I need not stress that these movements are negative for our recovery prospects and, in general, for an economy such as Spain that is increasingly integrated into the global framework and which in recent years has notably improved its competitive capacity abroad. The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union is, in my view, a negative phenomenon, although the results in recent European elections appear to indicate a brake on or at least a re-drawing of the lines marking these trends. In any event, in the euro area – where our economy operates – it will be very important to maintain the goals of integration into the financial and banking area and to address the capital markets union project. But it is important, too, that the achievement of a true economic union may go beyond the financial realm. Along these lines, our Annual Report refers to the discussion of possible ways forward towards a fiscal policy that includes common stabilisation elements within the euro area, in a setting, such as the present, in which the high levels of public debt restrict the budgetary room for manoeuvre in a good number of countries. Progress here would contribute to equipping fiscal policies within the area with greater strength and, therefore, to minimising the potential adverse repercussions – economic and social alike – of future crises. Thank you for your attention. 8/8