øystein olsen : promoting high - quality research in financial economics closing remarks by mr øystein olsen, governor of norges bank ( central bank of norway ), at the norwegian finance initiative ( nfi ) conference 2012, oslo, 20 june 2012. * * * in 2011 norges bank established the norwegian finance initiative – nfi. through the nfi we aim to promote excellence. excellence in research, in curiosity and in criticism. one objective of nfi is to contribute to a qualified debate in norway on the fund, its strategy and its management. top - quality research at academic institutions in norway is a necessary condition for this. the fundamental idea of the nfi is to provide incentive programs that will lead to long - run structural improvements in research and teaching in financial economics. over the past year, we have introduced seven programs, directed at both students and faculty of financial economics at academic institutions in norway. one important program involves co - sponsoring positions and hiring of outstanding academics. in this way the norwegian finance initiative can help academic institutions in norway build the infrastructure needed to sustain a lively research culture. another nfi program is the publication bonus. the publication bonus has been established by the norwegian finance initiative to provide incentives for existing faculty to go the extra mile to produce high - quality, high - impact research. the program also signals to young scholars the value their institutions place on this level of achievement. as scholars in norway begin to respond to these incentives, they in turn will help to set expectations for their peers and students, leading to a virtuous cycle. today, i am very proud to announce the first of two such bonuses for articles that have been accepted for publication in the best journals after this nfi program was established. the first is for øyvind norli, professor at the norwegian business school – bi. in 2007, norli authored a much cited paper : “ sports sentiment and stock returns ”, published in the journal of finance. here, norli documents the effect of mood swings : stock markets tend to take a serious hit the day after losing what is perceived as an important football match. interesting as that is, this is not why we have decided to pay him this bonus now. recently, the journal of financial economics accepted another of his papers : “ geographic dispersion and stock returns ”. norli and his co - author diego garcia show that companies which are truly local outperform more geographically dispersed companies by eight percentage points a year – a

##ed. future structure of real - time payments norway was an early adopter of digitalisation and its payments infrastructure has been worldclass. we have reaped the benefits for many years. but then the development of common infrastructure came to a halt. a number of neighbouring countries have built payment infrastructures that in some areas are now ahead of ours. common infrastructure makes sense. it enables us to realise economies of scale, a wellfunctioning payment network and a level playing field. payment service providers will be able to compete for customers supported by an efficient and secure system. banks save considerable sums because an extensive network of branches is no longer necessary. the infrastructure is a collective good that benefits everyone. 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches it has long been our experience that industry operators come together and agree good solutions in partnership with norges bank. but developments in technology and market structure, where payment services are increasingly becoming a competitive arena, may hinder the emergence of good common solutions. we run the risk that progress will slow and the payment system will become fragmented because the common infrastructure is eroding. we must now consider whether norges bank should take action to counter this fragmentation. future users of payment services will hardly be satisfied with payment transactions that take several hours or days to complete. the infrastructure for real - time payments is therefore critical. in 2016, norges bank took the initiative on a joint project with the banking industry to put in place an improved real - time payment platform. in spring, norwegian banks declined the invitation to participate in the p27 project. the soon - to - be - launched straks 2. 0 instant payment platform is an improvement, but not a permanent solution for real - time payments in norway. among other things, it is not sufficiently well - suited to business users. the question is how we proceed from here. it has proved to be a challenge to drum up support for carrying out the necessary modernisation of the infrastructure owned by industry bodies. norges bank has launched a project to assess the payment and settlement system as a whole. the aim is to ensure that we have an efficient and secure payment infrastructure also in the future. some key issues are : should our payment infrastructure continue to be all - norwegian or could it be more international? in that case, how do we resolve the questions relating to national contingency preparedness? should payments continue to be cleared between banks prior to settlement at the central bank, or is it more efficient to settle