settlement platform. 19 đ đ to support technological adoption and innovation in the financial sector, mas introduced the fintech regulatory sandbox. đ the sandbox is also a regulatory innovation for mas, where we support financial institutions and fintech players to experiment with innovative financial products or services in a live environment, within well - defined boundaries. đ upon successful experimentation and exit of the sandbox, entities will then have to comply fully with the relevant regulatory requirements. 20 đ đ the sandbox has been well received. đ since its launch three years ago, mas has provided guidance to more than 250 firms, and received more than 60 applications to experiment in the sandbox. istox, a private market platform leveraging on dlt and owering the trading of tokenised private securities, is the first market operator to enter mas ’ sandbox. 21 đ đ the approach that we have adopted requires an extensive review of each application. this is necessary as each sandbox is customised to facilitate meaningful experiments, with appropriate safeguards to contain the consequences of failure. we have learnt along the way that for certain types of activities regulated by mas, risks can be well managed within certain specific boundaries. hence, we launched an enhanced version of the regulatory sandbox, sandbox express, to complement the current sandbox approach, in august this year. for a start, we have owered three activities under sandbox express, including the activity of establishing or operating an organised market, which may be of interest to wfe members. this provides firms with a faster avenue to test innovative financial products and services in the market. đđ trend 3 : remaining nimble to developments in public and private markets 22 đ đ lastly, of crucial relevance to singapore and the wfe, is the changing dynamics of public and private markets. globally, capital raising by enterprises has been shixing from public to private markets [ 9 ]. this shix is driven by a combination of factors, including secular factors, such as the increased importance of intangible assets, as well as cyclical factors, such as the abundance of private capital, higher expected valuations in private markets, and low interest rates globally [ 10 ]. 23 đ đ new firms are also taking longer than before to tap on public funding via an ipo listing, with the average firm age of technology companies going public increasing from four years in 1999 to 12 years in 2018. 24 đ đ most exchanges over the world are also seeing a trend of de - listings, as

that the degree of pass - through depends importantly on two things : the currency in which the imports are invoiced, and whether the goods are shipped directly from the country that produced them or through a third country that served as an intermediary. in this regard, it is important to note that the pass - through literature distinguishes between what is called “ producer - currency pricing ” and “ local - currency pricing. ” the difference between the two is this : with producer - currency pricing, producers / exporters choose to invoice goods in their own country ’ s currency. think of a chinese exporter that decides to invoice clothing to be shipped to canada in chinese renminbi. local - currency pricing, in contrast, refers to a situation in which this same exporter chooses to invoice in canadian dollars ( i. e., the local currency of the importing country ). some interesting results emerge from this study. first, short - run erpt was much higher for transactions priced in the producer ’ s currency ; second, pass - through was much higher for goods shipped directly from the producer ’ s country ( regardless of which currency they were invoiced in ), as opposed to through a third country. one reason why imports invoiced in local currency exhibit much less pass - through could be that exporters who price in local currency tend to be more concerned about preserving market share in the foreign country. they are prepared to absorb some of the higher costs associated with adverse currency moves to avoid passing them along to their customers. a similar logic might explain the lower pass - through numbers observed on imports that come to canada through a third country, such as the united states, as opposed to directly from the exporter ’ s country. foreign exporters who are less familiar with the canadian market, or who feel that they have less leverage with local customers, may want to rely on the distribution networks of other, more experienced firms and be more flexible in the prices they charge. however, in almost every case – whether they involved producer - or local - currency pricing – the estimated pass - through coefficients were higher than those reported in previous macro studies, indicating that the endogeneity / heterogeneity problems discussed earlier were significant. erpt, in other words, is more important than previously believed. the second study that i ’ d like to describe asks whether gaps between domestic and foreign prices that are larger than normal can be used as predict