to mitigating the disruptive effects of trade is to adopt policies and programs aimed at easing the transition of displaced workers into new jobs and increasing the adaptability and skills of the labor force more generally. many suggestions for such policies have been made. currently, the government's principal program for helping workers displaced by trade is the trade adjustment assistance program, which is up for renewal before the congress this year. as now structured, the program offers up to two and a half years of job training, allowances for job search and the economic importance of physical proximity is the underlying reason that people and businesses are willing to pay high rents and other costs to live in or near major cities, where they can be near large numbers of other people and businesses that have related expertise and interests. another type of service in which the united states has a strong export position is higher education. in 2005 - 06, u. s. institutions of higher learning trained nearly 600, 000 foreign students, of whom about half were studying for graduate and professional degrees. many foreign students who study in the united states spend at least some time here subsequently, adding their skills to those of the domestic workforce ( institute of international education, 2006 ). mann ( 2006, pp. 140 - 41 ) analyzes changes from 1999 to 2004. updating the analysis with 2005 data from the bureau of labor statistics does not change these results. some of the low - wage occupations, such as data entry and word processing, may have lost jobs to automation rather than outsourcing. relocation, income support for eligible workers, and health insurance assistance for some. elements of other proposals being discussed ( kletzer and rosen, 2006 ; kling, 2006 ; mann 2003, 2004 ) include job - training tax credits and wage insurance, which would help offset pay cuts that often occur when displaced workers change jobs. another approach is to focus on establishing policies that reduce the cost to workers of changing jobs, for example, by increasing the portability of pensions or health insurance between employers. as new technologies expand the range of occupations that may be subject to international competition, measures to assist affected workers become all the more important. it would not be appropriate for me to endorse specific programs ; that is the prerogative of the congress. however, i can safely predict that these and other policy proposals to address concerns about worker displacement will be the subject of active debate in coming years. more generally, investing in education and training would help young people entering the

one data set which is harmonised but lacks coverage. and there is another one which reflects high coverage but lacks harmonisation. iii feasibility constraints i think we have to tackle these and other harmonisation gaps. furthermore, there is no doubt that the availability of reliable statistical data for financial stability purposes is not yet complete. we are faced with data gaps. there are, however, practical difficulties with regard to gathering additional, and more detailed, statistical data. one possibility to reduce these difficulties is to consider whether more data from commercial data providers could be purchased. however, the scope may not be sufficient as the focus of private providers is on financial market data. in addition, this option could turn out to be quite costly. another option might be to consider extending the statistics produced under the stewardship of the escb in the field of money and banking statistics. however, a good sense of proportion is necessary when deciding on new harmonised statistical requirements. there is a common understanding that producing statistics is a costly matter, in particular from the viewpoint of the data suppliers. any new statistical reporting will place an increased burden on the reporters and strain their resources. and let ’ s not forget that central bank statisticians and data reporters anyway have to cope with a whole bunch of new challenges. examples are the enlargement of the european union, any potential enlargement of the european monetary union, the change in accounting rules, and, last but not least, the requirement of calculating new indices and indicators for banking supervision purposes under the basle ii regime. given all these tasks, it is absolutely essential to set priorities. the highest priority should be attributed to closing data gaps with regard to essential indicators for financial stability such as statistics on the securitisation of bank loans. in order to narrow the data gap in this area we should use existing data with sufficient coverage from other sources. an obvious example is the biannual information by the bis on derivative instruments which is collected from a small number of leading market players, which covers still 80 % of the overall market volume. at the same time, we have to check whether existing statistical surveys could be discontinued in exchange for any new data requirements. for example, regionally disaggregated balance sheet data of banks in germany no longer have analytical relevance because of euro - area membership. in order to keep the costs within strict limits, statisticians may find it helpful to determine the extent to which one and the same data source might serve different analytical purposes