In addition, the Federal Reserve has been conducting a program, announced last September, to lengthen the average maturity of its securities holdings by purchasing $ billion of longer-term Treasury securities and selling an equal amount of shorter-term Treasury securities.
The practical implication of this empirical analysis is that it demonstrates – quantitatively – that productivity improvements and economic growth will be fostered by a more integrated and efficient European  2  BIS Review 99/2006  financial system, in which private capital is more easily channelled into financing innovations and in which risk-taking and venture capital markets are better developed.