BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  balance sheets or on a subset of market participants.16 On the theoretical side, a strand of literature notes that the connections among institutions in each of the previous frameworks may be too small to explain the types of systemic distress witnessed during the crisis, and instead emphasizes that complexity within firms and in interconnections heightens the risk of correlated runs.17 This insight rings true: The complexity of Lehman’s, AIG’s, and even LTCM’s balance sheets and interactions with other institutions almost surely contributed to market spillovers during their distress.
This share is 7 percentage points higher than the combined shares of the former national currencies of the euro area countries at the end of 1998 (at constant exchange rates). Furthermore, the share of the euro in international bank assets has also increased substantially over the last two years. Movement in other areas has been less rapid.