BIS Review 98/2008  3  These include a temporary spike in prices, long-term structural factors or a global inflationary pressure. One-off factors such as bad weather, temporary capacity limits and speculation have contributed to the former. The sustained change in relative prices may be caused by long-lasting structural factors leading to a shift in demand and/or supply relations.
In the short term, though, there are several key steps that should be taken with respect to shadow banking to improve the resilience of our financial system. First, the regulatory and public transparency of shadow banking markets, especially securities financing transactions, should be increased. Second, additional measures should be taken to reduce the risk of runs on money market mutual funds.