The functioning of the market for government bonds is central to the transmission of the ECB’s policy rates. This is because of several channels. Via the price channel, interest rates on government bonds influence financing conditions within the economy.
Lessons Learned As I noted earlier, there were concerns last year that scarce programming resources in Europe were primarily focused on the euro conversion and that Year 2000 readiness efforts lagged. The euro conversion is completed and its success can best be measured by its perception by the media and public as a non-event.