These measures were aimed at further pushing down nominal interest rates along the maturity spectrum to track the secular decrease in the natural, “Wicksellian” real rate of interest. Thereby, they helped induce firms and households bring forward their investment and consumption spending in comparison with that in a no policy-change scenario and, ultimately, bring the natural rate back to more normal levels.
As an example, for any financial systems that look ahead one year, the early January 1999 dates provided a test of their Year 2000 readiness. During 1999, other application look ahead dates will provide further indications of our readiness as well as our ability to initiate our contingency plans.