Furthermore, a change has occurred in the balance between the intermediary function played by financial institutions and that by markets, as a result of the development of capital markets and increased disclosure of corporate information. In other words, large firms and institutional investors are now in a much better position to directly satisfy their financial needs through markets.
An interesting alternative proposal has recently been made by Bernanke, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. [53] In a nutshell, the idea is to switch to a temporary price level target during episodes in which the interest rates effective lower bound is binding.