On the other hand, notwithstanding some progress in individual countries, the effective pace of reform has so far remained slow and clearly insufficient to meet the Lisbon objectives. Over the past few years this has given rise to an implementation gap. Efforts to overcome structural inefficiencies in the functioning of markets must be stepped up.
Economic theorists have elaborately analysed how a borrower, and possibly even a banker, who has control over the price in the market in which he issues his own personal debt may choose to play ‘Ponzi game of financing’: repay old debt with issuance of new debt to a point where either the borrower runs away with the money and disappears or, if the borrower is a banker, he dips in the bank’s till.