As economic and financial integration is going on, the business cycles will grow ever-closer, that is, real convergence will increase further. III Ladies and gentlemen, world output grew by 4.7 per cent last year, the highest rate in a decade. That growth rate could not be kept up. Has the world economy now bottomed out?
The business model was based on the hope that the value of the collateral would increase steadily and that market liquidity for securitisations would prove inexhaustible.