The importance of collateral in the economy may have been neglected in earlier academic work, but has been well recognised lately. In his seminal work 2 on the topic John Geanakoplos says that: “…the main business of Wall Street is to help people make and keep promises.
However, the question that preoccupied me time and time again during my tenure and which I addressed in many of my speeches still remains: namely, how can the monetary union develop further while continuing to be a union of stability? Many see political and fiscal union as a goal, and indeed, this would certainly set a consistent framework for the single currency.