Such trends might imply that capital ratios should on average be higher than they have been. BIS Review 36/1999  8  ratios and subsequent crises.32 Yet it must be said that there remain problems in certain industrial countries as well, with Japan being a particularly important example even if progress has been made recently.
As Otmar has explained this morning, 9 money can be seen as a kind of anchor for the longer-term direction of our monetary policy. As I mentioned before, the monetary analysis has played an important role in our success in anchoring inflation expectations and containing macroeconomic volatility in the euro area by helping us to take good and timely policy decisions.