Similar tendencies are to be found in other industrialised countries. So it is not just in Sweden that saving has moved away from traditional bank deposits. One underlying factor is probably demographic. People traditionally tend to save more in the phase of life when their children are old enough to leave home. In that the large birth cohorts from the 1940s reached that age during the 1980s, there was no doubt an increase in the propensity to save for the longer term. Moreover, people today live longer on average than before, which means that they work for a shorter proportion of their lives, so the higher return that often results from long-term saving comes in handy to maintain their standard of living. Changes in tax, transfer and pensions systems also tend to move in the same direction. The fact that rising standards of living and a better yield have boosted households’ financial wealth may also have raised the propensity to take risks. Additional factors may be decreased transaction costs, more access to information and the simpler procedures for share dealing compared with the situation twenty to thirty years ago. Many of these changes have occurred as a result of technical innovations, not least the advent of the internet. Long-term saving requires an ability to manage the associated risks. Share prices fluctuate widely, in marked contrast to the stability of bank deposits.
This is in the interest of the countries which have already introduced the euro, but even more so in the interest of new countries entering the euro area. Without having achieved sustainable convergence, the loss of the exchange rate and interest rate instrument could cause costly tensions in the economy at the expense of growth and employment. The determined efforts of Greece to achieve such convergence have to be commended. However, it is too early to reach a firm conclusion. Next year, the European Central Bank (ECB) will produce a convergence report to analyse what has been accomplished. Let me repeat and underline that achieving convergence is not a process which ends with adopting the euro. On the contrary, being a member of the euro area and being able to benefit from the potentially great opportunities that offers call for ongoing adaptation to the new environment and the new rules of the game. It is like in sports: reaching the top is difficult, but staying there is even harder. 1  BIS Review 113/1999  Integrating one or more of the EU Member States which have not previously introduced the euro will be a challenge for the euro area. However, an even greater challenge for Europe as a whole lies ahead. I am referring to the enlargement of the European Union. First, I shall deal with that process in general. Then, I should like to say a few words about how the Eurosystem (i.e.