Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in financial competition, intensified by globalization. Excessive risk-taking leading to inevitable business failures at times reached worrying proportions. This volume attempts to analyze and explain financial market developments at the turn of the millennium with special reference to the UK and Germany. The emphasis of the papers is on the need for greater accountability and a more ethical approach to financial decision-making.
The Deutsche Bundesbank is one if the world's most powerful and successful central banks, outstanding for its independence in the conduct of monetary policy and for its success in the achievement of relative price stability virtually throughout the post-war era. This collection of essays by the President of the Bundesbank, by former and present board members and by heads of departments within the Bundesbank offer a rare insight into its operations from the inside. The individual contributions to this volume explain the historical, legal and institutional basis of German internal and external monetary policy and highlight the goals of the German central bank and its role in the economy as a whole. The functions of the Deutschmark as one of the leading investment currencies are discussed in some detail by the only non-Bundesbank contributor to this volume.