The European Central Bank and the problem of authority

Speculating about new and future developments is always difficult, and nowhere is this truism better illustrated than in current thinking about institutional developments in the rapidly changing system of global money and finance. Traditional private financial institutions such as banks and securities houses are changing out of all recognition as they combine across borders and merge their operations, producing hybrid institutions active over a range of markets and subject to a wide array of regulatory authorities (Hamilton 1986; Spero 1988/89; Underhill 1997).