The combination of high inequality and low mobility is problematic, because it means that being born into a low-income family is more consequential today than in the past. Since education is a key determinant of upward mobility, one way to increase economic mobility in the United States would be to increase overall post-secondary educational attainment. There are, however, a number of important barriers to achieving that goal. First, many high school students and their parents appear to lack accurate information about the returns obtained from a college education. New York Fed research shows evidence of systematic underestimation of the average benefits—and overestimation of costs—of a college education, with larger biases among lower-income and non-college households. Research by Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner shows that among low-income high school students, even very high achievers are poorly informed about the academic options that are available and their effects on career opportunities. This research finds that the provision of relevant information can lead to markedly better outcomes. A second impediment is the lack of preparedness among new college entrants, with large numbers of those students needing remedial courses that earn no college credit. Low readiness contributes to persistently low college completion rates, especially among lower-income, parttime, and nontraditional students. Higher dropout rates, in turn, contribute to a substantial reduction in the net expected and realized returns from college attendance. The third major barrier to college attendance and completion is the rise in the cost of a college education.

And an essentially sectoral solution, where payment system regulators and securities regulators do not cooperate in an integrated way, is inappropriate. Indeed, all official and private sector initiatives that can give an impetus to this debate are highly welcome. The CPSS-IOSCO Recommendations for Securities Settlement Systems, the ISSA Recommendations 2000, and the Group of Thirty’s ongoing work all contribute to improving our understanding of the challenges we face. And it is only when issues are really understood that appropriate responses can be formulated and implemented. In Switzerland, as in several other countries, supervision of the securities clearing and settlement system is still work in progress. A draft of the revised National Bank Law has been submitted and will be discussed by Parliament in the near future. The revised law will presumably enter into force around 2004. It is intended to explicitly vest the responsibility of overseeing payment systems as well as securities clearing and settlement systems in the Swiss National Bank. The revised law will thus formally express that an efficient and secure financial market infrastructure is imperative for the implementation of monetary policy and for the stability of the financial system. The inclusion of clearing and settlement systems follows from the obvious fact that, given their linkages, these infrastructural functions are of considerable systemic importance. This is all the more true since the SNB has, for a few years now, implemented its monetary policy exclusively through repo transactions. The SNB can fulfil this expanded mandate only by closely cooperating with other authorities.