deserve further investigation at euro area level, although it is likely to be less significant than between advanced and low - income economies. see acemoglu, d., johnson, s. and robinson, j. ( 2001 ), the colonial origins of comparative development : an empirical investigation, american economic review, vol. 91, no 5, pp. 1369 – 1401. 6 related to this, see aghion, p., farhi, e., and kharroubi, e. ( 2017 ), on the interaction between monetary policy, corporate balance sheets and structural reforms, presented at the ecb forum on central banking, sintra, june. the authors find that the announcement of outright monetary transactions ( omt ) only raised growth in countries where product market regulation is low. 7 see european central bank ( 2017 ), financial integration in europe. 8 milano, v. and reichlin, p. ( 2017 ), risk sharing across the us and emu : the role of public institutions, luiss school of european political economy. 9 see cœure, b. ( 2016 ), rebalancing in the euro area : are we nearly there yet?, speech at the danish economic society, kolding, 15 january. the case for a new convergence process is made by the five presidents ’ report of june 2015 on completing europe ‘ s economic and monetary union. see also coeure, b. ( 2015 ), towards a political convergence process in the euro area, speech at the interparliamentary conference “ towards a progressive europe ”, berlin, 16 october. 10 see draghi, m. ( 2014 ), stability and prosperity in monetary union, speech at the university of helsinki, 27 november. 11 evidence suggests that labour misallocation did not deteriorate much over time. see, for example, gamberoni, e., giordano, c. and lopez - garcia, p. ( 2016 ), capital and labour ( mis ) allocation in the euro area : some stylized facts and determinants, ecb working paper no. 1981. 12 see guillamon, c., moral - benito, e. and puente, s. ( 2017 ), high growth firms in employment and productivity : dynamic interactions and the role of financial constraints?, working papers, no 1718, banco de espana. 13 see, for example, barlevy, g. f. ( 2003 ), credit

mr ferguson looks at the challenges to the us payments system posed by the year 2000 problem remarks by mr roger w ferguson jr, a member of the board of governors of the us federal reserve system, before the national automated clearing house association in atlanta, georgia on april 13, 1999. the payments system and year 2000 : current preparations and challenges thank you for your invitation to speak today on the timely and critical topic of the year 2000 challenge to the payments system. as an industry, we have a tremendous responsibility to the public to ensure the smooth operation of the payments system through the year 2000 and beyond. this morning i would like to discuss the global challenge presented by the year 2000 problem and describe international efforts, particularly those of the joint year 2000 council, to assist the worldwide financial services industry to be ready for the century date change. in particular, i would like to focus on contingency and risk management initiatives undertaken by central banks and the state of readiness of federal reserve payment systems, such as fed ach. finally, i will discuss our need to recognize our responsibility to the general public and our need to continue to develop cooperative efforts between public - sector and private - sector organizations. global challenge with less than a year left before the millennium change, it still remains difficult to judge its global impact. the good news is that we are not faced with inaction and there are early indications that the financial industry, in general, is working diligently to be prepared. the euro conversion, which i will elaborate on later, demonstrates that the financial industry can manage significant changes to its systems. it is also important to note, however, that the year 2000 deadline is not a single event ; it is arriving in stages based on dates typically used in financial systems that give us an “ early warning ” of potential problems. as an example, for any financial systems that look ahead one year, the early january 1999 dates provided a test of their year 2000 readiness. during 1999, other application look ahead dates will provide further indications of our readiness as well as our ability to initiate our contingency plans. given the sheer number of computers and chip - based systems, and the manual nature of the fixes that have emerged to date, we are likely to experience some degree of disruption. i believe most disruptions will prove to be mild and short - lived and, as reported in a recent article, their severity effect will be labeled as “ headaches, not disaster. ” consequently, i do not think that we