and Central Banking1

The paper gives an overview over issues concerning the role of financial stability in monetary policy and the relation between banking supervision and central banking. Following a brief account of developments in the European Monetary Union since its creation, the systematic treatment contains four parts, first a systematic discussion of how a central bank’s operations differ from those of an administrative authority; second, a discussion of how the shift from convertible currencies to paper currencies has affected our understanding of monetary policy and the role of financial stability; third, a discussion of moral hazard in banking and banking supervision as a threat to monetary dominance and to the effective independence of central bank decision making in an environment in which financial stability is an essential precondi-tion for reaching the central bank’s macroeconomic objective, e.g. price stability; finally, a discussion of the challenges for institution design and policy, with special attention to devel-opments in the euro area