Foreword

Global growth is stalling. The question for us is whether it matters and, if so, what should be done? There is a respectable argument for saying so what? Global prosperity is at the height of human achievement, and it could be that our next set of priorities are about securing our standards of living rather than their augmentation. But global economic growth this year and next will be the slowest (except the Covid-hit 2020) since the aftermath of the financial crisis. Negative supply shocks for much of the world and a sharp normalisation in policy rates go a long way to explaining the slow pace of growth in a proximate sense. But we cannot rule out that something else is happening. There are question-marks about long term growth related to the need to address climate change, an aging and increasingly expensive population, the need for re-shoring and storing inventories, the increased monopoly power in the digital age and the need to reset our institutions fostering international cooperation. We simply cannot ignore these fissures in economic policy.